“This is another story: how brutal Taliban is in Afghanistan and how they are limiting access to human’s basic needs in Afghanistan.” 

Since the Taliban’s takeover in 2021, Afghan citizens have battled a challenging political and economic landscape, marked by limited or restricted access to rights, education, and even food and water. 

The Taliban cited concerns over pornography access as the reason behind the most recent internet blackout.

“However, many observers believe the move is less about morality and more about information control and isolation,” Nehemiah says. 

In Afghanistan’s most rural areas, some villages are regularly without internet or mobile network access. Between existing access challenges and imposed shutdowns, Nehemiah says universal connectivity across the nation remains elusive.

“Even though the media is claiming that the internet has been restored in Afghanistan, still there are many cities with no internet,” he says. 

He points out that pastors and underground leaders rely on digital communication. 

“Messaging apps, online trainings, coordination with overseas partners: this blackout tries to smear these lifelines.”

But shackled internet cannot thwart the purposes of the Lord. Nehemiah says blackouts are an opportunity for people to ramp up use of solar-powered audio players distributed by FMI and Keys for Kids. Each device contains pre-downloaded Scripture and devotional content, which means sunshine, rather than wifi, is its fuel. 

“This device does not require any internet. It is built-in devotional tools in their own language,” Nehemiah says.  

He reminds us that the church is not called to wallow in darkness but to stand forth in light. 

Please pray for the people of Afghanistan. Pray that they will hear, believe, and trust in the Word of the Lord, and pray that any ongoing or forthcoming Taliban restrictions will be an opportunity to seek Him more heartily. 

For any areas still affected by the shutdown, please pray for restoration of access, and continue to ask for the Lord’s favor and protection as FMI and partners distribute resources. 

Nehemiah reminds us that one kind of connection is sure:

“Spiritual communication – prayer, scripture, fellowship – that does not require any signals and wires,” he says.  

All images used in this article by courtesy of Pixabay

Michael Cardy with MegaVoice tells the story of a local pastor in that region who first felt the Lord calling him to reach the Himba people in 2017. 

At the time, Scripture in Dhimba was scarce. 

Bible Society of Namibia, Wycliffe, and Samaritan’s Purse formed a collaboration to begin translating the Bible into the Himba people’s heart language. Working with a well-known storyteller, The effort eventually produced 35 Bible stories and Gospel songs, which were downloaded onto MegaVoice audio units. Michael Cardy says he’ll never forget the first time the pastor played Scripture for the local children. 

“As he turned it on and they heard the Gospel story in their heart language – the creation story from Genesis – the children were just absolutely dumbfounded. They were so excited they got up and started dancing,” he says.

The children placed a ring of stones around a tree and began regularly meeting there to hear Scripture (photo courtesy of Michael Cardy with MegaVoice)

The children placed a ring of stones around a tree and began regularly meeting there to hear Scripture. As the Bible stories started to impact children’s lives, parents started asking questions. Next, they joined the gathering. 

“Around that circle, eventually five villages would gather,” Cardy says.

But as monsoon season approached, the community looked for a more suitable meeting place than their singular tree. Samaritan’s Purse responded by helping build a stone church, a sort of “source and sending place” for this newfound treasure of Scripture. 

Now, the pastor says he has no idea how many churches have grown out of the effort. Why the spread? Cardy says it is a natural outgrowth of the Himba’s nomadic culture. The cattle herders send out children and cows every spring to follow the way of growing grass. 

“As the season changes, thus goes the herd and the children,” Cardy says. 

With the introduction of solar-powered audio units: as the herd and children go, thus goes the Word of God.

“Eventually, there were stories about villages no longer meeting around a campfire at night to talk about ancestral worship and the like,” Cardy recalls. “Instead they would play a story and say, ‘What is it we just heard? What does it mean, and how can we apply it to our life?’” 

Himba children (photo courtesy of Michael Cardy with MegaVoice)

As the audio units travel, the Word of God remains behind. Cardy says this effect is thanks to the oral nature of the Himba culture, which cements Scripture in minds even before it permeates hearts. 

“As a village listens to a MegaVoice unit, they memorize everything that they hear and say, ‘We no longer need that,’ so they’ll pass it on to another village.” 

The progress of Scripture distribution among the Himba, while encouraging, is hardly the end of the church’s work. Local discipleship efforts for lay pastors are ongoing. 

“It’s important for pastors not to go wide without going deep,” says Cardy.

From a regional ethno-cultural standpoint, he says the Himba people are respected but difficult for the rest of society to engage. The audio players are a strategic way to reach this group of approximately 50,000 people. 

Pray that the Himba people would come to Christ, and that God would protect their hearts and mind as they grow in their newfound faith. 

“When his word goes forth, it does not return empty,” Cardy says. 

So please pray that the light of God’s Word would brightly pierce the darkness in Namibia and beyond. 

Pray also for MegaVoice as it continues audio player distribution efforts. You may consider a financial gift toward this Kingdom-building work. 

“Somewhere out in the Kalahari Desert, you can actually stop by a village and hear the Gospel in the Himba language,” Cardy smiles. 

But for those of us who may never find ourselves under the Kalahari sun, the music of Scripture sounding from Opuwo is available right here.

Dhimba music courtesy of Global Recordings Network

Header photo of Himba women courtesy of Colin Watts via Unsplash. 

The U.N. says 95,000 homes have been destroyed. In Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, 15 inches of rain in a few hours overwhelmed the streets.

Greg Kelley with World Mission says, “People that we’re working with, and our partners on the ground, are telling me about 40 continuous days of rain. It’s just destroying roads and livestock. Fields and farms are literally washed away. When that is someone’s entire source of substance, either raising their animals or farming, it’s devastating.”

“This year has been uniquely devastating in Pakistan.”

One World Mission Pastor lost both his house and his livestock. People urgently need medical supplies and shelter.

Ministering to those in need

World Mission partners are working to provide these things to those in need. Kelley says, “Many Muslim people would give no time of day to Christianity. Now all of a sudden, because of the horrors they’ve experienced, Christians have a great opportunity. So that’s what our partners are doing on the ground. They’re loving these people in Jesus’ name. They’re distributing our solar-powered Audio Bible in their native language.”

Pakistani society does not think well of Christianity, often seeing it as a Western threat. Kelley says this is an opportunity to show something different. “Some of the things that they’re being told goes out the window when they see someone coming to them saying, ‘We care for your family. Here is a blanket, here’s a tarp, here’s a tent.”

As a result, many people are coming to know Jesus.

You can support World Mission’s work in Pakistan.

The header shows people in Pakistan with aid from World Mission after the flooding. (Photo courtesy of World Mission on Facebook) 

“Within the next 20 years, not only will it be the most populated Hindu country in the world, but it will simultaneously be the most populated Muslim country in the world,” Kelley says.

“So, you have this collision of Hinduism and Islam kind of colliding there and it’s a tremendous opportunity for the Body of Christ to engage, share the Gospel because when you have that amount of darkness in one country, all the more opportunity for the light of Jesus Christ to shine.”

Kelley says it’s difficult to engage Hindus in India with the Gospel because there are thousands of villages with no Christian presence.

However, World Mission has established their work by engaging through different projects including starting water projects, giving their solar-powered audio Bibles, the Treasure, and establishing churches in remote communities.

Kelley recently visited national partners and communities in India and shares there are many stories of people coming to Christ through these projects.

Treasure Distribution

For example, World Mission national partners met a woman who had been bed-ridden for ten years due to a disease that had no medical treatment. One of the partners distributed Treasures in her village in the Hindi language and God healed her.

She became passionate about God and continued listening to the Treasure.

As a result of her testimony and witness of God, 300 people in her village were moved and gave their lives to Christ.

Even now, “she is using the Treasure to disciple people and raise people up and this is less than a year that she’s known the Lord,” Kelley says.

Church Planting

Kelley shares another story from when he recently visited India.

He went to a leper community.

(Photo courtesy of World Mission via Facebook)

“They truly are the least of these. They’re outcasts. Society as a whole doesn’t want to associate in any way with them. They are given the worst quarters of these communities, but they live together. There’s a real connectivity that they have with one another, and they have such a tender heart as well, and they’re just like anybody who needs to be loved.”

World Mission distributed Treasures among the community, shared the Gospel, and told them God loves them.

Acting in love toward this community, encouraged listening groups to form, “and World Mission is planning on planting a Church before the end of this year, right in the middle of that leper colony.”

Water Filters and Wells

Finally, World Mission visiting different Indian communities and drilling wells and distributing water filters that last up to three years.

Kelley says there’s plenty of surface water like rivers in India, particularly in the rainy season.

“But it is filled with bacteria and people are getting sick, and it’s killing people literally.”

This opens opportunities for World Mission to address physical and spiritual needs.

Part of World Mission’s strategy is to drill wells, distribute Treasures, and establish a new Church next to the well.

In one village, there is a Hindu priest authority. The only known Christian in the village is his son.

“We have a tremendous opportunity to put a water well in there and to establish a Church because this [son is] being discipled and mentored by our leadership team,” Kelley says.

World Mission is currently bringing Treasures into the community, and they are praying that the Hindu priest would come to know Jesus as his son has.

Right now, World Mission has a vision to drill hundreds of wells in India so they can share the ‘Living Water’ with villagers.

“These water projects are also paving the way and opening up doors for the Gospel to go forward. We just need to get people behind this financially and with their prayers.”

Support World Mission

Help support water projects and Treasure distributions here.

Also, pray for World Mission’s national partners who are facing a rise in persecution.

“There’s a lot of local authorities that are Hindu that have been empowered and emboldened to really persecute Christians and make sharing the Gospel very difficult,” Kelley says.

“We’ve had people physically beaten. We’ve had people that have been detained for periods of time, but the thing that’s amazing is it doesn’t deter people. It doesn’t discourage Christian leaders from sharing the Gospel because they’re motivated by something that goes beyond what this world represents. They’re motivated by eternity.”

Partner with World Mission by supporting their work in India through prayer and giving.