“They’ve decided to reach out down there. Some of that is because of some of the persecution and the difficulties in India. And they’re still trying to reach the Tamil speaking people, wherever they are,” says Williams.

WMP produces Scripture booklets that are distributed freely to make disciples around the world.

Williams says, “The book was so effective in India and in other places where they’re working, so they came to us and said, ‘Okay, we want to go to Sri Lanka, what can you do for us?’”

Scripture booklets from WMP have already helped another ministry in Sri Lanka for 25 years. The new ministries will support local pastors, train leaders, and send evangelists.

“Workers are going into the rural areas, and there is open response,” says Williams.

“So this is an opportunity that the Lord presented, and we’re just grateful that we can be part of it.”

While persecution still affects Sri Lankan Christians, lives are being changed by God’s Word. One man learned about the love of Christ when a pastor shared with him a Scripture booklet from WMP. He joyfully put his faith in Christ and shared the news with his sisters, who also wanted to learn more. Now he attends church with his sisters and parents.

A woman who received a Scripture booklet early last year shared it with her husband, and they have since began following Jesus together. She says:

“Through the Holy Bible I have found solace and answers. I firmly believe that the Word of God is the wellspring of life. His presence blesses us and I aspire to deepen my faith and understanding of His teachings. I am grateful that my husband and I embraced Jesus together, uniting us in worship as a family. My heart overflows with joy as I follow the living God.”

WMP is preparing to send a shipping container of resources to support the work. The resources will be distributed through the three ministries in Sri Lanka to share the Gospel with thousands of more people. You can give to the project here. For every dollar donated, WMP can print 21 Scripture booklets.

Pray for the Scripture booklets to soon reach the pastors and evangelists in Sri Lanka. The new Sri Lankan ministries have also asked for prayer over their leaders.

“Two of these [ministries] are establishing new works, and that needs godly leadership on the ground. That’s always a challenge in some of these places,” says Williams. “We’re glad to provide the material, but there has to be a structured, Spirit-controlled, Spirit-directed plan, and an oversight, and accountability when any of these ministries start in a new field.”

Pray for God to protect and direct the faithful leaders sharing the Gospel with the unreached peoples of Sri Lanka.

Photos courtesy of World Missionary Press.

Greg Yoder with Christian World Outreach says, “Even today, there’s Hindus and Buddhists trying to gain power in the government, that kind of thing. So there just seems to be a lot of division.”

“In a lot of ways, they can’t even speak to each other because they speak a different language…. I actually visibly watched two guys try to communicate with each other. One was Tamil, one was Sinhalese, and they couldn’t talk to each other. They were using hand motions, trying to figure out what the other one wanted. So even that can cause a division in a physical way.”

Ministry in Sri Lanka. (Photo courtesy of Christian World Outreach)

Christians are a minority in Sri Lanka – only making up about 8% of the population. Yet, in one church, you’ll see Tamil and Sinhalese believers worshipping side-by-side.

CWO works in Sri Lanka with three staff members on Gospel outreach initiatives. Yoder says, “Two of the men, one is Tamil and one is Sinhalese. So that division that’s there, we’re crossing that boundary with these two guys working together, sharing the Gospel together, evangelizing, and discipling believers.”

The ministry also supports widows and runs an after-school program for kids in the name of Christ!

You can support CWO’s Gospel work here and be an encouragement to the Church in Sri Lanka.

Then, pray for Sri Lankan believers to win others to Christ by their example of unity and peace.

Also, “Pray for safety,” Yoder asks. “It’s not necessarily safe. I mean, there have been Christian leaders that have been told to shut their churches down. They have received some threats because of being open to sharing the Gospel. So pray for the safety of our staff as they do the work that God has called them to do.”

Header photo courtesy of Christian World Outreach.

Taylor Ely with Audio Scripture Ministries (ASM) explains the history behind the designation: “Blindness Awareness Month came about through a nonprofit called The Little Rock Foundation. It’s a nonprofit that’s dedicated to improving the lives of the Blind. So they initiated a bill that would establish October as Blindness Awareness Month.”

(Photo courtesy of Audio Scripture Ministries)

For Audio Scripture Ministries, part of their outreach is distributing audio Bibles to oral communities, especially in India, and that includes giving audio Bibles to the Blind. In light of Blindness Awareness Month, ASM is highlighting a current audio Bibles campaign.

Ely shares, “We have a campaign, the Ron Beery Memorial Fund, which is basically dedicated to having audio Bibles sent. One hundred percent of the funds go towards audio Bibles. So we’re raising money for that campaign, and though it’s not directly focused on just reaching the Blind, the Blind are a large population we do reach as a ministry.”

ASM’s goal is to fund 18,000 audio Bibles within the next year. It costs $35 for each audio Bible player to be purchased, formatted, and shipped. So to cover 18,000 audio Bibles, it will require raising $630,000.

The need for audio Bibles in India, especially for the Blind population, is great. After all, India has one of the largest populations of Blind people in the world.

ASM’s JP Sundararajan says when the ministry first started working with the Blind in India, they learned a lot about the unique needs of the Blind community.

“We were always curious about the plight of the visually impaired and the Blind in India, but I was not aware that a lot of the Blind we work with, they were not born that way. In India, oftentimes health concerns, diabetes, and a variety of other issues cause people to go blind in later stages of life, so middle age and onwards. So in some cases, people basically are able to see one day, and then they wake up the next morning unable to.”

Learning to read Braille later in life is difficult, and even if you can, the Braille Bibles are inconvenient. JP Sundararajan with ASM gives the example of the Indian Tamil Bible.

“The Tamil Braille Bible is about 40 volumes thick, and if you were to stack it, it’s about seven-feet tall. Most often, people who are unable to see are unable to read. And if, perchance, you are able to read, you probably don’t have enough money to buy the Bible. And if you qualify on both those accounts, you don’t have room to store those Bibles. So the Blind have been contacting our office in India and saying, ‘Could you do a distribution amongst us?’”

(Photo courtesy of Audio Scripture Ministries)

A few years ago, Sundararajan experienced his first distribution of audio Bibles to the Blind with ASM, and it was a moving experience. They traveled to a small town in southern India.

“We gathered with about 50 or 60 of our Blind brothers and sisters and it was amazing because they had their entire community. They had a praise and worship team that was completely visually impaired; they had a pastor who held this event in his church, also visually impaired.

“You would call their names out and they would stand up and then you would go and give them the Bible. And we had explicit instructions stating that as soon as you get your Bible, please don’t turn it on yet, because when you have a room full of people who cannot see you, everything you do has to be done in a choreographed fashion.”

He continues, “After everybody has gotten their audio Bibles, we invite them to take the Bibles out of their boxes…. We invite them to find the top left corner where the power button is, and we say, ‘Okay, do you find it? Now press and hold it down for three seconds until you hear a tiny little beep.’ And then this room is just dead silent. And then you hear this series of beeps just ripple through the room.”

“Then we invite them to turn their audio Bibles on. And in one fell swoop, the entire room is filled with Scripture.”

While Sundararajan’s initial distribution was on a smaller scale of 50 to 60 people, the next week ASM’s team went back to a nearby town. He says that time, around 1,500 Blind people had gathered for a chance to receive and hear God’s Word.

In addition to giving a Blind person access to Scripture, audio Bibles also represent a chance at greater independence and human dignity in their journey of faith.

Sundararajan explains, “More often than not, they do want to read Scripture. A lot of them are Christian brothers and sisters who come from churches who now cannot have access to God’s Word. So they have to invite parents or other people, inconvenience the others — or at least they feel that way — to sit next to them and read Scripture.

(Photo courtesy of ASM)

“When you give them God’s Word in this form, they now have access to it anytime they want and they don’t feel like they’re a burden to anyone else. So for me, it was just beautiful to see these beautiful people come.”

Click here if you’d like to give to the Ron Beery Memorial Fund with ASM! Just $35 makes sure someone, like the Blind in India, gets their personal copy of God’s Word in audio.

In addition to giving, Ely shares how believers can pray during Blindness Awareness Month:

“I think a great way that people could pray is for awareness. Since working with ASM, I’ve gotten to learn so much about oral cultures and just the storytelling that has to take place for a lot of people to even come to know the Gospel, or hearing the Gospel through an audio Bible…but also the Blind — just the people that are really on God’s heart, to be reached.”

If you’d like to learn more about ASM online, click here. You can also follow ASM on Facebook for ministry updates!

(Image courtesy Wikipedia)

Sri Lanka (MNN) — Sri Lanka is looking at 2015 as the year of change.

An upset election put a political outsider, Maithripala Sirisena, in charge. Greg Musselman, a spokesman for the Voice of the Martyrs Canada, explains, “All the indications were that this was a slam dunk for the leader that had been in there. But as soon as there were charges of corruption, that’s I think what brought this particular leader down.”

Also, this week Pope Francis traveled to the region to urge reconciliation and forgiveness after years of civil war. Tamil Tiger rebels spent 25 years fighting for an independent Tamil nation. United Nations estimates say 80,000 to 100,000 people were killed during the course of the war.

The push toward restoration may have come too little, too late. The people, finally fed up with how Mahinda Rajapaksa was managing the country, united, and for the first time, minorities (Tamils, Muslims and Christians) wrested control away from the ruling party. A new regime sets a blank stage. Or does it?

Musselman wonders, “Will that really make any difference for the church planters of the newer evangelical works in rural areas?” That’s unlikely, for a few different reasons. First, “Will this new government, new leader be able to change that and pacify somehow these Buddhist nationals, who are making a very strong case–and they are gaining momentum–that Sri Lanka is a Buddhist country?”

Then, it’s a practicality issue. “You do have a government that supposedly wants to protect the rights of minorities; they just don’t often enact it. Then, when you get into the rural areas, they don’t often have the same kind of protection.”

(Photo courtesy Voice of the Martyrs Canada)

In fact, according to VOMC, the persecution of Christians has escalated in recent years with the rise of militant Buddhist nationalist groups in Sri Lanka. Musselman explains, “We’ve seen Buddhist monks actually going to churches, tearing them down, ripping them apart. So will the Pope’s visit change that? That’s unlikely. The Gospel always runs afoul when you continue to go forward and try to advance the Kingdom of God. ”

(Photo courtesy Voice of the Martyrs Canada)

Musselman is quick to add that Sri Lanka’s issues with persecution of Christians are not as intense as they are in neighboring India or Burma.

However, “Where there’s more of an aggressive spreading of the Gospel, bringing the Great Commission forward, that’s where you see the problems.” In those pockets of trouble, “If the churches stay inside the building, don’t do evangelism, there are no problems. In the cases that we reported, most of those are those that are going out and actually advancing the gospel, doing church planting.” But staying inside isn’t what the Gospel requires, Musselman adds. Under a new regime? Anything goes.

“Pray that the Lord would continue to raise up other church planters. The ones that are already doing the work, [pray] that they would stand strong and they wouldn’t be intimidated by those that are trying to stop the spread of the Gospel in Sri Lanka.”

(Photo courtesy Baptist Press)

Sri Lanka (MNN) — A recent surge in nationalism in Sri Lanka is causing problems on the diplomatic end of things.

A senior U.S. diplomat noted that democracy is under threat in Sri Lanka, and its rights record has deteriorated in the five years since the end of a bloody ethnic war.

Essentially, when the fighting died down,  the rebuilding never happened the way it was supposed to. Sri Lanka failed to ensure reconciliation, justice, and accountability in the wake of its civil war, and pressure seems to be building for a foreign probe.

The next Session of the UN Human Rights Council is set to begin in March, and it is expected that a Resolution calling for an International Investigation on Sri Lanka will be tabled by the United States.

Although Sri Lanka rejects the allegations over its rights records, attacks on religious minorities have been steadily increasing since the 30-year war ended in 2009.

The Pew Research ranked Sri Lanka among the 20 countries with the highest levels of religious hostilities in 2012. Sri Lanka’s Government Restrictions Index (which “measures government laws, policies, and actions that restrict religious beliefs and practices”) increased to 5.9 in December 2012. Social Hostilities Index (which “measures acts of religious hostility by private individuals, organizations, or groups in society”) jumped to 7.7 in the same time frame.

Amidst all this is the question of the anti-conversion legislation. When it was first introduced, it created a furor and cries of human rights violations. Then, it disappeared.

Greg Musselman, spokesman with the Voice of the Martyrs Canada, says the law didn’t really go away. “It’s still before the legislature. It hasn’t been defeated, but it hasn’t been passed. There are many that are not in favor of it.”

The trouble is: even though it’s not a law, it’s still causing problems for those who run afoul of its intent. Musselman explains that it has “caused the pastors and Christian leaders to be continually going to court and trying to fight this law.” So for now, the law is pending. Why the delay? “The reason I think for the delay is that they just don’t have the support within their legislature to get this through,” says Musselman.

(Image courtesy Wikipedia)

Although religious freedom is enshrined in Sri Lanka’s laws, the appearance since July 2012 of nationalistic and religious supremacist groups has increased pressure on all religious minorities. It also marked an increase in violent attacks against Christians and churches, mainly by Buddhist extremist groups, which are widely perceived as being tacitly supported by the government.

In 2013, there were more than 50 attacks on churches, often by mobs of between 40 to 800 people. In at least one case, a pastor and his family had to flee for their lives as they were found on a death list. “Its use really–even in its stage before legislature–is to kind of push the church back, in terms of evangelism, and to scare off people that might be considering coming to Christ,” notes Musselman, and sadly it has been effective.

Traditional mainline churches have declined from 21% of the population in 1722 to 7% in 2010. The causes include nominalism, theological liberalism, insufficient outreach, and lack of indigenous representation. Aggressive Buddhist proselytism and emigration of Tamil Christians steadily whittle away their flocks. Musselman adds, “It just causes issues and discouragement for the church. Then, you’ve got the enemies that are trying to put these laws against the church. We’ve seen the Buddhist extremists attacking churches.”

Persecution comes in waves and is sporadic, but it is intense when it occurs, says Musselman. “The reason for the violence is those more militant people [are] not actually enforcing the law, and they’re doing it in their own way, trying to use violence to intimidate Christians.”

(Photo courtesy Baptist Press)

“Continue to pray that the law won’t be passed, also that the church would be protected, and that they would be reacting according to what the Bible teaches and not using violence to get back at those using violence,” Musselman urges.

The good news:  “We’ve also seen that the persecution and the violence against them has also led to more passionate believers.”

In modern medicine, the condition is
easy to treat, however, the stigma remains, looming larger than the scars it
leaves behind. That's the case for a
ministry operating in a little corner of South India.

Shanthi Grammam ("Village of Peace" in
Tamil) is a residential clinic for people who are completely healed of leprosy. Audio Scripture Ministries India
representative JP Sundararajan says because most of the residents have clawed
hands, amputated fingers, or are blind, they are often abandoned to this village. "They essentially come here and spend
their last days on earth living in this place."

The irony, he goes on to say, is that "here
you are in this place of solitude, but you really don't have the peace. So
when we brought God's Word in–in their heart language, a lot of people
experienced for the first time peace from the actual Prince of Peace."

A doctor working in the village
changed all that. Sundararajan says, "The
doctor had initially gotten a cassette
player from us, way back in the day, and we had no idea what was going to
happen with it." One day, ASM got a
call that the "cassette player went bad, and so we repaired and then replaced
it with ten [digital audio] units."

The doctor encouraged the residents to
listen to it daily. Pretty soon, they were gathering to listen every day from 9
AM to 10 AM.  "Then, the people who came to the
clinic–the 60 or so people who get treated daily for leprosy–a lot of them
decided that they wanted to follow this Jesus as well, so the demand for Scripture
just began to grow."

A neglected people finally found a
home in Jesus Christ. The change the Gospel brought to the villagers was
tangible.

Swamikannu
writes, "Listening to God's Word is like daily food for my life."
Subramani added,"God is nourishing us and taking care of us. God's
protection is upon us by listening to God's word." Laxmanan said,
"Listening to God's Word gives me peace. I look forward for the time to
listen to the Word." Mannar probably captured the emotions best when he
said, "I was able to forget my worries by listening to the Word."

But the impact wasn't limited to
India. It spread and touched a small
group of children near Chicago doing a Vacation Bible School this summer. They wanted a project to rally around, and when
told about "Shanthi Grammam," they decided to try and raise money for one or
two audio Bibles, at $35 apiece.  

Rally, they did. Sundararajan explains, "These kids
raised money for about 30 Bibles. It was incredible because not only did these
kids raise the money for the Bibles, but there were young people in India who
went with our team to Shanthi Grammam and were able to distribute 25 more Bibles
to these people."

Most of the people in this village are
illiterate. Many are blind. Those few
who can read and still have their eyesight do what they can to share precious
resources. "One lady called my brother aside and
said, 'Please, teach me how to use this audio unit because I want to help my
friend who is completely blind,'" says Sundararajan. They were unprepared for what happened
next. "My brother sat next to her
and said, 'I just turned the unit on.' The first thing that lady was able to
hear was 'the first book of the Bible: Genesis, Chapter 1.' As soon as she
heard those words, she wept." Why? "How
often we forget that we have these things in our own heart language, easily accessible to us. For people who have really been devoid of hope their whole
lives, when they hear, for the very
first time, God speaking in their language, emotions–they cannot control
them."

Pray that these Gospel seeds will take root. Ask God for more resources so more people who
are in similar situations will be able to know the peace of Christ. Please check our Featured Links Section for
ways to help.

AUDIO
SCRIPTURE MINISTRIES is committed to providing the translated
Scriptures in audio that all may hear in their own language. Their mission
directs them to serve others as they:

*Produce audio recording of the
Scripture in each language needed by people groups around the world.

*Make
Scripture recordings available in suitable formats for distribution either
directly or through various other ministries to non-Christians and Christians
whether living in their homelands or elsewhere.

*Encourage the formation of active,
cooperative team efforts, and develop mutual partnerships to assist in making
God's Word in audio available.

*Encourage and assist overseas
ministries by making equipment and technical services available.

*Cooperate
with existing local church and mission organizations to encourage and assist
follow-up and continued Christian growth of all who respond to God's Word.

War planes are
constantly over rebel-held areas. Many fear it's a preview of a conflict in Sri
Lanka that could see thousands die.

Back to the Bible' s
Country Director James Kanaganayagam says many people have already felt the
effects of war. "This has just compounded the already huge number of
refugees which is now over 200,000 in the eastern province alone. The problem
with the refugees is that there isn't enough infrastructure set for these people to be
accommodated. So there's a huge issue there for humanitarian assistance."

This conflict is
also causing problems for Back to the Bible and other ministries in Sri Lanka
because it pits the Sinhalese Sri Lankan government against the Tamil Tiger
rebels. Kanaganayagam says, "It's primarily an ethnic issue. There is an
increasing number of arrests being made, and all of the people arrested are
Tamils because they're more likely to be connected with Tamil Tigers. So there's that sense of tension for the Tamil-speaking people."

While these tensions
are increasing, it hasn't stopped ministry. "We have the
correspondence courses that are continuing to minister to people and draw
people. It's not an overt evangelistic tool. But it continues to grow because
people are looking for answers to their questions."

More than 70,000
people have gone through the program over the years.

In addition to correspondence course, Back to the Bible is also reaching out through their radio broadcasts in these difficult times, says Kanaganayagam.
"We have daily programs on national stations that actually cover the
entire country, and these programs have the potential of reaching millions of
people in Sinhalese and Tamil. People have come to know the Lord through that
program."

While
funding is an important need, Kanaganayagam also is asking believers around the
world to pray for the morale of his staff. He says his team is battling a bit of discouragement.

If you'd like more information about Back to the Bible-Sri Lanka, click here.