The war in Iran produced some changes in leadership. However, Denise Godwin with IMM says that many are anxious about the current regime. Killings remain commonplace and people feel unsafe.

“There’s just a very overwhelming desire among the expat Iranian community for this regime to fall. There seem to be discussions also that there are people inside who desire that fall that they have to guard themselves for the right moment, so that they’re not killed before a new regime can be put in place.”

Openings for the Gospel

Godwin says people are exhausted with the conflict. The need for rest is one reason there are fewer uprisings and protests at the moment. People struggle with the pain of seeing loved ones killed and the homes they love in turmoil. However, Godwin sees God at work.

“What I think is interesting is these kinds of disruptions to normal services also cause people to look beyond their circumstances for hope. This gives an incredible opportunity to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That includes the people on the ground. That includes media partners who are using online platforms or Zoom platforms [or] satellites. While connections are erratic and interspersed, people are working on connecting with the outside world. They want to know what’s happening.”

A Story of Hope from Ancient Persia

In this time of unrest, IMM is working on post-production for the story of Esther. This project, Esther: Queen of Hope will be a six-part series that focuses on God’s work in His people and in the Persian Empire. This project has the potential to speak hope clearly to the Iranian people as they see God at work in the kingdom of their ancestors.

(Image courtesy of IMM)

“As we continue to edit the story of Esther: Queen of Hope, I am surprised and amazed at how God puts stories in the Bible that are actually reflected again and again through history,” Godwin says.

“What we see is Haman in the story of Esther as an outsider who’s been in the empire of Persia for a long time. He chooses to influence the situation in a way that is against their principles. They were not a society that did genocide. Well, you fast forward to today, and the people you speak to – especially who are outside the country, who have the freedom to share what they feel and think – say they feel like Persia (the original place that is now Iran) has been hijacked by a radical Islamic regime that is not reflecting the norms of Persians, of the people. That’s a pretty incredible, if you want to call it, coincidence from the Bible to today.”

IMM plans to release the first episode this summer and then have the final five episodes completed in the fall. They pray that this historic story not only will inspire hope for Iranian Christians today, but that it will open doors for believers to share that God has worked in Iran before. He cares about Iranian people.

Sharing the Gospel with the Unreached

(Image courtesy of IMM)

Godwin shares that one of IMM’s goals is being able to serve unreached people with Bible stories that occurred in their cultures. “To serve people who are unreached people groups that have so little content in their language – that we could serve them in a way that maybe bigger media organizations can’t. That’s just the beauty of being a media missionary group. We want to invite people to join us in praying and giving and connecting people, so we can do more and get to the ends of the Earth with the word of God sooner.”

If you’d like to join the work of IMM, click here.

Header image courtesy of International Media Ministries.

“There’s excitement here. There is anticipation and there is a little apprehension, because they have been here at the Leadership Center since September. 245 hours of classroom that has covered everything from systematic theology to how to cook.”

Next Steps

In addition to comprehensive classroom instruction, students had the opportunity to live out their learning on a weekly basis with their student life directors. Then, in early spring, each student completed an internship with a trusted partner on a reservation. This field work gave students a taste of full-time Native ministry, from family life to planning and executing events. Hutchcraft says the internships serve as a launchpad for the next steps of these young leaders.

(Representative photo courtesy of McElspeth via Pixabay)

“Almost all of them – and very maybe all – either are have something set up. In one case, one of our young men has been accepted to go to Moody Bible Institute this fall. I don’t think that would have happened, but for his year at the Leadership Center – that he would have even applied there.”

Hope for the Young

Students are encouraged to do additional education if they want to go into a ministry setting. However, some students already have jobs lined up from their internships. These young, God-loving students are a valuable resource for Native ministry. Many young people on reservations have never met a Native person their age who loves Jesus.

“There are three words that very seldom go together: young, Native, Jesus-loving. There are young Natives, but they don’t love Jesus. There are Natives who love Jesus, but they tend to be grandmas. To find a young, Native, Jesus-lover is very rare, and therefore very valuable. What’s rare is valuable. There are a number of reservations – and we have contacts with a lot of them – that are desperate for somebody to come in and be a model of hope, who is the age of the most important people to reach the young people.”

Join the Work

Many of the graduating students are joining a summer ministry team that will visit six of the most unreached reservations in the country. Hutchcraft asks for prayer for this team. Please pray that God would provide enough sponsorships for the team to do their work.

(Representative photo courtesy of pedroivo via Pixabay)

Hutchcraft also asks for prayer for the students’ faith. The momentum they have right now is high and they are passionate about their work. “Pray for their courage to resist the tentacles of home and family that maybe are not sympathetic to their faith. There are a lot of things pulling at them, to other people who have a different kind of plan for their life. So pray for them to be able to continue with courage in their calling.”

If you would like to support these students or ministry financially, visit Hopefornativeamerica.com.

Representative header photo courtesy of M4tthew via Pixabay.

Saint was a pilot with Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF). On January 8, 1956, he and four fellow missionaries were killed on a jungle beach in Ecuador by the very tribe they were attempting to reach with the Gospel.

Gene with Nate, Shandia, 1955. (Photo, caption courtesy of Gene Jordan/MAF)

For Gene Jordan, a former MAF pilot who spent 22 years serving in Ecuador, the story is personal. Jordan’s parents were missionaries in Ecuador starting in 1951 with a different mission organization.

“My parents knew all the missionaries in those early days,” he says. “I have a picture of myself sitting on Nate’s knee in the little jungle station of Shandia where the Elliots worked. I don’t remember it; I was too young. But what I do remember is always knowing of Nate with an airplane serving other people in the jungle.”

As a teenager, Jordan spent his time at the MAF base in Shell, Ecuador, helping however he could — fueling and washing planes, loading cargo, and buckling in passengers.

(Photo, caption courtesy of Gene Jordan/MAF)

“I saw the difference the airplane made in the jungle communities. But more than that, I saw the impact and the effect that the pilots had in living out their faith and caring for people,” says Jordan.

“I decided this might be something that I could do, and I go back to the influence when I was young — of always knowing about MAF, knowing MAF pilots, seeing what they did, and the main one being Nate Saint because he was in Ecuador. I grew up with his kids and his widow, Aunt Marge. So it was always an influence in my life.”

Seven decades after the killings, it still echoes today – the faith legacy of these men, their widows, and a surrender to God’s will.

Jordan says, “When the five guys were killed on that day, the widows’ worlds fell apart. But…I never heard any of them say or write that they doubted that God was not in control.

“I have a letter that Elizabeth Elliot wrote my mom just a couple weeks after Jim was killed. In it, she says, ‘My house feels empty, but Jim died doing exactly what he felt God would have him do in the fullness of his manhood, and I cannot fault God for anything.’

Elisabeth Elliot with spears retrieved from the bodies. (Photo, caption courtesy of Gene Jordan/MAF)

“Today, we have 70 years of being able to look back and see what God has done.”

As believers remember the sacrifice of these five men and the steadfast faith of their families, the question remains deeply personal.

What mission field is God calling you to?

Learn more about MAF’s ministry here.

Header photo: Five widows in Shell, following the return of the search party. (Photo, caption courtesy of Gene Jordan/MAF)

The court found the exiled leader guilty of ordering the lethal crackdown on student-led protests in 2024. Clashes with police led to the deaths of up to 1,400 people, with thousands more wounded. Many celebrate the verdict as justice for the dead. Others dismiss it as politically motivated.

Hasina is currently in India, where she lived decades ago after the assassination of her father, Bangladesh’s founding president. India’s Ministry of External Affairs has issued a statement acknowledging the Bangladeshi court’s verdict, but it has not said whether it will allow Hasina to be extradited.

“There’s outrage on both sides of it, and it’s just going to continue to accentuate the instabilities that are going on in Bangladesh and have been for a number of years,” says Greg Kelley with Unknown Nations.

(Photo of 2024 quota reform movement courtesy of Rayhan9d/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)

“A lot of people that we speak to say for a 10- to 15-year run [under Hasina], there was a lot of real positive things in the development of the country. Yet at the same time, you’re talking about a country that has ranked among the highest — not only in Asia, but in the entire world —as far as levels of corruption. It’s hard to unweave those two things.”

The interim government, which has been in place since shortly after Hasina fled the country last year, has called for public order surrounding the verdict.

“Right now, there’s calls for lockdowns all over the place. A lot of the schools are not even operating today, tomorrow,” says Kelley. 

For Christians, there’s another layer to be aware of. Bangladesh is a Muslim-majority nation with more than 270 people groups considered to be unreached with the gospel. The largest is the Bengali Muslims, numbering above 135 million. It’s also densely populated, which Kelley says makes any metropolitan demonstration incredibly disruptive.

“You’re talking about a country the size of Michigan, [which] has 10 million people, Bangladesh having 175 million people,” says Kelley. “The corruption [and] the instability on a physical level in Bangladesh pales in comparison to the desperation that that country has for the gospel.”

A crowded street in Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital city. (Photo courtesy of Niloy Biswas/Unsplash)

Partners of Unknown Nations give solar-powered audio Bibles. They see people turning to Jesus.

“In these countries where there’s so much turmoil and tension, everybody suffers. Everybody suffers,” says Kelley. “Just to survive in Bangladesh is becoming difficult, and then on top of that, you’ve got this incredibly intense persecution for those who do make the decision to follow Christ. Yet, we are hearing on a daily basis [of] people doing exactly that.”

Now that you know, please pray! Ask God to raise many more Christians to work in the nation faithfully. Learn more here about the mission of Unknown Nations.

Header photo: On the occasion of her repatriation day, Prime Minister and Awami League President Sheikh Hasina addressed the leaders of the party and its affiliated organizations today, Friday, May 17, 2024, at Ganabhaban. (Press Information Department – pressinform.gov.bd (archive), Public Domain)

Every week, your family goes to a building where people stand up and sit down multiple times. Then, one man stands up to talk for what feels like forever. There’s a picture in that building of a man broken and bleeding, nailed to a wooden structure.

You have so many questions about that picture, but no way to ask them. You want to know who the Man is, why He’s been abused, where and when this crime took place, and why the picture is in this building – yet with nowhere to turn with those questions, you set them aside unanswered.

This is what church is like for many Deaf people. “Deaf people can be sitting in church. They can be part of a Christian family that tries to do devotions every evening,” DOOR International’s Rob Myers says.

“They can be very near to the Gospel, but if there’s no access to the Gospel in sign language, they’re incredibly far from it.”

Knowledge barriers

(Photo courtesy of DOOR International)

Deafness is the only disability that creates a separate language – sign language. Most Deaf communities are cut off from the Gospel because it’s not available in a sign language they understand.

“Globally, there are about 300 or more sign languages, and less than a third have any verse of Scripture translated,” Myers says.

You can help Deaf people know the Good News by partnering with DOOR International. Learn more about that here.

“Because one of the biggest issues facing the Deaf community right now, in terms of Gospel access, is a lack of awareness in the global church, one of the biggest steps that people can do is spread the word,” Myers says.

“If this is your first time recognizing that Deaf people have had barriers to the Gospel, take an opportunity to share this story with other people.”

Use the buttons at the bottom of this page to share this story on your social platforms. Most importantly, pray. Ask the Lord to use DOOR’s “I Want to Know” campaign to educate hearing believers about Deaf needs and encourage them to support Deaf ministry.

Header and story images courtesy of DOOR International. 

It’s been two thousand years since Jesus gave the Great Commission, yet millions still haven’t heard His name. If every Christian shared the Gospel with just 3 unreached people, the whole world could hear the Gospel! But real barriers stand in the way.

David Bogosian from the Alliance for the Unreached says, “These 3 billion [unreached] people live in places that are difficult to get to — Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, northern India… These are places where Christian witness is heavily persecuted.”

The good news is that God sends workers into these fields — both local believers and foreigners who have responded to His call. They bring the Gospel of the Kingdom to regions thirsty for truth.

They need your support! Bogosian explains:

“Our job is to pray for those people, to get behind those that are trying to reach them and to stand with God’s people that are on the front lines of this type of witness.”

Heaven’s perspective on the world builds faith (photo courtesy of Maksim Shutov via Unsplash)

Yet, often our daily troubles distract us from God’s greater work. World news can seem unbearable and the future hopeless — yet this is exactly what Jesus’s disciples experienced!

“Jesus wanted to lift their eyes,” says Bogosian, “above all of that, to see what God is doing, to see what Heaven sees!”

There are three steps we can take to gain Heaven’s perspective:

1. Pray for God to give you His vision for the world — “We need to ask God to give us a global vision, a heart that sees the world the way that he sees it. And God will do that.”
2. Learn about these nations: from open sources, testimonies, active workers— “So learn about the nations, learn about what God is doing.”
3. Act — “The third thing is get involved. Action fuels prayer!”

When we begin to see from Heaven’s perspective, our faith grows, and we recognize how deeply Christ’s message transforms individuals, communities, and even nations. Then we pass that message forward.

“We’re God’s people. We are His hands and His feet, and this is what Jesus was doing. Jesus went out to seek and to save the lost,” says Bogosian.

Be part of Christ’s global rescue plan! Visit the Alliance for the Unreached to learn more.

Header photo courtesy of Roman Melnychuk via Unsplash.

Greg Von Tobel with Prisoners for Christ says amid prisoner communities, the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Especially outside of US ministries, there is often a dirge of prison ministry workers. But Von Tobel says his team’s calling is irrevocable. 

“We stand firm. We continue to march.”

For laborers with Prisoners for Christ, that means serving prisoners in more than 160 countries. From hosting medical clinics to offering Bibles, Christian resources, and prayer support, Von Tobel says his team is taking Christ to some of the world’s darkest places. 

“There are many – especially in some of these dark jungle prisons of Africa – many people who have never heard the name of Jesus Christ before,” he says. 

The story is similar in densely populated India and its neighbor Pakistan. 

“Every country has a prison system, and many people come to know Jesus while in prison,” Von Tobel points out. 

He sees prisons as one of God’s great gifts to mankind. 

“Because it can be the last bastion where a lost soul will come to know his creator face to face,” he says. 

Please pray that prison ministries like Prisoners for Christ would be adequately resourced to serve inmate populations around the world. Pray that God would raise up volunteers to contribute to this effort and that hearts would be pricked to tell prisoners about God’s great rescue mission: one which proclaims liberty to all captives.

(Above photo courtesy of Biblica via Facebook; Header image courtesy of Ron Lach via Pexels)

God has already been writing awesome stories to save unreached people groups. One transformation story began 115 years ago among a notorious head-hunting tribe in northeast India, the Hmar.

“We were an unengaged, unreached people group at the time,” says John Pudaite of Bibles For the World, the grandson of one Hmar young man alive in 1910.

(Image courtesy of Bibles for the World)

That was around the time Welsh missionary Watkin Roberts sent a translation of the Gospel of John to the chiefs of the Hmar people. 

“There were a few [chiefs] that were semi-literate, and they knew that it was something important. So they scrawled on the back, ‘Please, sir, come and explain the meaning of this book.’” 

Roberts flouted British orders not to go and snuck away to the Hmar villages. Five days together changed everything.

“The Holy Spirit just spoke through him, is all I can say. He had found an analogy in how our tribes would come to a peaceful reconciliation,” Pudaite says.

Roberts likened Jesus to the sacrificial animal whose blood brought peace at the boundary line between the Hmar and other groups — or in this case, between God and man. 

“Our people, they got it!” Pudaite says. His grandfather Chawnga was one of the first to accept Christ. Chawnga then memorized the gospel of John. That was all the Hmar had access to at that time, but it was enough.

“It just spread from hut to hut and then from village to village. Our entire tribe was evangelized — and almost entirely by its own people — within one generation,” Pudaite says. 

Years later, Chawnga and his wife dedicated their son Ro to leave their village and learn how to translate all of God’s Word into the Hmar language. (More on that story and the history of Bibles For the World here.)

The transformation of this one unreached people group has impacted millions around the world. Praise God for what He has done!

Learn more about how to join the International Day for the Unreached here. Listen to more of this conversation with John Pudaite, Ruth Kramer, and several others on the Moody Radio special, Until All Hear.

Header photo courtesy of Bibles For the World.

“Although Türkiye is a country that we may consider part of the West, we may consider that what freedoms they have may be similar to Europe, but it is not easy to be a Christian in Türkiye,” says Joe Willey of SAT-7.

“My colleague had shared with me that their identification card would say your religion, and it was the predominant religion of the region or ‘other.’ So as a Christian, you are ‘other.’ It’s really not considered, or many do not consider you a true Türk, if you are not of that dominant religion, which is Islam. So SAT-7 has an opportunity to share the gospel, to present the actions of Christians in ways that many people would never consider or never see.”

SAT-7 TÜRK is Christian broadcasting for Türkiye, presented and produced for Turkish people by Turkish people. 

“There is a cultural context, and there’s an understanding of the language that a broadcaster that is in the culture would understand more than, say, programming created even in the language from the United States,” explains Willey.

It is the first and only Christian channel to be allowed to broadcast on the government-regulated satellite Türksat, which has an audience of 50 million in Türkiye, as well as viewers in Europe and Central Asia. Since 2006, SAT-7 TÜRK has been a vital Christian voice in a country where the small minority of believers can find it difficult to share their faith. The channel is astonishingly well-received, with viewers of all backgrounds responding positively since Türksat launch in early 2015.

“There has been such great effort given to try to make available how Christians are not only the same and not only have the same problems, but how a biblical worldview and Scripture changes the way we react and the way we live our lives, even in the midst of those problems,” says Willey. “With SAT-7 TÜRK programming, it shows the people of Türkiye, who may not really have much contact with Christians, that Christians care and that Christians are truly kind.”

SAT-7 also uses social media and video on demand to distribute their programming, but their uses of satellite broadcasting is an especially powerful way to share the gospel, according to Willey: “Satellite dishes are ubiquitous in the Middle East and North Africa, and it is a really powerful way that traditionally SAT-7 has reached people because it is virtually uncensorable. All you need is a dish, and you can receive the broadcasts that are broadcast by satellite. It is one of the easiest to access and most frequently used ways that people are broadcasting and receiving information and, specifically in the case of SAT-7, the gospel in the Middle East and North Africa.”

As their impact continues to grow, Willey asks for prayers for the strength of their team and the strength of their presenters, as well as for the strength of God to be at work in a country that has such historic Christian roots: “Most people in Türkiye are unaware of the history of Christianity within their borders.”

Header photo/image courtesy of SAT-7.

John Pudaite with Bibles for the World shares that this distribution is nothing new. The organization has been partnering with international, national, local and indigenous groups to pass our Bibles for over 50 years. However, this year they have some exciting new opportunities in Indonesia, Cambodia, and Zimbabwe.

Pudaite says, “[At] each of these outreach events, we look at providing at least 50,000 to 100,000 Gospels of John, so that everybody who attends these outreaches or events will get their own copy of the Gospel of John in their native language. In addition to that, we try to provide a New Testament for everyone who makes a decision to follow Christ at these events. So, we’re really looking excitedly at the number of opportunities that God has provided for us in the in the coming year.”

Empowering Young Believers in Cambodia

One outreach that is particularly exciting to Pudaite is the one they are joining in Cambodia. The outreach will be in an area near the famous Angkor Wat temples, rather than the capital area where they have ministered previously.

Pudaite says there are some older believers from a few generations ago, but many were persecuted and killed along with millions of their countrymen during the Pol Pot regime. During that time literacy rates also tanked and the country has struggled to rebuild.

(Image courtesy of Bibles for the World)

“There are still some standing churches from that time,” Pudaite says. “But it’s really a country, a body of Christ there that’s really young – which is wonderful in one sense, because they’re on fire to share this message of Jesus Christ with their fellow Cambodians. But they’re also not as well-educated as equipped. [They] don’t have access to the resources, whether it’s like [a] Bible study or different things like guides and things to lead them along the way.”

The large scale outreach event has the potential to be very effective and helpful in spreading the Word of God in this new area of Cambodia. It also may provide an opportunity for Bibles for the World to find new partners to help spread the Gospel.

Printing Support for Laotian Tribal Languages

An outreach in Laos recently gave Bibles for the World an opportunity to partner with a small group of believers who had worked together to translate the Gospel of Luke and the Jesus Film into the heart languages of seven smaller Laotian tribes.

Pudaite says these believers told him. “’We could only print 100 copies each.’ They had done seven different languages. And I just said, ‘Look at we’re going to come alongside you.’ We’re going to try to, in the next year, print a copy of the Gospel of Luke for every household in those seven people groups. Some of them, they only number 30,000, 60,000, 80,000 in those people groups, but they have a unique language, unique culture, and they need to hear God’s Word. They need to have God’s Word in their heart language. Here the Laotian people themselves are doing it for them, but they just need a little help in getting enough copies out and distributing it to those to those unreached people groups.”

Support Bibles for the World

As they work alongside their current partners and empower new ones, Pudaite asks for prayer. Many of the Christians they work with face severe opposition. They know that their boldness and faith is sustained significantly through the prayers of the Church.

If you would like to join Bibles for the World financially please visit Biblesfortheworld.org to see how you can join their mission.

Header Photo courtesy of doungtepro on Pixabay