Phase three of voting began yesterday. Surging heat waves have made polling difficult.

Regan Miller with Mission India explains, “With 1.4 billion people in India, that’s a lot of people to get [through] the voting system.”

(Photo courtesy of Mission India)

What happens politically in India and the resulting policies greatly impact Christian ministry — and there is much ministry work to do.

India is the largest unreached nation in the world. Roughly 95% of the population is unreached, meaning they have never heard the Gospel.

Miller says, “We can pray over the election season for wisdom for the voters. Right now, for the Christians, they would just appreciate prayers for wisdom and that the Holy Spirit would work through the leadership in India.”

Mission India has a timely resource to encourage your prayers.

“If people would like a tangible way to learn how to pray in a meaningful way for India and for their own lives, too, we are offering a 10-day Pentecost Prayer Guide that launches May 9. Pentecost is the day that we recognize the sending of the Holy Spirit in Scripture, so we’re going to be praying into that!”

Get Mission India’s Pentecost Prayer Guide here!

“We’ll walk you through one way each day that God responds to prayer and fasting and Scripture, and how you can pray into that – for India and your own life to,” says Miller.

Click here for more ways to support Gospel work with Mission India.

Header photo of Indian flag. (Photo courtesy of Still Pixels/Pexels)

From 1972 to 1981, Ferdinand Marcos Sr. controlled the Philippines through martial law. He died three years after the uprising, but his family retained their wealth, returned to the Philippines, and became influential politicians.

The family has widely been charged with human rights abuses and corruption over the years. Experts say Marcos’ election victory was propelled by a misinformation campaign on social media. Many worry Marcos could bring an authoritarian hand to the government.

Bill Passons with AMG International says, “It’s always hard to figure out exactly why somebody votes a certain way. Sometimes it may seem clear. Other times, it’s confusing.”

AMG Philippines

But the elections don’t change AMG’s goals in the Philippines. Passons says, “When I was talking with our national director, he said they’re not worried about the politics of the situation. They are looking to the needs of 100 million-plus Filipinos and trying to meet those needs.” 

AMG has over 30 projects around the Philippines, sponsoring 3,000 impoverished kids. Since the Philippines is often exposed to extreme weather, the ministry works heavily in disaster relief as well. Passons says, “We also have church planting efforts where we train up church planters that will go into some of the remote areas.”

“We also have some vocational schools to help people go beyond high school.”

Pray the love of Jesus will transform communities throughout the Philippines.

The header photo shows Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on the campaign trail. (Photo courtesy of PNA photo by Joey O. Razon, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

The leader Saad Hariri comes from a long line of politicians. But in January he suspended his involvement in politics, and other family members followed suit.

Nuna with Triumphant Mercy Lebanon says, “So now the Sunnis have no leader, they have no one that represents them in the government. So this makes the balance of power a bit difficult. The Shiites are really working hard to get more power.”

Nuna says this imbalance may give more power to Iran in the end, since the Iranian government embraces Shia Islam. “So the Christians have a big vote to do. And they are the ones who will determine later if the Shia will take more power or not. Because they do have a voice.”

“The problem is that many Christians don’t want to vote. They think, ‘Oh, my voice doesn’t matter.’”

Christians make up a significant portion of Lebanon’s population, and the government has traditionally shared power between Christians, Sunni Muslims, and Shia Muslims.

Nuna says an attempt to force Iran’s strict Islamic law on Lebanon could lead to civil war. It would certainly lead to more sanctions and poverty. “Later on, we might be forbidden to evangelize, forbidden to speak plainly about Jesus, even on the streets or during our ministries or during our home visits.”

How to pray

Pray many will experience Jesus’ love through the care of TM Lebanon.

And pray Iran’s government will not gain more power over Lebanon’s people through these elections. Ask God to empower Christians to use their voices for peace and justice.

Header photo courtesy of Clker-Free-Vector-Images on Pixabay. 

Todd Nettleton with Voice of the Martyrs, USA says the problem is two-fold. There are problems both with the Church and the government.

The Church’s Neglect

1 Corinthians 12 talks about the Body of Christ. The Church should be eagerly watching and caring for every member. However, often the Church does not see or seek out those actively suffering with persecution.

(Image courtesy of VOM USA)

Nettleton says, “It’s a misapplication of Scripture, which calls us when one part of the body is suffering, the other parts of the body are supposed to feel that. If we are cut off, [we] can’t feel that and so there’s the aspect of the Church and why doesn’t the Church pay more attention?”

Some of that answer may be ignorance. Voice of the Martyrs, USA seeks to change that. One of their purposes is, “To promote the fellowship of all believers by informing the world of the faith and courage of persecuted Christians, thereby inspiring believers to a deeper level of commitment to Christ and involvement in His Great Commission.”

However, the Church is not alone in a quiet response.

The Government’s Disinterest

Government leaders do not often actively pursue these issues for several reasons. Nettleton details two of those reasons.

1. Government officials work for re-election. Many elected officials do what they believe voters want to see. Nettleton says, “I think in some cases, it is, they don’t think their voters care about that. And they work for voters. And so we as voters, we need to let them know this is a priority to us. This is something we think about when we go to the ballot box.”
2. America is in debt. Telling a foreign government to change their laws and treat Christians better is tricky when we owe them more than we can pay. Nettleton explains, “It’s hard for us to do that because the borrower is the servant of the lender. And so, there is an economic reason why some of our government officials are hesitant to raise the issue of persecution with foreign governments.”

“This is a chance for us to affect their behavior.”

(Image courtesy of VOM USA)

There are ways to help believers around the world who are facing persecution. One way is by seeking change through political means. Voters in democratic nations wield a lot of power.

Nettleton says that after speaking with a congressman he realized that seeking out officials and calling or writing letters really does matter. Each call is recorded and cataloged. Officials are given a record on what constituents are asking about and eventually it affects their actions.

“So it really does make a difference, that we have a voice and that we let them know and we ask questions we ask educated questions about you know, special cases.”

Get Involved

You can make a difference. Go to persecution.com to learn more about Christian persecution worldwide and how you and your Church can help.

Also get involved politically. Nettleton states, “You know, as Americans, we have an opportunity to have a voice in our political process. Hopefully, our faith in Jesus Christ and our relationship with Him affects how we see the issues that we get an opportunity to have a voice in. And so hopefully, the things we believe the Scriptures that we’re reading, and our prayer life is going to affect how we interact with our politicians. It’s also going to affect how we vote for our politicians.”

Call your congressman with specific requests for helping persecuted Christians around the world. Make your voice heard.

But most of all, pray. Pray for the encouragement of believers facing trials. Pray that those who have a voice would stand for those who are being silenced.

(Header image courtesy of VOM USA)

Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta (Photo courtesy of MAKE IT KENYA PHOTO / STUART PRICE via Wikimedia Commons)

According to The Guardian, some are concerned that Odinga’s refusal to concede defeat to President Kenyatta could lead to more violence as his supporters protest. Already, 24 people have been killed in clashes with police and ethnic groups since the election.

Kenya has a history of mistrust in their democratic processes. Bernice Gatere with Trans World Radio explains, “I think the mistrust comes from the fact that our election seems to be very tribal-based…. There were quite a bit of people that voted based on the achievements of the candidates; but to a larger extent, people still voted according to their tribal lines. And that is what makes this situation tense and volatile because people tend to associate with the candidates from their tribe.”

TWR closed their office in Kenya for two days as they watched the situation, and their reporters on the ground covering the elections stayed in communication. Gatere says that they were kept safe.

As the nation of Kenya has been generally divided along tribal lines, the Christian community hasn’t been unaffected. Gatere says in one of the local churches preached recently from Joshua 5. “Just before Joshua took over Jericho, he found this angel with an outstretched sword and he asked, ‘Are you for us or for our enemies?’… [The angel] told Joshua, ‘I am neither for you nor for your enemy, but as the commander of the Lord’s army, I have now come.’”

She says this passage of Scripture is especially relevant to what the Kenyan Church is asking right now. “We’re finding that even Christians were asking, ‘Is God for us or for our enemies?’ The bishop was preaching and saying that he has gotten very many calls from Christians, some telling him, ‘Our votes have been stolen! What is the Lord saying?’ Others are saying, ‘Thank God [who] is with us, prophecy has been fulfilled!’ And he’s been wondering, ‘How do I minister to these Christians who are all my sheep, but some are going through pain and others are rejoicing?’”

Ultimately, the Kenyan pastor concluded in his sermon that it isn’t about whose “side” God is on. “God is never for you or against you. God is always with you in the situation you are going through.”

(Photo courtesy of Global Disciples via Facebook)

Meanwhile, TWR is working to broadcast a positive message across the nation of Kenya. “It’s the message of peace,” says Gatere. “We have already started producing peace messages that we are airing on all our stations, and that is basically calling people to the peace that when the Lord left, he said, ‘My peace I leave with you.’ We are calling on our listeners to extend that peace that they have received from the Lord Jesus Christ to their neighbor.

“We are also asking for people to do practical things. If you have a neighbor who is from another tribe or from the other party that you do not support, make a deliberate effort to reach out to them and show them kindness and do practical things for them so they can experience the love of Christ.”

Right now, you can be in prayer for Kenya and the believers there.

“Pray that as the Body of Christ, [we] would rise above our tribes and see the God who has brought us together, who has loved us equally, irrespective of our tribes.”

Click here if you’d like to support TWR as they broadcast Christ’s peace.

(Photo courtesy of Vision Beyond Borders)

Getting to this point hasn’t been easy for Nepal, since the last few months have been marked by riots and an import blockade from India on the southern border.

Greg Kelley with World Mission says change in Nepal is slow-going as generations and ethnic groups clash — and even change on the religious freedom front has been a struggle.

“Nepal is really trying to move into that place of religious freedom, but there’s a lot of challenges to that. For generations, it’s been a Hindu nation. So the persecution, interestingly, comes very much from a localized standpoint. What I mean by that is, when you give your life to Jesus in Nepal, it’s really your family where you feel the fiercest persecution. They will essentially ostracize you from the community.”

According to the CIA World Factbook, 1.4 percent of Nepalis identify as Christians out of the nation’s 29 million people. Kelley says, “We know the Church is much larger than that, but irregardless, it’s very small. So I think just from a priority standpoint, Nepal is filled with unreached people groups and it needs to be a priority for the Body of Christ.”

(Photo courtesy of Global Disciples)

Besides persecution, one other reason why ministry in Nepal can be difficult is that the country is marked by drastic terrains, including the Himalayas. Missionaries can have a challenging time getting through to hard-to-reach communities.

“It’s situated right in between India to the south and then China to the north, which makes it kind of landlocked and hard to get at. But the Lord has just been doing amazing things in Nepal in the last 20 years, and I think it’s no coincidence that it kind of coincides with their efforts to more embrace democracy.”

World Mission distributes about 1,500 units of their solar-powered audio Bible called the Treasure in Nepal each year. The Treasure comes loaded with Scripture in the Nepali language and other national dialects, and every year they see amazing responses to the Gospel.

“That starts in a listening group environment. So for World Mission, we’ll distribute one Treasure and that will go into the hands of a group of people about the size of 12. Then they’ll begin listening to the Gospels and our team members on the ground will follow up with them,” says Kelley.

(Photo courtesy of World Mission)

“We just received word back a few days ago of a brand new church that was established just from a listening group of the Treasure. Now these new Christians are coming together, they’re growing in fellowship with one another. But the reality is for most of them, their families will essentially disown them. So they, believe it or not, in their infancy in Jesus, are now launching themselves into kind of a missionary movement reaching out to their family members who are persecuting them. And that’s really evidence of the love of Jesus manifesting itself in places like Nepal.”

Sometimes, however, a community isn’t initially open to the Gospel message coming in. Or a village may have immediate physical needs that need to be met before they will readily hear the Good News of their spiritual Savior.

Often, the biggest need in a community is clean drinking water. Kelley says, “There’s lots of water available in Nepal run-off from the Himalayan Mountains, so it’s not an issue of access to water, but it’s filled with bacteria.”

World Mission has a ministry division called Zoe Waters. Through Zoe Waters, they install water filtration systems in Nepal.

“We just did a very large water filtration installation…. These water filtration units that we put in these communities have literally become a lifeline, and we combine that with our Treasure distributions.”

Doing so earns them an audience with the community, and then they simply let the Holy Spirit do the work of convicting hearts once the Gospel is presented.

During this quickening time of change and transition in Nepal, the stability of Christ is needed now as much as ever. It costs $40 for World Mission to send in one Treasure in the Nepali language. Click here to support World Mission!

And especially, Kelley asks you to pray. “We really appreciate people praying for us and Nepal, because our network of national leaders have such an amazing task and opportunity ahead of them. We just encourage people to pray for national leaders to grow in their own depth and their journey with Jesus…and also for safety, and just for the Lord to help us send more Treasures.”

Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, former governor of Jakarta, Indonesia (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

While Mr. Basuki had a strong lead for much of the election season, he was accused of blasphemy by radical Muslim groups — an obstacle he was unable to overcome for re-election. Mr. Basuki, an ethnically Chinese Christian, now faces a trial in Indonesia on blasphemy charges.

The Voice of the Martyrs USA’s Todd Nettleton says, “The challenge now as we come out of this election…is just the challenge of, what political rights are Christians going to have moving forward? Was this simply a political election where one person put forward their ideas, another person put forward their ideas, and the voters went for the other guy? Or how much did it play into the fact that this was a Christian and that radical Muslims within Indonesia are saying, ‘We shouldn’t have a Christian in this leadership role. As a Muslim, you should vote for a Muslim, regardless of what their politics are.’”

Indonesia is home to over 202 million Muslims, the largest Muslim population in the world. Yet, the southeast Asian country officially holds to the philosophy of ‘Pancasila’ — an Indonesian word that has many facets to it, but in general, it encourages the idea that different people regardless of religion should live side-by-side in harmony.

Jakarta, Indonesia (Photo courtesy of Adhi Rachdian via Flickr: https://goo.gl/OucQZF)

However, analysts say this recent election may signal a growing confidence in the use of religion as a political weapon by the Muslim-majority population. And a local news outlet calls this latest election in Indonesia the “dirtiest, most polarizing and most divisive the nation has ever seen.”

Nettleton says, “I think that’s the question Christians are asking is, ‘Okay, what’s our role in the society as a whole? Is this idea of Pancasila dead? Or are we still trying to live in harmony side-by-side?’”

So what kind of the persecution and obstacles do Indonesian Christians tend to face? “They are free in a legal sense in most parts of Indonesia…. There are places where the government is putting pressure. They often use sort of zoning laws, property laws. There are some parts of Indonesia where, if you’re going to build a church, you need a certain percentage of your neighbors to sign off on the idea that, yes, there’s going to be a Christian building, a Christian church in our neighborhood.

“Most of the time, though, it is social pressure. It is radical Muslims or the vast majority Muslims coming against a small minority of Christians in a certain area saying, ‘You shouldn’t be here. This is a Muslim area.’ So there is pressure from a social or societal level, even if the law and the courts say, ‘Yes, this is a free country, we have freedom of religion, you can follow Christ if you want to.’”

Please take a moment to pray for Indonesia. “I think we want to pray for the country as a whole. We want to pray for wisdom for the leaders who are in place there.”

Nettleton also says, “I think particularly we want to pray for Christians. This is a disappointment for Christians who are looking at this election result and seeing that. But our call from Christ is not dependent on election results, it’s not dependent on what the government says we can or should or shouldn’t do, it is dependent on Christ’s call to go and make disciples. So pray that the Church there will stand boldly and strongly for truth and for Christ, regardless of which way the political winds blow, regardless of the outcome of any particular election.”

The Washington Post recently published an article saying many evangelical Christians feel abandoned—not by a candidate but by a party. And Christians who do not agree with the remaining candidates on either side feel they are left to choose the lesser evil.

Carl Moeller of Biblica agrees it’s a tough call. However, he has some words of advice for Christians that could be helpful in the coming months.

The old rules don’t apply

People typically vote within the same party year after year because they agree with its main values and goals. But, regardless of which party that may be, it’s not guaranteed to be a safe way to vote.

Within each major party, candidates have a spectrum of values, something which is especially apparent this year. There is room for the candidates to have personal goals that are not contrary to the party’s main values, but which would oppose personal convictions of the voters.

Photo courtesy of DonkeyHotey via Flickr. https://flic.kr/p/axjAxe

Moeller says, “I think we need to be convicted that our moral stances are not subject to a political process but that we vote our conscience and that we vote and we stand for candidates who will support our moral convictions.”

Researching candidates: it matters where you start

It’s important to make an informed decision when voting. You might start by researching some of the fundamental disagreements between candidates. What do they believe about abortion, same-sex marriage, taxes, etc.?

But for Christians, that’s not the best place to start. We need to make sure we know how we stand on those issues by knowing what God thinks about them. And we can learn what He thinks when we read His Word and spend time in prayer.

“It’s high time that Christians spend more time in their Bibles than on the political websites and watching political television. Then when we’re invested in the political process, we’ll actually be able to have something of value that we bring to that process,” Moeller says.

This is not to say that Christians should withdraw from the political process or vote blindly. Rather, they should view the situation through a Biblical lens.

“It’s really important for evangelicals to remember that ultimately the ends that we serve— the Kingdom of Jesus Christ—are not served by political means.”

Hope is not found in a candidate

Within the Christian community and within both major parties, some have pulled so aggressively for their candidate that they forget their candidate doesn’t hold the fate of this country in his or her hands.

“As Christian followers of Jesus Christ, as evangelicals who are committed first and foremost to His Gospel, our Hope is found not in the political process, but it’s found in God’s Word and it’s found in God’s will,” Moeller says.

If we put our hope in man, we will be disappointed. If we expect positive, radical change to happen through government, we will be frustrated.

The biggest cultural impact we can have

Shannon McGee via Flickr. https://goo.gl/iXJvlT

Regardless of how you vote, if you vote, and who wins this election, our calling is the same. That is, to live for Jesus, and to tell others about him. Furthermore, it’s to exemplify Christ’s love in our lives by loving other people.

“If we live a life that is so dedicated to serving Christ that we actually serve our fellow man and woman as a result, well I think that’s the best political process we can be engaged in.”

Moeller says that even people who disagree with Christian beliefs will notice that we are not driven by a political agenda but an agenda of God’s love, and that might make them take notice.

Biblica

Biblica is an organization that is driven by God’s command to share the Gospel around the world.

“At Biblica we’re anything but political. We’ve said for over 200 years that the most important thing that Christians can be doing is getting God’s word into people’s hands and hearts so that they can meet their real Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and be changed and join His mission for the world.”

You can support Biblica here.

Homepage photo credit: Becky McCray via Flickr.

The Parliamentary vote was to have been held early January,
but it was delayed because of politician Benazir Bhutto's assassination. 

Voice of the Martyrs' Todd Nettleton says, "There's a very
real concern that the situation and the stability of the nation, as a whole,
could degenerate into a war zone. That's a big issue for prayer among Christians
around the world, because if there is no stability, that will affect the
church in negative ways."

Christians currently face severe opposition from militant
Islamic groups. The war in Afghanistan intensified problems, with
Pakistani Christians seen as being a part of an attack on Islam.

In some areas, the rule of Islamic law is already being
pressed against Christians. According to
Compass Direct News, many have suffered from the growth of radical Islam in
recent weeks. The deaths of three Christians in the northern valley of Swat,
where fanatics have enforced radical Islamic law since July, sent fear through
the area's tiny Christian community.

Nettleton says because that could grow with a sympathetic
government, believers are on their knees.
"Pray for God's will in the elections. Pray that the government
that takes power will look out for the Christians, will protect their right to
worship, will protect their right to change religions, will protect their right
to conversion. I think we can pray for the believers there that they will
continue to be a witness."