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It was reported in early September that in Hoima, Uganda, during outreach work, over 6,000 gave their lives to Christ. 622 received free dental services and treatment, 468 received free medical consultation and treatment, and a new church was planted in Kyesiga, a small town two miles outside Hoima and more than 1000 metres above sea level.

AEUK Ugandan Team Leader Paul Ssembiro said: ‘The Hoima Mission included radio and TV ministry; evangelistic outreaches in schools, churches and the prison; gospel rallies; door-to-door evangelism; dinners for the executive, business and security fraternity; marketplace ministry; free medical camps; and cleaning the town’s rubbish. The impact of the mission shall remain in the hearts of the people of Hoima for a long time to come.’

Despite logistical and financial difficulties, the organisers of a mission in Kinshasa in October were full of praise for God.

The mission had three phases: a forum of evangelists; a church leaders’ training on evangelism; and stratified evangelism in nine venues. The size of the city and the mission being organised with very little finance made it a challenge, especially mobilising the local church congregations. But still 22% of the mission budget was raised locally.

It is 30 years since the Communist regime forced Fabiano to leave his home country of Mozambique with nothing. He was already serving the church there and was recognised by the African Inland Mission as a potential leader. They were his only contact on his arrival in Britain, knowing no English.

He immediately entered Moorlands College in Hampshire – learning Greek and English. Subsequently he obtained a degree at London Bible College and in 1988 married Suzana, who had emigrated from Mozambique to Portugal.

Megachurch pastor Mark Driscoll announced to his Seattle-based congregation, via a pre-recorded message in late August, that he is taking a six-week leave of absence from his position as lead pastor of Mars Hill Church while various charges against him were formally investigated. Driscoll said he would take the time to seek council about the next season of his life.

Driscoll, along with Mike Gunn and Leif Moi, planted the church in 1996. Mars Hill grew to more than 13,000 people and stretched across 15 locations in five states: Washington, Oregon, California, New Mexico and Arizona. Attendance has slumped over recent weeks to between 8-9000, and the church has announced the closure of at least three of its locations, and staff cuts of 30-40%. This leave of absence has come after a series of events which found Driscoll being confronted with significant questions about his character and leadership.

‘Unless immediate action is taken in Liberia – including isolating patients, a quarantine programme and protective gear – the death toll will likely reach into the thousands,’ says Dr Frank Glover, a medical missionary who partners with SIM International (known in the UK as Serving in Mission).

Glover was testifying before a US congressional subcommittee on August 7 about combatting the Ebola threat in Liberia.

This was a core element in the Communist strategy to suppress and destroy the evangelical churches in the Iron Curtain era.

It was a plan which had deeply damaging consequences for the cause of the gospel, resulting in thousands of leaderless churches and countless communities throughout Eastern Europe without a glimmer of gospel light. Moldova was one such country. Patrick Johnstone recorded, in his 1993 edition of Operation World, : ‘Training for pastors is the greatest need. There are 185 Baptist pastors – none of whom have received any formal training. Pray for the founding of a Bible school. Slavic Gospel Association (SGA) is seeking to help in this.’

John Stevens

Date posted: 1 Sep 2014

Back in May, at the same time that UK voters were expressing their increasing Euroscepticism in the European elections, I was privileged to attend the European Leadership Forum in Poland.

This is an annual ‘by invitation’ conference that seeks to serve and equip national Christian leaders to renew the biblical church and re-evangelise Europe. There were over 750 delegates.

In what looks like a bid to extend its influence in the South Asian region, so-called Islamic State (IS) militants have allegedly distributed 12-page pamphlets in the north-west of Pakistan, in Peshawar and in Afghan refugee camps based near its outskirts, it was reported in early September.

They were written in Pashto and Dari, and titled Fatah (Victory) The editor’s name, however, appears fake and their place of publication obscure. For a long time, Afghan resistance groups, including the Haqqani Network, Hizb-e-Islami Afghanistan and the Tora Bora group have published similar pamphlets, magazines and propaganda literature in Peshawar’s black markets. However this latest spread has raised fears of a possible link between IS and such militants, threatening all non-Muslims.

After seven years of harassment by hard-line Muslims, a Palestinian church in East Jerusalem has been forced out of their building, church leaders said in late August.

The congregation of Calvary Baptist Church, under Holy Land Missions, moved out of their building in the Shofat area of Jerusalem in July after Islamists threatened their landlord. They are looking for a safer, more permanent place to meet.

The capital cities of Australia’s states experienced their first Muslim Global Dawah Day on July 5, with teams of young mission-minded Muslim activists distributing leaflets and engaging in street evangelism for Islam. They took their lead from a wealth of online resources, with well-known British activist Abdur Raheem Green being a key spokesman for the worldwide campaign.

Although Global Dawah Day had little profile in the mainstream Australian media, it came at a time of considerable public anxiety and government activity over reports of home-jihadis grown leaving to fight for radical Islamist groups in Syria and Iraq. In early July, the Australian Attorney General warned that at least 60 Australians are actively involved in fighting with extremist groups, such as the newly declared Islamic caliphate, with a further 150 providing various forms of support.

Christianity Explored Ministries (CEM) announced in June a major new link up with Prison Fellowship International (PFI) where the Christianity Explored course will form a key part of PFI’s strategy of taking the gospel to prisoners throughout the world, with two pilot projects launched in Nigeria and South Africa.

PFI was founded in 1979. Its network of 45,000 volunteers currently undertakes monthly prison ministry with 2million inmates in 3,700 prisons in 127 countries. There are an estimated 10 million inmates in 22,000 jails across the world. The Prisoner’s Journey, PFI’s new, three-strand evangelism programme (of which Christianity Explored is the core part) aims to reach 1 million of these prisoners with the gospel by 2020.

As we move into a Jubilee year celebrating 50 years of independence we are seeing wonderful things happening here in Zambia.

In November 2013 the Lord provided all of the funds to finish the OM training centre. The training centre will continue to grow the work of training future African missionaries. Construction is now at full speed with over 70 workers each day. We are building lots of accommodation, an office block, classrooms and a main hall as well as the skills training centre and bookshop which have already been completed.

Opponents of a European initiative paving the way for governments to rule on the legitimacy of religious groups and reduce home schooling rights won a battle in mid April in the Council of Europe.

In Europe, where public education often includes teachings on morality at odds with churches and officially unrecognised religious groups are labelled sects, the stakes were high at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).

At face value, Australia and Malaysia share a number of common features. Both are medium-sized nations, with Australia having a population of 22 million and Malaysia 28 million.

Both are multifaith societies. Australia’s 61% Christian majority sits alongside a non-religious minority of 22% as well as smaller numbers of Buddhists (2.5%), Muslims (2.2%), Hindus (1.3%) and others. Malaysia’s 60% Muslim majority shares the country with Buddhists (19%), Christians (9%), Hindus (6%) and others. In effect, both societies are highly pluralistic in terms of both faith and ethnicity.

On March 26, two days after World Vision in the USA had announced that it would employ Christians in same-sex marriages, the relief organisation reversed its decision.

World Vision’s American branch had announced, on March 24, that it would no longer require its more than 1,100 employees to restrict their sexual activity to marriage between one man and one woman. World Vision president, Richard Stearns, made it clear by saying: ‘The new policy will not exclude someone from employment if they are in a legal same-sex marriage’.

‘I grabbed my six-year-old and we were all screaming and praying for God’s grace. I saw our walls falling down, then we ran out.’ Dalia’s tears began to slip down her cheeks as she re-lived the terrifying morning of 15 October 2013. The 7.2 magnitude earthquake that struck the Philippines island of Bohol.

‘We stayed in an evacuation centre for two, almost three weeks, then in a tent. When we went back to check the church we found it destroyed. We still sleep in the tent but we’ve put it inside a small bamboo hut that we built during the rains. When people ask me, ‘how can you smile?’ I say I smile because I am alive! That’s something to thank God for.’

Living out a missional lifestyle was one of the main themes at the second day of the third Mission-Net Congress held from December 30 to January 2 in Offenburg.

The key topic of the first day was ‘Mission with a Migrant Background’. In mostly interactive seminars, the participants discussed several aspects of this theme, such as why classical mission strategies seem to fail in today’s church and why people are actually talking about a missional lifestyle. Vivid discussions ensued and at the end there were more questions than answers.