These articles were first published in our November edition of the newspaper, click here for more.
TWR are to upgrade the shortwave/AM transmitter on Bonaire to 450KW, doubling the potential audience to 100 million people across Latin America, it was reported in September.
TWR have been broadcasting Bible teaching from Bonaire for over 50 years. Thousands of pastors and small home churches exist purely because of the evangelism and discipleship offered through TWR’s broadcasts. The upgrade will cost around £2.5 million in total.
The Cuban Communist Party has notified Maranatha First Baptist Church in Holguin that it will review the order issued by local government officials to confiscate the church’s property and issue its decision in October.
Maranatha was first informed by local government officials in May that the property was being confiscated by the government under new powers granted to the authorities by legislation that came into effect in January 2015. After an outpouring of public international support for the church, a review was granted.
An Egyptian Christian who reported attacks against churches is still behind bars after other journalists were pardoned in September.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced the release of two Al Jazeera journalists jailed after reporting unrest. They were on a list of 100 people pardoned ahead of the UN summit in New York. But one broadcaster who remains behind bars is Bishoy Boulos, a convert to Christianity, who was imprisoned for reporting attacks against churches.
As part of the Bible Society’s response to the refugee crisis in Europe, a team has given out over 300 New Testaments, gospels and Bibles in Amharic and Arabic.
The Scriptures were given to the leaders of St Michael’s makeshift church to distribute in the camp. Solomon, aged 28 and from Ethiopia, took an Amharic New Testament and beamed as he said his favourite verse was John 14.1: ‘Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in me.’
Evangelical churches in France are developing a co-ordinated approach to the refugee crisis in Calais and other French cities, it was reported in September.
FM Trust is now in a position to forward donations to help support the work of French evangelical churches in this area.
France Mission to PO Box 743, Exeter EX1 9RN.
More than 240 Iranians were baptised in mid-September in two large celebrations in the Iran region.
A further 16 were baptised in a smaller service, and about 200 more are due to be baptised at a fourth celebration. Seven friends of those being baptised responded to a call to submit their lives to Christ for the first time at one celebration. The services are joyful day-long gatherings, with sessions of worship, preaching, prayer for the nation of Iran, communion and shared meals.
Christians in several Indian states have been badly injured in brutal attacks during the summer, and subject to a false accusation of disrupting a Hindu pilgrimage, with Sikhs as well as radical Hindus targeting pastors and evangelists.
A group of high caste Sikhs beat a pastor on the head with iron rods. A church member who tried to step in was struck with a knife. Three other evangelists were beaten with rods, one having legs and arms broken.
Seven Christian families in India’s Jharkhand state were ousted in early September from their village because of their Christian faith and told that their tribal certificates would be annulled.
A tribal certificate grants members of the Scheduled Tribes certain benefits such as school fee reductions or waivers, quotas in educational institutions and extended upper age limits in applying for some jobs. They were also banned from using the village well and had all their property seized.
Two members of India’s ruling BJP party, plan to introduce, in October, a Private Members’ Bill for a national law against conversion from Hinduism, which would then force a debate in Parliament.
In an interview, one said the recently released Indian religion census had indicated that: ‘For the first time, the population of Hindus has been reported to be less than 80%. We have to take measures to arrest the decline. It is very important to keep the Hindus in majority in the country’.
Authorities declined to acknowledge that Muslim Fulani herdsmen were behind a rash of attacks on Christian communities in Plateau state on 16 September that took 38 lives and displaced 5,000 people.
More than 100 armed Muslim Fulani herdsmen attacked the Christian community of Kadunung, killing 18 Christians and sending 5,000 running for their lives, according to witnesses. Authorities did not identify the assailants as Muslim Fulanis in an effort to quell ethnic and religious violence.
A UK immigration policy statement about the situation for Christians in Pakistan is due to be reviewed, as it has painted an inaccurate picture of the risk of persecution and Pakistani asylum seekers are find-ing it increasingly difficult to gain asylum in the UK.
Rated eighth-worst in the world for severity of persecution of Christians, and with a Taliban leader stating the joining with ISIS will be ‘at the right time’, this Commonwealth country sees less than 20% of applicants given leave to remain in the UK, a drop from 50% in 2012.
A Tanzanian man who had converted from Islam to Christianity was attacked on 18 September by his three brothers with a knife, leaving him seriously wounded.
Khamis Bakar Sheikh was baptised in May after he decided to leave Islam and follow Christ. He went to live with another Christian after his family members threatened to harm him. He returned to collect his clothes and his three brothers attacked him with knives, shouting ‘kafir, kafir’ (a derogatory term for a non-Muslim).
Three church buildings were set ablaze on 22 September in an area of northwestern Tanzania where Muslim extremists have issued threats.
A pastor of one of the three churches whose buildings were gutted, Vedasto Athanas of Living Water International Church, said the burning happened within two hours. According to Athanas, extremists had said they wanted the churches in the area reduced.
Four of five suspects on trial for murdering three Christians in Turkey’s south-eastern city of Malatya have all named the fifth suspect as the sole killer, it was reported in September at the 107th hearing in the case
which took place in 2007.
They all accused fellow defendant Emre Gunaydin of acting alone when he tortured and knifed to death two Turkish converts to Christianity, Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel, and German missionary Tilmann Geske.
There is a Christian martyred every five minutes according to a religious freedom watchdog reporting in late September.
Christian Freedom International has found that more than 200 million followers are facing persecution in 105 countries. This makes Christianity the most persecuted religion in the world. The report also found that more Christians have been martyred in the 20th and 21st centuries than during the previous 19 combined.