Voice of the Martyrs, 9 March 2023 (excerpts)

Benin is a small country bordering western Nigeria and is considered the birthplace of Voodoo.  Occult practices, including idol worship, sacrificing animals, and wearing special talismans believed to ward off evil, are widespread.  Voodoo is so commonly practiced in Benin that it has a National Voodoo Day on January 10. 

This year in a small Benin town, Voodooists burned down a church when local Christians refused to honour the village idols during the celebration.  The pastor asks for prayer that the village people will be freed from bondage of Voodoo, that the church will be rebuilt, and that the congregation will be strengthened despite persecution.

Every village and many homes in the north have a designated place for animal sacrifice (and sometimes human sacrifice).  Voodoo is an official religion and Witchcraft is deeply ingrained and openly practiced.  Christianity is considered a foreign religion that steals a community’s youth from being properly initiated into the local tribes.  Every village chief serves as both a political leader and a voodoo priest.

The country is 30 percent Christian, including 8 percent evangelical.  40 percent practice ethnic religions, and 30 percent are Muslim.   Persecution is prevalent in the north.  New converts to Christianity are beaten and sometimes killed, while churches are routinely destroyed.  Villages keep evangelists out and prevent construction of new churches.  Bibles are hard to find in rural areas.

Morning Star News, 13 March 2023 (excerpts)

Muslims in a village in north-eastern Indonesia’s portion of Borneo Island prohibited a church from constructing a worship building.

Local leaders in Tarakan City in North Kalimantan Province, stated in a Feb. 28 letter that the Christian Church’s proposed construction was against state regulations since it would be located amid predominantly Muslim tribes.

Kristianto Triwibowo, coordinator of the Indonesian Christian Student Movement (GMKI), reportedly said the ban defies the Indonesian constitution and the government’s guiding policy of unity and social justice for all of Indonesia’s various peoples.

“The state guarantees the right to worship and embrace the religion of all people,” Kristianto said March 7.  “Instead of rejecting the services of the Church, which should not happen, we must tolerate each other and maintain diversity.”

The GMKI encouraged the North Kalimantan and Tarakan City governments, along with the Ministry of Religion and various state agencies, to fully protect activities of the church, which is registered with the Ministry of Religion.

Voice of the Martyrs, 23 February 2023 (excerpts)

Aaron and Khalil Hassan are two brothers who fled to Lebanon after the self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS) chased them from their apricot farm.  While in Lebanon, they heard the gospel and placed their faith in Christ.  When they returned to Syria, they found their farms pillaged; ISIS had chopped down the apricot trees and used them for firewood. 

“Basic life necessities are scarce and horrendously expensive if they can be found,” said a front-line worker.   Christian families remain alert to Muslim extremists: “The threat from Islamic militants remains.”

The churches and believers that have been able to remain in Syria have served as a beacon of hope and a source of peace for both Christians and Muslims throughout the war.  Many Muslims have come to Christ as Christians have reached out with acts of compassion and practical assistance.  And reports that neighbouring countries may send Syrian refugees back to Syria gives believers hope that those who came to faith in nearby countries will return and strengthen local churches.

Syria was once known for religious tolerance, relative to most nations in the Middle East.  However, in recent years Syrian Christians have faced the same restrictions and opposition that are common in the region’s more restricted Islamist nations.

Morning Star News 2 February 2023 (excerpts)

Police in Uganda have arrested two people in connection with the kidnapping of 40 Christian children lured by a Muslim posing as the leader of a Christian charity offering free education.

In Arua, in northwest Uganda’s West Nile Sub-Region, 27-year-old Siraji Sabiri, a Muslim, had lured the children to a hotel with promises of school scholarships and was possibly planning to sell them to a rebel militant group in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

A pastor in Arua first learned of the alleged scam from church members who told him a Christian organization was registering children for scholarships for a school in Luwero, in central Uganda.  Sabiri resides near Luwero.

 “So parents made use of the opportunity to register for the offer of such scholarships,” said the pastor.  “I got concerned and rang the police to check on the children, because I was not involved in the whole process.”

Officers rushed to the hotel, found the children ages 5 to 16 and learned they had been booked on a bus for the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  Interrogations revealed that the leader, Sabiri, was not a Christian but a Muslim.

“The man had disguised himself as a Christian and was able to register over 40 children in the name of offering them bursaries, yet with the intention of selling them to the Allied Democratic Forces in Congo.”

Had the abduction succeeded, the pastor said, the effect on the church and local community would have been devastating.

Morning Star News 22 February 2023 (excerpts)

A local village official in Indonesia stopped a church service on Sunday, February 19.

On Sumatra, the head of a village in Lampung Province, Wawan Kurniawan, leaped over a meter-high fence to intrude into the worship service of the Tabernacle of David Christian Church.

Ignoring the objections of church members and leaders, Wawan took the pulpit and motioned with his hand that the service was over.

A member of congregation said Wawan threatened with harsh words that more people would be brought in and  threatened to weld the church gate.”

More area residents did arrive, she said.  “It happened suddenly.  “Approximately 10 residents came to the church location and asked for the service to be dissolved.”

Wawan later said he only meant to ask the congregation to refrain from worshipping there until they obtain a permit for their building.  “This is not a new problem,” he said, “They have been carrying out worship activities there since 2014 even though there was no permit.”

The church, whose building was constructed in 2009, applied for a permit for a place of worship in 2014, but officials have not responded.

Aid to the Church in Need, February 15, 2023 (excerpts)

There is little – if any – evidence of international aid getting through to Syria, according to a Catholic charity’s projects coordinator reporting from the scene of the devastating earthquakes.

Xavier Bisits, who travelled to Aleppo within hours of the catastrophe, decried an apparent lack of international support in response to a catastrophe whose death toll has risen to at least 41,000.

Reflecting widespread dismay in Syria about the lack of aid from abroad, Mr Bisits said: “There are almost no signs of an international response – the only international volunteers I have seen personally in Syria are from Lebanon.”

The UN has criticised the regime for being slow to open border crossings to allow aid conveys into the worst-affected north-west of Syria, which is under rebel control.

Mr Bisits, who co-ordinates ACN aid in Syria, said: “Many people are in despair.”  Visiting Lattakia at the same time, Cardinal Zenari, Apostolic Nuncio to Syria stated: “After visiting Aleppo, Lattakia and Jableh, my impression can be summed up like this – I saw a sea of pain.”