We’ve had no update from Fraser and Dawn during the festive season but continue to pray for them and their children.

Remember Fraser in his efforts to get the NetAct website active and fit for purpose in the coming year with all its potential for preparing young theology students across the African continent for the future challenges they will face.

Remember Dawn and the others with her who are heavily involved in the ministry to the inmates of South African prisons.  The potential for criminal lives transformed for God’s glory is incalculable.

We met Antona today, a 75-year-old widow, who received a copy of “Jesus, the Promised Child” as part of the Shoe Box Distribution a year ago.  This encouraged her to go to church, and she has now trusted Jesus as her Saviour.  She attends one of ECC Sliven’s daughter churches in the village of Petmogili, and Margaret, one of the pastoral team, picks her up every week, as she is very crippled and cannot walk very far.

She lost her husband 11 years ago, and very sadly her grandson was killed in a car accident more recently, and his mother has also died from the sorrow, leaving her son a widower.  Her new-found faith has helped her cope with this tragic situation.

Morning Star News, December 12, 2018

Police in Laos arrested a grandmother and three other Christians while they were worshipping last month.  The four Christians have since been released.

Police also evicted them from their homes and property.

Villagers said the worshippers were arrested for believing in Jesus Christ.  Area Christians said police have threatened severer punishment if they do not renounce Christianity, considered an enemy of the single-party, Marxist-Leninist country, according to a Lao Human Rights group.

The group called for their homes to be restored to them.

The Lao government recognizes religious umbrella groups for Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and the Baha’i, but only the Catholic, the Laos Evangelical and the Seventh-day Adventist Churches as Christian.

“Reports continue of authorities, especially in isolated villages, arresting, detaining, and exiling followers of minority religions, particularly Christians.”

One Christian family a month is leaving the southern Iraqi city of Basra in the face of violence and increasing tension on the streets.

Only 10% of the once 3,000-strong Christian community remains in Basra, though its community has not suffered the same level of persecution as in the north of Iraq, where Christian communities in the Nineveh plains were targeted in a campaign of genocide by Islamic State.

“In general, at least one family a month leaves,” said Basra church leader Alnaufali Habib Jajou.

Poor conditions in the city, where more than 20 people have been killed since July in street demonstrations against growing unemployment, water shortages and corruption, were causing the families to flee.

However, despite the violence, the Christian community is embarking on celebrations for Advent: “We will continue to celebrate, families will continue to meet in small groups in individual apartments, for prayers and meetings.”

Barnabas Fund, 11 December 2018

Christians in Sofia have protested planned amendments to the Bulgarian Law on Religious Communities.

The amendments would place restraints on evangelising, bans on worship outside officially recognised buildings, restrictions on training denominational ministers and a membership threshold of 300 people required for official recognition of religious groups.

Alarm has been raised by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom in a letter to the Prime Minister of Bulgaria, Boyko Borissov, expressing their “concern that the implementation of this law could lead to unintended restrictions on religious freedom and the direct persecution of churches and individuals of faith.”

The Bulgarian constitution itself guarantees freedom of religion stating, “The practising of any religion shall be unrestricted.”

World Watch Monitor, December 11, 2018

Jakarta’s former governor, “Ahok”, sentenced last year to 2 years in jail for blaspheming Islam, is to be freed from prison for good behaviour, 4 months ahead of schedule.

As the first Christian to govern Indonesia’s capital since the 1960s, he had accused his political opponents of using Quranic verses to dissuade Muslims from voting for him in his bid for re-election as Jakarta governor.

Prosecutors downgraded the blasphemy charges against him and recommended he serve no prison time if guilty, but the judge decided a harsher punishment was in order.

His sentence was globally condemned by politicians, academics and rights groups expressing concerns about the growing threat to religious pluralism in Indonesia.

The former chairman of the second largest Islamic group in Indonesia said that the charges against the Christian governor had been fabricated for political purposes.

Pray that Fraser will find an effective free method of supplying email capabilities to the portal, and that the rest of the NetACT team will finish pulling together a funding proposal for an American grant-making trust before the holidays.

 

Remember prison inmates and guards, pray for a lack of violence in the extreme heat over Christmas, and that the believers will spread the good news of Christmas by word and deed however challenging the circumstances.

 

Our church is planning a carol service in the park on Sunday evening. Pray that the service will speak to street-dwellers hanging out there, as well as young folk with hookah pipes. 

 

Pray for Ruth’s remaining weeks in South Africa as a time of strengthening and clarifying of her future path, and for a complication-free journey back on January 1st.