Updates on the persecuted Church

Barnabas Fund, 22 March 2023 (excerpts)

• Uyghur house church pastor Alimujiang Yimiti (Alim) has been released after 15 years’ imprisonment in China and is now home with his family. Alim, a convert to Christianity from Islam, served as a pastor in Kashgar, Xinjiang province, until his arrest in 2008 for alleged anti-state activities.  He was finally sentenced in August 2009 after being subjected to two trials held in secret, with his family prohibited from attending.  Give thanks for Alim’s release.
• At least 10 residents of a community in Kaduna State, Nigeria, were killed in an attack by suspected Fulani extremists on 14 March. The attackers also looted a shop before being repelled by police.   Around 84% of the Atyap people are Christians.  Ask the Lord to comfort the bereaved and heal those wounded in the Atyap community.
• A Christian aid worker from the United States who was abducted by Islamists in Niger more than six years ago has been released. Jeff Woodke, 61, was taken by armed jihadists from his home in northern Niger, in October 2016.   Give thanks for the release of our brother and pray for his recovery following his lengthy ordeal.
• The blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian Christian region within Azerbaijan, has been continuing for more than three months.  Residents suffer shortages of food and medicine, along with power and energy outages.  Pray for a peaceful resolution.

Aid to Syrian Christians 3 days after disaster

Barnabas Fund, 15 February 2023 (excerpts)

Barnabas has delivered food, blankets and other aid to Christian survivors of the devastating Turkey-Syria earthquake.

The distribution of 1,500 food gift boxes containing rice, lentils, chickpeas, bulgar wheat, noodles, beans and salt to families in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo began on 9 February, just three days after the quake.  We also gave out several hundred pairs of new shoes.

The next consignment, containing 1,200 food parcels, 1,000 blankets, 250 health kits and 200 coats, is already being distributed in northern Syria to help Christians who lost everything when the 7.8 magnitude quake struck in the early hours of 6 February.

We are also about to distribute blankets and heaters to Christian survivors in Turkey.

“Thank you for being there,” said Angela, a Christian in Aleppo, in a video message to Barnabas supporters. Her family home was severely damaged by the earthquake.

“The Public Safety Committee has evacuated the whole building because many cracks had hit our building,” she explained.  “We are staying in a room in a hospital.”

“God bless you all,” she added.  “Please continue your prayers for our beloved Syrian brothers and sisters and those who lost their families and loved ones.”

Updates on the persecuted Church

Barnabas Fund, 22 February 2023 (excerpts)

• Fifteen Christian families have been expelled from their home village in rural north-western Laos. The families were driven out after their conversion to Christianity and have been left with no place to stay.  The authorities have sought to negotiate with the village in order to allow the families to return to their homes, but so far with no success.  Pray for a resolution that will allow local and regional authorities to enforce a national law protecting the rights of Christians.

 The military authorities in Chin State, Myanmar, announced on 13 February that Christians in seven of the state’s nine townships must register their names seven days before attending church. It is not known if believers would face punishment for attending church without giving their names in advance.  Pray that this new requirement will not become a tool of further persecution.

• Three worshippers were abducted by an armed gang after attending church in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Sunday 12 February just days after Antoine Noah, a church minister from Cameroon, was abducted. Pray for our brothers and sisters, asking that they will be kept safe from further harm and swiftly released.

Six Egyptian Christians were released on 17 February after being abducted and illegally detained in neighbouring Libya earlier in the month.  The six men were held at an unofficial detention centre, not controlled by the Libyan authorities.  Give thanks that the six have been able to return home in safety.

Updates on the persecuted Church

Barnabas Fund, 15 February 2023 (excerpts)

• Islamic State Mozambique announced the killing of 5 Christians in Cabo Delgado Province on 4 February.  The Islamists said that “the soldiers of the Caliphate … captured and slaughtered 5 Christians, praise be to God”. Pray for all those at risk of such violence in northern Mozambique, especially our brothers and sisters.
• The Mexican Senate of the Republic (the upper house of Mexico’s parliament) has backed recognition of the Armenian Genocide in a vote held on 8 February.  France already recognises the Armenian Genocide. Between 1893 and 1923, 3.75 million Armenian, Assyrian, Greek and Syriac Christians perished in the Ottoman Empire in a policy of extermination of Christian minorities.  Give thanks for increased awareness of these events.
• Sunita Munawar, 19, a young Pakistani Christian woman, is in hospital after a Muslim man, Kamran Allah Bux, threw acid on her while she was getting off a bus in Karachi on 1 February.  Bux admitted his crime, saying that he threw acid at Sunitra for rejecting his proposal that she convert to Islam and marry him.  Sunita’s family had earlier complained to police about Bux’s unwanted advances but had been ignored.  Pray that justice will be administered to act as a deterrent against harassment of Christian girls and women in Pakistan.

Iraqi Christians were victims of IS war crimes

Barnabas Fund, 8 December 2022 (excerpts)

Iraqi Christians were victims of war crimes committed by Islamic State after the jihadists seized around a third of the country in 2014, investigators reported on 1 December.

The United Nations team said evidence collected in Iraq supports preliminary findings that Islamic State seized Christian-owned properties, looted and destroyed churches and subjected believers to sexual violence, forced conversions and enslavement.

The team has identified leading IS members who seized control in August 2014 of three predominantly Christian towns in the Nineveh plains.

Islamic State was officially declared defeated in Iraq in 2017 following a three-year reign of terror.

An estimated 75% of Iraq’s Christians (around 1.5 million in 1990) have left the country in the last 30 years because of anti-Christian hostility and violence.

Iraqi Christians were victims of IS war crimes

Barnabas Fund, 8 December 2022 (excerpts)

Iraqi Christians were victims of war crimes committed by Islamic State after the jihadists seized around a third of the country in 2014, investigators reported on 1 December.

The United Nations team said evidence collected in Iraq supports preliminary findings that Islamic State seized Christian-owned properties, looted and destroyed churches and subjected believers to sexual violence, forced conversions and enslavement.

The team has identified leading IS members who seized control in August 2014 of three predominantly Christian towns in the Nineveh plains.

It has also started collecting evidence on crimes committed against the Christian community in Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul.

The 26-page report also updated the team’s investigations into attacks on the Yazidi community and other minority communities.

Islamic State was officially declared defeated in Iraq in 2017 following a three-year reign of terror.

In February 2022, factories, shops and parcels of land seized from Christians and Sabeans were restored and given back to their rightful owners.

An estimated 75% of Iraq’s Christians (around 1.5 million in 1990) have left the country in the last 30 years because of anti-Christian hostility and violence.

Approval granted to 125 churches in Egypt

Barnabas, November 22, 2022

The government of Egypt licensed 125 churches and church-affiliated buildings on 14 November.

It is the 24th batch of approvals made since the government committee overseeing the licensing process started work in 2017.

The decision brings the number of churches granted licences to 2,526 out of the 3,730 that applied for registration after a Law for Building and Restoring Churches abolished Ottoman-era restrictions on church buildings in 2016.

At the committee’s previous meeting in April, members approved 239 churches, their largest batch.

To obtain a licence, churches must prove land ownership and comply with structural and safety regulations, including the provision of fire extinguishers.

Before the committee started work it was extremely difficult for churches to obtain a licence and many congregations had no option but to worship illegally in unlicensed buildings.

In 2018 the government permitted Christians to worship in unregistered buildings pending the completion of the licensing process.

Barnabas Fund, 26 October 2022 (excerpts)

Burkina Faso is in danger from Islamist militants, warned army Captain Ibrahim Traore when he was sworn in as interim president of the country on 21 October.

“We are confronted with a security and humanitarian crisis without precedent,” said Traore, who ousted his predecessor, the military leader Paul-Henri Damiba, in a coup on 30 September.

“Our aims are none other than the reconquest of territory occupied by these hordes of terrorists,” he added. “Burkina’s existence is in danger.”

Damiba himself had seized power in January, forcing out Burkina Faso’s last elected president, Roch Kabore.

Both coups resulted from anger among soldiers at the authorities’ failure to curtail Islamist groups who have carried out relentless attacks on civilians, many of them targeted at Christians, at the cost of thousands of lives.

Since 2015, jihadi violence has spread from neighbouring Mali and Niger to affect most regions of Burkina Faso, particularly the north and north-east.

It is estimated that Islamist groups control at least 40 per cent of the country and that two million people have been forced from their homes because of the insurgency.

More than 6,000 schools are shut, 50,000 teachers are without work, many thousands of children have no education, the terrorists prevent people from farming and carry away all the cattle.

Barnabas Fund, 4 October 2022 (excerpts)

Ashwini Upadhyay has requested India’s Supreme Court to implement a nationwide anti-conversion law.  The court on 23 September asked the federal government to submit a response to the petition by 14 November.

Upadhyay argued that “The injury caused to the citizens is extremely large because there is not even one district which is free of religious conversion by ‘hook and crook’.”

11 Indian states have anti-conversion laws that criminalise seeking converts through force, fraud or allurement. These are often misused by extremists as or an excuse for attacking Christians and Muslims.

A similar petition from Upadhyay in the Delhi High Court was dismissed for lack of evidence earlier this year.  On that occasion the two High Court judges asked, “Where are the statistics?  How many conversions happened?  Who is converted?  You say mass conversion is happening, where is the number?”

Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva also opined that “conversion is not prohibited in law”, and that the “right to choose and profess any religion” is “a constitutional right”.

India’s higher courts have a consistent recent record of upholding the rights of Christians.  In March 2022 the Supreme Court rejected a request to monitor the activities of Indian evangelists, declaring to the petitioners, “You are actually disturbing the harmony with these kinds of petitions.”

A brave life lived for Christ

Brother Andrew (1928-2022)

Barnabas Fund 3 October 2022 (excerpts)

The death of Brother Andrew is a salutary moment for those of us supporting and championing the cause of persecuted Christians throughout the world.

Born Anne van der Bijl, in Holland, he became known as Brother Andrew – or “God’s Smuggler” – who delivered Bibles behind the Iron Curtain to the underground Church.

His work led to the founding of Open Doors  ̶  which he chaired until 1995, around the same time that Barnabas came into being.

The inspiration we take from the life of Brother Andrew is threefold.

Firstly, he loved so much that he was prepared to take great risks for the people he served.

Secondly, he prized the Word of God greatly.

Thirdly, he lived a brave life trusting only in the Lord for his safety.

His wife Corry died in 2018; they are survived by five children and 11 grandchildren.