Barnabas Fund, 30 March 2021

Dozens of people have been killed and thousands forced to flee after hundreds of Islamist militants attacked a coastal town in Cabo Delgado, a province rich in oil and gas reserves in northern Mozambique, on Wednesday 24 March.

Islamist terrorist group Islamic State boasted on Twitter on Monday of killing at least 55 people, including Christians, Mozambique soldiers, state nationals and “crusaders” (understood to mean Westerners) in a prolonged assault on Palma.

The number of casualties is unclear because many are still unaccounted for; however, a witness said the town and beaches are strewn with bodies “with heads and without”.

Hundreds more people, including children, have fled on foot through the bush and are now arriving at Namoto, about 30 miles from Palma, on the border with Tanzania.

More than 2,500 people are estimated to have been killed and 700,000 displaced since 2017 when militant Islamists began a brutal campaign to establish an Islamist caliphate in Cabo Delgado province.

Christians who refuse to deny Christ are amongst the victims.

Morning Star News, 18 March 2021

Until her death last month at the age of 63, Bolivian attorney Ruth Montaño had done perhaps more than any living person to advance the rights of religious minorities in her Andean homeland.

A specialist in constitutional law and permanent legal counsel to the National Association of Evangelicals of Bolivia, the Cochabamba-based lawyer spent more than two decades defending Christian believers and congregations against discrimination and injustice.

Her greatest professional accomplishment was undoubtedly the passage in September 2019 of Religious Liberty Law 1161.

The product of nine years of research, litigation and negotiation with the government of former president Evo Morales, the Religious Liberty Law guarantees the independence of churches and other faith communities from government interference in their internal affairs.

The law prevents secular officials from dictating how non-Roman Catholic churches must organize their activities, choose leaders and manage their finances.

“It recognizes their freedom to preach, to teach the Word and to use mass communications media. Also, it guarantees the freedom to conduct religious education in accordance with their respective worldviews.”

Barnabas Fund, 12 March 2021

Twenty-four Christians, including two ministers, were attacked and killed by armed militants in western Ethiopia on Sunday 7 March.

The Christians were attending a church service in Horo Guduru Welega zone on the eve of Ethiopian Lent, which began on 8 March.

According to local contacts, members of the militant group OLF Shenie, an offshoot of the Oromo Liberation Front thought to be active in west and south Oromia, surrounded the church and forced members of the congregation to hand over their mobile phones.

The armed men then killed the two ministers outside the church, before taking the other Christians to a nearby forest where they too were killed.

The incident was confirmed by a regional official who said that security forces have been sent to the area.

Morning Star News, March 7, 2021

Church leaders have confirmed reports that Islamic terrorists who threatened to execute a pastor they abducted in northeast Nigeria freed him on March 3.

The president of the Church of Brethren in Nigeria, Joel S. Billi, told church leaders on March 4 that he had spoken to Pastor Bulus Yakura after he was freed.

“Speaking to Yakura over the telephone today was heart-touching,” Billi said, adding that Pastor Yakura told him, “I am fine, thank you for your prayers and concern,” according to Musa.

Nigerian newspaper the Premium Times had reported that Pastor Yakura, a pastor abducted from Pemi village near Chibok, Borno state in an Islamic terrorist attack on Christmas Eve, was freed after Christians met ransom demands.

Morning Star News, March 4, 2021

A court in Algeria has convicted and sentenced in absentia a pastor and another Christian to two years in prison and a heavy fine, accusing them of “shaking the faith” of Muslims with Christian literature at their bookstore.

Pastor Rachid Seighir and Nouh Hamimi learned by a written notification slipped under the door of their church building in Oran that they had been sentenced to prison and fined 500,000 Algerian dinars (US$3,745).

The pastor was the manager of the now-closed bookstore, where Hamimi worked as a salesman. The judgment reads that they are condemned for “distributing publications or any other propaganda undermining the faith of a Muslim.”

Pastor Seighir of Oratoire Church in Oran said the conviction was mere retaliation in a conflict over the bookstore going back to 2008, when he was convicted of the same charges and acquitted on appeal.

“This case is the logical continuation of the three judgments in our case that we have won against the Governor of Oran.  On April 12, 2018, the order was issued by judgment for the closure ordered by the governor to be effectively cancelled.  Unfortunately, the governor resisted and refused to comply.”

The Christians have appealed their conviction and sentence, he said.

Morning Star News, 28 February 2021

Local officials and other tribal animists in a village in eastern India locked council doors, tied up pastor Lakshman Oraon and beat him for more than an hour.

“I did not shout or cry before them,” Pastor Oraon told Morning Star News. “I was praying, praising the Lord, remembering His sacrifice for me on the cross.”

The elders of Jungur village, Latehar District in Jharkhand state had summoned him and other village Christians on Jan. 24 to demand that they help fund the ritual worship of tribal deities. When he refused, he said, they tied his hands behind his back, knocked him to the floor and struck his back, head and face.

“When they tied me and started kicking me, I was not at all angry. The Lord reminded me of the verses in Matt. 5:11-12,” Pastor Oraon said, reciting in Hindi Christ’s statement that followers are blessed when others revile and persecute them, and that they rejoice. “I received great strength from these words. There was a smile on my face all through.”

Barnabas Fund, 19 February 2021

New government measures, which will include a database of church leaders, look set to introduce even more state control over Christian ministry in China.

The Measures for the Administration of Religious Personnel issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, first announced in November 2020, will come into effect on 1 May 2021.

Key among the measures is the creation of “a database of religious personnel” listing all those authorised by the state to perform religious ministry. Church leaders not registered in this database will not be permitted to undertake ministry.

In order to be registered church leaders must be those who “love the motherland, support the leadership of the Communist Party of China, support the socialist system, abide by the constitution, laws, regulations, and rules, [and] practice the core values ​​of socialism”.

The database will include “the basic information of religious personnel” and each pastor, or other religious leader, added will be given an identification number.

The new rules obligate churches and religious organisations to conduct formal assessment of their  pastors. The churches must use this assessment to apply “rewards and punishments”, which will also be recorded in the database.

Voice of the Martyrs, 25 February 2021

A Syrian boy who came to Christ while taking refuge in another country continues to follow the Lord.

Ishmael left Syria with his family when the war broke out. He started school in the country where they were living as refugees but had to leave school at age 8 in order to work and help his father provide for the family.

A front-line worker met Ishmael and helped him get back into school. “I became like an older brother to him,” the front-line worker wrote, and he and Ishmael met for weekly Bible studies.

After several years, Ishmael’s family decided to return to Syria, and Ishmael has kept in touch with the front-line worker. “Sometimes he reminds me to study the Bible even more than what is in our Bible study program,” the front-line worker said.

Pray for Ishmael to continue to grow in his faith and pray for him to be able to continue his education. Pray also for the front-line worker who is touching the lives of many Syrians like Ishmael.

Morning Star News, 12 February 2021

Renowned French film-maker, journalist, and philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, hardly a right-wing “Islamophobe,” is among those who have made reports that indicate funding from Islamist organizations abroad is behind the radicalization of mosques in Nigeria.

Radical mosques and Islamic schools contribute to the kind of violence perpetrated by Fulani herdsmen, leading to the well-founded fear of slaughter that many Christian villagers in north-central Nigeria experience each night.

“Such fear is hardly ‘phobic.’ It indicates a very real and increasing danger that cannot be overlooked,” writes Lela Gilbert, senior fellow for religious freedom at the Family Research Council, in a recent report. “And such danger should not be ignored by those who have the power and means to confront and contest it.”

In her report, “The Crisis of Christian Persecution in Nigeria,” Gilbert notes that international media contribute to the ignorance of the ongoing slaughters in Nigeria among people in the United States.

“Because many reporters and others in the media often operate from a secularist worldview, religious concerns are frequently overlooked by ill-informed commentators and analysts,” she reports. “Worse yet, far too many incidents remain unreported altogether. This lack of reporting is occurring while one of the 21st century’s worst atrocities unfolds.”

The Voice of the Martyrs, 11 February 2021

After Muslim mobs destroyed 12 churches in the Alaba zone in 2019, believers waiting for their churches to be rebuilt report an increased dedication to missions and outreach in their communities.

In a single day, extremists moved through the town of Alaba Kulito and destroyed 12 church buildings. Two years later, church leaders and evangelists now report that their congregations are more motivated than ever to share the gospel with their persecutors.

One congregation sent five evangelists to an unreached people group. Another evangelist reported that more people responded to the gospel message in the previous two months than in six months of previous work.

“The persecution has awakened the churches for missions. We were prioritizing buildings, furnishing them and buying other materials. But now our number one priority is missions,” one of the church elders said.

“After the persecution we haven’t raised funds for church buildings and other materials but for missions.” Praise God for the attitude of the believers and pray for changed hearts as a result of their efforts.