Barnabas Fund, 7 April 2020

A local pastor called for prayer as he reported the arrival of a vast swarm of young desert locusts in north-eastern Uganda.

The immature locusts migrated in a dense swarm from Kenya, at the “worst possible time”, when farmers are planting new crops for a much needed harvest in a few months’ time.  Severe food shortages are anticipated.

“Because these locusts are still young, they are much more dangerous than the previous ones. Their lifespan is still long and they have the capacity to eat and destroy anything that they come across,” the pastor warned.

With the country now battling to contain the coronavirus pandemic, it has been difficult for regional authorities to effectively track the movement of the locusts.

New swarms are now forming and representing an “unprecedented threat to food security and livelihoods”, according to The Food Security Cluster (FSC).

Morning Star News, April 13, 2020

When a convert from Islam in Iran was sentenced to two years in exile in Sarbaz last year, the judge warned him that religious extremists in the remote desert town would treat him harshly.

When Ebrahim Firoozi arrived near the border with Pakistan in November, though, he found that the fear the judge tried to instil in him was unfounded – local Muslims were helpful, open and hospitable.

Upon his arrival in Sarbaz, one person invited him to stay at his home the first night; others quickly found him a place to live.  Local people’s kindness only increased when they learned he was exiled for his Christian faith rather than for a crime.

“I found these people to be very noble,” Firoozi, 34, said in an interview posted on YouTube in which he opened up about his conversion and his years in prison before exile.

He believes this kindness was an answer to the prayers of worried friends, family and others.  “The reason people were nice to me wasn’t because of my own character or my goodness.  It was all because of God.”

Morning Star News, April 10, 2020

Intelligence officials in Cuba have increased harassment of an independent journalist, summoning the Christian and his mother twice in the past two weeks for reporting on human rights issues.

Yoe Suárez has reported in Cuba since 2014 about human rights and freedom of religion issues, including the husband-and-wife team Ramón Rigal and Adya Expósito, imprisoned in 2019 for home-schooling their children.

An intelligence official identifying himself as “Captain Jorge,” summoned Suárez and his mother on April 3 to the Siboney Police Station in Havana and issued a series of implied threats to Suárez’s mother about consequences her 29-year-old son would suffer if he continued working as a reporter outside of Cuban intelligence controls.

“This time they were much less kind than the last,” Suárez said. “He mentioned that I qualified for the crime of mercenarism.”  This crime calls for prison of 10 to 20 years, or death, for a Cuban citizen found guilty of it.

Suárez said the official told him he does not care if a journalist works for a non-state media outlet “as long as he does so under the control of the State Intelligence.’”

Suárez, a member of the Cuban Evangelical League, said authorities are targeting him not for anything specific but due to “a cluster of anger about my work.”

Barnabas Fund, 26 March 2020

A Vietnamese Christian, imprisoned for advocating religious freedom for his Christian Montagnard community, was released in late February, in poor health, after 16 years in prison.

Y Ngun Khul endured beatings from prison guards, leaving him physically scarred, and was repeatedly kicked in the stomach. “Now I can eat only a bowl of rice per day because I have stomach problems that make it hard for me to breathe.” he explained.

During his absence, Y Ngun’s family lost their home and land. They were able to visit him only four times in 16 years, as their Dak Lok home was more than 600 miles away from Nghe An, where Y Ngun was imprisoned.

Ngun was sentenced to 18-years in prison on 20 April 2004 after highlighting the government’s discrimination against and targeting of his community.

Many Montagnard Christians have fled into neighbouring Cambodia and Thailand to escape government-sanctioned persecution. More than 350 Montagnard Christians have been imprisoned by the government since 2001.  Local authorities have attempted to coerce these Vietnamese Christians to recant their faith.  10,000 Montagnards remain stateless because authorities refuse to issue ID cards, household registration or birth certificates, often because they refuse to renounce Christ.

World Watch Monitor,  February 3, 2020

Three churches in Sudan’s southern Blue Nile state, rebuilt after arson attacks in December, were burned down again in January.  On the evening of 28 December, the Sudan Internal Church, Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church in Bout town, near the border with South Sudan, were set alight.

The three churches were restored with local materials, only to be set on fire again by unidentified arsonists on 16 January.

The Minister of Religious Affairs said that the police are investigating. “If it is proven that it occurred as a result of a criminal offence, the perpetrators will be identified, pursued and brought to justice,” he said, reaffirming “Sudan’s full commitment to protecting religious freedoms and “houses of worship from any threats”.

Sudan’s Blue Nile and South Kordofan states are at the centre of an ongoing armed conflict between government forces and militants belonging to the Sudan People Liberation Movement.  Years of fighting has sent hundreds of thousands of people fleeing their homes in the region where most of Sudan’s Christians live.

Morning Star News, March 30, 2020

Police in India’s Tamil Nadu state rushed to a slum where Christians were providing aid earlier this month and detained them on false charges of forcible conversion.

They humiliated the Christians, accusing them in coarse language of trying to fraudulently convert the poor in the guise of providing basic necessities.

Shortly after the pastor and about 30 young adults from the church arrived at the slum area on March 8, a Hindu extremist showed up and began uttering obscenities.

“He started beating the youth missionaries and abused them in extremely foul language,” the pastor said.

The Hindu nationalist told them he had already filed a police complaint against them and the Christians were shocked when police arrived and took them into custody.

“They spoke ill about Christianity and slapped us as we stood there in the police station helplessly,”

Inspector of Police Senthil Vinayagam spoke abusively to the Christians, trying to incite the youths to respond aggressively to his words, but by God’s grace they did not.

Police released them with a warning that they should not be seen again attempting to convert people in the area.

Barnabas Fund 10 March 2020

Christian families set free from the yoke of bonded labour in Pakistan’s brick-kilns because of the generosity of Barnabas Fund supporters are, in turn, releasing their brothers and sisters from the same burden of debt!

The 1,001 families whose lives have been transformed since Barnabas first stepped in to help in 2017 have since given enough money themselves to free another 86 families caught in the quagmire of debt.

Many of the freed families have voluntarily and joyfully set aside a small portion of their wages, low as they are, to donate to a “revolving loan fund” which is used to repay the debts of other bonded Christian labourers. The freed families are thrilled to be in a position to help other believers.

Widower and father-of-two, James Iqbal, who was freed in Phase 1 of the project, back in 2017, said “It will be my utmost priority to lend a hand in this noble cause in helping my other brothers and sisters. We had never imagined that we could be free.”

His contributions and those of other freed families, gathered together, are what have set free the extra 86 Christian families.

Morning Star News March 10, 2020

More than a year ago, Muslims in the area between Sudan and South Sudan noticed that Ahmed Alnour was no longer reciting his Islamic prayers five times a day.

He worked as a scrap trader on the border formed from the peace agreement that ended civil war in Sudan in 2005 but  was soon forced to flee when area Muslims confirmed that he had become a Christian.

He saw them and heard them saying, “We will kill you because you left Islam and became infidel,” and they tried to burn down his home on April 1, 2019.

Neighbours doused the flames and he was unharmed, but on April 8 the assailants returned at 1 a.m. as he slept. He awoke to find his house in flames.

Christians rescued him and took him to a hospital the following morning. He had lost all his possessions in the fire but not his faith in Christ.

The 43-year-old father of 7 children had put his faith in Christ just a few months prior.  Paralyzed from an illness for three months, he received a visit from two evangelists who prayed for him and told him of salvation in Christ.

After placing his trust in Christ, he was healed.  “I was able to get up and walk after three months of sickness.”

Baptized last Christmas, he has got a place to stay and a job from church friends at an undisclosed village but someday hopes to return and tell his family about Christ.

World Watch Monitor March 6, 2020

The UN Secretary-General last week called it ‘the biggest data gap in the world: the unquestioned assumption that men are standard, and women the exception. Very often, women are not counted, and their experiences don’t count.

In its Gender-specific Religious Persecution Report 2020, Open Doors says the two most-reported persecutions used against Christian women and girls globally are sexual violence and forced marriage.

Across every region of the world, sexual violence continues to be the most prevalent means of exerting power and control over Christian women and girls. Often this sexual violence is outside marriage; but forced marriage also gives an appearance of respectability from which a woman cannot escape.

Women are disproportionately targeted, in many more ways than men, especially if they are converts from another faith such as Islam or Buddhism. These young women are physically alive, but they are hidden and isolated; hence their suffering is frequently un-reported. They are also lost to the Christian community and to the future of the Church.

Barnabas Fund, 2 March 2020

Wuhan is the Chinese city of eleven million quarantined following the coronavirus outbreak.

A Wuhan Christian describes how all the churches have become “virtual”, their ministries now run on the internet, because no one is able to visit and worship in person. People are only allowed out of their homes once every two days – and only for food.

At the same time, it is imperative to be in masks and gloves, the whole city is smelling of bleach, entrances, streets and even incoming parcels are disinfected.

“I want to talk you about the needs of believers in Wuhan.  Believers call it the plague.  In fact, many believers fell ill. They got sick at the beginning when it was still possible for them to attend the services.  Pray for them, they are all discouraged.  There is a shortage of medical masks, as well as medical personnel. Many of our brothers and sisters work there as doctors, pray for them also.”