Voice of the Martyrs, 7th December 2023
A church in the Batticaloa area of Sri Lanka conducted their first Christmas Care Pack distribution early in the summer. One of the distribution points was in a hunters’ village deep in the jungle. The children in this village were overjoyed to receive their packs.
No church was in this village prior to the distribution, but this event gave front-line workers the opportunity to negotiate with the village leader to allocate land to build a church. These workers are now in the process of procuring the land. Pray for the church to be firmly established in this village and the whole area.
The island nation of Sri Lanka, off the eastern coast of India, has never fully recovered from a civil war between Buddhist and Hindu factions that ended more than a decade ago. The government has put significant efforts into resettling those displaced during the conflict between the majority-Buddhist Sinhalese population and the Hindu Tamil separatists.
There are strong churches in the country as well as parachurch organizations that provide Bible training, theological education and missions training. Churches in Sri Lanka are actively sending missionaries to other countries in South Asia.
Buddhists are the primary persecutors, sometimes led by Buddhist monks who openly stir up communities against the Christians who live among them. Hindus also oppose evangelism and conversion to Christianity.