Missions Insider
Exclusive Stories from the Mission Field
January 19, 2023
A woman in a remote jungle village of Brazil learned half of the gospel by habitually partying and getting drunk. Camila* didn’t need anyone to tell her that sin led to despair and spiritual death, because she had lived it by pursuing empty pleasures, a native Christian leader said. “She said that it no longer gave her joy,” he said. “She was very sad and with great despair for the future of life, especially when she thought about man’s eternity.”
January 12, 2023
The mother of a refugee boy in Turkey became angry at him for reading the New Testament he had received from local Christian workers and ordered him to do his schoolwork. “Mother, you are like the Prophet Jesus’ disciples,” he said. “You are keeping me from drawing close to the Prophet Jesus!” Stunned, his mother asked him where he had read this.
January 5, 2023
A native missionary in a Muslim-majority country in sub-Saharan Africa could have guessed what persecution awaited him when he put his faith in Christ, but he never imagined what would follow. In the years since Ibrahim Kabore* received Christ’s salvation as a newly married young man, he helped plant 13 churches. The initial cost of accepting Christ was steep. “My wife and everything I had was taken away from me,” Kabore said. “I was forced to flee to save my life.”
December 29, 2022
As native ministry workers in Greece began building trust with a Muslim refugee from a country in the Middle East, she told them how she had married at 14 and that her husband had physically abused her. She had divorced her husband, but they were living together again for the sake of the children – though he continued to verbally abuse her. The refugee mother of four had obtained replacement documents with help from the workers, but she continued to come to the ministry office for no apparent reason.
December 15, 2022
When a local Christian worker in Burma (Myanmar) visiting homes knocked on one door in the country devastated by a military coup, he didn’t realize a military family lived there. Area residents were resentful and/or terrified of the family since the February 2021 coup unleashed havoc in the country – protests, crackdowns and sheer random violence left many areas paralyzed. “This family had the feeling that they were isolated, because military personnel were hated by all the people,” the leader of a native ministry said.
December 1, 2022
The Muslim uncle of a 17-year-old girl under demonic influence was visibly irritated when local missionaries showed up at the door of their home in a refugee camp. The Muslim parents of the girl had requested they come to their home at the camp in Lebanon for Syrian refugees, but her uncle did not approve, especially as it was the Islamic month of Ramadan and the girl had already driven out a Muslim cleric who tried to help her. “The cleric had been met by the young woman’s screams and her aggressively pushing him away from the home,” said the leader of the local ministry. “As he began to leave, their daughter encouraged his quick movement from the property as she picked up stones and began throwing them his way. He left promptly and did not return nor seek out her parents.”
Exclusive stories from the mission field