barnabasaid
barnabasfund.org JANUARY/ FEBRUARY 2018
BARNABAS FOR THETHE PERSECUTED CHURCH - BRINGING HOPE TO SUFFERING CHRISTIANS BARNABASFUND FUND- AID - AIDAGENCY AGENCY FOR PERSECUTED CHURCH
THROUGH FIRE AND SWORD
Helping the first generation church in the Former Soviet Union
PAKISTAN
Freeing Christian brick kiln labourers from bondage
PULL-OUT
A history of Christian persecution, part 4: Islam
Standing with
new believers in the Former Soviet Union
What helps make Barnabas Fund distinctive from other Christian organisations that deal with persecution?
The Barnabas Fund Distinctive We work by:
●● directing our aid only to Christians, although its
benefits may not be exclusive to them (“As we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.” Galatians 6:10, emphasis added)
●● aiming the majority of our aid at Christians living in Muslim environments
●● channelling money from Christians through Christians to Christians
●● channelling money through existing structures in the countries where funds are sent (e.g. local churches or Christian organisations)
●● using the money to fund projects that have
been developed by local Christians in their own communities, countries or regions
●● considering any request, however small ●● acting as equal partners with the persecuted Church, whose leaders often help shape our overall direction
How to find us International Headquarters The Old Rectory, River Street, Pewsey, Wiltshire SN9 5DB, UK Telephone 01672 564938 Fax 01672 565030 From outside UK: Telephone +44 1672 564938 Fax +44 1672 565030 Email info@barnabasfund.org New Zealand PO Box 276018, Manukau City, Auckland, 2241 Telephone (09) 280 4385 or 0800 008 805 Email office@barnabasfund.org.nz Australia PO BOX 3527, LOGANHOLME, QLD 4129 Telephone (07) 3806 1076 or 1300 365 799 Fax (07) 3806 4076 Email bfaustralia@barnabasfund.org
barnabasaid the magazine of Barnabas Fund Published by Barnabas Aid Inc. 6731 Curran St, McLean, Virginia 22101, USA Email info@barnabasfund.org
●● acting on behalf of the persecuted Church, to
be their voice – making their needs known to Christians around the world and the injustice of their persecution known to governments and international bodies
We seek to:
●● meet both practical and spiritual needs ●● encourage, strengthen and enable the existing local Church and Christian communities – so they can maintain their presence and witness rather than setting up our own structures or sending out missionaries
●● facilitate global intercession for
the persecuted Church by providing comprehensive prayer materials
We believe:
●●we are called to address both religious and secular ideologies that deny full religious liberty to Christian minorities – while continuing to show God’s love to all people
●● in the clear Biblical teaching that Christians
should treat all people of all faiths with love and compassion, even those who seek to persecute them
●● tackle persecution at its root by making
●● in the power of prayer to change people’s lives
●● inform and enable Christians in the West
“Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”
known the aspects of the Islamic faith and other ideologies that result in injustice and oppression of non-believers to respond to the growing challenge of Islam to Church, society and mission in their own countries
and situations, either through grace to endure or through deliverance from suffering
(Matthew 25:40)
You may contact Barnabas Fund at the following addresses UK 9 Priory Row, Coventry CV1 5EX Telephone 024 7623 1923 Fax 024 7683 4718 From outside the UK Telephone +44 24 7623 1923 Fax +44 24 7683 4718 Email info@barnabasfund.org Registered charity number 1092935 Company registered in England number 4029536 For a list of all trustees, please contact Barnabas Fund UK at the Coventry address above. USA 6731 Curran St, McLean, VA 22101 Telephone (703) 288-1681 or toll-free 1-866-936-2525 Fax (703) 288-1682 Email usa@barnabasaid.org
To guard the safety of Christians in hostile environments, names may have been changed or omitted. Thank you for your understanding. Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and obtain permission for stories and images used in this publication. Barnabas Fund apologises for any errors or omissions and will be grateful for any further information regarding copyright.
Germany German supporters may send gifts for Barnabas Fund via Hilfe für Brüder who will provide you with a tax-deductible receipt. Please mention that the donation is for “SPC 20 Barnabas Fund”. If you would like your donation to go to a specific project of Barnabas Fund, please inform the Barnabas Fund office in Pewsey, UK. Account holder: Hilfe für Brüder International e.V. Account number: 415 600 Bank: Evang Kreditgenossenschaft Stuttgart IBAN: DE89520604100000415600 BIC: GENODEF1EK1 Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland PO Box 354, Bangor, BT20 9EQ Telephone 028 91 455 246 or 07875 539003 Email ireland@barnabasfund.org
Unless otherwise stated, Scripture quotations are taken from the New International Version®. Front Cover: Barnabas Fund helped to provide a building for this convert church in Central Asia © Barnabas Aid Inc. 2018. For permission to reproduce articles from this magazine, please contact the International Headquarters address above.
Singapore Cheques in Singapore dollars payable to “Olive Aid Trust” may be sent to: Olives Aid Sdn Bhd, P.O. Box 03124 Subang Jaya, 47507 Selangor, MALAYSIA Singaporean supporters may send gifts for Barnabas Fund online via Olive Aid Trust: Beneficiary: OLIVE AID TRUST Bank Name: United Overseas Bank (Malaysia) Berhad Swift Code: UOVBMYKL Location: KUALA LUMPUR Account Number: 140-901-654-0
To donate by credit/debit card, please visit the website www.barnabasfund.org or by phone at (09) 280 4385 or 0800 008 805
Editorial
Contents
How are we to live as Christians in 2018?
4 Former Soviet Union
By
5
We live in a world which rejects the idea of truth and absolute rights and wrongs
We can see how God is afflicting the world today. Even people who are strangers to us are related to us, because we are all made in the image of God, and have a common nature which should be a mutual bond of love and brotherhood. Then there is a far closer union between ourselves and the suffering of believers who are scattered here and there in all churches which God has chastened on every side. Indeed, we see troubles everywhere; we see fires burning; we hear that the throats of poor innocent people have been cut; that they have been subjected to mockery and contempt, and that they are being led to the slaughter. We see the enemies of truth ready to annihilate everything, and we do not know what God is intending to do. Nevertheless, see how his sword is unsheathed. The fire, as I have said, is kindled and we do not know how far it will burn. Let us thus allow ourselves to be genuinely touched by mourning, anxiety and grief so that we will not be careless, hardened or unfeeling over what our poor brothers are going through.
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Bethlehem
Christian School students shine in new building
Pull-out
the time you are reading this, people around the world will have spent billions to mark the birthday of One whom they do not believe in, One whom they blaspheme, One whom they vilify, whose followers they despise and even persecute. We in the West live in an age of rampant materialism, where money is expected to bring happiness. But it rarely does. As Emile Henry Gauvreay said, people are “spending their lives doing things they detest, to make money they don’t want, to buy things they don’t need, to impress people they dislike.” We are no longer defined by our character but by our affluence. There is a Jewish saying that during our lifetime we have three main friends who leave us when we die. Immediately, we lose our wealth. Families stay with us until we are laid to rest in the cemetery; then they too leave us and get on with their own lives. It is only our name – our good deeds, the good influence we may have had on others – that outlives us. This obsession with money is abhorred in the Bible. The prophet Amos describes an age of luxury and complacency, which will carry with it grave judgement from God (Amos 6:1-7). The Jewish rabbis, in accordance with the Jewish scriptures, saw that wealth could not buy happiness, nor could materialism satisfy. While success may be getting what you want, happiness is wanting what you get. “He who increases possessions increases worry,” said Rabban Gamliel (Ethics of the Fathers, Avos, 2:7), but “Who is the happy person? One who takes pleasure in his lot,” said Ben Zoma (Avos, 4:1). The Apostle Paul tells us, “Godliness with contentment is great gain,” (1 Timothy 6:6). Worse still, materialism can lead people to deny the sufferings of their fellow human beings and creates the hardness of heart which Amos condemns. This complacency and indifference to others has become a hallmark of our modern age, an age based on relativism where the only thing that matters is pleasure and personal freedom. We live in a world which rejects the idea of truth and absolute rights and wrongs, where the concept of fighting for justice and righteousness seems nonsensical, where the only thing worth defending is our own personal liberties defined by our inclinations and feelings. At the start of a new year, we see a grave humanitarian and refugee crisis, financial uncertainties, coupled with war and conflict. How are we to live as Christians in 2018? Perhaps we can find an answer in words written nearly half a millennium ago, by John Calvin in his sermon on 2 Samuel 1:
Through fire and sword
A History of Christian Persecution part 4: Islam
11
Guinea
Helping persecuted converts to stand on their feet and thrive
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In Brief
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Compassion in Action
16
Pakistan
Churches in Mali attacked and torched by Islamists
Food aid – a “gift from heaven” for refugees in Armenia
Christian families set free from bonded labour
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In Touch
Small change – big difference
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4 January/February 2018 Barnabas Aid
Through fire and sword Barnabas Fund’s work in the Former Soviet Union
The Former Soviet Union
Barnabas Aid January/February 2018 5
Due to security reasons, we are often not able to publish individual names or locations of the individuals and church groups Barnabas Fund works with in the FSU.
God
is doing a wonderful work in Central Asia. In these isolated countries – which for 1,400 years were ruled by Islam before enduring more than half a century under a tyrannical Communist regime that suppressed religion – a new church is being born. The break-up of the former Soviet Union (FSU) in the late 1990s created new countries and paved the way for the birth of new churches, made up of converts in people groups where in many cases there has been no known Christian presence before. Today, in regions where poverty is rife and persecution is the norm, people are turning to Christ in their thousands. Barnabas Fund is privileged to be able to stand alongside to resource and help many of these new believers.
relocate. Our project partner wrote to Barnabas Fund, “Unfortunately, in the last few years we see more and more such cases in Kyrgyzstan.” Barnabas Fund is providing regular support to pastors across Central Asia who encourage and disciple vulnerable new believers, so they can grow in their faith. “Karim” and his wife regularly travel 60 miles to visit a Christian convert, who faces hostility from her family and her entire village. They pray together with her and share God’s Word at a local café.
THE FIRST STEPS OF A YOUNG CHURCH
There were almost no ethnic Kazakh Christians when the Soviet Union splintered in 1990. Ten years later, there were more than 6,000 Christian converts from Islam. Like Kyrgyzstan, its mountainous neighbour, Kazakhstan is majority Muslim (around 70%), but until recently Christians in both countries were permitted relative freedom. However, secular governments have in the last decade cracked down on religion under the guise of preventing “extremism.” Already restrictive laws in Kazakhstan look set to be tightened still further to curtail “destructive religious movements,” which in the eyes of authorities includes evangelical Christians. In one example of police actions against Christians, on Easter Sunday 2017, police raided two churches and issued fines to the congregations for meeting without prior registration. In Kyrgyzstan, children are not permitted to be involved in religious groups and amended laws may soon require churches to have 500 members before they can register. The experience for Kyrgyz believers is very similar to those in Kazakhstan. In both countries, as across the region, Muslim converts are at risk of violence from their own family and community. Muslims came to “Jyrgal’s” house and beat her and her husband. Jyrgal, a Kyrgyz convert from Islam to Christianity, was injured so badly she was hospitalised. The little house where they live was set on fire and the family were forced to
Karim and his wife travel 60 miles to encourage and disciple one lady whose “faith is very fragile because all the village inhabitants and relatives are very hostile to her” A Christian from Uzbekistan recently told Barnabas Fund his country always used to be the worst of the “Stans” for persecution, but now, because of the deterioration in the treatment of Christians in other countries, all the Central Asian republics are much the same as Uzbekistan. No Uzbek Bible translation was available until 2017, but believers reading the Scriptures risk a steep fine if they are discovered by authorities. Although the roots of Christianity in Turkmenistan can be traced back to the third century, the sparsely populated country (much of which is desert) is majority-Muslim and ethnic Turkmen identity is closely linked with Islam. Two Christians were brought before a judge after one of them was caught reading a Christian book at work. The judge told them, “If you want to know about God, read the Quran.” The two believers were fined more than two months average local wages and were forced to hand over all their Christian literature. Paying such fines can be a huge challenge for impoverished believers.
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PERSECUTION AND POVERTY
In many FSU countries, economic prospects are so poor that believers – and sometimes even church leaders – feel they have no choice but to emigrate in search of a better life. In places like Tajikistan, where Christians make up only 2% of the population, poverty is one of the greatest challenges facing the first-generation church. Barnabas Fund is equipping Christians to start their own businesses, so they can provide for themselves and their families – and not be faced with the stark choice of living in severe poverty or making a risky move to another country. Christian converts can sometimes be out of work because they have been ostracised by their community. Barnabas is helping one family of converts in Central Asia, whom no one would employ, to start their own business. We are also assisting a much persecuted pastor’s family to begin a cattle farming project. Members of the pastor’s congregation, although they cannot afford to pay him a salary, are contributing to help set up the pastor’s business and will assist with veterinary care for his animals and looking after the land.
46
Over the last five years, Barnabas Fund has supported 46 church planters in 9 FSU countries
Providing business opportunities can help small Christian communities hold together and give church leaders – often ministering in hostile majority-Muslim contexts – the support they need to remain in difficult situations. In addition to assisting business start-ups, Barnabas Fund has helped with medical costs for long term and urgent medical needs. Pastor Hudoer wrote to express his gratitude: “I thank God for your ministry. I had big problems with stomach and prostate gland and thanks to your financial help I could have medical treatment. Now I am in complete recovery from these problems and I feel very well. I have a new power of living and ministry. I can serve God and make Him glad.” Even though they face huge challenges, many church leaders continue to witness the Gospel with great faith. One wrote to Barnabas Fund, “In the book of Revelation it is written that before the throne of God in heaven there will be a great multitude in white robes from every nation, language and tribe. I believe God says that from our people, there will also be representatives there. But today there are still so few … Jesus also commands today to go and make disciples of Him all over the world. We are trying to fulfil His commission.”
THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL
Openly sharing their faith can put Christians who live in many countries in the FSU in danger. In 2005, a Kyrgyz Christian pastor and convert, who had previously received death threats from local Muslim leaders, was murdered; his body showed evidence of being beaten and he had been stabbed multiple times in the back. Pages had been ripped from a Bible and thrown around the room. But despite such opposition, the message of the Gospel continues to spread. Barnabas Fund’s support for a radio ministry in the Caucasus has touched untold lives. During live broadcasts, the team receive emails, texts and calls from believers who have been encouraged and also from people hearing the Gospel for the first time. The team cannot respond individually to every person, but they pray for each one. One Muslim woman accidentally tuned in and began reading the Psalms, without telling her husband or relatives. She contacted the station with an urgent question: “Is an ordinary person allowed to read the Word of God, or are only priests allowed to do so?” The woman responded joyfully when the team replied, “God wants us not only to read the Bible but is even longing that we would
The Former Soviet Union
Barnabas Aid January/February 2018 7
A Christian radio ministry in the Caucasus has broadcast the message of the Gospel to hard-to-reach countries across the region. It is impossible to know how many have been brought to faith in Christ as a result
freely communicate directly with Him, without an intermediary.” Although most congregations are numerically small in number, the growth of the FSU church is an inspirational story of the transforming power of the Gospel. But congregations of converts can find it very hard to meet together, especially when gathering in homes to pray and worship is not permitted by law. Church buildings therefore provide an indispensable resource and are the only place believers in several FSU countries are able to gather without risking costly fines or imprisonment.
BUILDING UP THE CHURCH
One congregation in Central Asia, which started in a house in 2013 but is already 60-strong, is receiving help from Barnabas to acquire their own building to hold Sunday worship, Bible study and men’s and women’s ministries, as well as a youth group. In a different town in the same country, Barnabas are providing a new heating system for another church building. The congregation use the building not just for services, but for festivals and family celebrations – Barnabas Fund’s Project Partner said, “All Christian life is in the church building.” A permanent building is not only a real asset to a church, but in many countries in the FSU enables the church to begin the process of potential registration – although authorities in Kazakhstan have refused to allow any new Evangelical churches to register since 2010. Elsewhere, we are assisting five congregations to renovate their buildings. Most church buildings in the country are at least 20 years
old and in need of repair. Christian gatherings outside of official church buildings are illegal and the authorities pay close attention to meeting activities; renovating and repairing a dilapidated church building can give a new lease of life to a Christian community under pressure. Even in countries where Christians do not face outright persecution, buildings provide an important place for collective worship and community. Georgia was one of the very first Christian nations, but historically has fought to retain its Christian identity against the Ottomans and Persians. In the mid-16th century, the Shah of Iran persecuted and deported thousands of Christians. Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, there has been a significant move of God amongst Georgian Muslims. One of the two main historically Muslim ethnic groups, Adjarians, was 70% Muslim until the late 20th Century, but is now 70% Christian. But Islam is influencing politics in the country, even though Muslims comprise only around 10% of the population. While mosques get registration easily, regulations are becoming increasingly difficult for evangelical churches. Barnabas Fund is helping an evangelical church in Georgia to repair or replace ceilings and flooring and fix electrical systems. The church is reaching out to its local community by providing practical help and youth work, as well as aiding Ukrainian refugees who have fled the conflict in South Ossetia (for details of Barnabas Fund’s work in the Ukraine see Barnabas Aid November/December 2017, pages 16-17). As the church in the FSU is in most countries younger than 30 years old, church leaders and believers are hungry for training and teaching.
The Former Soviet Union
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Registration requirements in Central Asian republics in November 2017 Changes expected to regulations
Country
Congregation
Building
Notes
Kazakhstan
Required (minimum of 50 adult members to register)
Not required
Draft regulations will require buildings to be registered as “religious” and will apply to all religious organisations.
Kyrgyzstan
Required (minimum 250 members)
Required
Congregation registration requirement may increase to 500. Religious groups can register and gather for prayer, but must be registered as a church to preach, share their faith or engage in religious education
Required (minimum 10 members)
Not required
Turkmenistan
Required (minimum 50 members)
Not required
Gathering to worship in any private home is illegal.
Uzbekistan
Required (minimum 100 members)
Required
Worship in private homes is prohibited by law.
Tajikistan
2,100
Registered churches can rent premises for their activities
More than 2,100 Christians in FSU countries have received training with the assistance of Barnabas Fund since 2013
Seventy-six Christians from small churches were helped through a project in one country in Central Asia. A team ran three to four-day training sessions on basic Bible study and John’s Gospel. Because of the training, believers became more confident in their understanding of the Scriptures and new house churches have started in three villages. The team is now training leaders for each of the new congregations. Barnabas Fund is also enabling 40 believers from Muslim backgrounds in another country in Central Asia to meet up for training four times in a year. The believers, from four different rural village congregations, receive three days of Bible training to strengthen and encourage them in their faith, from trainers who are also believers from Muslim backgrounds. The churches served are all made up of converts and come from villages where Islamic clergy are stirring up local Muslims against them.
Another series of training sessions equipped 18 Christians involved in church leadership – eight men and ten women – to better understand Christian doctrine and teach practical skills for Christian work and evangelism. One of the students, Gulbara, said, “We have completed second year of this study and I like this study. I met other brothers and sisters whom I didn’t know before and I like to talk with them on spiritual topics. All of them are great example for me. I love Jesus very much and I learned many spiritual and practical things.” Following the training, Barnabas Fund received the following message: “Please pray for our new home groups which we plan to open soon. We thank your [Barnabas] Fund that we could train our church leader and they can work in church more effectively. They want to do more for Jesus but they have needed skills and knowledge until now.”
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Barnabas Fund has helped to purchase, build, or repair 54 church buildings in the FSU since 2013
Often Christian literature, including Bibles, is hard to come by for believers in the FSU. In some cases it is illegal to import it, while believers can also be fined or imprisoned for having Christian literature in their possession. Pastor Bakhrom Kholmatov, a 42-year-old father of three from Khujand, Tajikistan, was jailed for three years in September 2017 for allegedly "inciting national, racial, local or religious hatred or dissension.” He was charged after police confiscated church hymnbooks, which they claimed were “extremist and call on people to overthrow the government.” In addition to helping with translation and printing of literature, Barnabas Fund is also enabling the creation of a unique online open library with Christian books and Scripture resources that will first be available in Russian and eventually in 29 other languages. It will provide an unparalleled resource for believers in
countries where it can be extremely difficult to obtain Christian literature, or even dangerous for believers to keep printed literature in their homes.
THE FRONT LINE OF THE FAITH
The countries of the FSU are on the front line of the growth of Christianity. Although a few have historically had Christian populations, most became majority Muslim following the invasion of Islam in the eighth century. Since the 1990s, Muslims in their thousands have turned to Christ, planting churches, discipling new believers and sharing the Gospel despite opposition from local Muslims and the state. Christians in the FSU experience poverty, hardship and often violent persecution and repression at the hands of authorities. Despite this, there is great growth among first-generation churches, who are stepping out in faith with the aid of Barnabas Fund.
A three-day seminar for 27 Muslim-background church leaders from a country in Central Asia. They were able to help and encourage one another, and share times of fellowship. Barnabas Fund has also provided training for 40 church leaders in the same country covering the basics of faith, Bible study, prayer, as well as church ministry and discipleship
Bethlehem School
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Christian students shining bright in Bethlehem Children are excited about the new school building made possible by Barnabas Fund
“One of the best schools” in the country is now even better! St Aphrem’s School in Beit Jala, Bethlehem, now has a high school (secondary school) building thanks to Barnabas Fund supporters.
T
he new building provides the older students with ten classrooms, a science laboratory, and an art room. Over 200 students have moved into the building, which was completed in August 2017.
Major milestone
The Grade 12 students now using the building were the first pupils when the school opened in 2003 with just one kindergarten class. At that time, the school was one small building. These 15 children have grown with the school and are as much part of the school’s fabric as the new building itself. God willing, they will be the school’s first graduates after their General Secondary Education Examinations at the end of this academic year – a major milestone! Construction of the new building began with the foundation stone laid in January 2016. When it was still only half completed in February 2017, more than 90 students relocated into the building as the junior school building was full to bursting. The head teacher observed how “one of
the girls felt that her future has been set right as she felt she was in her beloved high school thanks to our Lord and Barnabas Fund.”
demonstrating the Palestinian Directorate of Schools’ confidence – usually licences are renewed for just two years. The Palestinian Minister of Education has said the school is “one of the best schools” in the country.
Growing with demand
Barnabas Fund has supported the school since it began, with major help for building and running costs. Because of our financial input the school can offer places to children from even the poorest Christian families. In 2003, there were 15 children enrolled at St Aphrem’s. Fourteen years later the school has around 600 students. It is a haven of peace, love and learning – a stimulating and beautiful environment, greatly appreciated by the many children who come from very poor and needy homes living in a context of deprivation, discrimination and conflict. But most importantly it is a Christian environment, with a strong emphasis on prayer, the Bible and Christian teaching. Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke, is one of the subjects taught.
One of the best schools
In 2017, the school had its licence renewed for a further five years,
The new high school building at St Aphrem’s is now fully in use
Sponsorship programme Regular donors to can receive a card with the name and details of one of the school students to remember in their prayers. A twice-yearly newsletter about the school is also provided. The cost per child per month is about $70 but you do not have to give the full amount in order to sponsor a child. Please contact the Barnabas Fund office in Auckland (see inside front cover). Project reference 65-420
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A History of
Entrance to 4th century church in Saudi Arabia. See page ii. Source: aina.org
Christian Persecution 4
Islam
T
he devastating effect of the rise of Islam in the seventh century has been described as “greater than any other setback in Christianity’s two thousand years of history”.1 After only a hundred years, Palestine, where the Lord Jesus lived His earthly life, and many other countries around the Mediterranean, including major centres of Christianity in North Africa where towering figures such as Tertullian and Augustine had lived, were all under Islamic rule. The Christian presence then began to dwindle away, either swiftly or slowly. Within a few centuries some countries, such as modern Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, had no indigenous Christians left at all; today’s Christian communities in these countries are completely new, comprised mainly of first and second generation converts from Islam. In other countries, such as Syria and Iraq, historic Christian communities have clung on until the twenty-first century, albeit greatly reduced in size. But the rapid Christian exodus in response to the radical Islam and Islamist violence of our day means that these countries too may soon be emptied of all Christian witness. All this began in Arabia, where the first Islamic state was established in AD 622.
Christianity in pre-Islamic Arabia
Arabia in the early seventh century was sandwiched between the two superpowers of the time, who were locked in a long-running conflict with each other. To the west lay the Byzantine Empire,2 which was predominantly Christian. To the east lay the Persian Empire, which was predominantly Zoroastrian. Arabia itself was largely pagan, inhabited by many tribes who worshipped numerous gods. Living
amongst the pagan Arabs were communities of Jews who had settled in various trading cities, bringing with them their rabbis, Scriptures and synagogues. There were also a number of Christian communities. Christians from India and Persia seem to have played a major part in advancing their faith in Arabia, but some of the earliest Christian influence came from Christian ascetics living in the desert who had encounters with the desert-dwelling Arabs. There were probably eight Christian dioceses (bishoprics) in pre-Islamic Arabia, showing the strength of the Christian presence. One of these was Najran, which, according to the Muslim historian Ibn Ishaq (died c. 761), was the first place that Christianity took root in southern Arabia. It was a Syrian builder and bricklayer called Phemion (also spelled Faymiyun), captured by the Arabs and sold as a slave, who brought Christianity to the people of Najran, around AD 500. They had previously worshipped a tall date-palm tree. The first Najranite to decide to follow Christ was their chief, Abdullah ibn ath-Thamir, and his oasis town went on to become an important centre of Christianity in southern Arabia.3 Another diocese in the south was Sanaa (the capital of modern Yemen) and a third was the island of Socotra, which is governed by Yemen. The other five Arabian dioceses lay along the north-eastern coast. The furthest north were Dairin (in modern Saudi Arabia) and Mashmahig (modern Bahrain), both of which were in existence by AD 410. By 424 there was a diocese called Beth Mazunaye or Mazon (modern Oman). The diocese of Hagar is mentioned in 576, from which the diocese of Hatta (modern United Arab Emirates) was later carved out, perhaps before the advent of Islam and certainly by the year 676. At some point these five northern dioceses were put under the authority of a more senior bishop, the metropolitan of Beth Qatraye (modern Qatar).
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Though structurally well established, even in Arabia, the Church at this time was already divided (1) Syrians versus Persians, and (2) along bitterly contested theological lines.
Archaeological evidence for Christianity in pre-Islamic Arabia
• The island of Sir Bani Yas, just off the coast of Abu Dhabi, has archaeological remains of a Christian monastery dating from around the year 600. Some of the rooms were decorated with plaster crosses. This site was opened to the public in 2010. • The foundations of another ancient Christian monastery are to be found in the village of Samaheej in Bahrain. • In the 1980s the ruins of an ancient church building were discovered in Saudi Arabia, near to the town of Jubail and thought to date from the fourth century. No visitors are allowed. Crosses carved into the stone have been well preserved under the sand which covered the building for centuries.
Saudi Arabia: cross designs on a church probably dating from 4th century. Source: aina.org
Muhammad
According to Islamic tradition, one of the pagan Arabs was a merchant called Muhammad, born in 570. Around the age of 40, he began to “receive” what he believed were messages from Allah for humankind brought to him by the angel Gabriel. These messages, which continued for more than two decades, were later collected by his followers and eventually written down to form the Quran. Very few people in Muhammad’s home town, Mecca, believed his teaching about the one true Allah. Rejection became hostility, and hostility became violence. Muhammad and his small band of followers fled from Mecca. Many Jews and Christians at this time were sympathetic to Muhammad’s teaching because of its emphasis on belief in one God and its condemnation of paganism. In any case Muhammad, at this point in time, was preaching only to the pagans, and accepted the validity of Judaism and Christianity. So there were good relations between the three faiths. It is not surprising therefore that Muhammad sent some of his persecuted followers to the Christian kingdom of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) where they were welcomed
and given refuge. But Muhammad himself and the other early Muslims went to another Arabian city, now called Medina.4 The people of Medina welcomed Muhammad and his teaching. After years of internal conflict they were pleased to have a strong leader to unite all the Arab tribes. Before long he was Medina’s ruler, legislator, supreme judge and military commander. The first Islamic state had been born. For ten years, Muhammad ruled Medina. During this time, his Muslim armies spread out across the Arabian Peninsula to conquer, subdue and stamp on it the religion of Islam. This was jihad. Also during this time, friction developed between Muhammad and some Jewish tribes who refused to recognise his prophethood or to practise the customs of Islam. Muhammad responded by modifying his earlier teaching and told his followers to treat Jews and Christians as enemies not friends. By the time Muhammad died in 632, all the tribes of Arabia, including those in Mecca, had submitted to him in some form or another.
Muhammad’s successors
The series of caliphs who led the Arab Muslim community after Muhammad’s death followed his example, and indeed his plans, and continued to seize territory and put it under Islamic rule. They began with the Christian Byzantine Empire: in 635 the Arab Muslim armies took Damascus, in 636 the rest of Syria, in 638 Jerusalem, in 642 Alexandria and all Egypt. In the year that Egypt fell, the Muslims launched an offensive against the Persian Empire and by 652 this too was conquered. At the same time they began conquering their way westwards from Egypt along North Africa, and in 711 crossed over to Spain by way of the rock now called Gibraltar. (This name is derived from Jabal-Tarik, meaning the mountain of Tarik. Tarik was the Muslim general who led this army.) From southern Spain the Muslims advanced northwards until they were well into the area of modern France (a name derived from the Franks who had settled there some 300 years earlier). Meanwhile another Muslim army was moving anti-clockwise round the Mediterranean and in 717 began besieging Constantinople, the Byzantine capital. Christendom was in danger of being completely encircled by Islam. This was only prevented by two
Islam, the rod of God’s anger?
About 75 years after the Arab conquest of Christian Syria, the Syrian Orthodox Church, reflecting on the way in which Christian cities had toppled like nine-pins before the Muslim armies, came to the conclusion that Islam was God’s judgement on the weak, immoral and corrupt Church. They believed that God was using Islam to discipline His wayward people, just as He had used Assyria in Old Testament times (Isaiah 10:5).
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7th-8th centuries AD Blue lines show modern national borders, for comparison.
military victories which halted the progress of both arms of the Muslim advance. Byzantine Emperor Leo III stood firm against the Arabs, who abandoned the siege of Constantinople after a year. Fighting continued to surge to and fro across Asia Minor but by 800 the Taurus Mountains had become established as the border between the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic Empire. In 732 Charles, the ruler of the Franks, defeated the Arabs at a battle fought between Tours and Poitiers, and drove them back south beyond the Pyrenees. Because of this victory he became known as Charles Martel, meaning Charles the hammer.
Christians under Islamic rule
Islamic law (sharia) – compiled over six centuries but based very strongly on Muhammad’s “messages”, his other teaching and his own example – lays down many detailed regulations for the everyday lives of Christians, Jews and other non-pagan non-Muslims living under Islamic rule. The basic principle is that such people, called dhimmi, cannot be proper citizens of an Islamic state. They have a second-class status and are treated in a host of ways as inferior to Muslims. They also have to pay a special poll-tax called jiyza by which they acknowledge their inferiority and their submission to rule by Muslims.
Apostasy, flight or martyrdom?
To be treated as despised foreigners in one’s own homeland, to struggle daily with the humiliating and disempowering dhimmi regulations and occasionally with outright persecution, was a test of faith which, sadly, many Christians failed. “Apostasy” is a harsh word, but that is what it was. For where Christianity disappeared it was mainly because Christians chose to convert to Islam for an easier life. Patriarch Ishu‘-Yab III wrote in anguished tones of the apostasy of Christians in Oman [Mazon] and of the ineffectiveness of their bishops. They have not been compelled by sword, or fire, or torments, but merely seized with a desire for the half of their own possessions! Mad! – for apostasy has straightway swallowed them up, and they are destroyed for ever … They have forsaken the Faith which brings eternal benefit, to keep half of the possessions of this transient age.5 Out of the thousands and tens of thousands
who belong to our God, two … who keep the empty title of bishops, simply sit idly by – sad objects, memorials now to move the Church of God to tears, after the likeness of the pillar of salt into which Lot’s wife was turned as a memorial, of the burning of Sodom” 6 Those who were able – primarily the educated elite expatriates – tended to flee to countries that Islam had not reached. There was a huge exodus of such Christians from Carthage (in modern Tunisia) when it was captured by the Muslims in 698. There were, however, also martyrs, sometimes many thousands killed together for Christ. Some endured terrible torture without denying Him. Ultimately, each Christian made their own decision. A Muslim historian, Ibn al-Athir (1160-1233) recorded what happened in Tunis after it was conquered by the Berber caliph Abd al-Mumin on 14 July 1159. The Muslim inhabitants of Tunis were merely taxed by their conqueror, who was replacing one Muslim dynasty in North Africa with another. But the dhimmi were treated differently: He remained for three days and he offered Islam to the Jews and Christians resident there. Those who converted were left in peace but those who refused were put to death.7
The decimation of Christianity in North Africa
When Augustine of Hippo (in modern Algeria) died in 430 there were 700 bishoprics along the North African coast. By 1053 there were only five left (outside of Egypt) and by 1073 only two. Before long the entire Church in North Africa had disappeared, apart from in Egypt. While the indigenous people of the rest of North Africa were mainly Berbers, in Egypt the people were
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descended from the ancient Pharaonic people and were called Copts. They had their own language, Coptic, still preserved in the liturgy of the Coptic Orthodox Church, but in other respects a long-dead language because Arabic, the language of the conquerors from the Arabian Peninsula, soon took its place in everyday life. Although many Egyptian Christians did convert to Islam, there were also many who did not. As a result the Egyptian Church today numbers around ten million, mainly families who have kept the faith despite nearly 15 centuries of pressure and persecution.
The elimination of Christianity in Arabia
What happened to the eight dioceses of Arabia? The metropolitan province of Beth Qatraye was a main target of the Islamic advance and Christianity declined rapidly. The last mention of the diocese of Mashmahig in the records is around 650. Dairin, Beth Mazunaye, Hagar and Hatta survived until at least 676 and then are not heard of again. The monastery on Sir Bani Yas is thought to have continued until at least the early eighth century. The three southern dioceses lasted longer. There was still a bishop of Sanaa round 840-850. (His name was Peter and it seems he had previously served as a bishop in China.) But after this the diocese of Sanaa disappears from the records. The fate of the diocese of Najran is mysterious. According to Islamic sources, a delegation of Christians from Najran, including their bishop, travelled to Medina shortly before Muhammad’s death and made a treaty with him. In return for an annual payment of 2,000 pieces of cloth, and a promise of supplying horses, camels and armour to the Muslims in time of war, they were allowed to stay in their homeland and continue as Christians under full Muslim protection. However, Caliph Umar (634-644) considered that the Christians had violated the peace treaty and he therefore expelled them from Najran (also the Jews, whom he considered to be misbehaving too). Islamic sources praise Umar for removing all non-Muslims from the Arabian Peninsula. But there is evidence that a Christian and Jewish presence continued in or near Najran until around the year 1000, perhaps even until the thirteenth century. In Socotra a Christian community remained for many centuries. A Muslim geographer in the tenth century noted that most of the island’s inhabitants at
that time were Christian. A Portuguese fleet arriving in 1507 found that the people worshipped at stone crosses. Francis Xavier, visiting in 1542, discovered Christians who told him they were descended from converts made by the Apostle Thomas when he came to Socotra on his way to India around AD 50. In 1593, there were still two bishops (different denominations) resident on the island.8 But by the time James Wellsted visited in 1834 only Muslims lived there. Wellsted wrote about the destruction of churches and graveyards by fanatical Wahhabi Muslims who arrived on Socotra in 1800, but he speculated that the disappearance of Christian people had already happened, by “a silent and gradual change, and not by any violent or exterminating measures”.9 So the Wahhabis destroyed the Christian monuments after Christianity itself had ceased to exist. The ruined buildings remain to this day. 1 John Foster, Church History 2: Setback and Recovery AD 500-1500, London, SPCK, 1974, p.11. 2 The Byzantine Empire (324-1453) was the Eastern part of the Roman Empire, which lasted nearly 1,000 years after the Western Roman Empire had come to an end. Its capital was Constantinople (previously called Byzantium, now called Istanbul), its language was Greek and its religion was Christianity. 3 Before the advent of Islam, the Christians of Najran had suffered severe persecution by Jews. For more details see “A History of Christian Persecution: Part 3 Persecution Outside the Roman Empire” in Barnabas Aid (November-December 2017) p.iv. 4 This flight or migration to Medina took place in the year AD 622, which was later chosen as the start of the Islamic calendar. 5 Letter to Shim‘un, Metropolitan of Riwardashir, approximately AD 650. Letter 14:2,7. English translation by William G. Young in Handbook of Source-Materials for Students of Church History, Madras, Senate of Serampore College, 1969, pp.317-8. 6 Letter to the people of Qatar, approximately AD 651 or 652. Letter 18:3. English translation by William G. Young, pp.318-9. 7 The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athir for the Crusading Period from Al-Kamil Fi’l-Ta’rikh Part 1, translated by D.S. Richards, Farnham, Ashgate Publishing, 2010, p.104. 8 Stated by the French geographer Conrad Malte-Brun in his posthumous work Précis de la Géographie Universelle, Vol. 10, Book 171, 4th edition, Paris, Le Normant, 1837, pp.638-9. 9 J.R. Wellsted, “Memoir on the Island of Socotra”, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, Vol. 5, 1835, p.218.
BARNABAS FUND HOPE AND AID FOR THE PERSECUTED CHURCH International Headquarters The Old Rectory, River Street, Pewsey, Wiltshire SN9 5DB, UK Telephone 01672 564938 Fax 01672 565030 From outside UK Telephone +44 1672 564938 Fax +44 1672 565030 Email info@barnabasfund.org Published by Barnabas Aid Inc. 6731 Curran St, McLean, Virginia 22101, USA © Barnabas Aid Inc. 2018
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From outside the UK Telephone +44 24 7623 1923 Fax +44 24 7683 4718 Email info@barnabasfund.org USA 6731 Curran St, McLean, VA 22101 Telephone (703) 288-1681 or toll-free 1-866-936-2525 Fax (703) 288-1682 Email usa@barnabasaid.org
Self-sufficiency for converts
Barnabas Aid January/February 2018 11
Self-sufficiency for persecuted converts in Guinea Inapogui joyfully poses inside his new pharmacy
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lizabeth and Lucie, were both abandoned by their husbands when they turned to Christ. Lucie refused the advances of her Muslim supervisor at work, revealing she was a Christian, and she was dismissed the next day. With your help, both she and Elizabeth now have their own small shops that sell rice and seasonings, palm oil and vegetables, and can provide for their children. When Christ sent out His apostles, He empowered them with the authority to heal the sick and raise the dead. He also reminded them: “Freely you have received; freely give” (Matthew 10:8). It is a key part of being a Christian in West Africa to share one’s blessings from God with fellow Christians, especially those persecuted. The aim of this project is to do just that. A grant from Barnabas Fund has enabled five income generation start-up
projects for five Guinean Christians in the N’Zerekore area, all converts from Islam or from African Traditional Religion backgrounds. Guinea is only eight percent Christian, with an 85% Muslim majority. There are strong family, community, cultural, social, and economic barriers set against those who desire to convert from Islam. Some are even murdered for deciding to follow Christ. Local authorities and landlords often try to prevent churches from being established.
Gamain comes from an African Traditional Religion background, and was born into a witchcraft cult involved with snakes. She found Christ in her struggle to protect her younger brother from being harmed by the cult but has been violently persecuted by her family. With your help, she was able to purchase equipment to open her tailoring shop. Inapogui can now support his family with his new pharmacy, where he can make use of his university degree. In
“People that used to look down on the church are now beginning to look up to the church.” Ester was abandoned by her Muslim family after she converted to Christianity. She has a limp and cannot walk far. With help to set up a seasoning and spice shop and hair salon in front of her house, she can now afford to pay her rent and her son’s school fees.
Gamain, with your help, has overcome persecution to open her tailoring business
his former job, his Muslim colleagues threatened him and set him up to be robbed of the motorcycle he needed for work, forcing him out of business. “This help will get them to be more committed to Christ and to Kingdom causes which will lead to the advancement and strengthening the church. Through their earnings they will support the great commission in their own way. Their testimonies will strengthen other Christians that are facing the same situation,” said their church leader, adding that the five new Christians are “now proud of the Jesus Christ they believe in, in the face of their persecutors.” What’s more, “people that used to look down on the church are now beginning to look up to the church.” Project Reference 17-1348
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Christian leaders convicted for exposing human rights abuses MYANMAR
Two Christian leaders, Dumdaw Nawng Lat, 67, and Langjaw Gam Seng, 35, were imprisoned for a combined six and a half years in October for “exposing the military’s crimes.” The two leaders assisted visiting journalists reporting on damage caused by military airstrikes to a church and other civilian structures in northern Shan State, in late 2016. They were arrested in December 2016. The only evidence used to convict them were signed confessions that they supported the Kachin Independence Army – the pastor’s lawyers claim the confessions were obtained under extreme duress. Christianity is portrayed as a foreign religion in 87% Buddhist Myanmar, although it has been present since the late 1700s. The mainly Christian Kachin people suffer great persecution, including desecration of their churches, sexual violence, and forced conversions.
Muslim extremist mob attack more churches EGYPT
More than 50 Islamists attacked a church in Minya, 250km south of Cairo, on Sunday 22 October. The mob stormed to the church from the local mosque, chanting: “No matter what, we’ll bring the church down,” and “Islamic! Islamic!” Although unsuccessful in trying to break into the building, they managed to set the main gate on fire and damaged security cameras before the police arrived to restore order. The first floor of the building houses a pre-school nursery serving 38 toddlers. The mob also attacked Christian-owned homes and vehicles in the village, which is home to 1,000 Christians. Police closed down the church, along with three other churches in the region on the same day, citing “security concerns.”
Pakistani Christian left hospitalised after attack by Muslims UNITED KINGDOM
A 46-year-old Pakistani Christian from Derby was beaten up on the evening of 20 October, for displaying a cross and Remembrance Day poppies in his car, he said. Tajamal Amar described his attackers as Pakistani Muslim men and explained, “I am not a brother [to them]. I am a kaffir [a derogatory term for non-Muslim]. They left me for dead. They hit me as if they were playing on a football pitch … I am Christian. Because of the poppies on my car, because of the cross in my car, I have been hit.” Tajamal suffered internal bleeding, extensive bruising and a broken nose that left him hospitalised. He told journalists “Several times, local [Muslim] Pakistani people in Derby have taken offence from the fact that I am Christian. When they first find out, many stop talking to me. My wife and I have often been shunned. I fled from Pakistan to escape violence such as this, but more and more the same violence is coming into Britain. Freedom of religion should be the right of any British citizen but today I feel unsafe, even then nothing will stop me going to church.”
Five Christian leaders arrested after Sunday service in Omdurman SUDAN
Police detained five leaders of a Sudanese church in El Sawra, Omdurman, after a Sunday service on 22 October. They were charged with disturbing public order and later released on bail. The incident was triggered when the congregation arrived for the service and found the church had been locked by authorities, so that the Ministry of Endowments could decide on a new church leadership. The worshippers denounced the attempt to interfere in internal church matters, broke the locks, and began their Sunday service. Police then arrested the five leaders immediately after the service. Since the predominantly Christian South Sudan seceded in 2011, the Sudanese government in the North has intensified its persecution of Christians. So far in 2017, at least 27 churches have been demolished in Khartoum alone.
Muslim Fulani herders continue onslaught against Christian communities NIGERIA
Muslim Fulani herdsmen attacked Mai Farin Mota on the night of 13 October, killing four people in the predominantly Christian village in Plateau State. The army and police failed to respond during the six-hour attack, despite receiving frantic phone calls for help. Two days before, herdsmen destroyed several houses and killed three people in another town, 10km from Jos. The community later protested against the soldiers at the nearby military checkpoint after a victim reported that some of the attackers were wearing military uniforms. A local Christian said a soldier taunted him, “Why don’t you ask your God to guard you?” This is just one attack of many which Christians have suffered at the hands of Fulani.
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Christian asylum seekers forcibly returned from Europe live in fear AFGHANISTAN
An Amnesty International report, released in October, highlighted the plight of Afghan Christian converts deported back to Afghanistan. Farid was deported to Kabul in May 2017, after nine years in Norway, during which time the 32-year-old learned Norwegian. European authorities told him he would be safe, but he has been rejected by his immediate family and cannot live in his family’s province. “I am scared,” he explained, “I don’t know anything about Afghanistan. Where
will I go? I don’t have funds to live alone and I can’t live with [Muslim] relatives because they will see that I don’t pray [Islamic prayers].” More than 9,000 asylum-seekers, some of whom are Christians, have been returned to Afghanistan from European countries since 2015. Afghan Christian converts from Islam can legally face the death penalty for apostasy; the last time a case reached the courts in 2006, the man was spared execution after being declared “insane.”
Christians face potential new threat as Islamist group calls for jihad DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
An Islamist group in the DRC released a video in October calling for volunteers to wage jihad. In the video, which was publicised on Islamic State media outlets, a jihadist with three child soldiers also called for the DRC to become an Islamic state in Central Africa. Christians in the conflict-ravaged north-eastern regions of the DRC have endured years of sporadic attacks from Islamic militants of the Allied
Democratic Forces (ADF), which has been fighting to make Uganda an Islamic state since the late 1990s. Fifty Christians were hacked to death in the village of Rwangoma in August 2016, in one of the deadliest ADF attacks in the DRC. The call for jihad comes from a little-known group (called The City of Monotheism and Monotheists). Christians now face a new threat from this militant organisation.
Churches attacked and torched by Islamists who threatened to kill Christians seen praying MALI
“Our churches and chapels are now being targeted by extremists, who’ve told Christians not to gather to pray,” explained a church leader in Mali. In September and October, several churches in central Mali were ransacked and set on fire. In one attack, the congregation were driven out of the church where they were worshipping and told they would be killed if they were “seen praying.” In 2012, Tuareg separatists and Islamist groups linked to Al Qaeda seized control of northern Mali and
declared the region an Islamic state. Sharia law, including punishments such as amputations for theft, was “Our churches and chapels are now being targeted by extremists, who’ve told Christians not to gather to pray,” imposed in Timbuktu. French and U.N. soldiers have since been deployed in Mali, but despite the government agreeing a peace deal with rebels, violence continues.
Christian families forced to flee homes for the second time as Kurds and Iraqis clash IRAQ
Teleskof village A thousand Christian families from Teleskof were forced to flee their homes again in October because of clashes between Kurdish and Iraqi forces; they first fled in 2014, when Islamic State (IS) captured the village. The Christians had returned to their village after it was liberated from IS. The mainly Christian village of Teleskof, 19 miles north of Mosul, had recently been rebuilt with aid money from the Hungarian government. However, on Tuesday 24 October, “an emissary from the Iraqi government told the people of the village that they had until sunrise to evacuate.” Children and other civilians have been wounded in clashes between Kurdish Peshmerga forces stationed in the village on one side and Iraqi army troops and Shia militia on the other. The Iraqi forces have stated they will “forcibly evict” the Kurds. The Kurdish ethnic group have for decades campaigned for independence in the Kurdistan region, which includes parts of Iraq, Syria and Turkey. Many Christians fled to the autonomous Kurdish-controlled area of northern Iraq when IS invaded Iraq, but they have experienced discrimination from authorities in Iraqi Kurdistan, including having their land appropriated by Kurds
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how barnabas is helping Feeding over 110,000 in Uganda through Project Joseph Barnabas Fund’s Project Joseph feeding programme in Uganda has continued to December 2017, providing food aid to Christian refugees from South Sudan, now living at Camp Rhino. Working through the Church of Uganda, Barnabas distributed a monthly ration of 2kg beans and 3kg maize flour (“Posho”) to each refugee. The project has overcome many challenges, like boggy roads due to rainy season storms and continually increasing numbers as new refugees arrive daily from South Sudan. Refugees prefer the Posho to the maize grain given by other aid agencies, as the Posho is ready for cooking. If they are given grain they have to pay to have it ground (by selling nearly half of their ration). Yudita Araba says: “I don’t have enough energy to mill maize corn to maize flour but [Barnabas Fund] … has made my cooking easy because they give me maize flour and nice beans to cook.”
Food aid from Barnabas Fund’s Project Joseph feeds over 110,000 South Sudanese refugees in Uganda
$1,083,640 – for food assistance for refugees in Uganda for two months Project reference 00-1313 Project Joseph
Training Christian leaders to understand and withstand the threat of Islamisation “There is an unmentioned increasing persecution of the church in many areas of Tanzania,” said a Tanzanian Christian leader to Barnabas Fund. This is due to increasing Islamisation and hostility to Christians from the Muslim population. Barnabas is funding training to equip Tanzanian evangelists and pastors with a proper understanding of both Christianity and Islam. The aim is to enable them to strengthen Christians in their faith, so that they can stand firm in the face of Islamisation, and also to make them more effective in outreach. The five-day training seminar is being replicated in 25 different parts of the country. Phase 4, held in the middle of last year, covered Morogoro, Kondoa, Tanga, Tabora, and Kigoma with each seminar attended by 60 to 70 participants. The cost per participant was $58, covering travel, food, venue hire, trainer costs, learning materials, and textbooks which the participants took home with them.
Christian leaders pose with their study books
$17,454 for fourth phase of Christian leaders training course Project reference 51-1293
Enabling young converts to meet for worship in Albania “They were stopping me when I was walking on the streets, pressing me by saying Allah would kill me if I did not turn back [to Islam] immediately,” said Luan, a young Albanian convert from Islam to Christianity. This kind of pressure on Albanian converts is increasing. Albania is officially a secular state, but radicalisation is growing among the 60% Muslim population. Barnabas Fund has helped a struggling congregation in Tirana, Albania, by paying the rent for its centre for six months. Out of that church’s 150-strong – and growing – congregation, 90 are converts from Islam. But they are very poor. The centre is vital not only for worship but also for children’s meetings, women’s meetings, and other ministry.
Barnabas Fund has enabled an Albanian congregation, mainly converts from Islam, to keep renting their building for worship and ministry
$2,768 to enable a convert church to rent premises for six months Project reference 63-1258 Albania General Fund
Strengthened and encouraged. This is what we often hear from Christians who have received support from Barnabas Fund. Thank you for making this possible. Here are just a few examples of the many ways we have recently helped persecuted and pressurised Christians.
Feeding Armenian Christians fleeing Islamic State (IS) terror in Syria “This monthly support [is] a gift from heaven.” Arpi is one of more than 1,200 Syrian Armenian refugees currently assisted by this project. With funding from Barnabas, food is distributed to Syrian Armenian refugees who have fled the Syrian Civil War and IS to seek refuge in Armenia. Some families have lost everything, and are now destitute. A father said thankfully, “We as family, feeling good and satisfied here and don’t want to go back to Syria because it will be hard for our daughter to live in an Islamic community with their restrictions.”
Training poor Christians to become pillars of their church ministries “I chose the Christian Counselling major so I could be a blessing to other people, especially when they are facing difficulties in their lives.” Andreas is one of ten Christian students that Barnabas Fund is supporting to pursue a Bachelor of Theology in Christian Counselling at a Christian university in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Like Andreas, the other nine come from poor and marginalised Christian communities in diverse parts of Indonesia, and share a desire to use their opportunities to benefit others. Their poverty means that it would be impossible for them to pursue university education without help. Some come from a Muslim background and have endured persecution because of their decision to follow Christ. Barnabas Fund provides a scholarship that covers 99% of the students’ enrolment fees. There is a growing Islamisation in Indonesia, and Christians suffer increasing discrimination in schools and public life, facing violence in some cases.
This “gift from heaven” will feed between 1,200 and 1,250 refugee Christians fleeing the terror of IS in Syria
$80,707 for food for 1,200 to 1,250 refugee families in Armenia for 4 months Project reference 00-1032 Middle East Fund to help Syrian Christians
Despa grew up in poverty because her mother left Islam to follow Christ. She fled with her children from the family home
$2,172 for the enrolment fees for ten poor Christian students in Indonesia Project reference 00-1031 Students’ Fund
Barnabas Aid January/February 2018 15
Providing cool water for parched Christian school-children “It is a blessing of God that I can drink cold water in my school. I will take this full bottle of cold water to my home and drink it with my lunch,” Najma exclaimed. Her school is just one of 101 Christian schools in Pakistan that Barnabas Fund supports with building costs, running costs or resources and equipment. Najma, in Class One, and all her schoolmates received a wonderful surprise at the start of the 2017 academic year: a new water cooler! Thanks to your donations, the school had installed an electric drinking water cooler over the summer holidays. Summer temperatures rise to almost 50˚C. The children, from poor backgrounds with no access to safe cool water, languish from thirst. This makes learning difficult. The school, in Punjab province, has 280 children and 17 staff. Altogether, Barnabas Fund enables over 9,000 Pakistani Christian children to get an education in a Christian school.
The 280 children can now concentrate on their classes because there is plenty of chilled water from the water cooler behind them. Barnabas Fund supports this school and 100 other schools in Pakistan, with over 10,000 children between them
$1,358 to purchase and install an electric water cooler in a school in Pakistan Project reference 41-1209 Pakistan Schools
16 January/February 2018 Barnabas Aid
Pakistan brick-kilns
“We never imagined we could be free”
deliverance from debt for Christian brick-kiln workers in Pakistan “We had never imagined that we could be free from this curse,” says James, a Christian brick-kiln worker who was forced into debt trying to cover the medical bills for his wife’s fatal illness
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hen a day’s pay scarcely covers a family’s basic needs, a day’s work lost to the weather or illness means the family goes hungry. When bad weather is prolonged, as during the rainy season, or illness strikes, or another family crisis occurs, brick-kiln workers go to their brick-kiln owner for a loan. From there on, the owner deducts money from their weekly wages, to pay the interest on the loan. As long as their debt exists, the workers are legally “bonded” to that brick kiln. Trying to survive on less than their already meagre wages, and forbidden by law to leave and get another job, their condition is not much better than slavery. Such loans may last for years or even generations, and illiterate families cannot keep track of their payments
to see if they really do still owe money. It’s how the system works – how it has worked for years – in brick kilns up and down Pakistan even though legally owners are no longer supposed to loan employees more than 15 days’ wages. Whole families can be tied to the back-breaking work for life. Men, women and children labour for ten or more hours a day, sometimes seven days a week. They are “trapped in a quagmire,” as one labourer, James, puts it, referring to a certain kind of heavy, muddy clay he knew from his brick-making, which it is all too easy to get stuck in. Barnabas Fund has stepped in to help Christian families to break free from bonded labour in Pakistan’s 20,000 brick kilns. Here are some of the stories of families’ desperate situations, and how Barnabas has helped them.
Pakistan brick-kilns
Barnabas Aid January/February 2018 17
Latif and his family were also freed from their loan through Barnabas Fund. “As soon as we paid the loan amount to the brick kiln owner I came back straight to the Church and thanked God,” he said. “We are very thankful to Barnabas Fund and all the people for their support. We pray for you all regularly and will continue to do so as we are free because of all your efforts. God bless you all!”
Freed from the curse of the loan
From grief to joy
James took a loan from the owner of the brick kiln where Since the loss of her husband, Nargis is raising her five children he worked to cover the cost of medical bills after his wife alone. Three years ago, she and her husband moved to the brick grew ill. Sadly, she later died. Left with two toddlers to raise, kiln for work, living in a house provided by the owner. Her and without his wife’s earnings to help, James struggled husband, who was asthmatic, became ill and needed hospital when the owner began to deduct money from his meagre treatment in Lahore; sadly, he died. The family had taken a earnings to pay interest on the loan. His debt bound him to loan to pay for the hospital treatment and without help from the brick kiln. He could not relatives or friends, they dream that he would ever had to fend for themselves. be able to pay it off. Two of her five children Worse, as his children go to school; her eldest got older they had to help daughter attends an adult him with the bricks – they literacy centre opened with could not go to school. Barnabas’ help. Unable even And if any of the family to count the bricks the family fell ill, earnings fell too, produced each day, Nargis and the debt rose. James had relied on the munshi had to borrow more to buy (foreman) to count the bricks medicines and simply to and calculate their pay, but keep the family fed. now her eldest daughter can Now, life has changed for count the bricks and make Nargis, a widow with five children, whose family James and his two children. sure her mother receives all is one of the 40 freed in phase 1 of the project “We never imagined we the money she has earned could be free!” he exclaimed, “When I heard that my radiating joy as Barnabas debt will all be paid it was arranged for the debt to be settled. His daughter and son will such a joyful and redeeming feeling and news for us as a family,” now be able to go to school for the first time in their lives. Nargis told Barnabas. “My heart leapt with joy with the thought Like all the 40 families who have been freed, James that we are free from this burden at last. God bless those people and his children receive a food parcel each month from who have thought about us and have helped us.” Barnabas, so as well as not needing to make loan repayments, his expenditure on food has been reduced and there is a little money to spare for medicines and visits to the doctor You can help free more Christian brick-kiln workers if needs be. Reaching this basic level of financial security by giving to the project detailed below. We can means Christians no longer need to work seven days a week provide a photo and names of the family you have and can instead attend church as a family. Now James gets helped to free, if you would like. his full wages, he looks forward to donating to a revolving loan fund established by his local church group to help other Pakistani Christian Brick Kiln Workers (project reference 41-1356) Christian bonded labourers to be set free.
“When I heard that my debt will all be paid it was such a joyful and redeeming feeling”
18 January/Fe bruary 2018 Barnabas Aid
See you at New Wine this January Family in the presence of Go d
Kapiti Thu 18 - Mon 22 Januar y Warkworth Thu 25 - Sun 28 Jan uary Barnabas Fund will be the Mi ssion Partner for New Wine this Jan uary during their summer camps! As the Mission Partner we will hav e many opportunities to share about the work of Barnabas Fund thr oughout the weeks of camp. Stephan ie Johnston, Barnabas Fund Ne w Zealand CEO, will be speaki ng on the main stage about the wo rk of Barnabas Fund as well as doi ng a seminar workshop during the week. Contact the New Zea land office more information abo ut signing up for New Wine cam ps or if you are interested in com ing for a day to hear one of Stephanie ’s talks.
In Touch Could your church bless persecuted Christians this Easter time? As we begin to prepare our hearts and minds for Good Friday and Easter when we remember the suffering and sacrifice of our Saviour and His glorious resurrection, please remember also those who suffer for their faith in Him. Just as our Lord calls us to take up our cross and follow Him (Matthew 16:24), will you support others who are doing this in the face of hardship and harassment, perhaps imprisonment and torture, or even death. Could your church or small group take up a special Lent offering or Easter offering for the persecuted Church?
Introducing Hendrik Storm, CEO The international ministry of Barnabas Fund is managed by our Chief Executive Officer, Hendrik Storm, working under the International Directors. Originally from South Africa, Hendrik is based at the Barnabas international headquarters in Pewsey, Wiltshire, UK. He is responsible for all the administrative functions worldwide. Hendrik came to Barnabas Fund from a senior management position with the supermarket Aldi. His first role at Barnabas Fund was in the Projects Department, so he brings to his current task a diverse range of skills and experience. With a masters in Accounting & Financial Management, Hendrik is now studying in his spare time for a doctorate with Stellenbosch University and the Oxford Centre for Religion and Public Life. Hendrik and his British-born wife Hannah attend Swindon Evangelical Church, where Hendrik regularly leads prayer meetings and worship. They have two young daughters and another baby on the way.
Roger and Dorothy Warbrooke from New Zealand, raised $90 to help persecuted Christians by saving up their small change
Small change – big difference
New Zealanders Dorothy and Roger Warbrooke faithfull y put their 20 cent coins int oa Barnabas Fund money bo x. After a year they took their ful l money box to the Barnabas Fund office in Auckland. They were amazed to find out they had raised $90. Could you do what Dorothy and Roger did? Please contact your local office (see inside cov er) or visit www.barnabasfund .org to request a Barnabas Fund money box to start collecting you r coins in. Alternatively, you could collect coins using a box or jar you have lying around at home. You r small change could make a big diff erence to persecuted Christians acr oss the world.
Praying for the Persecuted Church 2018 booklet With this magazine is our Prayin g for the Persecuted Church booklet for 2018, with information on the most signific ant countries where Christians face pressure or per secution. The book includes suggested prayer points and a reading plan for daily use during the traditio nal season of Lent.
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MAG 01/18
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ALTERNATIVE GIFT CARD If you would like to make a donation as an alternative gift for a friend or relative, we can supply you with an attractive “Thank you” card, which you can send to the person for whom you have made the donation. Please fill in the details as you would like them to appear on the card.
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Islam is a religion that seeks to be a political and territorial power. This book has been written to provide an easy-to-use resource to understand Islam in Britain today, the way in which it is developing, its influence on the country and whether assimilation is possible. It asks penetrating questions about the way that Muslim communities in the UK could develop in the future, and how British authorities and institutions appear to be yielding to a process of Islamisation.
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To order this book, please contact your nearest Barnabas Fund office (addresses on inside front cover). Cheques for the UK should be made payable to “Barnabas Books”. sales@barnabasbooks.org
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Why do Muslims hate us so much and why do they want to blow up our cities Why do they want to kill us These questions fill the minds of many today as they see a religion that says it is a religion of peace yet is so linked to violence. This popular book sets out the belief systems that shape those involved in Islamic violence and gives an understanding of this ever present phenomena.
MY DEVOTIONAL JOURNAL
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Encourage your own spiritual walk. Many Christians experience difficulties and suffering as a result of their faith in Jesus Christ, the pain of rejection and discrimination and even violent persecution. In this journal, we journey with the suffering Church and empathise with their ordeals but also experience something of the joy and the glory that often come with suffering. This journal can be started at any point during the year and makes an ideal gift for Christian friends.
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