ISSUE 09
NEW VIDEO
MEGA-CITIES
FREE POSTER
BEAUTIFUL FEET PROJECT
SHORT-TERM REPORTS
CONTENTS MEGA-CITIES
3 The greatest challenge in world-evangelization: Mega-cities.
BEAUTIFUL FEET
4 Partnering with Asian Workers to reach Himalayan Tribes.
WHY ASIA? POSTER
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SHORT-TERM REPORT
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FREE MAP. Stick it on your wall or on the church notice board.
COMPETITION
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Summer 2011 Short-term report from China and Thailand.
Win a free copy of Radical.
NEW VIDEO BEAUTIFUL FEET PROJECT Beautiful Feet is our new video project that focuses on one of the world’s least-reached regions, the Himalayas. Videos like this are a great way to mobilise believers into world mission and our goal is to make high quality videos available to the masses. Please watch, rate and share: vimeo.com/groups/historymakers
PARTNERSHIP PHILIPPIAN CHURCH PLANTERS The tip of Alaska provides a vast and valuable source of oil for the world. However, one must cross the Denali Wilderness – one of the world's harshest environments – in order to reach it. For this reason, the trans-alaskan oil pipeline and the infamous Dalton Highway were built. They are the only way through the wilderness.
They weren’t content with reaching people in their immediate locality, they had a passion to see the gospel preached where it had never gone before. They opened up their own supply route to Paul on the frontlines.
The oil industry requires tons of fuel, food and equipment so the Dalton Highway was built specifically as a supply route to the oil fields. It’s one of the most dangerous roads in the world, over 250 trucks travel the highway daily. The temperature can drop as low as -40ºc, white-outs, snow drifts – there are accidents all the time. Drivers are advised to carry spares and winter survival equipment.
They prayed, were concerned for Paul (4:10), sent Epaphroditus to care for Paul whilst he was in prison in Rome (2:25) and they also sent financial aid. In fact, Epaphroditus almost died as a result of his service – no one ever said it would be easy!
As dangerous as the road may be, the oil workers need supplies. If the supply route is blocked, the support network breaks down, the frontline workers will starve. In the same way, partnering in the gospel is vital to the overall task of world missions. The Philippian church were a great example of this kind of supply-line partnership.
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Paul recognized the Philippians as partners in the gospel–– what a privilege for that small church! To think that their help contributed towards reaching the lost and churches being planted.
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You may not be in a position to plant churches in remote parts of the world, but there are frontline workers who are busy reaching the unreached. Be like the Philippians: Don't cut the supplies!
THEY HAD A PASSION TO SEE THE GOSPEL PREACHED WHERE IT HAD NEVER GONE BEFORE
TOKYO, JAPAN
SHANGHAI, CHINA
SEOUL, S.KOREA
population: 34 million annual growth: 0.6%
population: 23 million annual growth: 2.2%
population: 24.5 million annual growth: 1.4%
Japan remains a huge challenge for mission and is still classed as the world’s largest unreached people group.
One in every six people on earth are 100 years ago Korea was uncharted territory Chinese. China has five cities with a metro for missionaries. Now we can rejoice that population of over 8 million people. there are 15 million evangelicals.
MUMBAI, INDIA
JAKARTA, INDONESIA
KARACHI, PAKISTAN
population: 23.3 million annual growth: 2.9%
population: 18.7 million annual growth: 2%
population: 16.9 million annual growth: 4.9%
Mumbai is the capital of the state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fifth in the world.
It is the most populous city in Indonesia and in Southeast Asia, and is the tenth-largest city in the world.
The city is spread over an area almost four times bigger than Hong Kong. It is locally known as the “City of Lights”
Cities are the new frontiers of Christian missions. Their size, influence and diversity are what make cities such needy places. Cities are where it all happens. They are political, communicative, research, academic and religious hubs. What goes on in the city, affects the rest of the country.
In 1950 only two cities, New York and London had more than eight million inhabitants. By 2000 there were 25! By the year 2025, 33 cities are expected to have more than eight million. Nineteen of these will be in Asia.
Today, Asia with its mega-cities presents one of the greatest challenges in world evangelization.
During the 20th century, the world urbanized. Half the world’s population now live in cities.
It is significant that Paul's missionary strategy was almost entirely urban. Think of Athens, Corinth, Thessalonica, Philippi, Ephesus and Rome! Paul knew that cities were strategic for the gospel and that God wanted them evangelised.
If we’re concerned about doing God’s will and reaching the lost for Christ then we must consider the challenge of the growing cities of the world. This is another of the modern era's biggest challenges. How shall we respond? Will we go where workers are needed the most?
Images: Top: Bishnu distributes tracts among remote villages. Bottom: Bishnu preaching and trekking in western Nepal. Main: The route to Everest Base Camp.
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THE BEAUTIFUL FEET PROJECT There’s only one reason anyone would bother to climb a mountain just to get Good News to people. In fact, why would anyone even bother going next door? Bishnu is an evangelist from the Himalayas. We met him in Nepal, and then travelled together from place to place. He doesn’t have much – a beautiful family, a simple home and not much else really. That day, we discovered just one of the reasons why so many people in the Himalayas (and around the world) are “unreached”. It’s because they are so hard to get to! We travelled with him, sometimes for hours on end. We went to jammed cities with countless people suffocating the streets – Bishnu spends a good portion of his time evangelizing in the urban jungle of Kathmandu: a place where Hindus, Muslims, Communists and Buddhists converge. We spent hours on rough roads in sweaty buses. Stopping only meant long hikes to remote villages, but the views of the mighty Himalayas were as breathtaking as the climb. Our respite came from the swirling waters of the local river. Icy joy beating back the punishing sun. There are many in the world who can’t go to church – there isn’t one. They can’t even read the Bible – there isn’t one. And they don’t have any Christian friends – because where they live there are simply no other people who love Jesus. Most are Buddhist, Hindu or animistic: they have never heard, they don’t know Jesus.
Still, Bishnu keeps going. He spends his days sharing the Good News. It’s a demanding, exhausting, costly lifestyle. Many times, he’s away from his family. He treks the hills in his dusty flip-flops, his leathery feet, hard as nails. Over mountain passes and through river beds. He confronts and he challenges, sometimes rejected, other times welcomed.
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So, why does he bother? Bishnu does it because he believes the Gospel. He actually believes what it says! He believes people will go to Hell if they don’t know Christ. He believes Christ can save them. And he believes they need to hear that Message!
THERE ARE MANY IN THE WORLD WHO CAN’T GO TO CHURCH
Bishnu is one of hundreds of Asian workers going to places you’ve never been to, never heard of. Asians reaching Asians. They all have beautiful feet because they’re carrying the most beautiful message of all, the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Maybe you can pray for Bishnu and his family, Bimu, Bijigisha and Bigya. Heroes? Legends? Bishnu doesn’t see himself that way. He’s just an ordinary Christian, as he says, “forgiven sinners, serving the Lord in the Himalayas.”
himalayas KRYGYZSTAN TAJIKISTAN AFGHANISTAN PAKISTAN KASHMIR INDIA
TIBET NEPAL
BHUTAN
■ The Himalayan ranges contain 30 mountains rising to heights greater than 24,000 feet above sea level, including Mount Everest, the world's highest peak, which reaches an elevation of 29,029 feet. ■ There are over 400 unengaged people groups within the Himalayas.
THE BEAUTIFUL FEET PROJECT
■ The majority of people practice Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and animism.
jargon buster The words ‘unengaged’ and ‘unreached’ are often used when people speak about missions, but what do they mean? An unreached people group (UPG) has a population that is less than 2 percent evangelical; there are more than 6,700 UPGs around the world. An unengaged people group (UUPG) has no active church-planting work at all. A variety of barriers, ranging from geographic to political, prevent a people group from being reached. Some live in physically hard-to-reach areas, such as a secluded mountain village that takes days to reach on foot. Others live in areas with extreme climates or in poverty-stricken, overcrowded cities. Additional barriers include a lack of political freedom and government-restricted access to outside information.
THE FUE L OF MISSIONS FLAME
Our passion is for the unreached peoples of Asia. Below is a list of the countries where AsiaLink work in alphabetical order.
ASIALINK NATIONS AFGHANISTAN BANGLADESH BHUTAN BURMA CHINA INDIA IRAQ KASHMIR
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LAOS MALDIVES MONGOLIA NEPAL NORTH KOREA SRI LANKA THAILAND TIBET VIETNAM
WHY ASIA? ■ Most people live in Asia. ■ Rapidly growing populations, globalization and mobility position the continent for a future of unprecedented large-scale migration and unrest. ■ 80% of non-Christians live in Asia. In India alone, half a million villages have never heard the Good News. ■ Home to the majority of the world’s most volatile places. ■ Persecution is the most intense and lack of freedom the most widespread.
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For more information please contact us:
HEAD OFFICE
YOUTH
talk2us@asialink.org.uk
historymakers@asialink.org.uk
IRELAND
USA
gordon@asialink.org.uk
contact@asialink.org
“ASIA REMAINS BY FAR THE MOST SIGNIFICANT CHALLENGE FOR WORLD EVANGELIZATION” –– OPERATION WORLD ■ Host to the three largest and most challenging non-Christian religions. The only continent where Christianity is not the largest religion. ■ In Afghanistan there are 48,000 mosques and not one church building. ■ There are over 1 billion devout Buddhists and spirit-worshipers in south-east Asia, China and Japan. ■ Arguably the greatest destitution. ■ 96% of the world’s Hindu population of 940 million live in the Indian sub-continent.
■ The least-reached peoples on earth are in Asia. They are the most isolated from witnessing Christians and the most difficult to reach. They have little or no chance of ever hearing the Gospel.
HistoryMakers the Magazine
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www.historymakers.info
10/40 WINDOW ■ This region is located between ten degrees north and forty degrees north of the equator. ■ 70% of the world’s population lives in this region. ■ An estimated 95% are un-evangelized.
R REPORT
SHORT-TERM MISSIONS
Images: Main: Chinese market. Below: short-term team member in N.Korean cultural costume. Bottom: The team look down onto N.Korea from the Great Wall of China.
CHINA The first of the summer’s HistoryMakers trips was to the most populated country on earth. A country so large, the capital city (Beijing) alone is home to over 22 million people. Geographically, this city is 10 times the size of London, and almost three times as populated. Beijing isn’t even the biggest city in the country! China is also in the process of creating the world’s biggest mega-city with a population of 42 million. It is going to be 26 times the size of London, or twice the size of Wales! For three weeks, our team was based in a border city. Facing North Korea, this ‘small’ city of 2 million is easily twice the size of Birmingham. The 550 mile trip from Beijing was made on a 14 hour sleeper-train journey costing a mere £22 ($40).
MATERIAL TWO SENSITIVE FOR INTERNET VIEWING
We met friends who were ministering to both Chinese and North Koreans. Their work was eye-opening – a huge privilege to see and be a small part of. Our mission was to assist with the Chinese side of work and learn more about the work in N.Korea. We were able to meet a couple of N.Koreans who had recently become believers and were returning to their home country to share the gospel. In preparation for this, they were memorising the Bible. During our days we visited a local orphanage for the mentally and physically disabled. These
children had an incredible spectrum of ages and illnesses. From 3 to 19, from cerebral palsy to basic deformities. Due to China’s ‘One Child Policy’ parents are under intense pressure to have a perfect child. Any problems compromise the chances of their success and so many abandon their babies. One 6 year old girl had no disabilities at all; she was abandoned because she was ‘too emotional’.
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THEY WERE MEMORIZING THE BIBLE
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In China, knowing English gives you a strong advantage when applying for a job. These children needed all the help they could possibly get so as a team we taught English. Depending on their abilities they were either taught crafts, sports or conversational English.
Our evenings and weekends were spent strengthening the missionaries’ community ties. We made friends with locals, or hosted games nights; English corners (where Chinese practice their English on you) open mic nights and musical performances. Some events had almost a hundred attendees (which made playing an instrument a very sweaty business).
MATERIAL TWO SENSITIVE FOR INTERNET VIEWING
These are the memories that never leave you, and the encouragements that keep you fighting the good fight and running the race. 2 Timothy 4:7. –– Nathan, age 19.
When else would three Northern Irish, three Scots, and an American get together and go to Thailand together, except for a HistoryMakers trip?
people, one of the largest people groups in Southeast Asia. Many Karen have fled over the border, hoping to find refuge in Thailand. Refugee camps are all across the border now, housing people who have no hope of returning home.
I had never been out of the United States before and never really been on a mission trip. Of course I had read up on Thailand, being interested in the country beforehand; I had read my missionary biographies to help me understand; but nothing could truly prepare me for what I saw and heard there.
There were about fifty of some of the happiest children you will ever meet. Every day, from morning to night, we heard them saying, “I love you. I pray for you. God bless you.” Their worship is pure joy and delight to them. From early in the morning to late at night, they go on singing praises to their God.
When we first arrived in the Buddhist Kingdom of Thailand, the spiritual oppression was intense. Compare it to how in the West, you’ll drive down the road and see: church, church, church… and so on; except in Thailand, it’s: temple, temple, shrine, giant Buddha… You get the picture. Combine that with the iron law of karma, which makes your “salvation” reliant totally upon your works and merits, and you begin to understand the darkness.
We went there to teach them about Christ. It was a usual Holiday Bible Club program consisting of teaching, crafts, songs, and games. But there was nothing usual about this experience. After my time there, I found that I had been taught by them. True joy is in the camp; I don’t think I ever saw any of them stop smiling. Even though just across the river and mountains the Burmese army wage their war, the presence of God is thick in that camp.
SOUTH-EAST ASIA
ImageS Top left: Short-term team member gets rewarded for her work. Top right: The children singing praises. Below: Burmese Karen orphan. Bottom: The HistoryMakers boys play football in the monsoon rain. Middle: VBS Holiday Bible Club lesson.
For our team devotions we read through the book Radical by David Platt together. It was a book that challenged us to consider our devotion to Christ. Though it was stirring to read about it, nothing convicted me more than seeing it lived out in front of me through underground believers in Laos. There is a fire and a passion for the glory of God unlike anything I have ever witnessed. Though they talked about persecution, their eyes radiated with joy in Christ. They would preach at the cost of even their lives. Suddenly I realized how vital the Bibles we had carried in across the border would be.
MATERIAL TWO SENSITIVE FOR INTERNET VIEWING
Even though there was spiritual darkness, I also saw a great spiritual light. Despite all attempts to quash Christianity, the gospel is spreading. Next stop was the Karen children’s camp near the border of Thailand and Burma. For the past twenty years, the Burmese government has been targeting ethnic minorities, specifically the Karen
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THEY WOULD PREACH AT THE COST OF EVEN THEIR OWN LIVES
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On this trip, I think I have begun to understand what the Apostle John meant when he wrote, “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4, KJV). Whether in the darkness of Communist Laos, or on the border of genocidal Burma, I saw the power of God overcoming the powers of this world. Nothing can stop the forward progression of the gospel of Jesus Christ. May we take heart from these believers’ examples, and may God ignite within all of us a similar passion for the gospel, no matter what.
–– Nik, age 18.
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THE FINAL FRONTIER It’s a wake-up call to Christians everywhere: The population of planet earth has just topped 7 billion and over two-thirds live in Asia. What’s more, the vast majority of Asians have never heard the good news. The final frontiers of world mission are N.Africa and Asia (including the MiddleEast) but missionary work to these far-off places raises a few concerns: When there are lost people all around us, why go to all the effort, expense, risk and trouble of going to places that want nothing to do with you and in fact many times will persecute you? It’s a good question. There are lost people all around us who need Jesus. The difference between them and let’s say, the Kalash of Pakistan, is that people in England, Romania, Mexico or Haiti can walk into a church if they want to, they can pick up a Bible in their language and they can speak to someone about the gospel. Opportunity is one argument but the key issue is simply this: God’s will is that all peoples hear the Good News, including the peoples of Asia. Despite the overwhelming challenge that Asia represents, the Christian church around the world consistently channels minimal resources into the places that need it the most and maximum resources on those who need it least. Not only do we not send enough workers, but many of the ones we do send are going to places where the gospel is already established. How can we help change this? The formula is simple: The local church sends, preachers preach, people believe. That’s the way it has to happen. It’s God’s plan. In the words of David Platt, there is no Plan B! The problem of the final frontier of missions can be radically changed as more churches send workers and partner with church planters in these unreached areas.
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NEPAL B PAKISTAN C TIBET D INDIA
2 A BURMA B CHINA C INDONESIA D AFGHANISTAN
3 A THAILAND B INDIA C MONGOLIA D OMAN
4 A THAILAND B OMAN C BHUTAN D SAUDI ARABIA
5 A INDIA B YEMEN C INDONESIA D UAE
6 A BANGLADESH B INDIA C NEPAL D IRAQ
7 A LAOS B TIBET C PAKISTAN D INDIA
8 A IRAN B VIETNAM C NEPAL D PAPUA NEW GUINEA
9 A SRI LANKA B TURKEY C MALAYSIA D IRAN Pick a letter for each image, either A, B, C or D. To win a copy of ‘Radical’, email your answers* to: historymakers@asialink.org.uk *Top three scores will receive a copy of Radical
RADICAL COMPETITON
We’re giving away three copies of the book ‘Radical’ by David Platt to the winners of our competition on the opposite page. It’s one of those lifechanging Christian books that pops up every now and again! This is what others say about Radical: “Ouch!” “Amen!” –– Gregg Matte “This book has the potential to revitalize churches today to practise a radical, biblical lifestyle that can transform society and reach a lost world” –– Jerry Rankin “I am not the same after reading it. I trust that will also be true for you.” –– Daniel Akin The big question asked in Radical is “What is Jesus worth to you?” Our Christianity seems a long way from how Jesus talked and acted. This book asks some really tough questions that could well change the way you live. Be careful!
Watch the spine tingling trailer here on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao icm4wnQ4c
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what happens on a historymakers short-term trip? Spiritual opposition, emotionally challenging situations, physical and mental exhaustion. Bible studies, prayer, discussion and spiritual development. Firm friends, awesome sights and unforgettable memories. You'll never be the same again. thailand Working with Burmese refugees on the border. Holiday Bible Club program, living in camp, prayer, teaching.
south-east asia Cross-borders Bible courier. Bangkok evangelism.
himalayas Distribution of tracts alongside Nepalese partners. Evangelism, prayer, trekking.
Visit www.historymakers.info for more information. Email historymakers@asialink.org.uk for application forms or general enquiries. Age range 18-24. Trip length approximately 16 days. ‘DWYL’ Short-term video available to watch on Vimeo: vimeo.com/groups/historymakers/videos.