Missions Insider

Believing he had a divine mandate to stop all efforts to lure people away from Allah and his prophet, Idris had persecuted local missionaries in Nigeria in many ways. When an area Christian donated land for a church building, he found a way to block its construction and built a mosque on the property, the leader of a local ministry leader said. “He was extremely hostile to all efforts and to our missionaries, leading to the persecution against all of our converts there,” the leader said. “Idris even promised to kill our missionaries if they would not stop reaching their communities and preaching the gospel.”

A year ago this month, a 72-year-old villager in Kenya known as Shaaban woke up unable to speak. A sorcerer with a reputation for causing the ruin and even deaths of many people through black magic, Shaaban was certain he was the victim of a retaliatory spell. His wife sought advice from their neighbor, who advised her to seek prayer from a native ministry’s church pastor.

Food in short supply after locusts began devouring harvests in the Horn of Africa in 2019 became even more scarce when coronavirus containment measures this year put the brakes on supply channels. The rise of coronavirus cases across the region has heightened the emergency in the already locust-plagued rural areas where outreaches are concentrated, the leader of a native ministry said. “The poor and elderly people in the villages are walking to some churches, begging churches and pastors for basic foodstuffs for them, which the churches don’t have,” he said.