When the leader of a ministry based in the Middle East recently went to a prison to tell inmates about salvation in Christ, he knew it was not normal that an official checking his ID asked him to take a nearby seat.
The way a businesswoman in Laos drew people to Christ was the way the salvation message often spread in the first century: redeemed merchants and traders planting gospel seeds as they went about their everyday business.
A 19-year-old man in Burundi had engaged in occultic practices for years, with sorcerers sending him to church services to carry out spiritual attacks.
An aunt who practiced a blend of Islam and witchcraft had initiated him into the occult; she dedicated him to serve Satan, a local ministry leader said.
“Once he came to our church to attack as usual, but he was caught by the power of the Holy Spirit and the Word during our evening service,” he said.
Working among Mixtec and other indigenous peoples, local missionaries in Mexico face the challenge of helping women and children who have suffered abuse to heal physically, emotionally and spiritually.
Samer Jawad joined thousands of others who set up tents in Iraq’s Tahrir Square last year, settling in for months of protests over a faltering economy and breakdowns in public services.
Local missionaries had distributed their only 10 tablet devices, used to teach refugee children to read, and a grandmother pleaded and cried for one: “Please, he is an orphan! Please, let my grandson learn to read!”
Workers explained that they had already given out all the tablets and had spent all remaining funds on clean water and medicine for the nearly 800 people in the camp.
“We promised to help her next time we came, but the woman would not quit sobbing, ‘Please, please,’” the leader said.