Entries by Friday Fax

The 30-mile coast between Thaimuang and Takuapa was devastated by the tsunami at the end of December 2004. Khao Lak, which everyone heard of in the weeks following the catastrophe, is in this region. Hundreds of volunteers assisted the locals and the Thai army with reconstruction. Many of these volunteers who invested their time and money were Christians, and their living witness caused many to think about Jesus; over 20 new churches have started in this area since the flood, mostly small house churches led by nationals who take good care of the people's needs. "Christians have never been so involved in any region in Thailand," commented one pastor. Of course, many people come to the churches because of their physical needs, but they are also brooding about the basic questions of life. There is hardly anyone who did not lose family, friends and neighbours to the tsunami. In one of the churches, a 27-year-old woman who lost her husband and both children how the book of Romans comforted her, enabling her to sleep again. In that church, 19 people have been baptised in the past month.

Source: DMG, Germany

In the space of only a few years, thousands of house churches have been planted in seven districts of the Indian State Himachal Pradesh, a core Hindu area in northern India on the slopes of the Himalayas. Hundreds of Christians work as full-time missionaries in Randeep Mathews' church planting movement. Only a few years ago, news like this would have been unthinkable.

One death leads many to life
Saritha was the only one who followed Jesus in one remote village in Himachal Pradesh. She had to fight a lot of resistance and had many opponents, but remained true to her faith, believing and regularly praying that other villagers would find Jesus. She suddenly fell ill and was taken to hospital, but none of the drugs had any effect. Discharged from hospital, she returned home and testified with her last breath that she would go to heaven. Moved, her parents became Christians. Over the following weeks, many others in the village also decided to follow Jesus; the village is now home to around 80 believers. One disciple's death led many to life, and God answered Saritha's prayer, even in her death.

A medium follows Jesus
Pummy is a 30-year-old single Sikh who worked as a medium, prophesying to others in the names of idols. Then she started to hear about miracles happening in Christian meetings in the area. Interested, she wanted to find out whether the rumours were true. After witnessing what was happening, she decided to follow Jesus herself. Her story has led over thirty others to Christ. As a child, she was adopted by a rich non-Christian family. Because she has become a Christian, her family has excluded her from their will, but Pummy will not deny Christ for any price.

Source: Agape Voice

Despite strict religious laws in Romania, a July 2005 outreach with David Hathaway was broadcast on national television. "That was the first time in Romanian history," says Hathaway, founder of the EuroVision movement. For the outreach in Bucharest's National Palace, Hathaway worked with pastor Daniel Matei and others. Matei used to be an evangelist, and is now pastor of a fast-growing church in Romania. Hundreds of people were saved, and many people were miraculously healed - all on national television. "That's a first!" says Hathaway.

Source: EuroVision, tel. (+44) 1924 453 693

Mam Manga from Guinea-Bissau in western Africa is studying in a Brazilian Bible school. After graduating, she wants to return to her nation to serve Jesus. "My parents were not Christians, quite the opposite, practising ancestor worship. We had many idols at home, and people came to sacrifice to them. My brother studied in the capital, where he became a Christian. That caused an argument. I can still hear my father telling him 'You are no longer my son!' The family decided to beat my brother until he recanted, but God prevented it. Not long afterwards, my father fell ill, and became lame. Witch doctors said that the spirits were angry with him. His suffering made him open for Jesus, and when my brother spoke about his faith, my father, mother, four sisters and I all believed. Jesus soon healed my father, who could walk again. That day, he burned all the idols and asked my brother to forgive him - it was a wonderful day. I will never forget my father's last words when he died years later: 'Children, follow Jesus, and we will meet again in eternity.'"

Source: Mam Manga in "DMG informiert", the newsletter of the German Missionary Fellowship

Something very special happened when house church coach John White and Kenny Moore, Southern Baptist Director of Church Planting for the State of Colorado, had breakfast together on October 2, 2002. Both have a passion to see Colorado covered with living expressions of the Body of Christ. While lingering over the last cup of coffee for the morning, their thoughts were turned to the ninth and tenth chapters of Luke. They observed that this was where the Lord was really shifting gears, where the foundation was laid for all that would follow till the end of the age. Up to this point, the Lord was doing the ministry. Now he was sending out the 12 (Luke 9:1-6) and then the 72 others (Luke 10:1). "Now there were 42 two-man teams to establish the presence of Christ â€” to plant churches â€” everywhere," writes Jim Montgomery, a respected missionary and publisher of The Great Commission Update. "I would have been ecstatic," says John White, "if I had 42 church-planting teams for the state of Colorado. But what Jesus was saying really astounded us. 'The fields are ripe but these 42 teams are so few.'" The harvest is not the problem. The critical missing component is an adequate number of harvest workers. How do we get enough apostolic church planters? Luke 10:2b says to do one thing: ask the Lord of the harvest for them. John and Kenny covenanted with each other to pray this "10:2b" prayer together every day possible from that moment on. So every day either John would call Kenny or Kenny would call John to pray. If they didn’t connect, they would leave their prayer on voice mail.

800 days later
In the following 30 months, they have followed through on this pledge about 700 or 800 times, saying "God, here we are again, John and Kenny, pleading for more harvest workers for Colorado, just like every day." "Regular prayer, like the poor widow in Luke 18," says White, "can and should become a healthy, regular and hence relentless intercession." Kenny and John started inviting others to do the same, regularly praying the 10:2b prayer in teams. There are now between 200 and 300 people praying 10:2b with a partner virtually every day. The 10:2b virus is spreading!

Amazing results
"And the results have been amazing," says White. "We're to the point where we get a phone call or e-mail almost every day from someone saying something like this: 'It’s in my heart to plant a (house or simple) church. How do I do that? Can you help me?'" Kenny Moore used to get six or eight people over the course of six months who would indicate a desire to start a new church. He now has a steady stream of inquiries, and there have been around 100 Southern Baptist Churches established in Colorado alone from the time he and White began praying 10:2b together.
Tim Pynes had been on the staff of a large, post-modern church in Denver. With so many programs in this mega-facility, Pynes found he had merely turned into a project manager. "This is not what I signed up for," he told White. "I want to invest in the lives of people." He left the megachurch and started meeting White. He now has a growing network of 8 house churches in Denver.
Guy Muse, a Southern Baptist missionary in Ecuador, has been encouraging all of his house church people to pray the10:2b prayer on a daily basis since May of 2004. "In that month of May alone, 30 new congregations were established," he reports.

"Cast out", not "send forth"
The Greek word for "send forth" in Luke 10:2b, ekballein, was a very forceful, almost violent, term. It is the word used when casting out a demon, for example. White and Moore realised that they should not pray for potential labourers who may be interested, but for highly-motivated people who God had taken and, as only he can, placed with gentle force in the harvest. It seems to work...

Source: Jim Montgomery and John White, DenverWH[at]aol.com

"'Oh no!' I had quite a shock when I realised that I had lost my key during my morning jog," writes Corinne Kotzur from Cottbus, Germany, in the Josua Dienst mission agency's newsletter. "Retracing my steps to look for the key would take me at least an hour. Naturally, I prayed that God would lead me and that I would take the right route... So I turned around and retraced my steps. On the way, I had to pass a man with a large dog. He called out as I passed, 'Excuse me, are you looking for a key? My blind dog just found one!' Ecstatic and astonished that the tiny details of my life are so important to God, I made my way home. He had even used a blind dog, of which I used to be afraid, to find my key."

Source: Josua Bote, Corinne Kotzur

Staff of the international "Janz Team" based in Kandern, southern Germany, sought creative ways to communicate the gospel - and found them. One of those ways is to hold evangelistic English camps, called "LinGo", in Eastern European nations, including Moldavia. Many of the attendees come to faith in Jesus Christ. "Imagine your youth group or church tripling in size in a single week! Imagine how it is when the Christians are the minority in your youth group or church, because there are twice as many visitors who are not yet Christians, but come because they have seen Jesus in other Christians and now do not want to miss what happens when Christians gather! How would your church deal with that?" asks Jake Penner, a Canadian Janz Team missionary. "Many people in Belarus are open for the gospel - no, hungry is a better description!"

The Almost Christians Club
The camps draw many young people. 26-year-old Vladimir, for example "is a Tae Kwon Doe champion with a criminal record," says Penner. "Today, he leads the evangelistic Tae Kwon Doe project in one church. He brought his cousin, the astonishingly beautiful Oxana, a professional dancer and manager of a nightclub in Siberia. When we later asked her what she thought of the camp, she cried for a minute before answering 'Words cannot express what I have experienced this week. After the camp, I spoke with God all night, and I can feel how I am getting closer to him.' She didn't return to her nightclub. The church has since opened another club, for seekers who are not yet Christians, but seeking God so intensely that they are ready to attend such clubs - and sooner or later find Jesus there. Many, like Kalin, a tall young man who played in the national Handball team, bring 40 others to an improvised gathering in a local park. When asked what they think of these Christian gatherings, they say 'Ochin Kruta' - very cool."

Source: Jake Penner, Janz Team, e-mail jpenner at janzteam.com, fax (+49) 7626-9160-99

"People meet daily in their houses for prayer. They tell of dreams and visions, and experience healing and deliverance. Ex-terrorists and spirit healers accept Jesus as their Lord. Churches are formed. This is not an excerpt from Acts, but is happening today among the Kabyls in North-east Algeria," writes Operation Mobilisation's Debbie Meroff. "The Algerian population of around 35 million is composed mainly of two people groups: the Berbers, and the Muslim Arabs, who later conquered the land. After the French left in 1962, the new government tried to unite Algeria under one language, religion and culture. That was difficult, particularly for the Kabylian Berbers; they had Christian roots, and their protests were often answered with military force. This oppression had a side-effect: their anger towards anything Arabic prepared their way to Jesus. New Christian churches are forming all over the Kablyian area. So far, they have been able to resist denominational influences and foreign leadership. Many people hear the gospel through Christian radio and television programmes, and up to 274 people contact the Christian staff each month. Christians hope to gather the scattered believers in new churches, and aim to plant churches in all of Algeria's 48 larger towns."

Source: OM News

Outside the desert, Algeria seems to be one huge building site; new hotels, hospitals, offices and apartment blocks are being built everywhere, and Chinese building workers are always involved. There are over 70,000 Chinese building workers in Algeria, working 13 hours each day, 7 days a week, with 10 days vacation each year, for US$ 400 per month. The men live in overcrowded accommodation on the building sites, watched over by Communist bosses. After work, there was not much to do except smoke and sit around, until Chinese tourists brought large amounts of Christian literature to Algeria. Now, every building worker wants his own Chinese New Testament, and there is often a tumult when the few Bibles are handed out, and hundreds of copies of the Jesus Film are in circulation. A growing number of them are coming to faith in Christ. The Algerian government does not concern itself with these developments, as long as they are limited to the Chinese. The Communist bosses sometimes refuses access to the barracks, but the workers then just climb over the wall...

Source: OM News

This is another of Dr. John Chacha's experiences (see the previous Friday Fax):
"I once preached in a village in my nation, going from house to house. I came to the house of a woman sitting by the fire, crying. When I said 'I am here to tell you about Jesus, who can save you,' she looked at me and said 'I don't want to hear anything about Jesus or God. Get out of my house!' 'Why do you hate God so much?' I asked. 'My husband left me and went to my employer, who fired me. I have three children I cannot feed, no money and no job. I'm just sitting here waiting to die. I don't want anything to do with your God,' she replied. Then I had an idea. 'I'll make you a deal. I can pray that you will only be saved for seven days. Then I'll come back, and if God hasn't met your needs during that time, I'll pray that you fall away from faith, with my permission. But in those seven days, you must do your best: believe in God, trust him, and read your Bible.' 'OK,' she said, 'I can do that.' So I prayed with her for a seven-day salvation. One week later, I visited her again. She was waiting at the door. I said 'I'm here to pray with you that you can fall away from faith again.' 'Oh no! Don't take my Jesus away!' she exclaimed. 'No? We made a deal!' I pressed. She replied 'No, you don't understand! I have falled in love with Jesus. I can't imagine how I ever lived without him. How could I have been so stupid to live without him for years? Let me tell you what happened. My husband returned two days later. He was with a prostitute 10 miles away. The Holy Spirit fell on him so strongly that he jumped out of bed, convicted of his sin, and ran those 10 miles back home, naked. Some people followed him with cameras. He asked God and me for forgiveness for what he had done. I led him to Jesus. Today, we are a happy Christian family.'"

Source: Dr. John Chacha

Jithu took a knife, ready to stab himself. "Even death," he thought, "would be better than being arrested and thrown in jail." Suddenly, words his uncle had said years ago flashed through his mind: "If you're in trouble, Jesus is the only person who can help!" Jithu's uncle was the only Christian in a strict Hindu upper-caste family. At 7 years old, Jithu was encouraged to join a Hindutva group. (Hindutva is a right-wing fundamentalist Hindu philosophy, which teaches that India is for the Hindus, and should only be ruled by them.) For ten years, Jithu was an enthusiastic Hindutva disciple and, like his fellow disciples, he was not afraid to use violence. He once set off a bomb, injuring many people, and had to hide. In his fear, he remembered his uncle's words, and shouted "Jesus, if you are the true God, then help me!" Nothing happened, so he lifted the knife again, ready to stab himself. But he could not. Something held his hand back; he could not move. Then he let the knife fall.
The following morning, he woke up feeling happy, and knew that Jesus had helped him, and would continue to help. He met a Christian policeman, who advised him to confess everything to the police. Jithu did so, and appeared in court, but God kept him from being sent to jail. That day, he decided to follow Jesus. His family was horrified; he was allowed to continue living at home, but they refused to feed him. He started teaching children, and prayed for an opportunity to give his life to God completely. His uncle told him about Operation Mobilisation, which Jithu has since joined. He is now telling people all over the world about Jesus.
Source: Jithu and Debbie Meroff in OM Nachrichten (OM News)

Dr. John Chacha grew up in a poor family in Tanzania and Kenya. Today, he is a ministry partner with prophetic teacher Rick Joyner and lives in Virginia, USA. The following is an excerpt of his life story, told during the Levites' Camp in Switzerland in July 2005:

From failure to evangelist of his family
"As I was growing up, even the poor called us poor, and we often had nothing to eat. I was terrible at school; the teacher called me a failure and predicted that I would end up a thief. But someone told me about Jesus, and invited me to a Christian church, where I found the Lord. In my predominantly Islamic surroundings, people who came to Jesus often had to pay a very high price. One young man told his family that he had found Jesus; they laid him on the railway tracks so that a train ran over him, killing him. Following my conversion, then, I returned home with mixed feelings. I called my family together and told them that I had found Jesus. My father was very sad, telling me that I could not believe in Jesus and remain a member of the family. I should renounce Jesus, or he would kill me. I could not renounce, so he took a heavy rod to smash my skull. I let it happen - but every time the rod almost hit my head, it rebounded supernaturally. My father struck three times, three times the rod rebounded. Then he dropped it and started to cry. Nobody understood what had just happened. I had to leave my family, and spent the following three weeks reading the Bible day and night. My performance at school changed dramatically in the next three months, from one of the worst to best in class. Finally, my father summoned me. He kneeled next to his bed, saying "Son, I want this Jesus who you have. Can you pray for me to received Jesus?" Today, my family loves Jesus; my mother is a pastor, as are some of my brothers.

Dr. Jesus
I began serving Jesus as a student. Once, I went with some other students to a predominantly Muslim island to preach. We set up our loudspeakers and told the people that we were there to tell them about Jesus. The Mullah immediately began heckling. "We don't believe that Jesus was the Son of God, just a prophet. Get off our island, or we will kill you. You have a few minutes to pack up and leave." So we packed up, because none of us wanted to die. But the Spirit of the Lord told me "Go back. If they cannot accept Jesus as the Son of God, I have another idea." So we went back, set up the loudspeakers again, and started to sing. The people came, but with stones in their hands, just waiting to stone us. I told them "We are not here to tell you about Jesus the Son of God, but about Jesus, the doctor!" "Jesus the doctor? OK, tell us about him," they said. I asked whether they had any sick. "Bring me a sick person. We will pray for them in the name of Jesus. If they are healed, will you believe that Jesus is the Son of God, crucified, risen and sitting at the right hand of God?" "If your Jesus can do that, then he is not only the Son of God, he is God himself!" they replied. They brought someone, but it was a shock for me. I had been expecting someone with a headache or back pain, but they brought a blind woman.
My faith almost vanished. I prayed "God, please let the earth open up and swallow me." The other students started to vanish in the crowd, because I had told them to make their escape. In this moment of my weakness, the Holy Spirit said to me "Son, I am strong enough to defend my own Word. You do not need to defend me. Your job is just to believe." So I just prayed a very simple prayer: "God, open these blind eyes, so that these people recognise that Jesus is the Son of God." The power of God came upon the woman, her eyes opened and she shouted "I can see! I can see!" I started shouting, too! "The Bible works! The Word of God is real!" The Mullah came to me, saying "We give you our mosque. Please tell our people about Jesus, the Son of God!"

Source: Dr. John Chacha

(Please note: some of the claims made by reporters and Mayor Nagin during and immediately after Hurricane Katrina and mentioned in this Friday Fax have since been shown to be exaggerated or wrong.)

Following devastating hurricane Katrina, which hit New Orleans and Louisiana on 29 August 2005, a small part of the USA is in a state of shock, and a huge region has been devastated. Thousands are dead, and 25,000 body bags have been delivered to the region. One million people have lost their homes, and armed gangs made New Orleans a lawless jungle. With a backdrop of rape, hate, desperation and powerlessness, old race and class conflicts have reared their head, everyone fighting against everyone else. The victims include almost no rich white people. "This could never have happened in (rich) Orange County, California, or Manhattan, New York," commented one TV reporter. "In England, racial tensions between black and white were reduced by a Christian revival. In the USA, they developed into the Civil War, and we're still fighting today," said Neil Cole, house church planter and author, at the National House Church Conference in Denver in early September 2005.

Almost as soon as the power failed in New Orleans, the thin veneer of law and order broke, and the situation exploded. Ray Nagin, Mayor of New Orleans, completely lost his composure in the face of incomprehensible delays in delivering aid ("You can get water to Baghdad, but it takes more than four days to do that here"). I can still hear him shouting on the radio "Get your asses moving and do something. Hundreds more dead every day - that makes me puke." "The multicultural metropolis New Orleans stood for lust, swing, paddleboats and Mardi Gras. Now it stands for suffering, lawlessness and death," wrote German news magazine Focus.

The majority of Americans, though, are continuing their lives as normal, as though the most devastating natural disaster in American history had never happened. In the breakfast room of my hotel in Minneapolis, everyone is just silently watching the TV screens voyeuristically presenting the suffering. Nobody says anything, everyone avoids looking at each other, "Yes, another cinnamon roll, please." Then business as usual: buying and selling, sit back and enjoy the show.

For years, scientists have been warning about a potential catastrophe in New Orleans, which is around 5 meters under sea level. The Bush administration preferred to save money rather than strengthen the levees protecting the city. In June 2005, the city's flood control budget was cut by US$71 million (44%). Now, they face unknown reparation costs, around US$100 billion in economic damage, and the cost of rebuilding (Bush: "out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast").

Amos 3:6-7
"When disaster comes to a city, has not the LORD caused it? Surely the Sovereign LORD does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets."
It was not only scientists who predicted the catastrophe; a number of prophets also saw it coming. Rick Joyner mentions that in 1998, his movement received a prophecy that "New Orleans will look like an estuary." In his commentary about the catastrophe, Joyner writes "Over the next few years a great move of God will spread over that region, and many who have lost all of their possessions will gain something far better - eternal life... There is a lot of witchcraft coming from New Orleans and it wants to cause as much death as possible."

Katrina means 'pure'
On 29th August 2004, one year to the day before the catastrophe, Chuck Pierce (Colorado Springs) prophesied:
"A new demonstration with a new blueprint will be seen. This will be known as a meeting house... The wind and water will rise in the midst of New Orleans. Many from the south will come north for refuge. Prepare. Prepare now for winds and water that will surprise you... Prepare! Shift! Saul will be no more. David will arise from this day forward. The wind from the south will begin to blow. Watch for the effects. This will purify the land and bring great change... Get ready. Don't brace yourself. Throw yourself up. Get ready for the new is coming. Every place I blow on will shake. The wind is coming on Louisiana and it will shake the entire state... The south purifying wind of My holiness will sweep across Louisiana."

Source: Wolfgang Simson

The financial challenges facing traditional Christian churches are often linked to building projects. Many undergo great tensions when considering the massive investments required, which are a burden for the members for many years. But many church building projects are not even necessary, according to a recent study in the USA. "Revolution", George Barna's new book, will be published in September. Barna leads a church research institute, and is currently the most-quoted person in the Christian church in the USA because of his statistical work. To summarize the book's most important conclusions:

• The number of Christians attending local church in the USA is declining rapidly. Today, 70% of Christians attend traditional churches, but this will sink to 30-35% in 20 years;
• The number of followers of Jesus who do not attend a local church will grow from 30% to 70% in the next 20 years;
• Alternative fellowship forms (house church/simple church, post-modern churches etc.), currently home for 5% of USA Christians, will grow to make up 30-35%; another 30-35% will live out their faith in the fields of media, arts and culture; the remaining 5% of Christians attending non-traditional forms of church will have a family-based spiritual life;
• Conclusion: a minority group presently not even noticed by many will become the mainstream of North American Christianity in only two decades.

"This is a revolution, and will change not only the recruiting strategies of seminaries and Bible schools, but also radically question church building projects," says Barna. If only half as many people will be visiting traditional congregational services in 20 years, a smaller building will suffice.

Source: George Barna "Revolution"

Hollywood may not be as godless as many proclaim, concludes a study just published by The Barna Group (TBG). 24,147 adults in the 86 largest cities and 27 most populous States of the USA were interviewed about 28 factors of their faith. One of the results is a shock for many people: Los Angeles, the city which evangelical Christians often criticise for the media produced there, is home to almost a million 'deeply committed Christians', more Evangelicals than New York, Chicago and Boston together. "Los Angeles is huge," says Barna. "Even if the percentage of the population which is Christian is below the national average, the city is so large, with over 10 million inhabitants, that it contains the highest number of Christians." The State with the highest proportion of Evangelicals is California, with 2 million; the State with the least Evangelical adults is Connecticut, where only 26,000 of the 2.5 million inhabitants consider themselves Evangelical. Of the 86 largest cities in the USA, Salt Lake City, Utah, Hartford, Connecticut and Providence, Rhode Island have the smallest and Little Rock, Arkansas (22%), the greatest percentage of Evangelical inhabitants.

Source: TBG