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God at work - in the world

North Africa: Get a Chat Bot on your Team!

Karl and his family are on a Frontiers team in North Africa. They’ve recently begun using Facebook advertisements (ads) to share scripture verses and find ‘people of peace’ in their city.  

Why did your team start using Facebook?  Most of us have been living here for a few years, doing business, teaching and sharing our faith with any Muslim neighbours who want to listen. There are a few scattered believers here but still no church in our region. Just over a year ago we began hearing stories from other Frontiers teams who were using Facebook ads and finding many ‘seekers’ in their cities. No one on our team is particularly techie but we decided to learn how it’s done and give it a try. 

 How did you begin? After some basic training we set up a Facebook page called, ‘The Way of the Messiah’. We then paid to advertise on Facebook. These ads reach people only in our city - anyone interested in Jesus or the Injil (Gospels) is directed to our page. We post simple content here, such as photos of our country with Bible verses in Arabic.  People can like, share and comment on our posts.  

How do you follow up with people who view your pages? The first stage is done using a ‘chat bot’ we created, which automatically interacts with visitors to our page. It asks, ‘Do you want to know more about who Christ is?’ At this point around 50% leave or send an insulting message. This is OK because we’re looking for those who are genuinely interested in knowing more. When they show interest they are automatically sent a verse each day and invited to do a simple Bible study. They can continue until they opt out. A lot of people do opt out after a while, but it’s a filter for us to find a particular type of person. 

 What type of people are you looking for? We’ve designed this to find ‘people of peace’; those who are not only interested in the topic but are also sharing with others. They’re easy to spot because the bot asks them ‘Who in your neighbourhood needs to hear this?’ The bot then asks what response they got from their neighbours. Digitally it’s easy to find out who is passing it on.  

At what point fo they begin interacting with a human? After early communications with the bot we have digital responders; people who chat online with seekers before we offer to meet with them. A church in another city saw the great need in our region and sent a local believer to bring the gospel here. We became friends and he’s keen to work with us in doing face to face follow up. Like us, he has a big vision to make disciples and start house churches that multiply.  

What response have you had? After a few test runs hundreds of people have begun reading passages of scripture on our pages. We also put together some videos about hope in a time of Coronavirus. These went viral. Last time I looked we had 250,000 views in our region and 5,000 people had shared them.  One particular man is studying all the material there is. He’s done 4-5 weeks of Bible study and is sharing with his neighbours. He’s now in touch with our local co-worker for follow up. We believe he could be a ‘man of peace’. 

So what’s next? There’s so much potential for this to grow but because of our jobs we can only be involved part time. However, we're planning on training a local believer how to use the bot. Once he is ready we are going to place ads covering the entire south of our country in order to find more people of peace. That's very exciting! 

Source: Frontiers UK, September 2020

Iran: Church Believed to Have Nearly 1 Million Members

If you open up your doors to a house church in Iran, then your home could be frequently raided and monitored. And if you do happen to go to prison, the prison situation there is appalling.

Despite these issues, Christianity Today reports the Iranian church has grown to around 1 million members. This is according to a survey by GAMAAN, a research group based out of the Netherlands. The survey asked 50,000 Iranians what their belief was. 90% of those surveyed live in Iran.

According to the survey, 1.5% of Iranians are Christians. Extrapolating that out yields a minimum of 750,000 Iranian Christians, but there are also 117,500 Armenian and Assyrian Christians living in the country, putting the actual baseline closer to 867,500 Christians at minimum.

However, Christianity Today reports the survey itself states there are “without doubt in the order of magnitude of several hundreds of thousands and growing beyond a million” Christians in the country.

Source: Christian Headlines, September 2020

Click here for the article in Christianity Today

West Africa: Gospel Spreads Among Truck Drivers

In West Africa, truck driving is a dangerous and stressful job. Drivers face job insecurity, the threat of being robbed, extortion from corrupt policemen, and cultural and linguistic barriers as they cross through borders taking imports from the coast to landlocked countries farther east.

So when Christians offered to pray for Ahmed one day as he prepared to leave the port and transport his next load, he didn’t mind, even though he was Muslim. As he continued on his route though, he was amazed that the police never harassed him, just as the Christians had prayed.

The next time he saw the believers at the port a few months later, he gathered a group of his friends and went over to them. The last time, the Christians asked him if he’d listen to a story, but he’d been in a hurry to leave. Now, he wanted to know more.

“God answered their prayer,” he told the whole group. “Now, we’re going to listen to their story.”

Each time Ahmed returned to the port, he found the believers and asked to hear another story. As the months passed, he understood his sin and his need for a Saviour, and he put his faith in Christ.

Click here for fulll story and to hear more about this strategic and compassionate ministry to truck drivers as well as photos and a video.

Source: International Mission Board, June 2020

Saudi Arabia: A Tiny Church Grows

The small Church in Saudi Arabia needs mature and committed believers to translate Scripture and to lead churches. “It’s almost like the early Church in the book of Acts,” says Abd Al Fadi about Christianity among certain language groups in Saudi Arabia. He works with Hijazi Arabic in Western Saudi Arabia, Najdi Arabic in central Saudi Arabia, and the Saudi Gulf dialect in the East.

These groups have few Christians. Finding mature and committed believers to translate [Scripture] is difficult. Abd Al Fadi says, “Sometimes they’re busy with a job or concerned about being caught by their family or the government.”

Even if the translators complete their work, that doesn’t mean it can be distributed easily. “It’s one thing to produce the product. It’s another to deliver it to the right church or group that can benefit from it.”

Abd Al Fadi asks Christians in the West to pray that Christians in Saudi Arabia will join together in house churches and that the right materials will get to the right people.

Most of all, pray that like the early Church in Acts, the Church in Saudi Arabia would grow and multiply. Abd Al Fadi says he hopes within the next decade “We will hear about many Saudi believers who are out in the open, doing media or doing ministry and partnering with others as well.”

Source: Mission Network News, May 2020

Click here for full story which includes links to more in a series about unreached people groups.

Jesus film watched by over 8 million people in two weeks

“Last month, during the two weeks before and after Easter, six television stations in different cities in a large Muslim country aired the Jesus Film...we prayed. I asked the organisers if they had any results/responses to the airings...I got this back: ‘Over those dates 8.2 million people tuned in for some portion of the Jesus Film.’ That’s 10% of the population. Let’s keep praying!”

Source: A field worker, May 2020

Click here to find out about the 10/10 Prayer Initiative – praying and fasting for 10 years asking God that at least 10% of the Muslim world will be saved by 2028

Middle East: COVID-19 Lockdown Ignites Spiritual Interest

Amid strict coronavirus lockdowns, millions of people across the Middle East and North Africa clamouring for a spiritual and practical lifeline are finding help right in their own homes through television.

In the region where Christianity began but is now a minority faith, Christian satellite television broadcaster SAT-7 has seen viewer numbers surge and social media interest skyrocket since the COVID-19 stay-at-home orders.

“There’s an explosion of spiritual hunger across the Middle East and North Africa right now as people stuck at home seek real hope and real answers,” said Dr. Rex Rogers, president of SAT-7 USA.

“Millions of people in countries like Iran, Iraq, and Turkey are clamouring to see and hear in their own language what it’s like to be a follower of Jesus in a time of crisis,” Rogers said.

In coronavirus hotspot Turkey, where 99% of the population is non-Christian, more viewers have contacted the SAT-7 TÜRK channel daily in the past few weeks than any day in the previous five years since broadcasts began.

In Iran, another virus hotspot, viewers’ calls and messages to the live, Farsi-language Signal show—beamed into millions of homes across the nation—jumped to seven times the usual number last month, as Iranians rattled by the pandemic turned to the show’s hosts for reassurance and practical advice.

Source: SAT-7 via Christian Newswwire, April 2020

Click here to read full story   

Muslim World: Bible Studies with Bots

 “We have been waiting for this chance to study God’s Word,” Khadija said at the start of the Bible study.

Khadija and her husband, Rayan, live in a remote community—a place that may never have been open to the gospel had it not been for Facebook.

Some months ago, Rayan started engaging with us on our team’s evangelistic Facebook page, where he watched videos about Jesus and read passages of Scripture.

Like hundreds of other Muslims who have visited the Facebook page, Rayan also studied the Word with the page’s bot, a software application that runs automated mini-Bible studies.

After Rayan completed the mini-Bible study, we connected him with one of our Muslim-background believing partners. This gave Rayan the chance to meaningfully interact with a follower of Jesus.

But before ever meeting a believer in person, Rayan had already shared Jesus with more than a dozen people. His entire family had started reading the New Testament with him, and he had even been studying the Word with several coworkers using a smartphone app.

Source: Frontiers USA, September 2019

Click here to read full story