In one village in southeastern Fujian near the Guangdong border, Chinese believers told a remarkable story of God’s provision and power. An elderly brother had believed in the Lord for many years when the Communists took control of the area in 1949. The Blessed Old Man, as other believers affectionately dubbed him, came from an impoverished family and had never learned to read or write properly. Despite these simple impediments, after he received the Lord Jesus he proved to be a powerful evangelist, leading hundreds of people to faith in Christ throughout the district.
Hatching a plan to give Christianity a black eye and to show the supremacy of Marxism, the government decided to make an example of the old preacher by giving him the best house in the village and a generous supply of food. They also appointed him chairman of the village’s Communist committee, thinking that when he abandoned his religion they would display him as a shining example of the goodness of Communism and the futility of Christianity.
The Blessed Old Man, however, belonged to Jesus Christ. Instead of being seduced by the Communists,
…he used the large house he had been provided to hold house church meetings and distributed the food he was given to those believers in need. After some time, the government saw that their plan was badly backfiring, so they issued an ultimatum to the “chairman”. He had to choose between his faith and the new lifestyle and status he had been afforded by the authorities. Although he knew that he would return to a life of extreme poverty and hardship, the old brother did not hesitate for a moment. “ I choose Jesus!” he boldly declared.
The enraged officials threw him out of the house. He had nowhere to go, but another believer provided him with a small room on the side of a shack. China at the time was suffering terribly from Mao’s disastrous economic experiments, and millions of people were starving to death. Although the old man now had somewhere to stay, there was no food available to eat. All the meager crops were taken by the government, and the other Christians were too poor to help him.
For some days the old man wasted away in his tiny room, with no food passing his lips. He grew weak and ill and knew that his life would soon be snuffed out. Then one morning he awoke to find a hole in the bottom of the wall. He didn’t know what had caused it and repaired the damage. A few hours later he found another hole and started to wonder if these strange occurrences were from the Lord. While he was still pondering it, a large rat came through the hole with some food in its mouth. After entering the room, the rat dropped the food on the floor and then left. A short time later it returned and did the same again. A small collection of nuts and vegetables lay on the dirt floor!
Each morning the rat paid a visit to the elderly brother. In response to his commitment, God had saved the old man from starvation by instructing a rat to feed him! The miraculous provisions continued for several months. On some days the rat brought more food than usual. Those were the days when the old man was expecting a visitor!
Excerpt from Fujian – The Blessed Province – The China Chronicles, Paul Hattaway, Asia Harvest (Langham Global Library), p. 245-246
God says “I will not, I will not cease to uphold or sustain thee; I will not, I will not, I will not forsake someone in a state of defeat or helplessness in the midst of hostile circumstances.” (Expanded Greek Translation of Hebrew 13:5 by Dr. Kenneth Wuest.)
Be encouraged Saints… regardless of your circumstances. God sees you, is in you, and has not forsaken you.
What would you do if you had no access to Scripture? Most Americans have multiple Bibles at home, dozens of translations at our fingertips, and devotional apps on every device. Yet for believers living in hostile areas and restricted nations, a single torn page of the New Testament is a treasure worth suffering for.
For many Christians around the world, owning a Bible is illegal. It can cost a believer their freedom or even their life. Yet, in the darkest prison cells and most hostile corners of the world, the Word of God remains the most desired possession.
During 25+ years serving at The Voice of the Martyrs, I’ve had the honor to meet with persecuted Christians living and serving in the most dangerous and difficult places to follow Christ. Often, they share their inspiring testimonies.
Recently I came across five powerful stories about what having access to Scripture meant to imprisoned Christians.
1. Brother Joe
Brother Joe, a former prisoner in North Africa, received a smuggled portion of the Bible — just Psalms and part of the Gospel of John. For him, those verses were life itself.
“I would cry over the words,” he said. “Not because I was sad, but because it was like Jesus Himself was sitting in my cell with me.”
Even as Brother Joe endured torture, he began copying verses by hand to share with other prisoners. The guards tried to stop him, but the Word kept spreading. As the prophet Isaiah wrote, “The word of our God shall stand forever.”
2. Helen Berhane
Helen Berhane, an Eritrean gospel singer who was imprisoned in a metal shipping container for over two years, had no Bible at all — but she had memorized verses before her arrest.
“The Word became my song, my food, my comfort,” she shared. “I had no book, but I had Him.”
Even today, years later, those memorized verses continue to sustain her.
3. Aaron
Aaron, a front-line worker, told me about a woman jailed for leading Bible studies in China, where the underground church is heavily persecuted. Fellow inmates, recalling verses they had memorized, pieced together entire chapters from memory. When a contraband Bible finally arrived, they tore it apart — not to destroy it, but to share it.
“In that cell,” Aaron said, “the Bible wasn’t just a book — it was their breath.”
4. Ali
Perhaps the most startling transformation came in the life of Ali, a former jihadist who encountered the Gospel of Luke in prison. The Bible turned his world upside down.
“I had studied violence all my life,” he said. “Then I met Jesus in a jail cell in the pages of that book. That Bible broke me.”
Ali found, for the first time, a God who loves His enemies and sent His Son to die for them.
The Bible is more than print on paper — it’s living and active. The Word of God has the power to sustain people’s faith under the most intense persecution. For the millions of Christians in hostile nations, a Bible is not just a comfort. It is what carries them through their torture and suffering.
5. Iranian prisoner
Hormoz Shariat, the founder of Iran Alive Ministries known as “the Billy Graham of Iran,” shared how one Iranian prisoner risked his life to possess a single page of Scripture. That page became a spark. He memorized it and passed it to another inmate, who did the same.
“They shared one torn page like it was gold,” Shariat said. “It was enough to bring light into total darkness.”
In Iran, where printing or importing Farsi Bibles is illegal, believers face prison or death for sharing God’s Word. And yet, they do it anyway. The hunger for the Bible is so deep that even a fragment — one Psalm, one parable — is worth everything.
Every April, VOM focuses on getting Bibles to persecuted Christians. This year, our ministry has identified 458,000 Christians, by name, who are waiting for a Bible in hostile areas and restricted nations.
Through front-line workers, the ministry is positioned to deliver these Bibles directly into the hands of those who need them most. Imagine being the reason a believer in prison experiences the presence of Christ in their darkest hour!
There are many lessons to learn from others who have suffered for their faith. The stories here are just a small example of the power of God’s Word to bring hope and strength to our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Maybe our first lesson is not to take for granted what others are risking everything to hold.
Todd Nettleton is Vice President for Message at The Voice of the Martyrs and host of The Voice of the Martyrs Radio. He is the author of When Faith Is Forbidden: 40 Days on the Frontlines with Persecuted Christians.
READER NOTE: Voice of The Martyrs charges $10 per Bible per their donation page. Asia Harvest charges $3 to print and deliver a Bible per their donation page. Asia Harvest and the underground church in China estimate that for every Bible given to a believer in China, at least one other individual comes to Christ. Not a bad $3 investment in the Kingdom of God!
Asia Harvest’s ministry is limited to Asia. They print Bibles in 163 different Asian languages. Our family has supported this effort for about three years.
Voice of the Martyrs ministry is worldwide evidently.
May you do your part to spread His Word in this dark world.
“Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell. I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.” William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army
From time to time, we receive very sensitive reports from our partners in Asia. We often refrain from sharing such stories to protect the safety of our partners, while striving to create a balanced newsletters that don’t overly burden our readers and leave them with broken hearts.
Sadly, many of the stories include suffering and reflect some of the worst depravity of mankind.
While we love to encourage readers with stories of revival and Gospel breakthroughs, to only share those would be unbalanced. Asia is also a place of intense spiritual darkness, and sometimes things that are difficult to read are necessary to share so that believers around the world can know how to pray.
Now take a moment to consider William Booth’s quote cited above. Have you ever considered what it might actually look like to run a rescue shop just outside the boundary of hell? What we are about to share with you in this newsletter is the result of believers doing just that in Myanmar today.
Last year, we were excited to receive a call from one of our dearest ministry partners on the field in Asia. He is seeing God move powerfully among hungry hearts, with thousands of people having been added to the family of God.
However, what he shared that day caused our hearts to grieve and tears to fill our eyes. …the Lord is saving countless beautiful children in Myanmar. Yet Satan does not let any genuine move of God go unchallenged, and the story we are about to share is both gripping and heavy. Please read it through to the end, as there is a message of hope at its conclusion.
THE FOLLOWING TRUE STORY IS NOT RECOMMENDED FOR CHILDREN. READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
Eva (not her real name) was just 11 years old when a great darkness visited the slum she calls home…
It happened on a sunny day, just like any other. The streets were buzzing with life as schoolchildren were on holiday and were making the most of their young lives in the impoverished neighborhood.
“Following me for some free candy!” one child shouted to groups of playing children. Eva’s belly growled at the thought of eating something sweet. She frequently felt hunger pangs at home due to a lack of food, so she welcomed the invitation and hurried over along with the other children for some free candy.
Eva had noticed that some of her friends as well as others had disappeared from time to time, never to return. This made many in her village aware of the dangers around them and suspicious of strangers. But the young boy leading them to get candy was a familiar face in the neighborhood, and his parents met the group of children along the way, putting Eva’s heart at ease.
As the group walked quite a distance from the village, the boy’s parents excitedly told them about a free medical clinic that would be distributing candy along with a free vaccine for each child. Coming from destitute families who can’t afford the most basic medical procedures without becoming enslaved by debt to violent gang lenders, the children considered the offer of medical help one less cost for their parent to worry about.
Finally, beyond earshot of the village, the group of now 20 children, along with a pregnant mother, entered the local graveyard. It seemed like an odd place for candy and vaccines to be distributed, but sure enough, there was a table set up with medical instruments operated by staff dressed in white lab coats.
The children formed a line and quickly, one by one, received an injection in the arm, followed by a piece of candy. While they were all enjoying their candy, Eva noticed something very odd beginning to happen to each one of them.
A strange fog clouded their judgement and made them dizzy.
And then it happened.
The pregnant mother was suddenly murdered right in front of the children by these criminals dressed as doctors and nurses. With no concern for the sanctity of human life, they proceeded to slash open the deceased mother’s stomach, pulling her precious unborn child from her womb.
Terror of the worst kind gripped every child. Drugged beyond the point of being able to resist and now threatened with death themselves if they did not cooperate, the children were herded into the backs of open-bed trucks and driven through their village to a nearby fishing pier, where they were placed on boats.
Eva inwardly screamed for help, but no words made it to her lips because of the drug-induced state she was in. It was at that horrifying moment that she remembered the words she had heard at a Christian meeting she had attended since she gave her life to Jesus. It was there that she first learned that Jesus cares for everyone and can save people when they call upon His name.
“Jesus!” she cried out in Burmese. It was all she was capable of saying.
The boat that took the children across the river docked on the far side, and each child was whisked through the fish market and hurriedly pushed into cars that drove them away. Eva watched with crippling fear as she was pushed closer to one of the cars, its door opening for her as she approached.
Then, out of nowhere, two very tall white, angelic beings appeared! They released her from the arms of her captors, brought her back to the pier, and put her on a boat returning to her village on the other side of the river. Eva made it safely home and has been slowly recovering from the trauma, but sadly, none of the 19 other children have returned to their families since that day.
Most children who disappear in Myanmar under these circumstances do not live to tell their stories. Asia Harvest has since learned from our partners in the slums that the 19 children were most likely sent to various hospitals, where they were sedated before surgeons removed all their organs, killing them in the process. The murder of the pregnant mother and the nature of the diabolical events of that day confirm these children were victims of human organ harvesting. Key organs, such as livers, kidneys, hearts, and lungs, are sold for transplant in wealthier countries.
Ongoing civil war in Myanmar has torn the country apart and resulted in the breakdown of society and the failure of the justice system. As a result, the police do nothing to assist victims, creating an environment in which such monstrous evil can thrive.
While the Church in Myanmar lacks the human ability to get judicial help against these threats, God’s children there have learned that the Lord Jesus is the true source of their rescue. The Scriptures have become very real in their lives, such as Psalm 20:7: “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.”
Perhaps God moving so mightily in Myanmar today –the likes of which have never been seen before among the Buddhist majority — is Heaven’s response to the cries of desperate believers who lack an army of chariots and human forces to rescue them. With no such resources outside of Christ, they have been discovering the blessing that this “last resort” was all along their only lasting hope.
Through this profound discovery, God’s revival fires are burning ever brighter amidst Myanmar’s darkest hours.
Please pray for Eva to completely heal from the deep trauma she endured and for the 19 families who now live with the painful void of their children having been so brutally snatched from them.
Every day our coworkers help precious children like Eva, and multitudes of young children and teenagers have been rescued who would have otherwise been trafficked by gangs in sex work, drug dealing, and many other types of modern-day slavery. By the power of the Holy Spirit, thousands of at-risk families have come to a saving knowledge of Jesus. Not only have many vulnerable individuals come to Christ and been radically transformed, but many traffickers and gang members have also repented and surrendered their lives to the Lord Jesus!
Last year, Asia Harvest leaders visited the very slum where this diabolical incident occurred, and we even crossed on the same boats that took the kidnapped children across the river. We have personally witnessed the powerful work the Holy Spirit is doing in those poor communities, and we can declare with great conviction that Jesus IS the answer and the only hope for Myanmar and the world.
The End.
Thank you for taking time to read this article. Please pray for the people and Christians of Myanmar. Please visit Asia Harvest if you wish to learn more about how to help their work through The Children’ Fund or Bibles for Asia ($3 each) fund. While seeking an Asia ministry we could trust, we were directed to Asia Harvest by a close friend who worked as an underground missionary in communist China for many years. We give monthly to their work.
If you access news from Asia, you will know that for decades—and especially during the past four or five years—the military junta that rules Myanmar has increasingly committed atrocities against their own people.
Whatever chaos your country may have faced during the last few years of Covid lockdowns, it is probably little compared to the people of Myanmar, who in addition to Covid restrictions, have been forced to endure civil war, a genocidal campaign by the government, indiscriminate shooting of people in the streets, starvation, deprivation, economic collapse, and a military that has systematically raped and slaughtered many segments of the population, especially in the Christian tribal areas.
There is clear evidence that the evil genocide sweeping Myanmar has been conducted with the explicit help of the Chinese Communist Party, which seems to view Myanmar as a virtual vassal state of China. The bullets, bombs, tanks, and even air assaults have been done with machinery supplied by China. The stories and pictures we have seen from Myanmar are too gruesome to share here.
Amid this chaos, the stubborn pride that has kept generations of Buddhist Burmese from believing in Jesus Christ has been eroded, and in their state of humiliation and brokenness, tens of thousands of Burmese have repented and given their lives to God. Truly, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6).
From across the densely populated plains of Myanmar—inhabited by Buddhist peoples like the Burmese, Chaungtha, Mon and Rakhine—reports have emerged of families and sometimes whole communities being transformed by the Lord Jesus Christ. People who were dead in their sins have been given new hearts; the hopeless now have hope and purpose in their lives; families that have worshipped idols for centuries are now praising the Living God; and many broken people are being put back together as the Lord Jesus has pity on the suffering Burmese and declares: “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion” (Romans 9:15).
Despite the wonderful breakthrough among groups in Myanmar that have long been considered resistant to the Gospel, the revival at this stage is numerically small compared to the tens of millions of lost Buddhist people there. But it is a blessed start. Please pray the Holy Spirit will continue to fan the flames, and that millions of people throughout Myanmar will find Christ and glorify His Name.
God is doing a new thing through this revival. In the two centuries since Adoniram Judson arrived in Myanmar, the Christian landscape in the country became very denominational, reflecting many of the divisions seen in the Western world. Countless Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, Anglican, Assemblies of God, and other churches filled the land. The faith of many Christians became nominal and dry, however, and the Body of Christ was in desperate need of a heavenly visitation.
The current revival has almost exclusively occurred through house church discipleship networks, where faith has been stripped of many man-made religious traditions and brought back to its basic, pure form. Gone is the division between paid clergy and “laymen.” Now, new believers from this revival are considered “kings and priests to serve our God” (Revelation 5:10), and all members of the Body of Christ are encouraged to use their God-given gifts to build up others and to reach the lost.
The current move of God is also unlikely to produce a single visible church building. Myanmar does not need one more cathedral or church building. Now, tens of thousands of newly redeemed brothers and sisters with a simple yet powerful faith gather in homes, basements, shops, halls, thatch huts, teahouses, or wherever else they may choose to meet.
Here at Asia Harvest, we have never had any interest in funding church buildings or visible places of worship. In fact, in the 35 years we have been serving in Asia, we have helped local believers plant thousands of fellowships of vibrant believers, but not once have we ever funded or constructed a church building.
There are practical reasons for our stance. In the countries we serve in, church-going Christians are easily identified and persecuted by militant Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, or Communists. Our goal when we help Asian believers establish a fellowship is that it is flexible from the start and able to go “underground” as soon as it needs to. It’s very difficult for the enemies of the Cross to destroy God’s children when they cannot locate them easily and there are no buildings adorned with crosses that point the way for the persecutors to go.
The nature of the current revival, which has been gathering steam for several years, is that many thousands of sinners have repented and surrendered to Jesus Christ. Each believer then disciples others, and in that way the Gospel has spread rapidly to their friends and relatives, who then share it with their contacts. Like every movement where many people come to faith there are challenges, but the Holy Spirit has brought peace and love to communities that for centuries had been trapped in spiritual darkness and depravity.
In this remarkable recent photo from Myanmar, new believers—mostly people from a Buddhist background—joyfully receive Burmese Bibles for the first time. Similar scenes are being repeated throughout the country as revival spreads.
A Rare Opportunity to Impact an Entire Country
Although no one except God currently knows the extent of the revival in Myanmar, what we can tell you is that when our co-workers there (who we have known for 30 years) began to field requests for Burmese Bibles, in a short space of time requests flooded in from more than 100 different Myanmar church and ministry leaders, begging for the Word of God so that new believers could be established in the faith and the gains from the revival would not fall by the wayside.
(Note: Although the Bible Society exists in Myanmar, Bibles tend to be very difficult to obtain from them and are priced so high that most normal believers cannot afford to buy a single copy.) All Bibles provided by Asia Harvest are distributed free of charge to believers, via existing ministries, which have to account for what they receive by sending us reports and photos of their distributions.
As a result of this first round of requests, we have printed 80,000 full Burmese Bibles, and as you read this newsletter they are being distributed to grateful believers throughout Myanmar. At $3 each, the amount of money needed to do such a project soon becomes large, but we are thankful for our supporters who have prayed and given to our Asia Bible Fund, which allows us to implement large printings like this.
After the initial 80,000 Bibles have been distributed and reports have been received, we envisage there will be a need for at least another 80,000 Burmese Bibles, plus thousands more in other minority languages. We will then evaluate the project, but in our experience in China and other parts of Asia, when much needed Bibles reach thirsty and desperate new Christians, the result is that the Scriptures act like fuel being added to a fire, causing the blaze to burn much brighter. This, in turn, results in a surge in the number of new believers, who also need Bibles, and so the need escalates.
As we were writing this newsletter, our long-term Myanmar Bible co-workers sent us this message: “Including the 80,000 now being distributed, we have received requests to print at least 150,000 more Burmese Bibles. Because of the civil war many people are turning to Christ. Buddhism doesn’t help the heart, but Jesus does.”
The main role of Asia Harvest in this move of God in Myanmar is to provide the Word of God to new believers. We expect to be busy doing this for at least the next few years. Please pray with us for the success of this project, so that God’s flock may be spiritually nourished and anchored in truth and grace.
We hope to give updates on the revival and testimonies from Burmese believers in future newsletters. It is a great privilege to be involved, and we see it as a wonderful, God-given opportunity to impact not only a people group, but an entire country for the kingdom of God.
ASIA Bible Fund
Current totals: 19,134,787 Bibles printed in 156 languages.
The Asia Bible Fund provides the Scriptures in numerous languages of China, Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and anywhere in Asia where God’s people need His Word. These Bibles are distributed free of charge, equipping the Body of Christ and helping fuel the flames of revival.
Each Bible costs just $3.00 to print and deliver. We also print millions of Gospel booklets for evangelism through this project.
We invite you to join hands with us in praying for the revival in Myanmar. Please pray that all 150 people groups there will soon have vibrant Christian communities that are reaching the lost and glorifying the Living God.
If you would like to help provide Bibles to new Christians in Myanmar, please fill out the yellow response form in this newsletter and send it back along with your gift. One-time or monthly donations to the Asia Bible Fund or our other projects can be made via our secure website.
As always, our policy is that 100 percent of donations received for a project will only go directly to support that project. Nothing is taken out for administration or any other expense.
“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in their hearts”(Ecclesiastes 3:9).
“From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being”(Acts 17:26-28).
“The Wa were headhunters. Just once a year, in the planting season, Wa tribesmen felt compelled by bloodthirsty spirits to plant human heads in their fields along with their seeds—just to ensure a good crop. Neighboring tribes always wanted to leave for vacation when the Wa were planting their crops, but unfortunately that was when they had to plant their crops too.
A benign influence, however, was at work within the folk religion of the Wa people. From time-to-time prophets of the true God, whom the Wa called Siyeh, arose to condemn headhunting and spirit-appeasement! One such prophet, Pu Chan, appeared during the 1880s. He persuaded several thousand Wa tribesmen to abandon headhunting and spirit worship on the grounds that the true God was about to send a long-awaited white brother with a copy of the lost book. If he came to the Wa territory and heard that the Wa were practicing evil things, he might think them unworthy of the true God’s book and turn away again! If that happened, Pu Chan warned, surely the Wa would never get another chance to have the lost book restored to them.
One morning Pu Chan saddled a pony. ‘Follow this pony,’ he said to some of his disciples. ‘Siyeh told me last night that the white brother has finally come near! Siyeh will cause this pony to lead you to him. While Pu Chan’s disciples gaped in astonishment, the pony started walking. Expecting the pony to stop at the nearest stream, they followed it.”
Two hundred miles away, an American missionary from Nebraska, William Young, had recently set up base in the town of Kengtung. One day Young went to the marketplace to preach among the people, and he noticed strangely garbed men gravitating toward him out of the throng in the market.
They were not Wa, but were men from the neighboring Lahu tribe, who God chose to receive the Gospel first. The Lahu had also been waiting for a white man to come with a lost book that would reconnect them to the true God, whom they called Gwi’sha in their language. Richardson continues the story:
“They stared incredulously at the missionary’s white face, the interior of the book in his hand, and listened to his description of the laws of God contained in that book. Then, in an outburst of powerful emotion, the Lahu pleaded with Young to follow them up into the mountains. ‘We as a people have been waiting for you for centuries,’ they explained. ‘We even have meeting houses built in some of our villages in readiness for your coming.’
[Pu Chan above and William Young below. Our thanks to Marcus Young, the grandson of William, for providing these two precious photos.]
Some of the men showed him bracelets of coarse rope hanging like manacles from their wrists. ‘We have worn ropes like these since time immemorial. They symbolize our bondage to evil spirits. You alone, as the messenger of Gwi’sha, may cut these manacles from our wrists—but only after you have brought the lost book of Gwi’sha to our very hearths!’
Nearly speechless with awe, Young went with them. Tens of thousands of Lahu became Christians, and it was at that stage that Pu Chan saddled his pony (200 miles away in Wa territory) and told his Wa disciples to follow it to the missing book and the messenger of the True God. When the pony finally arrived at the home of William Young, the Wa asked him: ‘Have you brought the book of God?’ Young nodded. The men, overcome with emotion, fell at his feet and blurted out, ‘This pony is saddled especially for you. Our people are all waiting. Fetch the book! We must be on our way!”
Thousands of Wa heard the Gospel from both the Young family and the new Lahu Christians. They repented of their sins and gave their lives to Jesus Christ. Young’s son, Vincent, later translated the New Testament into Wa.
During much of the 20th century, many Wa people continued to outwardly follow Christ, but their faith generally slipped into dead formalism. A vibrant, life-giving revival was greatly needed among the Wa, lest the amazing breakthroughs of the past would go to waste.
One reason for the spiritual decline among the Wa was the problem with their Bible. Because of their widespread locations and multiple dialects, only a fraction of Wa were able to understand the dialect the Bible was available in.
Some years ago, a Wa Bible committee was set up to address this problem, and a new translation was launched in a common vernacular that many more Wa people could understand.
Asia Harvest has been greatly blessed to provide more than 80,000 new Wa Bibles, free of charge, through our Asian Bible Fund. There are many requests for more, and we invite you to prayerfully consider supporting this strategic endeavor.
During the years when I spoke in hundreds of meetings around the world, I found it increasingly difficult to effectively communicate testimonies from the church in Asia to believers in “free” countries. Often when I spoke in meetings, people looked at me as if I had just dropped in from another planet.
I became aware that the spiritual dynamics of the persecuted church in Asia were completely different from those in western Christianity. The differences were so stark that I sometimes felt I was interacting with two different faiths. Even the most basic understanding of God’s character appeared to be fundamentally different.
For example, on one occasion in China I shared a powerful testimony from the Mru tribe of Myanmar. The Mru number about 25,000 people, most of whom are Buddhist. The gospel had recently experienced a breakthrough among them, and several Mru villages had turned to Jesus Christ. The Buddhist monks were furious when they heard about it, so they hired two gangs of thugs and sent them to the Christian villages to beat the believers, rape the women, and burn down their houses.
Armed with chains and machetes, the first group of thugs made their way on foot to the Christian area. Before reaching their intended destination, however, a freak electrical storm descended on them as they traversed a mountain pass. All of the men were killed by lightning. The lightning also struck the 400-year-old Buddhist temple in the Mru township, burning it the ground.
The second mob of would-be persecutors traveled to the Christian villages aboard a large raft. As they made their way down the river, a thick fog suddenly enveloped them, making it impossible to see where they were going. A barge sliced through the fog, struck the raft, and hurled the thugs into the rapids, where they all drowned.
When news of these events reached the Mru communities, the fear of God fell on them. Realizing that the Living God had displayed his awesome wrath, hundreds of people turned to Christ and repented of their sins.
When I shared this testimony with the Christians in China, they literally jumped up and down with joy and shouted “Hallelujah!” at the top of their voices. They rejoiced in the judgments of God, as the Bible says, “Zion hears and rejoices and the villages of Judah are glad because of your judgments, Lord” (Psalms 97:8).
Just a few weeks later I found myself standing in front of a congregation in Texas. As I shared the same testimony from Myanmar, I looked out at a sea of grim faces staring back at me. There was no rejoicing in that meeting and not a single “Hallelujah” was uttered.
After the service, an elderly lady came forward to confront me on behalf of the other church members. She strongly rebuked me with the words, “Our God is not like that brother. Our God is a loving God!” I noticed many people behind her nodding their heads in agreement
Like that congregation in Texas, many believers imagine God to be a cuddly, teddy bear-like figure whose main purpose is to encourage and bless them. They think God is so gentle and loving that he would never harm a fly, and Christians who dared to mention his wrath or coming judgments are often pushed into a corner and considered a threat to the peace of the church.
With such a skewed, chummy attitude toward God, it is no wonder that many Christians no longer fear Him. They love to hear about how John reclined at the dinner table by leaning against his best friend Jesus, but few remember that the two men met again many years later. This time the resurrected Lord was dressed in the robes of a Roman judge. John, who was absolutely terrified, wrote, “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead” Revelation 1:17.
Source: Paul Hattaway, An Asian Harvest (Monarch Books, 2017), p.262-264 (Excellent book which I recommend and can be ordered at Asia Harvest.)
For more than 20 years we have supported Garo evangelists from northeast India through our Asian Workers’ Fund, as they have taken the Gospel to unreached people groups in their part of the world.
Often, Christians are unaware of the origins of many of the songs we love to sing. In this brief email we would like to share the little-known background of one famous song: “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus.”
In the hills of northeast India live the Garo tribe, who number more than one million people. For centuries they were feared as a primitive head-hunting tribe, but in the most recent Indian census, over 95 percent of the Garo declared themselves to be Christians. Here is one reason why…
In the late 1800s, many missionaries came to Assam in northeast India to spread the Gospel. They succeeded in converting a man named Nokseng, his wife, and his two children. Nokseng’s faith proved contagious, and many villagers began to accept Jesus.
The village chief, angry at the prospect of losing control, summoned all the villagers. He demanded Nokseng’s family to publicly renounce their faith or face execution. Moved by the Holy Spirit, Nokseng said: “I have decided to follow Jesus.”
Enraged at his refusal to deny Christ, the chief ordered his archers to shoot the two children. As both boys lay twitching on the ground, the chief asked, “Will you deny your faith? You have lost both your children. You will lose your wife also.”
But Nokseng replied: “Though no one joins me, still I will follow.”
The chief was beside himself with fury and ordered Nokseng’s wife to be shot with arrows. In a moment she joined her children in death. Now the chief said for the last time: “I will give you one more opportunity to deny your faith and live.” In the face of death, Nokseng did not waver, and made his final memorable statement:
“The cross before me, the world behind me. No turning back.”
He was killed like the rest of his family, but a miracle took place. The chief was moved by Nokseng’s faith and he wondered, “Why would Nokseng and his family die for a Man who lived in a far-away land some 2,000 years ago? This God must have remarkable power, and I too want to taste that faith.”
In a spontaneous confession, the chief declared, “I too belong to Jesus Christ!” When the crowd heard this from the mouth of their chief, the whole village accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior. Later, Nokseng’s words became a beloved song of the Garo Christians, and was later translated into English and sung around the world.
May the Lord Jesus bless you as together we serve the Church in Asia,
Psalm 119: 38 