SEOUL – “Until All Have Heard.” That’s on the header of the Far East Broadcasting (FEBC) website. FEBC has been working to help reach that goal with the Gospel sine 1945. This year, FEBC is celebrating the 70th anniversary of its first broadcast on June 4, 1948. Originally based in Shanghai, the company relocated to…
DHAKA – Child marriage is defined as “a formal marriage or informal union before age 18.” Child marriage is widespread in poverty-stricken populations, especially those countries located within the 10/40 window across Africa and South Asia. According to UNICEF, “Worldwide, more than 650 million women alive today were married as children. An estimated 12 million…
ASUNCION – Paraguay has become the sixth nation to indicate plans to move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. It is the fifth country to do so since U.S. President Trump publicly recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December 2017. Paraguay’s President Horacio Cartes announced the plans to move the country’s embassy sometime before his…
REPOROA, NZ– Renowned scholar, author, and Bible teacher, Dr. Chuck Missler passed away peacefully on 01 May 2018 at his home in Reporoa, New Zealand. He was 83. Missler’s wife, Nancy, preceded him in death in 2015 after a three-year battle with cancer. Best-known for his books and videos and as Bible conference speaker, Missler…
NEW DELHI – As the world moves on to other matters following World Water Day, the World Water Forum, and Cape Town’s postponement of ‘Day Zero’ until 2019, a global water crisis continues, nonetheless. A crisis already exists for many people in South Asia and there are indications that conditions could get worse before they…
WILLS POINT, Texas – It is no secret that the world is rife with problems ranging from terrorism and wars to hunger and health issues. Many of these and other problems spawn floods of refugees seeking safe harbor from potential harm. Many would consider making a successful journey to a safer place a success. However,…
YANGON, Myanmar – The President of Myanmar granted amnesty to more than 8,500 people incarcerated in prisons around the county. The action was, in part, associated with an annual tradition in celebration of the Myanmar New Year. Among those being released are 51 foreigners, eight political detainees, and two Baptist pastors. The two pastors, Dumdaw…
BUCHAREST – The Romanian government has approved a proposal to relocate the country’s embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. The move was announced by Liviu Dragnea, the Speaker of the Lower House and leader of the Social Democratic party. Prime Minister Viorica Dancila confirmed that the measure has been approved, but there are still some hurdles…
CAIRO – On 11 March 2018, Missions Box News reported that Egyptian government officials had granted licenses for 53 churches as a “first block” toward compliance with the legal requirements. The licensing mandate which had been proposed by the Housing Ministry became law in August 2016. Yesterday the Egyptian Cabinet approved the legalization of 166…
BANGUI, Central African Republic – Prior to gaining its independence in 1960, this landlocked county occupying the Ubangi and Chari River Basins was part of French Equatorial Africa. Since gaining independence, the county, although rich in uranium, crude oil, gold, diamonds, cobalt, lumber and arable land, remains one of the 10 poorest countries in the…
ASTANA, Kazakhstan – On March 30, 2018, the Center for the Study of Problems of Religion of the Religious Affairs Department of the West Kazakhstan Region has asked selected churches and religious communities to provide personal information regarding “all underage community members attending your religious association.” The Religious Affairs Department is a division of the…
KHARTOUM – A four-day visit to Sudan in 2015 by VOM missionary Petr Jasek turned into an unplanned 445-day sojourn in prison after the Czech Christian was arrested on charges of conspiring against the Sudanese government. Jasek, shared his experience last week at the McLean Bible Church in Vienna, Virginia. He told his audience that…
Church Members Work to Restore Devastated Indian Coastal Fishing Communities WILLS POINT, Texas – Believers Eastern Church announced the launch of a statewide rehabilitation program for the victims of Cyclone “Ockhi” in the Indian state of Kerala. The cyclone was the most intense originating from the Arabian Sea since 2015 and the first in nearly…
NAIROBI – Officials in Kenya are serious about cleaning up the country to make it a healthier place. This is especially true in the case of their campaign to become an Open Defecation Free (ODF)region. There are many ways to approach providing more sanitary conditions, but Kenya may be taking a couple of approaches that…
BEIJING – The People’s Republic of China released a white paper today entitled, “China’s Policies and Practices on Protecting Freedom of Religious Belief.” A title like that might encourage Christians about the prospects of sharing the Gospel in mainland China. However, this may be a classic example of not judging a white paper by its…
MOTIHARI – Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be the featured speaker at the celebration of the close of the centennial celebration of Champaran Satyagraha on April 10 in Motihari. 20,000 Sanitation Ambassadors (Swachhagrahis) are expected to attend. Half of the ambassadors will be from Bihar. The other 10,000 will come as representatives of other states….
NEW YORK – April 4th is the United Nations’ International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action, which provides an opportunity for the world to reflect on both the progress made and the challenges that remain in clearing landmines and unexploded ordnance. The vision of the United Nations is a world free of…
ALEXANDRIA – A terrorist attack on two Coptic Christian churches on Palm Sunday 2017 left more than 40 people dead and 125 injured. It also made several men, women, and children widows, widowers, and orphans. One of the deceased was Hanan Dreas, a wife and mother of two children ages six and 10. Her husband,…
Chinese president, Xi Jinping, got rid of term limits, the amount of time a person can spend in office, in the People Republic of China. Once this is in place, the president is able to stay in office as long as he wants. NPR reports, “The move represents a dramatic departure from rules that have…
HAITI – Sherman Balch and his wife Cheryl volunteered to go to Haiti with a group from their church a few months after the 2010 earthquake. That visit became a life-changing experience that led to the founding of Extollo, a Latin word that means “to raise up.” Now Extollo is a life-changing experience for native…
KARNATAKA – Chief Minister of the State of Karnataka introduced the first statewide universal healthcare (UHC) program in India. The first phase of the program was initiated on March 2, 2018. Ultimately, when the program is entirely implemented, over 10 million households, regardless of income, will have some form of access to healthcare. Chief Minister…
NEW PARIS, Indiana – An entire container load filled with two million gospel booklets, pamphlets, and Gospel literature recently arrived in Argentina. The literature had been requested by an Argentinian pastor. The items had been supplied free of charge to the pastor and his ministry. He told World Missionary Press, the printer and provider, that…
Several billion people around the world live without sufficient access to clean water. Over one billion people lack water supplies. Another 2.7 billion find water scarce for at least one month of the year. Read Gospel for Asia’s Special Report on The Global Clean Water Crisis here. A 2014 survey of the world’s 500 largest…
DAPCHI, Nigeria – Leah Sharibu is 15 years old. She is one of more than a hundred Nigerian school girls who are either missing or held in captivity by the Boko Haram. Although the terrorist group, known for kidnapping school girls en masse, agreed to return the girls in exchange for the release of several…
SHILLONG, MEGHALAYA – Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is a state-owned telecommunications company with headquarters in New Delhi. It is the 5th-largest provider of mobile telephone provider in India and the largest service providing both fixed and broadband services in the country. Last week, P.G. Nirmal, the general manager of the BSNL telecom district in…
THIRUVALLA, KERALA, India – Believers Church Medical College Hospital gave new life to a one-year-old Indian boy and restored hope for his anxious parents when the medical staff at Believers Church Medical College Hospital (BCMCH) successfully performed a complex surgical procedure to repair a large hole in the boy’s heart. Aksar’s parents, both day laborers…
KENYA – DOOR International and its partners will hold a Sign Language Scripture Celebration on June 9th to commemorate the rendering of Bible passages into four different African national sign languages This is not the first celebration of this kind that DOOR has been able to hold. In 2014, DOOR partners and pastors gathered to…
MUMBAI – March 24, 2018, is World Tuberculosis Day. TB is often misunderstood, not only by the public but also in the ability to accurately track. Therefore, myths abound among the populace and statistics are often misleading, even for the experts in the field, including the World Health Organization (WHO). This is especially true of…
American pastor Andrew Brunson has been in prison for 18 months in Turkey, accused of ties to an American terrorist. Pastor Brunson had been in Turkey for 20 years before his arrest, in which he was charged with plotting with terrorists for a coup, according to Fox News. He’s also been accused of helping a Kurdish…
Turkish Army Takes Afrin, Syria from Kurds AFRIN, Syria – Turkish forces have overtaken the Syrian town of Afrin, driving the Kurdish forces out. To most readers in the Western Hemisphere, this news has little relevance. Most us have no idea who’s who or what is where in the conflict in Syria. The situation for…
CAPE TOWN – Officials have deferred what was once considered the impending Day Zero for Cape Town water supplies from July 11th until an undetermined date in 2019. The news has left the public and much of the news media scratching their heads and wondering why. As far as anyone can tell, nothing has changed….
Donald Trump with Reuven Rivlin during 2017 visit to Israel JERUSALEM – The nascent Sanhedrin in Israel, in cooperation with Hamikdah Betzion (The Temple in Zion) has minted a new, half-shekel Temple tax coin featuring the profile of United States President Donald Trump. The coin has been minted in celebration of President Trump’s recognition of…
JOHANNESBURG – According to Times Live, “On Thursday in Johannesburg‚ Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi and SADC health ministers and ambassadors held an emergency high-level inter-ministerial meeting to discuss the world’s largest listeriosis outbreak that started in South Africa.” The ominous approach of Day Zero for the Cape Area of the country has reaped much more…
SHYMKENT, Kazakhstan – A Christian Kazak woman who had been charged with “illegal missionary activity” was acquitted on 13 March by the South Kazakhstan Regional Court. Her illegal activity? Showing another woman how to download a Bible app on her smartphone. The woman for whom she downloaded the app then file a complaint with the…
CHENNAI – President Ram Kath Kovind announced that India will begin soon offer vocational training services to more than 500,000 survivors of human trafficking. The program follows an anti-trafficking bill approved by the cabinet on February 28, 2018. Observers expect the bill to be easily passed by parliament. That bill includes measures that deal with…
CAPE TOWN –The water crisis in South Africa continues unabated. Officials have declared a state of emergency, but that is, arguably, because of the danger not only to the citizens but also because of the rising and potential damage to the economy. Moody’s, the international credit rating agency, estimates agricultural production in the Western Cape…
BANGALORE – There is not always something that local citizens can do to remedy the problem of polluted water. However, residents of Bangalore who live alongside Gottigere Lake have banded together to reclaim the polluted water and return the lake to its once-pristine condition. In view of World Water Day on March 22nd, here is…
LA MIRADA, California – “Mama” Maggie Gobran was honored on March 14th as the fifth recipient of the Charles W. Colson Courage and Conviction Award. The award was bestowed at the 89th Annual Missions Conference at Biola University. Maggie Gobran set aside a successful career in which she had been on the management team of…
ISLAMABAD – It has been a rule of law that citizens of Pakistan must self-identify their religion on their passports. Now a judge on the Islamabad High Court has extended the rule to greater lengths. In a ruling delivered on Friday, 09 March 2018, Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui has ordered that Pakistan citizens must also…
WILLS POINT, Texas – “Child marriage is one of the most worrisome problems in Asia. Boys and especially girls, who are supposed to play, learn and live a free life are married off at a very young age, and this not only affects their freedom but also takes a severe physical and mental toll on…
HAIFA – A mosaic first discovered by inmates of the Megiddo Prison in 2005 will soon be on display to the public when an archeological park is opened on the former prison site. The mosaic covers the floor of what is thought to have been the prayer hall of a Christian home in 230 A.D….
KERALA, India – The ability to access sources of clean water is a global problem. It is day-to-day problem for about 1.9 billion people. It is a problem that can become personal very quickly. From small villages to major metropolitan areas, water authorities also face the issue of how to provide access profitably. Although controlling…
GENEVA – A group of five NGOs met with UN officials on 06 March to discuss the recent case of four Malaysian Christians requesting changes on their national identity cards. The federal court in Sarawak refused to rule on their appeal on 26 February (see “Malaysia High Court Dismisses Christians’ Appeal”). The meeting took place…
NASHVILLE – Mohabat TV, the media arm of Heart4Iran, has received the highly-coveted 2018 International Impact Award from the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) at their annual convention in Nashville, Tennessee. Mohabat TV and Heart4Iran work in collaboration with more than 80 other ministries to spread the Gospel in the Middle East. The satellite TV network…
ETHIOPIA – The Consortium of Christian Relief & Development Associations (CCRDA) has awarded Bethany Christian Services for submitting the top “Best Practices” idea for NGO work in Ethiopia. Bethany Christian Services has been operating in the U.S. and around the globe since 1944, “Striving to be the hands and feet of Jesus for children and…
Palace of Justice, Putrajaya, Malaysia KUCHING, Sarawak, Malaysia – The recent refusal of the Malaysian Federal Court to hear the appeals of four Christian converts to have their Christian names and religion on their government IDs left the world wondering what the plaintiffs would do. As it turns out, they may on have to wait…
CAIRO – Egyptian government officials recently granted a “first block” of licenses for 53 churches that had been awaiting approval. Some sources praised the progress of the government in addressing the licensing procedure that was drafted into law in August 2016. Others, primarily representatives of rural churches, decried the government’s lack of acceptable progress. The…
NEW YORK – With World Water Day approaching (March 22), Islands of Peace announced this morning that it has formed alliances with EcoloBlue and Infinity Concepts that will help to advance the organization’s Water from the Air Project. History has proven that tension, turmoil, conflict, and even war can arise out of a lack of…
PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea – Prime Minister Peter O’Neill declared a state of emergency on 01 March after the remote highlands of Papua New Guinea were hit by a massive, 7.5 magnitude earthquake on 26 February. Aid workers from Australia, New Zealand, China, Israel, and other countries around the globe have been rushing to…
WILLS POINT, Texas – Gospel for Asia (GFA) has published an authoritative article about the seemingly endless global problem of violence against women. The euphemism of “domestic violence” used in America does not begin to describe the depth of persecution that women suffer in many other countries around the world. For many women, “the greatest…
