HOUSTON – Ananias House is a ministry dedicated to “empowering the growth of the body of Jesus Christ in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA region).”

The ministry of Ananias House in the strife-torn MENA region is three-fold:

• Making disciples and planting churches
• Offering sustained hope and comfort to people suffering from conflict and persecution
• Increasing the effectiveness of churches operating in the area.

It accomplishes this by providing Scripture-saturated training, support, and encouragement for local believers, particularly those who have come from Muslim backgrounds. Believers who were formerly Muslim face intense persecution from family and former friends.

The seeds of Ananias House were sown in 2009 when the ministry’s founder, “Brother John,” accepted an invitation to conduct leadership training in a church in Syria. The training session turned into the first of a recurring series.

When the Syrian civil war broke out a few years later, many Christians fled the country. Some believers felt called to stay and spread the Gospel among the war-weary residents. As is often the case where there is conflict and persecution, there was an evangelism explosion, particularly among the Muslim people.

Many Muslim converts enlisted in the training so that they, too, would be better equipped to share the Good News. As time went by, some of those believers chose to stay to minister to their own people. Others decided to reach out to the diaspora of refugees, particularly in North Africa. Churches began springing up across the entire MENA region.

Witnesses to the work speak of the incomparable passion of former Muslims who have come to Christ. They regard the very real threats of death and persecution as inconsequential compared to sharing the Word of God with others.

The ministry has expanded to a total of six countries and is clearly one of the reasons that more Muslims have come to Christ in the past 17 years than over the last 14 centuries. Brother John explained that

“Ananias House is about faithful believers who stay, like Ananias in Acts. While the believers (then) feared for their lives, God used (Ananias’) obedience to turn Saul into Paul. The Syrian church began with Ananias and, today, the same thing is happening out of hardship and darkness.”

To read more news on Christian Ministry Today on Missions Box, go here.