Jesus winning Bangladesh

The ongoing Bibles for Mideast ministry in Bangladesh (Pastor Peter Haneef is there now with a team) is progressing amazingly and fruitfully, Pastor Paul reports. The team has covered 550 miles and established 11 churches in just 25 days!

Last Sunday, all eleven of the new churches joined for a worship service in a village community hall. Attendees included women, men and children, all from the Muslim religion. Many shared wonderful testimonies. One middle-aged woman asked the team to visit her house in a jungle area to pray for her husband. For the last 15 years, the husband had been bedridden after being viciously attacked by a jungle animal. Team leader Pastor Hussain shared the message of salvation with him, and also explained how he, formerly Muslim, now followed Jesus.

“Do you believe Jesus can be both Savior and mighty healer?” he asked the man. The fellow affirmed his belief immediately … which is all it took for the pastor and team to begin praying for him. And THAT was all it took for him to be filled with the Holy Spirit! He immediately felt a new, refreshing flow through his veins, and standing up, began praising and thanking Lord Jesus. His witness alone brought many people from that area to the Christian gatherings.

While a corner meeting was going on in another place, an angry Imam and several others from a local mosque tried to stop the gathering, brandishing weapons and threatening to kill the people and burn their van.

In response, Pastor Hussain and the team simply knelt down, closed their eyes, and started praying. A sudden wind gust arose and blew a chili-powder-like red dust over the attackers. The would-be assailants fled immediately, while the gospel team calmly carried on. Each and every villager in attendance accepted Lord Jesus as their Lord and Savior!

The team members have been out each day visiting people in their homes, inviting them to attend corner meetings and distributing bibles.

Just last week, we packaged and sent out another 2,000 bibles to the team.  In the time remaining on their mission trip, the team prays and hopes to distribute at least 10,000 bibles and establish 50 churches. Once again thank you for your prayers and kind support; please keep it up!

+++++++
Is God leading you to help us?
Please click here: BLESSING Bibles for Mideast.

Meet the esteemed Arab professor who became the unlikely voice of, and for, Jesus

‘Ali’*, a respected Islamic professor in the Middle East, taught for many years at a seminary in an area hostile to Christians (as most of the region is).

An expert in his field of ethics, Ali figured he really should read a Bible to study Jesus—someone he, like most Muslims, only knew as the ‘Great Prophet Isa.’

He found the Gospels especially fascinating, even stunning. The Word of God spoke deeply to his heart. He discovered Jesus to be quite different from the other prophets. He was not violent, but self-giving and loving. Yet, for someone in Ali’s position, following Jesus would be difficult, perhaps even impossible. 

Then it happened.

Ali explained that Jesus began to appear to him. The Lord would literally sit across the table, teach and answer his many questions. He said it happened 17 times! 

“I asked Him how we can live like Him. He gave me Truth for the rest of my life.” 

Then Ali was given the chance to watch the film ‘JESUS’ (produced by the Jesus Film Project). Again, he was stunned.

“It was Him in the movie, the Man who appeared to me 17 times!” he exclaimed.

He believed even more deeply, and couldn’t help but share with his fellow professors that Jesus is the Son of God. He led seven of those fellow professors to Christ. 

As expected, seminary higher-ups were far from impressed and fired him. Persecution mounted to the point he felt he had to flee to Lebanon. But the Lord’s hand was upon him. 

In Lebanon, he became the voice of Jesus for the translation of the ‘JESUS’ film into the Baghdadi dialect of Arabic! What a transformation! 

Please pray for the transformation of many more precious lives.

____________
*Name changed for security reasons
[Thanks to the Jesus Film people for this story]

An ISIS fighter turns to Jesus

Thank you to our friends at Jesus Film for the following amazing story

IRAQ—The phone rang. When a JESUS film staff worker answered, he heard a deep voice saying, “I am an ISIS fighter in Syria. I heard your phone number on the radio” [he had been listening to an audio broadcast version of the JESUS film].

“My name is Fareed. I am part of an ISIS militia. Our commander sent us to a neighborhood to attack and kill Christians. We hid in a burned-out church. Everything in the church was destroyed, blackened. Waiting for our orders to attack, I sat, exhausted, and leaned against a wall. With my headphones on, I began listening to your broadcast and fell asleep. 

He Saw Jesus

“Like in a dream, the burned-out church began to turn white. Color returned. The lights came on. I saw rows of benches. Suddenly a Man in brilliant white was in the aisle walking towards me. The man said, ‘Follow Me’.

“Everything was white, and then in full color,” Fareed continued. “The Man touched me on the shoulder and said, ‘Fareed, don’t worry. Follow Me.’ Just then the phone rang. Our commander cancelled the mission! All the rage and bitterness inside me was gone! I was peaceful and knew I could not fight anymore. So, I turned in my weapon and came to Baghdad. I’m calling you. What shall I do?”

The JESUS film staff member who took Fareed’s call explained the Gospel to him and directed him to a church in the city, which Fareed joined, and where he grew in his faith.

He has since been actively witnessing to others about the love and power of God, and using the JESUS film to help him.

In his latest update about that former ISIS fighter, the staff member said, “I speak with him often and have given him equipment and support to help show the film to many others. He is a transformed man.” 

___________
Originally published by the JESUS film people, “a Christian media ministry bringing millions face-to-face with Jesus in their heart language”.
You can visit their website here:  Jesus Film Project.

Beyond GOOD NEWS from the field

This may be one of our most complicated yet joyously victorious stories yet, so you may need more than one sitting to absorb it all.

If you recall, a few months ago we were praying for Pastor Paul as he had been hospitalized for what were likely complications from his way too many attacks over the years [Resting with and testing: ‘His power made perfect in weakness’;  Pastor Paul improves, plus an exciting report from ALG President Pastor Peter Haneef].

When Pastor Peter returned to Bangladesh (his main field of ministry) after visiting Pastor Paul in hospital in India, he travelled with his team to visit a Muslim village. While speaking to the crowd gathered, he was suddenly and viciously attacked. Lunging with steel pipes and butchers’ knives, the attackers seriously injured many, one actually slicing off Pastor Peter’s left hand and throwing it, along with his Bible, off into the distance.

Onlookers were aghast, siding with Pastor Peter and his team rather than with the aggressors, which is itself a miracle. Not only that, all—either then or soon afterwards—became Christians! And what do Christians do? Help others of course.

All the injured team members were rushed off to a ‘super-speciality hospital’ owned and run by a former military surgeon, Dr. Salmu. He took excellent care of all of them.

When Pastor Paul, newly-released from hospital in India, heard about the tragedy, he set off on the long, treacherous trip to the Bangladeshi hospital. Another Bibles for Mideast pastor, Rahim Khan, accompanied him on the challenging journey.

After first flying to the capital city of Dhaka, they took a train and then an overnight bus through the hills and mountains to the hospital. With no seats available inside the bus until the following week, they had to climb ATOP the bus for the trip. Travel (and other) conditions are so overcrowded in Bangladesh that bus-top and train-top travel is quite common, if not exactly legal.

One of many over-crowded buses in Bangladesh

Pastor Paul found Pastor Peter in the hospital’s intensive care unit, still heavily sedated, along with another severely-injured missionary named Riyas who had had his skull crushed with a steel pipe and would soon need brain surgery.

The visitors sat sitting and praying by Pastor Peter’s side until he became conscious. Only then, as he tried to hold Pastor Paul’s hands, did he realize his left hand had been cut off. He also discovered how others of his group had been attacked and many admitted to the hospital as well.

The villagers who had heard the sharing of the Gospel—all now Christians!—stood by, helping when and however they could, bringing food and other needed items for the patients.

One man from the village retrieved Pastor Haneef’s left hand from where it had been thrown, and brought it to the hospital. Doctors, however, declared it hopelessly damaged and impossible to even consider trying to reattach.

At Pastor Paul’s insistence, however, the hand was placed in a freezer rather than thrown away. It remained there for four days, at which point—again at Pastor Paul’s insistence—Dr. Salmu reluctantly agreed to at least have a look at it. His medical mind knew a severed, severely-damaged hand would be nothing but worse four days later!

At that time Pastor Paul explained the story of Lazarus who was raised up by Jesus four days after being buried. Dr. Salmu was not ready to believe, nor was he willing to try rejoining the hand. Pastor Paul insisted he was ready to take all the consequences, which is why Dr. Salmu finally agreed to at least try.

Pastor Paul then took the severed hand in his hands, prayed over it, sealing it with the living blood of Jesus Christ before handing it over to the surgeon. While Dr. Salmu had absolutely no hope for success, he soon regretted his unbelief … and accepted Jesus as the living lord and his personal saviour! The surgery was entirely successful.

Dr. Salmu appreciates the faithfulness of Christian missionaries and even made the arrangements to conduct gospel meetings in his hospital among staff and patients. On Pastor Peter’s last day in the hospital, a Sunday, they held a worship service in the hospital auditorium and invited Dr. Salmu, who agreed to attend. And what a service!

“The Holy Spirit moved throughout the worship,” Pastor Peter reports. “There were more than 300 people, including doctors, nurses, patients and bystanders. Dr. Salmu had an immediate surgery, but he attended the service for awhile and encouraged the people. At the end of the service, everyone accepted Lord Jesus as their personal saviour and Lord by their heart and their mouth.”

“I had some difficulty standing and giving a message,” he explains. “But our Lord strengthened me and gave the message by the help of the Holy Spirit. Some doctors and nursing staff also witnessed Lord Jesus in the audience. All were Muslims, but they all are Christians now.”

After the service, Dr. Salmu provided lunch for everyone.

Pastor Peter Haneef and friends then travelled back to India, to a joyful welcome home ceremony where they shared their experiences and renewed their faith and dedication. 

Pastor Peter says his reattached hand is still not fully functional, but getting better every day. Please keep up your prayers for him … and for all the new Christians and for all of us here at Bibles for Mideast. We cannot do any of this without your awesome support.

Pastor Peter Haneef attacked; hand cut off

I am sad and sorry that most of our posts of late have been requests for prayer for our leaders rather than reports from the field.

In a recent correspondence with Assembly of Loving God (ALG Church) President Peter Haneef, he wrote the following when I asked him for news from the mission field:

“Dear Susanna 
Glory to the Lord Jesus Christ 

I’m thankful to you for keeping us in your prayers for our ministry throughout Bangladesh. 

We’re a dedicated team ministering for the Lord among jungle people and among village Muslims. By this time we’ve established 127 house churches and every week they are worshiping the Lord in Spirit and in Truth. The Holy Spirit moves wonderfully and there are many, many people embracing Christianity in these days.
 
I will send you the report when I prepare it. Kindly continue praying for us."
 
He wrote that back on June 10, so I’d been wondering when his report would come … and found myself being prompted to be even more in prayer for him and his team.
 
Today I got this message from Pastor Paul:

”Pastor Peter Haneef and gospel team are attacked by a mob of Muslims in a Muslim village in Bangladesh.

Pastor Haneef was carrying a Bible and was speaking to the crowd. Suddenly a group of attackers came with big butchers’ knives and steel pipes and attacked them. Pastor Haneef’s left hand was cut off and thrown away along with his Bible. The other team members rescued him although they were also seriously wounded. The people brought them to the hospital. Don’t know the details. But I am on the way to Bangladesh.”

So of course, he asks us all to be in prayer for this brave man of God and his team. Let's also pray for a safe and successful trip for Pastor Paul.

As ever, we cherish and in fact cannot function without your prayerful support of this ministry. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

May our Lord be your forever Guide, Protector and ever-present Help ....