The power of prayer and fasting: deaf woman hears and speaks for the first time!

Last summer, one of our Bibles for Mideast leaders, Pastor Riyaz*, was brutally attacked while ministering among Muslims and Hindus in East Champaran, India—an area of India along the border with Nepal. Pastor Riyaz and his family are all former Muslims and so well-understand that faith system. He ministers mainly to Indians and Nepalese, with many Muslims and Hindus having received Christ through his, his family’s and his team’s efforts.

On this particular day, a mob of angry Muslim fundamentalists attacked him, then threw his seemingly lifeless body into a ditch, leaving him for dead [that story here: A beyond-astonishing story of God’s redemption!].

But God! Some Christian believers found him lying in the ditch and, noticing signs of life, rushed him to the local hospital. Barely alive and with one knee damaged beyond repair, once he was stabilized somewhat, doctors replaced the pastor’s knee.

More problems—and excitement—followed during his stay in hospital, which you can read about here: Going above and beyond with ‘Bloom where you're planted’:  hospital miracles continue.

MANY OF PASTOR RIyAZ’S* CONGREGATION GATHERED FOR PRAYER when he was hospitalized

AND NOW, THE EXCITING UPDATE!

Bibles for Mideast Director Pastor Paul recently joined Pastor Riyaz (now almost completely recovered) and his congregation at the pastor’s home in East Champaran.

Amazingly, even some of those who had attacked Pastor Riyaz and his church attended. Tears flowed as they confessed before him and the congregation. The once-disabled pastor then shared the saving gospel with them, and they accepted Jesus as their personal saviour and Lord! 

The group had originally planned for three days of prayer and fasting, to include sharing testimonies and hearing the gospel each day from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., and then again from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m.

As more and more people came, the group grew so large Pastor Riyaz’s home could no longer accommodate them. Services were then moved outdoors, with worshippers gathering under the sprawling branches of a huge tree as even more joined in from the neighborhood. The projected three days stretched to seven full days because of the growing numbers of attendees—including the many people from the hospital who had felt the touch of the Lord as Pastor Riyaz recovered (and ministered!) there.

Last Saturday, as the seven days came to a close, Pastors Paul and Riyaz joined with two other pastors to hold a remarkable baptismal ceremony in the nearby Gandak River.

Among the 327 people baptized that day were hundreds from the hospital where Pastor Riyaz had received treatment—including four Hindu doctors, two Muslim doctors, and a number of Hindu and Muslim nurses—plus many others from the nearby Indian and Nepalese communities.

After the baptismal service, the group began making preparations to celebrate the Lord’s Supper—750 people partaking on this final day of their week of prayer and fasting.

As they prepared, Pastor Riyaz’s deaf and mute sister Saira* (who lives with the pastor’s family due to her disability) suddenly stood, vigorously moving her hands and lips. She kept this up for a couple of minutes. While all could see she seemed desperate to express something, they grew increasingly anxious at her inability to do so.

“The Holy Spirit then insisted I go and pray over her,” Pastor Paul recalls. “Holy Spirit is moving on her to say something!” he explained to those gathered. He then asked that everyone pray for her while he went to lay on his hands and pray.

“Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!” It only took a few minutes for Saira to voice the name of the one who had healed her! She went on to speak for about 15 minutes, every word either praise or thanks to the Lord.  

Further, she could HEAR herself speaking; she could hear the murmurs of the crowd around her. As she continued in praise, the Holy Spirit moved on and filled every person in attendance, with absolutely glorious worship ensuing.

Pastor Paul then gave the people a message on his heart from the Lord, and went on to conduct the Lord’s supper.

Please keep all of these believers, new and seasoned, in your prayers. And when you pray, please pray for Pastor Riyaz’s church: that they would find their sorely-needed dedicated place of worship.
________________
*Names changed for security reasons

+++++ If you are able to help us financially, please click here: BLESSING Bibles for Mideast. +++++

Bibles for Mideast establishes its 500th church!

The ministry of Bibles for Mideast reached a milestone recently, establishing its 500th church in Haima, central Oman. That same day, 54 former Muslims were baptized to become new members of this newest church!

Pastor Paul, Director of Bibles for Mideast, travelled from India to lead both the baptismal and dedication services.  Pastor Peter Haneef, President of the Assembly of Loving God churches along with Pastor Musthafa (Overseer of Africa for Bibles for Mideast),  Pastor Muthalib (who oversees the work in the Middle East),  Pastor Khani (who oversees the work in Bangladesh) and many other leaders assisted in the programs. Holy Spirit moved powerfully throughout the services, which included wonderful worship and concluded with a celebration of the Lord's Supper. 

Because of security concerns in this mostly Islamic nation, the dedication service began shortly after midnight on the chosen day. Everyone then boarded three buses for the trip from Haima to the Gulf of Masira in the Arabian Sea. A police van followed the buses for part of the route, but the travellers were relieved when they saw it turn back. Finally reaching the seashore about 3:30 in the morning for the baptism, Pastor Peter Haneef and the others could palpably feel God’s Presence and pleasure.

“Our Lord gave us a very blessed and bright moon light!” Pastor Peter recalls. “It felt like daylight! The sea was calm and quiet. Nobody felt afraid going down to the sea.”

The baptismal candidates reaffirmed their faith in Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior and were baptised. All then knelt down together, praising and thanking the Lord before returning back to the newborn church in Haima. A worship service with the Lord’s Supper followed, with believers from many different ALG (Assembly of Loving God) churches taking part.

Pastor Mubarak and his wife worked long and hard, facing much persecution along the path to establishing this newest Bibles for Mideast church. The couple spend hours meeting people in the street, sharing their own experiences with and in Jesus, and distributing sample gospels. They often face abuse and beatings.

One evening a man brutally dragged Mrs. Mubarek by her hair through the street. Another time, someone grabbed their bibles and sample gospels and set them on fire. When Mrs. Mubarek lay down on the bibles in an attempt to squelch the flames, she was brutally kicked by the attacker. Even so, midst all the persecutions, the Lord rescued even some of the persecutors as He built His new church.

The pastor, his wife, and the growing flock continued in prayer and fasting as the small band of believers multiplied in numbers and power. When healings began to manifest, even more attended. And so the church was born!

We request your prayers for Pastor Mubarek, his family and all the members of this church as they continue to face persecution. We do remember you in our regular prayers as well, and thank you for your support of the ministry.

Muscat, capital city of Oman. Religion in Oman is dominantly Islam as Muslims account for a total of 88% per cent of the entire population

___________

Can you help? Please click here: BLESSING Bibles for Mideast

She once ran with drug addicts and prostitutes; now she ministers to them!

While Sharon Dutra’s story is an American one, we share it with you because she shares this ministry’s heart for Jesus and for others. Her hardships and her tumultuous ‘life before Christ’ could all have happened in any country in the world—places where she also now freely shares her ministry and Bible Study books. Over the years, she has become a great friend, prayer partner and encourager of the ministry and of me personally.

++++++++++++

Sharon Dutra’s emotions ranged from wonder to worry and back again as she headed—voluntarily this time—into the California Institution for Women. She had shared a tiny cell at this women’s state prison in southern California with another inmate several decades ago in what proved to be the last stop in an already long series of arrests and incarcerations.

Like most who end up ‘on the wrong side of the tracks,’ Sharon’s early life reads like a dark thriller. Her mother left when Sharon was about five; her alcoholic, womanizing father had been married four times by the time she was 17.

Young Sharon, shuttled from one foster home to another, felt abandoned and alone. By 13, she resorted to drugs to dull the pain and growing sense of worthlessness and by 15, had run from her latest home to an even worse life on the streets.

In and out of various detention facilities in the years that followed, with each escape she learned more about ‘life on the streets’, while her self-hatred and contempt for others escalated.

Marriage with an ex-con and two children later, her life continued its increasingly dark and steep downward spiral. Hard-core drugs, near-death experiences, prostitution, homelessness, suicide attempts—all culminated in her thirteenth and final arrest.

“Because of my lengthy criminal record,” she explains,” I was sent to a women’s prison in Southern California, where I already knew some of the inmates from my time on the street.”

A view from Outside the California Institution for Women; photo: Tag Christof

That, thankfully, proved to be her ultimate conviction in more ways than one. While there, she read Al Capone’s Devil Driver, by and about George Meyer, the notorious crime boss’s chauffeur who had killed many people himself and ended up in prison, where he eventually traded in his life of crime for Life with Jesus.

The book helped open her eyes to the divine realization that God alone could help her out of her misery and pain and was right there with her, waiting to be invited into her life.

“I got on my knees and cried out to Him for over an hour,” she remembers, “weeping for all the wrongs I had done. When I got up off the cell floor, I was a brand-new person.”

A few weeks later, Sharon moved from 23-hour-a-day lockdown to the general prison population. She immediately began attending church, where the prison chaplain presented her with her very own bible.

“I read it for hours every day!” she recalls. “After a lifetime derailed by destructive lies, finding God’s truth felt like discovering a cool stream in the desert.”

“At first, I could hardly fathom that Jesus would love a sinner like me, much less that my sins were totally forgiven,” she marvels. “But the more I read, the more the Holy Spirit confirmed the shocking reality of the Gospel! I drew special encouragement from Joel 2:25, which speaks of God ‘repaying us for the years the locusts have eaten’.”

She couldn’t help but share the astonishingly freeing Good News with others in prison, and soon picked back up her guitar-playing to lead in worship. Eventually, she also began teaching Bible studies for fellow prisoners. When finally released, she returned to her hometown of Santa Cruz, California.

“But the only people I knew there were drug addicts and prostitutes!” she recalls. “I wondered why God had returned me to this kind of environment. How would I overcome my reputation there? But God graciously gave me many opportunities to witness to those I had run with.”

She eventually returned to school, earned a registered nursing degree, and married. She and her husband Michael, through their Be Transformed Ministries, now help people from many backgrounds both come to know Jesus and become His disciples.

She began leading Bible studies while still in prison and continues to, now using books she has written herself to fill needs and answer questions she couldn’t find in existing materials. Her books (Be Transformed, New Beginnings, and Fishers of Men) have been translated into Spanish, Japanese and Farsi; many have been freely sent overseas (mostly for pastoral training) and over 35,000 of her books have been sent to prisons, jails and rehab centers across the U.S.

250 Bibles and 500 of Sharon’s books were shipped to Ghana to be used in Churches and Prisons. Here is a presentation in a Ghana prison

Pastors in South Africa gather after training with Sharon’s books

On her December return to the prison where she had met Jesus, Sharon shared her story with a roomful of hungry inmates—making new friends and several new converts before ‘escaping’ into the waiting arms of her husband outside the prison. They rejoiced together over all God had done and continues to do through their own and others’ lives redirected to the One who created them.

“After so many years on the run—from home, from authority, from life itself—I praise God for giving rest to my weary soul,” she explains. “No life is too broken for God to heal. I am living proof.”

___________

Christianity Today recently featured Sharon’s story (I Used to Run with Drug Addicts and Prostitutes. Now I Share the Gospel with Them) and Victorious Living has her story in their January 2022 issue.

Michael and Sharon Dutra with one of Sharon’s books

To see and hear Sharon’s testimony, please visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuH8U_dRdiw

To contact Sharon or learn more about her ministry, please visit:
betransformedministries.comor email her at: betransformed@betransformedministries

Aggressive Islamic militants now serving God and bringing multitudes to Christ

Shah* once lived the life of an aggressive Islamic militant in a Muslim-dominated south Asian country. While the state officially recognized Christianity as a minority religion, it also considered blasphemy against Allah and the Prophet Mohamed great crimes. So with no justification, many would persecute Christians by falsely accusing them of such a ‘crime’.

One day, Shah saw a young Christian man associated with Bibles for Mideast holding a Bible and explaining salvation and the second coming of Jesus to a young Muslim fellow. Shah approached to set him straight. outlining the Islamic belief about ‘Prophet Jesus (Isa)’. He proclaimed forcefully the Islamic belief about Prophet Jesus (Isa): he did NOT die on a cross, but was elevated by Allah and will come back again as ‘Mahdi Imam’, a Messiah who will rule the rule the entire world for 40 years under Islamic (Shari'a) law.  

The Christian minister calmly and politely shared with him how Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary and living a sinless life, really did die on the cross of Calvary.  He then rose from the dead as a ransom to save all humanity from sin and death. Those who believe and follow Him are washed by His shed blood on the Cross. They are His bride and He is coming back in the clouds to receive them. That, he said, is what the Bible teaches.

"Your bible is annulled and false!" Shah screamed. He slapped the evangelist and grabbing the bible from his hands, threw it to the ground. He then set it on fire. The other man joined Shah in the assault, and the two decided to tie the minister up with a rope.

By this time a mob had gathered. They brutally beat the Christian and afterwards handed him over to the police, accusing him of blasphemy against the prophet Mohamed. The court then sent him to prison and within days, he was dead.

Shah and the young Muslim, Asif* rejoiced when they heard of the evangelist’s death in prison. They became fast friends in their crusade against Christianity, and made a sport of persecuting Christians by falsely denouncing them.

One day, the young men worked up a plan of attack on a group of Christians they’d heard were having an extended meeting for fasting and prayer. As they walked to the meeting place, a man joined up with them. He talked with them about the Son of God.

Protests in Pakistan over the killing of a young Christian couple falsely accused of blasphemy.
While Pakistan has a mandatory death sentence for those indicted for blasphemy, 12 other countries can punish with death people who leave or change their religion: Afghanistan, Iran, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

"God sent His Son, born of a virgin woman, not to condemn the world, but so that the world could be saved through him. That man is Jesus, the Son of God." 

Shah and Asif naturally became infuriated, and wanted to beat him up. Instead, they suddenly stepped back in fear. A heavenly host of warrior angels had appeared behind him! And now, he held a burning bible in his hands—looking just like the bible they’d thrown on the ground and burned when they attacked the Bibles for Mideast worker.

The man grew brighter and brighter, His body now shining like many suns. They noticed nail marks in his hands.

In a powerful voice, He proclaimed: "I am Jesus, the Son of God, who was crucified, died and then rose from the dead. I have come to save you. Don’t let Satan misguide you! He is a liar and a thief. The thief does not come except to steal, kill and destroy. I have come that you may have life and have it more abundantly, now and in eternity. Those who gave their lives for me aren’t lost, but are with me in eternal glory. I am totally revealed in this book,” He said. “Follow me and be my witnesses."

"Lord Jesus!” the men cried, closing their eyes and kneeling before Him. “You are our Saviour and Lord! We believe in You!" When they opened their eyes, Jesus and the angels had vanished.

They practically ran to where the Christians were meeting for prayer. The believers reacted in fear when they saw the men rush in. But their alarm turned to wonder as the two shared their experiences with Jesus and boldly declared their new-found faith.

The men spent several days with the prayer group members, learning more about Christianity. But their turning made them enemies of Islamic fundamentalists and terrorists, who set out to kill them. They fled to another area and began seriously studying God’s word, and eventually were anointed pastors. As persecution persisted and grew, the men headed for the mountains and joined in ministry with Bibles for Mideast. It wasn’t long before a new ALG Church was born in one of the mountain villages.

In our first story on Asif and Shah back in November, we reported on their work and a horrific attack they’d suffered, asking for the prayers of God’s people (Urgent prayer request: Pastors attacked and church demolished by terrorists).

God miraculously answered those prayers, so that a mere two weeks later, we had an exciting update: the entire Muslim village is now Christian (Exciting update: entire Muslim village now Christian)!

Please continue to pray for these men and the work they do in so many dangerous areas, as well as for the many new Christians.

______________________
* Name changed for security reasons

Bible distribution plans: Please pray

Pastor Peter Haneef, president of the ALG Church (umbrella for the many Bibles for Mideast churches) has a special prayer request for visitors to this website and supporters of the work and ministries of Bibles for Mideast.

“Kindly pray as our church wants to distribute 30,000 bibles in Arabic, Urdu and other Asian and African languages before the end of this year,” he asks.

“All our believers will also be presenting bibles as New Year’s gifts to at least two of their non-Christian friends,” he adds. “Please pray that the Holy Spirit helps them to win souls for Jesus our Savior.”

He and all of us know we cannot do this—any of it—without the help of praying, generous Christians. If the Holy Spirit leads you to participate with this Bible Distribution Ministry, please click here.

Pastor Peter himself knows better than most the mighty power of prayer, having himself had a dramatic conversion from Islamic extremism (From radical Islamic murderer to ardent leader in the Kingdom of Jesus). Now leading the ALG, he found himself on the receiving end in June of this year of the very atrocities he once meted out (Brutal attack on ALG Church leader Pastor Peter Haneef and family in Bangladesh). While that ended gloriously with, ultimately, the salvation of his main attacker (Boy’s dramatic dream of wounded lamb leads to salvation of his Islamic terrorist father), Pastor Peter is in fact still not quite completely recovered, so please pray for him as well.

TOP: (L) aT A recent bible distribution event; (R) a cancer patient receives a bible
Bottom (L to R): Muslim woman receives bible; Hindu woman learning bible; presenting a passenger boat driver with his own bible

____________________ 
From our ‘Pastor Peter collection’

Bibles for Mideast forms Assembly of Loving God (ALG) Church
From radical Islamic murderer to ardent leader in the Kingdom of Jesus
Brutal attack on ALG Church leader Pastor Peter Haneef and family in Bangladesh 
Boy’s dramatic dream of wounded lamb leads to salvation of his Islamic terrorist father