Stories | Beyond

“It Must Be Jesus Who Did This!”

Nov 23, 2023 | South East Asia, Stories

*Uhn was the town drunk and the senior patriarch of his large extended family. Over a year ago, *Scott’s local partner, a capable movement catalyst, led Uhn to faith in Jesus. After prayer, he was able to stop all drinking and has taken deliberate steps to walk in obedience to Christ. After completing a short set of lessons with his discipleship group, they dug into the book of Mark using an obedience-oriented discovery process. Uhn even took upon himself the task of memorizing the Gospel of Mark. Scott was very moved when he followed along as Uhn recited Mark chapter 10, word for word.

Uhn’s change in behavior is captured in the words of his Buddhist brother-in-law: “It is miraculous how he has changed. We used to be afraid of him, [but not now]. How can I explain it? It must be Jesus who did this!”

Since November 2021, Uhn and the leader working with him have actively gathered his extended family and shared God’s word with them. Some have already come to faith and obeyed in baptism. Even more encouraging is the weekly Discovery Bible Study group with his extended family. Pray they grow into maturity as a church and function as one among their extended community to the glory of God.

Thank you for impacting the lives of unreached peoples and spreading God’s glory among the nations.

*pseudonym

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Thanking God for New Disciple Makers: Jesus, Paul, and Us

Nov 17, 2023 | Stories

Have you ever realized that all the new disciples Jesus, Paul and their teams made were the first disciples where none had ever been? What did they do? Over and over, we find Jesus and Paul thanking God for these new disciples and leaders!

In Luke 10:21, Jesus “overflowed with joy” that the 72 had received God’s revelation and fulfilled their mission.

Every one of Paul’s letters went to the first disciples and churches in unreached peoples. He and his team constantly thanked God for them, such as in 2 Thessalonians 1:3: We ought always to thank God for you, brothers, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love every one of you has for each other is increasing. Therefore, among God’s churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring. Some among other such verses include Romans 1:8-9; 1 Corinthians 1:4-6; Ephesians 1:15-16; Philippians 1:3-6; 4:4-6; Colossians 1:3, 2:6-7; 3:15-17; 1 Thessalonians 1:2; 5:16-18; and Philemon 1:1-4.

Would you join the Beyond team in giving thanks for some of the following first disciples and leaders among Unreached People Groups?

This Thanksgiving our hearts are full with gratitude for the way God has moved among our teams around the world. Below are just a few highlights:

North Korean Expo: This meeting saw partners from 17 countries! Many new church networks, and organizations declared they will join in the call to reach the North Koreans in our lifetime. One of the highlights was seeing the Japanese delegation repent to the Korean church! In the end they were singing songs to each other. The Koreans even came and held the hands of the Japanese believers!

North India: Our movement in North India now has churches in 16 states! Some of the newest works are in the two South Indian states of Goa and Karnataka. We praise God that this movement now has 27,000 House Churches and 150, 000 reported baptisms. These new disciples are not converts that passively experience Christianity, these new disciples will go on to make new disciples.

Tazig Team: This team has visited three Tazig valleys, they’ve distributed New Testaments, showed the Jesus Film, and shared the Good News of God’s Kingdom. They recently published a Bible in the Tazig language and for the first time, people in this region of the world were able to read the Word of God in their own language.

A New App for Scripture Access for South Asia: This new app gives users access to scripture in several South Asian languages. They have easy to follow lesson sets, Bible portions, and some even have the whole Bible.

For all of these new disciples and disciple-makers, Lord, we give THANKS and we overflow with JOY!!

Sharing the Light of the World with Hindus

Nov 7, 2023 | Stories

November 12th will mark the multi-day Hindu celebration of Diwali, the Festival of Light. All over the world Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, and Newar Buddhists will light oil lamps and place them in their homes and businesses to invite the Goddess of Prosperity, Lakshmi, to bring good fortune to them. She doesn’t come willingly, though; she needs to be enticed. Devotees clean their homes and light lamps, hoping the bright lights will attract her. Families gather to feast and give gifts. They gamble, believing that winners will be lucky in the year to come. They offer sweets and prayers to Lakshmi.

Gifts. Blessings. Light ruling over darkness
As followers of Jesus, we also long for such things. What a precious truth it is that, unlike Lakshmi, Jesus did not need to be enticed to come near to us. He came willingly. We don’t merely hope that next year will bring good fortune. Followers of Jesus can leave tomorrow’s cares at His feet, knowing His plans for us are better than we could ever think or imagine. Our Hindu neighbors, surrounded by dozens of burning lamps, are still sitting in darkness. Jesus, the true Light of the World, came to “give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide us to the path of peace” (Luke 1:79). How can we share this Good News with our Hindu neighbors?

Presenting the Creation Story
Presenting the creation story is a great place to start. This establishes God as the creator of a perfect world. As Creator, the True God is so big that no idol can contain Him. When sin entered the beautiful, perfect world through Adam, it proliferated until God had to wipe out all he had made with a massive flood. He had to do this because his holiness could not tolerate the sin of the world. That Creator God is wholly holy is an important distinction because Hindu gods have both a good and evil nature. So, God started over again with Noah. But still sin and shame flourished. Eventually, God himself came in human form of Jesus Christ to deal with sin once and for all. By starting with creation we can explain why Jesus is the Only True Light of the world.

Follow Jesus’ Strategy
Another way to reach out to Hindus is to follow Jesus’ strategy for outreach found in Luke 10. We pray for Him to do a miracle. A Hindu background believer shared the story of how her family came to believe in Jesus. At 16 years of age her sister, Judy, was diagnosed with lupus. At the time, not much was known about the disease so her family sought healing through Hindu rituals, visits to temples, witch doctors and shamans. When a Christ-following classmate asked if she could pray for Judy’s healing in Jesus’ name, the family, willing to try anything, agreed. The classmate and her brothers shared Bible stories of how Jesus healed the sick, and then they prayed, not just for Judy but for the whole family. In a few days, Judy started to feel better. The family rejoiced. A miracle! Soon after, her whole family, including extended family members, became followers of Christ. Similarly, there are thousands of former Hindus in India today who have given their full allegiance to Christ, because God provided a miracle when one of His children prayed. A worker on the field tells us that often when they pray for a miracle they wonder if God will actually do the thing they are asking Him to do. They doubt. But they pray anyway. And God displays His power, proving He is the ONLY WAY!

Please pray for more opportunities to share the true Light of the World with Hindus.

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“Oh No! I Wouldn’t Know What to Say!”

Nov 7, 2023 | Stories

“So, what exactly do you missionaries do?” *Betty asked.

*Lisa was surprised by the question. The two women had struck up an immediate friendship when they met in language class. Betty had retired to the same South Asian country where Lisa and *Travis had recently moved to become full-time missionaries with BEYOND. Betty’s question was a surprise because she had just mentioned that she had put her trust in Jesus 50 years earlier and had been a faithful church attendee ever since. Betty said she knew many missionaries but had no idea what they did. No one had ever explained mission work to her.

“Well,” Lisa stammered, “our focus is to reach people here who have never heard the name Jesus, and therefore have never had an opportunity to say yes to Him.”

“What does a typical day look like?” Betty pressed.

“There is no typical day, but one constant is prayer. Learning to “pray without ceasing” is not just wishful thinking. We pray a lot and schedule prayer time into our day. We spend several hours praying for our supporters, an hour each week praying for our national partners on our team, and lots of prayer for the people around us. One of the ways we pray is to prayer walk.”

Betty didn’t know what that was. So Lisa explained that they simply walk through a local neighborhood, or sit in an open-air food court, and pray quietly for those around them. Lisa and Travis were already planning on prayer walking in a nearby village. Lisa invited Betty to come along.

“Oh, no!” Betty replied. “I wouldn’t know what to do or what to say.” (She imagined that they would be loud and obvious and thus be offensive.)

“We don’t stand on a corner and proclaim aloud,” Lisa said. “It’s all very low-key.” She went on to explain that they take Scripture verses on small note cards and quietly pray those verses as they walk along. “People looking on just assume we are conversing with each other.”

Betty agreed to go.

A few days later, they walked past traditional houses as they read Bible verses and prayed what the Spirit brought to their minds. “There’s a house with a tricycle in front,” Lisa said. “Let’s pray for wisdom and patience for those parents as they raise their children.” “There’s an elderly woman hanging laundry on the line,” Travis pointed out. “May she have dreams and visions of Isa al Masih, Jesus the Messiah,” he prayed. Betty relaxed, and soon she was praying too.

Following a bend in the path, they met a woman hanging newly ironed shirts on her front door. They stopped to chat with the woman and her family and had a pleasant conversation over glasses of iced tea. Lisa asked if they could pray for them. “Yes, please do! And come back again soon for tea,” the woman invited.

Betty was delighted with the morning. It wasn’t at all like what she had first imagined when she heard Lisa mention prayer walking, Betty had to admit that prayer walking can be easy and enjoyable, as well as useful in God’s kingdom.

*pseudonyms

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“I’m Baptized!”

Oct 25, 2023 | Stories, Turkic World

After months of doing Discovery Bible Studies with Sue, Havva decided she wanted to be a Jesus follower.

Knowing that it’s generally better to baptize someone together with their closest community, the women pondered whether to wait for Havva’s husband to come to faith too. And where could they hold the baptism? Bathtubs are rare in their part of West Asia. They brought these matters before God.

When Havva remembered a public pool she once visited, she called immediately. “Okay, I’m just going to tell you straight,” she said to the owner. “I’m going to be baptized, so I want to come when no one else is around.”

“Oh really?! I’m so happy for you!” the man said. “Yes, please come early. We open at 10, but you can come at nine before anyone else arrives. We’ll be waiting for you.”

Havva and Sue were not expecting that response! On the contrary, a more expected reaction in a 99%-Muslim country would have been anger and a lecture on why she shouldn’t do it. They were amazed! God had made a way.

Later that day, Sue saw a man with a Matthew 28:19 T-shirt walk past … in the middle of Islamic West Asia. “All I could do was gawk as he walked by,” Sue says. “When I finally collected myself, I breathlessly read the verse to Havva, and in [Havva’s language] the verb “baptize” is written in the command form. It hit me like a ton of bricks: the Father is confirming His will to us: ‘Do it.’ I had been worrying, but God had given us a place and a command.”

The following morning when they were in the warm pool waters, Sue got momentarily caught up in the mechanics of how to baptize someone in a pool with no shallow end. “But Havva was focused and got it done,” Sue recalls. “She said, ‘In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I’m baptized!’ And then she dipped under the water and popped back up.

“I love that Havva was so determined that she didn’t need me to say or do anything; I just put my hand on her back as she went underwater. It was such a joyful morning! Our Father showered us with His kindness and care because we’re His beloved daughters.”

Sue asks that we pray for Havva to have the opportunity to baptize her husband and daughter when they, too, become followers of Jesus. Her husband is close, but something is still blocking him. Ask the Father for another miracle of faith.

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