Around the World, December 2015
ATACO — Hector and Rachel Cortez, former missionaries to Costa Rica, work with Churches of Christ in western El Salvador.
The couple recently assisted in a “Youth in Action” rally for young Christians and a family seminar designed to help church members mature into deacons and elders. The couple also worked with members of the Corona Church of Christ in California as church members made their first mission trip to the region.
GHANA
YENDI — Across northern Ghana, where many people identify Islam as their faith, Churches of Christ practice outreach, inreach and what they term “up-reach,” including fasting and prayer.
In a recent report to the missions committee of the Nsawam Road Church of Christ in Ghana’s capital, Accra, seven evangelists in northern Ghana detail the churches’ involvement in fasting. At the Tatale church, for example, Emmanuel Kpachin Jagri leads devotionals as the church fasts and prays during the final week of each month. These devotionals include “testimonies to confirm God’s intervention in the course of this spiritual exercise,” the ministers wrote.
At the Yendi Church of Christ, regular fasting helps leaders identify spiritual problems in their congregation, according to the report.
“We may not be able to quantify the degree of impact,” the ministers wrote, “but are vehement that it quenches some amount of troubles in the lives of the members.”
PAKISTAN
LAHORE — In this predominantly Muslim country, a few Churches of Christ are doing what they can to help their countrymen in the wake of a devastating, 7.5-magnitude earthquake that struck western Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan. Nearly 400 people died as a result.
The people of the region need food, clean water, warm clothes, blankets and tents, said Asher Kaleem, a church member in Lahore. “We are trying to provide immediate medical support and supplies as well as basic provisions to victims of the South Asian earthquake,” he said.
PAPUA NEW GUINEA
MADANG — Finding water for baptisms wasn’t easy in this drought-stricken nation north of Australia. But church members persevered and immersed five souls into Christ in a small pond during the recent Madang Churches of Christ Gospel Meeting.
More than 200 people attended, said Jab Mesa, a minister from the city of Lae who works with Melanesian Bible College. Mesa spoke on “What is the Gospel” from Romans 1:16. His wife, Becky, taught classes for women. The Church of Christ at Omoru hosted the meeting.
The drought has put more than 2 million people in Papua New Guinea at risk of famine and disease, according to news reports. Mesa asked Christians worldwide to pray for rain.
