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For a new believer in northern India, it’s not uncommon to be baptised at midnight, not because it’s more meaningful by moonlight, but because the cover of darkness offers more safety in a region where Christians increasingly face persecution.

For a new believer, gaining ultimate freedom in Christ often means losing other freedoms, like drawing water from the community well or walking down the street without fear of being beaten. Amazingly, churches are growing where many of the 400 million people are in desperate poverty and most have never heard of Jesus.

This year’s theme, SENT is at the heart of what the Keswick Convention has long been about: mission.

Mission overseas and mission ‘right where you are’, a going out into the world sharing the good news of the gospel through word and deed. This year, visitors to the Keswick Convention will have the opportunity to take a peek into the world of mission and experience some of the many opportunities we have, as Christians, to reach out to the lost and suffering. For the first time ever, the Global Village Experience will be available at the Convention and will be hosted on the pencil factory site right next to the missions exhibition tent, Base Camp.

The first students graduated from groundbreaking St Frumentius’ Anglican College, in Gambella, western Ethiopia in the summer.

For these students, the road to graduation has been especially challenging: two of the seven graduates are refugees and the others are from two different ethnic groups that have a history of conflict. 

‘Reaching Carcassonne’ 2018 took place from 21–28 August, in partnership with La Voix des Prophètes, United Beach Missions (UBM) and with the support of La Maison de la Bible.

The team of 29, aged between 17 and 67, included students, professionals, civil servants and retired people from different countries in Europe. It was an encouragement to see several recent converts from the local church participating in the outreach.

A decorated US Army chaplain who faced a court martial over accusations of discrimination against a lesbian couple was cleared of all charges, it was reported on 25 August.

Major Scott Squires was investigated and faced dereliction of duty charges after he told a soldier he could not lead a marriage retreat that included a same-sex couple. The chaplain had to pull out of the event when he learned of the same-sex couple and arranged for an alternative chaplain to take over, but his actions were deemed discriminatory.

In contrast to the UK prayer breakfast in Parliament where the leaders of the nation were called to listen to someone speak from the Bible, the Southern Baptists took up the request from Vice-President Mike Pence to speak at their convention in mid-June.

In a piece for The Gospel Coalition, Jonathan Leeman wrote: ‘… having a political leader address our churches or associations of churches tempts us to misconstrue our mission. Our mission is not the mission of the Republican, Democratic or any other party. Our mission, when gathered, is to work toward Great Commission ends. To bring in a politician risks subverting our gospel purposes to the purposes of that politician’s party. … it undermines our evangelistic and prophetic witness … it hurts the unity of Christ’s body’. There would inevitably be divided political opinions in a church over any individual or party.

A viewer survey in July by Christian satellite TV channel SAT-7 produced hundreds of viewer testimonies, showing that SAT-7 is changing perceptions towards Christianity and is providing valuable support for believers across the Middle East and North Africa.

Over 5,000 people responded to the survey, which was promoted on social media. Viewers rated SAT-7 highly on almost all criteria including image, sound, and content quality. SAT-7 says that the viewer testimonies are ‘compelling evidence that SAT-7 is succeeding in its mission of making God’s love visible in the Middle East and North Africa’.

The eyes of the world were on Japan in 2011.

This was when it was left reeling from the triple disaster of a powerful earthquake, a devastating tsunami and a catastrophic nuclear accident. Seven years later, Japan is gearing itself up for a happier return to global attention – the Rugby World Cup in 2019 and the Olympics in 2020. Sporting occasions can be a fantastic opportunity to bring a nation together in unity and celebration.

Seventy-four children had to leave their Christian-run hostel in Rajasthan in early May, after the High Court dismissed a petition challenging the child welfare committee’s seizure of the central office of Emmanuel Mission India.

Emmanuel Mission International (EMI), founded in 1960 by Archbishop M.A. Thomas, is well-known for providing quality education to students from under-resourced backgrounds, regardless of caste or religion. EMI now runs five societies. One, Emmanuel Education Society, runs over 40 schools in Rajasthan state.

Almost 7,000 people belonging to the largely Christian minority group in Kachin, northern Myanmar, have fled their houses since fighting between the army and a rebel group flared up in early April, according to recent figures from the Red Cross.

‘It’s a war where civilians are being systematically targeted by members of Burma Army … [yet] the international community chooses to overlook it,’ political analyst and writer Stella Naw told the Guardian newspaper, with international attention on Myanmar focused on the humanitarian crisis facing the country’s Rohingya Muslims.

The American Charge d’Affaires in Ankara said in late June that Turkey’s continued detention of Pastor Andrew Brunson on spying and terrorism-related charges was impeding US-Turkish relations.

Philip Kosnett said there is a ‘strong sense of unity in Congress between Republicans and Democrats’ on the need for Brunson to be released. He continued that there is: ‘A similar sense of unity between Congress and the administration that, in order for the relationship between Turkey and the US to progress, we need to resolve that status not only for Brunson but also for other American citizens and local Turkish employees of US missions who we feel are detained unjustly under the state of emergency’.

The strangest thing happened the other day: I got stuck in a traffic-jam in Pyongyang!

After eight years, it was time to return to North Korea along with a team of wonderful Christian medics from around the world.

More than 220 French-speaking women gathered together on 14 April for the annual ‘Chrétiennes Engagées’ Conference.

The keynote speaker, Sarah Richelle, spoke from Psalms 1 and 2; ‘Happy – Finding your joy in the Word and in the King’. The participants, representing over 59 churches in the Paris region and wider, braved train strikes and Easter holiday traffic to get to the American Church in Paris, on the Quai d’Orsay, close to Les Invalides. They were built up by excellent Bible teaching and the opportunity to praise God and enjoy fellowship together.

A survivor from the devastating terror attack in Orlando, Florida at gay nightclub, Pulse, posted on Facebook on 27 April that he found Jesus as his personal saviour and is no longer identifying as gay.

The attack happened in June 2016 and left 49 people dead. ‘I should have been number 50!,’ wrote survivor Luis Javier. ‘Going through old pictures of the night of Pulse, I remember my struggles of perversion, heavy drinking to drown out everything, and having promiscuous sex that led to HIV. My struggles were real!’ he recalled. ‘The enemy had its grip, and now God has taken me from that moment and has given me Christ Jesus.’

Over 150 people from all over Latin America, North America and Europe assembled in Guatemala City from the 1–7 of February for Latin Link International’s four-yearly International Assembly.

Missionaries, support staff and associates made the trip to the Central American republic, where the main order of business was welcoming Latin Link’s new International Team Leader Paul Turner, who assumes the role from Alan Tower.

On 7 March, police in Nigeria’s north east Adamawa State arrested the organiser of a protest march against the continued killings of predominantly Christian farmers by mainly Muslim Fulani herdsmen.

Mijah Stanley had called on ‘all pro-democracy and civil rights organisations, faith-based and community-based organisations, as well as other Nigerians’ to rally. However, the march never went ahead after police spokesperson S.P. Othman Abubakar warned they would be arrested and prosecuted.

A Christian college gave thanks to God in February after winning a legal battle with significant implications for religious liberty in the US.

Wheaton College won the right to not provide health insurance which covers abortion-inducing drugs. The case centred on the Affordable Care Act – ‘Obamacare’ – which obliges employers to provide health insurance that includes ‘contraceptives’ which act to destroy human embryos.

Almost 13,000 pastors and church leaders gathered from 11-13 April for the 7th biennial Together for the Gospel conference in Louisville, Kentucky.

Together for the Gospel started with a friendship between four pastors and has now burgeoned into one of the largest Christian conferences in the world. Attendees came from over 50 different countries including a record 62 from the United Kingdom.