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On the evening of 5 May, Pastor Dang Ba Nham, his wife, and a church elder were praying on a roadside with a woman who had recently converted to Christianity in Vinh on the north central coast of Vietnam.

They stood in front of the property of the new Christian, Phan Thi Thanh Huyen, to ask God for his blessing in building a new house. As they were praying, a large pick-up truck with red military plates veered across the street and ploughed squarely into the small group.

Brussels is the centre of the European Union around which the debate about Britain’s membership is raging.

God has his people in that city and a new church plant began recently. Naomi Pilgrem takes up the story. ‘Why do we need another church? Our church is small and there aren’t enough of us as it is!’

Marie-Thérèse Keita-Bocoum, the UN independent expert on the Central African Republic (CAR), called on the international community to continue supporting the country as newly elected President Faustin Archange Touadéra (a Christian) took office on 25 March.

In a statement to the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva on 22 March following her recent visit to CAR, Ms Keita-Bocoum applauded the progress achieved by the Transitional Government and UN Peacekeeping Mission with the support of the international community, and noted that the presidential and legislative elections held in December 2015 and February 2016 were largely free, fair and relatively peaceful. However, Ms Keita-Bocoum said: ‘There have been great steps taken, but the next six months are vital.’

In a country that is beginning to see stirrings of opposition to the Christian message, a new initiative to inspire people to evangelise resulted in more than 100 Tanzanian Christians being trained to share the gospel, it was reported in December.

Hundreds of people from the local community attended a two-day open air mission of prayer, healing and preaching.

It was reported in early September that in Hoima, Uganda, during outreach work, over 6,000 gave their lives to Christ. 622 received free dental services and treatment, 468 received free medical consultation and treatment, and a new church was planted in Kyesiga, a small town two miles outside Hoima and more than 1000 metres above sea level.

AEUK Ugandan Team Leader Paul Ssembiro said: ‘The Hoima Mission included radio and TV ministry; evangelistic outreaches in schools, churches and the prison; gospel rallies; door-to-door evangelism; dinners for the executive, business and security fraternity; marketplace ministry; free medical camps; and cleaning the town’s rubbish. The impact of the mission shall remain in the hearts of the people of Hoima for a long time to come.’

What images come to mind when you hear of Latin America? Exotic places, spicy food, salsa and tango dancing, football or drugs?

The region consists of 20 sovereign states, stretching from the southern border of the United States to the icy seas of Cape Horn. Its geography includes the Amazon jungle, glacier-covered mountains and some of the driest deserts on the planet, as well as huge megacities.

In the last 20 years something like 70,000 people have come to Christ in Ethiopia.

This is a story untold by the secular media, but it is a vibrant movement of God’s Spirit in this land presently facing food shortages. Most of the people whose lives have been touched are from an Orthodox Church background, but many Muslims have found Christ too. Those who have seen what the Lord has been doing have been astonished.

Christians on the island of Mindanao believe insurgents with the New People’s Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, were responsible for shooting Pastor Feliciano ‘Cris’ Lasawang (50) and his 24-year-old son Darwin as they bathed in the Culaman River north of Jose Abad Santos, Davao del Sur Province, early one morning in November.

Pastor Lasawang was shot three times in the body and his son once in the face. The two men died at the site. They had conducted baptisms in the same river where they died, according to US-based Christian Aid Mission, which assists native ministries around the world. NPA rebels are suspected because the guerrillas believe church growth dampens insurgent recruitment efforts, and the pastor had received reports that the Communist militants were monitoring his movements.

Eight young people were shot and three killed when an unidentified gunman opened fire outside a Christian radio station in Mali on 17 December.

The motive for the attack on the Tahanint radio station in Timbuktu is unknown, but witnesses described the gunman as a turbaned Tuareg. Tahanint, which means ‘mercy’ in the local dialect, had just finished broadcasting for the day when the eight were shot outside the building. The radio station is closely linked with a local Baptist church and evangelical mission.

Amid ongoing dangers, Christian leaders in Nigeria in October recalled the exemplary faith of indigenous missionaries who gave their lives in areas overrun by Islamic extremist militants.

While President Muhammadu Buhari told an India-African summit in late October that Islamic extremist group Boko Haram has been contained to ‘sporadic’ attacks in remote areas, leaders of the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) told how Nigerian missionaries sent to those areas have suffered.

In November, representatives of the Middle East Reformed Fellowship (MERF) fields and support bodies came together for the International Council (IC) at the John Calvin Centre in Cyprus.

40 years on from small beginnings in Beirut, Lebanon, in the 1970s, MERF now has a ministry in every major country dominated by Islam.

Imagine the scene: you have been a missionary in a river community in the middle of the Amazonian jungle for nearly ten years, and, among other things, have spent over four years teaching the children from Genesis to Revelation.

But now some of the children are entering adolescence and you have decided to begin a Friday evening club to take the older ones ever deeper into the Word. As your wife busily prepares the after-meeting meal, you silently rehearse your notes – an introduction to the Sermon on the Mount. Expectations are running high as the veranda begins to fill up with excited teenagers, all arriving by canoe in the half-light. You thought eight to ten might attend… but in no time 25 have arrived!

Middle East Reformed Fellowship (MERF) partners with Westminster Biblical Missions (WBM) to support the witness of the Bible-believing Lahore Church Council.

Lahore is the capital of the populous Punjab province next to the Indian border.

Freedom 61 is a Christian organisation based in Latvia’s capital city, Riga, and is an initiative of Youth With A Mission (YWAM).

Taking its name from Isaiah 61.1, Freedom 61’s mission is to proclaim freedom to victims of human trafficking, freedom to men who are buying women for sex, and also to protect the freedom of those who are at risk of being trafficked.