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One of the devastating aspects of the war in Ukraine is the huge number of people – the UN estimate the figure at 12 million – who have fled their homes with little more than the clothes they were wearing.

Around seven million people are still thought to be displaced inside Ukraine itself, many in the western region of Rivne and Sarny where Christian charity Mission Without Borders (MWB) is operating.

A 370-mile emergency flight saved the life of a medic’s wife in Chad, the Missionary Aviation Fellowship (MAF) reports.

Gary Clayton writes: In 2021, MAF flew 1,443 medevac passengers worldwide. Many of the patients flown were touched by the love of Christ and the care they received from MAF pilots. This year, thanks to MAF planes, many more life-saving medical emergency flights are taking place in Africa and the Asia-Pacific region.

Iain Taylor

Date posted: 1 Sep 2022

Indian church-planting missionary Elavatta Abraham has an extraordinary experience of how God has worked in his life.

He told his story exclusively to Evangelicals Now during a brief trip to the UK to attend the Cambridge Leaders Network conference.

Gary Clayton of Mission Aviation Fellowship writes:

In 1 Corinthians 15:32, the apostle Paul refers to fighting wild beasts in Ephesus. Although it’s unclear whether this is a reference to enraged opponents of the gospel or an allusion to a particularly cruel form of Roman punishment, for many MAF passengers the organisation’s light aircraft are the only way they can avoid the peril posed by man and beast.

Iain Taylor

Date posted: 1 Oct 2022

David Eastwood is Field Director for OMF in Taiwan, where he has been working for 30 years, and now oversees 70 missionaries.

OMF’s focus in Taiwan is on working-class and marginalised communities, such as prostitutes, the homeless and orphans, who are often overlooked by those agencies who concentrate on reaching the middle classes. Evangelicals Now spoke to him exclusively about the current situation there.

A few weeks ago MAF pilot Roy Rissanen flew a team of American missionaries from a remote part of Guinea – the journey representing the first operational flight of MAF’s latest African programme.

With only 5% of Guinea’s roads being paved and the country’s railway network no longer running, the severe lack of transport makes life difficult for aid and development agencies, churches and missions in isolated areas.

Iain Taylor

Date posted: 1 Aug 2022

Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine in February Evangelicals Now has been inundated with stories about how UK churches and Christian groups are helping refugees and reaching out to them with the gospel. But Christians in other parts of Europe have been busy too.

Here is how Message Germany (an international hub of Manchester-based The Message Trust) has responded to the crisis.

Iain Taylor

Date posted: 1 Sep 2022

A preaching workshop being held in the Italian capital is expanding rapidly.

‘Workshop Predicazione’ looks set to double the numbers attending in 2022.

Iain Taylor

Date posted: 1 Sep 2022

Christianity’s future is likely to be shaped by African women, new research says – but there is a danger of false teaching being influential as well.

New research by American scholar of the history of mission, Gina Zurlo, shows that women are the majority in churches nearly everywhere in the world, and that Christianity’s future is poised to be shaped by African women in particular.

Iain Taylor

Date posted: 1 Sep 2021

Covid-19 is an opportunity for European mission agencies to reflect deeply once again on the meaning of mission in today’s world.

One of the key questions it raises is whether it has made sense to have invested so heavily in huge buildings, since social distancing restrictions have forced many churches to think about how to make small gatherings work, not just big ones.

Iain Taylor

Date posted: 1 Sep 2021

Four years ago, the Bullock family left the familiarity and security of the UK to serve God cross-culturally in Zambia with Operation Mobilisation. Dan is Field Leader, responsible for all OM’s missionaries in Zambia, as well as its local workers. Ruth is a physiotherapist working to train people with disabilities.

Writer Ivy Chiu spoke to Dan and Ruth about why they took such a bold step.

Iain Taylor

Date posted: 1 Jul 2022

During the first 90 days of the war in Ukraine, over 6million refugees fled to other nations, A further 7million were displaced internally, making this the largest movement of people in Europe since World War II.

In response, 72 Christian leaders from 22 European countries recently gathered in Krakow, Poland, to focus on the war and refugee crisis. The five countries that have received the most refugees (Poland, Romania, Moldova, Hungary and Slovakia) admitted they are overwhelmed and can no longer handle the ongoing flow of highly-traumatised women and children.

letter from Japan

If you have ever read the Chronicles of Narnia you may remember reading the words ‘Aslan is on the move’.

As you did so, perhaps a chill went down your spine as the prospect of the coming victory over evil becomes a palpable reality. Well, as I write, a chill goes down my spine as it would seem that the Lord is on the move here in Japan.

Iain Taylor

Date posted: 1 Jul 2022

International Mission to Jewish People (IMJP), has announced its most ambitious evangelistic programme yet.

Its 2022 ‘In the Cities’ mission series will visit London, Paris, Amsterdam and Budapest, before heading further afield to Pittsburgh, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Sydney, with the potential to reach over 1million Jewish people living in ten major global cities.

Iain Taylor

Date posted: 1 Aug 2022

Seeking to encourage and equip emerging Christian film-makers from Egypt and the Middle East – and allowing them to focus on the issues that most concern them – were the goals of the first-ever Salam (‘Peace’) Film Festival, which has taken place in Alexandria.

The brainchild of Christian TV station SAT-7 and the Evangelical Church of Egypt, the Festival comprised 26 films which were shown and competed for a series of awards.

Iain Taylor

Date posted: 1 Aug 2022

Even before the invasion of Ukraine, many of the poorest nations of the world were suffering the catastrophic impact of climate change.

Earlier this year the island of Madagascar, for example, experienced its ‘worst drought’ in 40 years. UNICEF says half a million under-fives will be ‘acutely malnourished’ this year; in the south, where 80% of the people depend on agriculture to survive, the UN World Food Programme estimates that half of the population now faces hunger. The drought has decimated crops and dried up water sources, resulting in little sustenance for communities and cattle. The pandemic, deforestation and Madagascar’s cyclone season have further exacerbated their woes. According to UNWFP, this could become ‘the first famine to be caused by climate change’.

Facing its worst drought in 40 years, food and water in Madagascar are so costly at the moment that reports are coming in of communities eating locusts, leaves, clay and even shoe leather to survive, the Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) says.

MAF writes: UNICEF says that half a million children under the age of five will be ‘acutely malnourished’ this year, with a further 110,000 facing ‘severe malnourishment’.

More than 10,000 people have taken part in a national march for Jesus in Paris.

The majority of those taking part in the event, which resumed after a two-year break due to the pandemic, were reported to be between the ages of 25 and 35. The march was led by a team from YWAM (Youth With A Mission) accompanied by six musical bands.

More than 600 church workers from 41 countries and four continents have attended the European Leadership Forum (ELF).

The mission of ELF, which was held in Wisla, Poland, is to ‘unite, equip and resource evangelical leaders to renew the Biblical church and evangelise Europe’. Their desire is for different evangelical groups to work together to achieve more than any single organisation can on their own.

The Lambeth Conference which is set to take place from 26 July to 6 August, last met with all Anglican bishops in attendance in 1998 – 24 years ago.

The 1998 conference was due to receive the report of the Decade of Evangelism from its secretary, Cyril Okorocha of Nigeria. This was shelved and Canon Okorocha stood down in favour of pressure from some bishops to discuss the issue of homosexual unions. The outcome of the 1998 conference was a resolution, Lambeth 1.10, which ‘while rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture, calls on all our people to minister pastorally and sensitively to all irrespective of sexual orientation and to condemn irrational fear of homosexuals’.

Andrew Birch, Mission Director for the European Mission Fellowship (EMF), talks the organisation’s growing to en about vision for the continent of Europe.

Andrew, what’s the vision you’re developing?