Fulani militants were seen to be exploiting lockdown as they launched a series of murderous attacks throughout May.

Militants killed at least eight Christians and injured scores of others on 12 May in one of a series of murderous attacks on villages in Nigeria’s Middle Belt. Large numbers of gunmen stormed the villages of Bakin-Kogi, Idanu and Makyali, in the Kajura Local Government Area of Kaduna State, causing families to flee into the bush and to neighbouring communities.

A round-up of encouraging news stories during the coronavirus pandemic

Uganda: was I dreaming?

For three days in Uganda, blind Anna and her granddaughter lived on nothing but water and a daily cup of milk, given by a neighbour, which the pair shared between them.

Covid-19 has prompted many thoughts about what life could look like now that we have been forced to abandon, for a while, uninterrupted global travel, foreign holidays, and despite the foreshortened lives and devastated economies, enjoyed with the earth and its airspace a sabbath of sabbaths.

Lambeth 2020 and GAFCON in 2020 postponed gatherings that would have signalled the continuing tear in the fabric of the Anglican Communion. Does this postponement and the pandemic crisis signal a possibility of different opposing groups in the Anglican Communion finding a way of remaining in one Communion both seeking and showing the unity Christ prayed for the church? Seeking the unity of the Church has always been a key commitment of the Anglican tradition. Might there be space for thoughts about what the Global Anglican Communion might look like?

In May, a judge blocked the appointment of a former Christian missionary and pastor to head the country’s federal Indigenous Affairs Agency after concerns were raised by advocacy groups that oppose evangelical outreaches to tribes in the Amazon.

Ricardo Lopes Dias had worked with New Tribes Mission, now called Ethnos260, for ten years. The group’s missionaries have engaged in efforts to contact unreached people groups and tribes deep in the Amazonian rainforest.

Six leaders of the Early Rain Covenant Church were removed from their homes and detained by Chinese authorities whilst watching an online service on Easter Sunday. Taking place via Zoom, it was interrupted as police raided members’ homes. Someone watching the service said: ‘I thought it was the network connection issue at first, but I soon heard a quarrel erupt.’

The electricity was disconnected in one of the homes and others received phone calls warning them that the police were coming. All six leaders were later released.

A spokesman for the Al-Shabaab terror group active in Somalia declared coronavirus as a ‘punishment visited by Allah upon the disbelievers’ in an audio message reported on 27 April.

As the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Mogadishu began to climb, the militant, known as Ali Dhere, called on Muslims to gloat about the ‘painful torment’ inflicted on any non-Muslims who contract Covid-19.

As an unprecedented virus disrupts the planet, MAF’s planes and people are helping to prevent the spread of coronavirus in some of the world’s poorest places.

Implementing every precaution possible to protect its personnel and the isolated areas MAF serves, the organisation has been quick to offer support wherever possible.

In the 1960s, a diffident young Korean, who was an ex-refugee aspiring to be a pastor, knocked at the door of Swiss L’Abri. Cynthia Stanton, Edith Schaeffer’s long-serving worker, opened it and greeted him. In due time, they were to wed.

It was a chalk-and-cheese liaison, but it was to produce much unobtrusive fruit. She was a Londoner, her father running a fleet of black taxi cabs. His father had fled North Korea to Beijing, where he and his wife sheltered refugees. Both Kim’s parents were freedom fighters in a volunteer Korean army against the Japanese in the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). They suffered torture and witnessed atrocities. Kim was born in Beijing one year into that war.

Every year, in the 26 countries MAF serves, pilots from the Christian aviation charity carry out hundreds of medical emergency flights for ill and injured people and women facing pregnancy complications.

In Suriname, the organisation’s experience of life-saving medevacs proved vital when MAF Country Director and Chief Pilot Andy Bijkerk had to carry out an urgent flight.

At the time of writing, the seemingly never-ending summer of bushfires continues to take a devastating toll. Some 33 people have been killed in the fires, and over 2,500 homes across the nation destroyed, with the heaviest loss occurring in the state of New South Wales.

Losses among wildlife and livestock are inestimable in number, with some sources stating that perhaps 1.25 billion animals have been destroyed. The landmass devastated is equal to one and a half times the area of Scotland. Australian home territory has largely escaped the ravages of war over the decades, but is now experiencing something similar to a devastating military attack.

The executive committee of the Evangelical Fellowship in the Anglican Communion (EFAC) (Global) together with the trustees of the English charity EFAC met for three days in November to confer about the opportunities and challenges facing the gospel witness of the Anglican Church around the world.

They affirmed that EFAC is defined by theology, not by a relationship to a bishop. Through fellowships, fora and resources EFAC builds on the five marks of mission:

Nearly four years ago, Chancellor George Osborne claimed that the UK’s exit from the European Union would be ‘a shock to the world economy’. Thus began what became known as ‘Project Fear’, but with Brexit imminent there is no sign of financial panic nor of the other dire consequences foretold.

This is not to say that Remain had a monopoly of misleading claims, but it is a reminder of how politically-driven communication can stretch facts and evidence. Sadly, the Anglican Communion is not exempt. It has its own ‘Project Fear’.

Logos Hope volunteers connected with people in front of Antofagasta’s hospital, to tell them the gospel and pray with those who are unwell and their visitors.

The crew members approached people and relatives waiting for treatment outside the hospital. After introducing themselves, they asked if there was anything they could pray for. When people accepted prayer, they spoke with them more personally, prayed for their requests and told them about their faith.

On 1 September 2019, Hurricane Dorian struck the Bahamas. The Category 5 storm, with 185mph winds and storm surges of up to 23 feet, is one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes to make landfall.

Regarded as the worst natural disaster in the country’s history, the storm caused widespread flooding and destruction. It killed at least 50 people and left more than 70,000 people homeless.

Josué Sánchez, 32, from El Salvador, knows all about risk.

‘I grew up in the most dangerous town in Central America,’ Josué said. ‘There are violent gangs who fight for territory and will kill for no reason. Everyone in El Salvador faces this every day. It’s a matter of knowing how to survive. It’s like: “Welcome to the jungle”.’

A 134-page report released in September, shows that some 35 million youths raised in Christian families in the USA will give up on Christianity by the year 2050.

Greg Stier – founder of the youth ministry Dare 2 Share – says the report, called The Great Opportunity, is a chance for Christians to ‘flip the switch’. ‘How about not just slowing down the bleeding, what if there was a revival that flipped those stats? That is what we are praying for. How do we flip the switch?’

Next year, Slavic Gospel Association [UK] will celebrate its 70th birthday. In 1950, Peter Deyneka, the founder of the mission in the USA some 13 years earlier, visited churches in the south of England. Believers caught the vision for reaching Slavic peoples for Christ and the UK branch of SGA was formed in that year.

The initially small efforts to bring encouragement and help to Eastern European people displaced by the Second World War and living in camps in England, Germany and Austria, quickly blossomed. It then burgeoned into a ministry which took Christians through the Iron Curtain, and into situations where the churches were severely persecuted for their faithfulness to Christ and the gospel.

John Stott is one of my heroes and I had the privilege of meeting him several times. Among the vast number of signifi-cant things that he achieved in his life was the founding of the Evangelical Fellowship in the Anglican Communion in 1961.

EFAC has the clear aim and purpose to encourage and develop biblically faithful fellowship, teaching and mission throughout the Anglican world. Such an all-encompassing purpose must necessarily be honed down to goals that are realistic.

According to Unus Walilo, pastor of the church in Apahapsili, a village high in the mountains, the Yali people ‘didn’t know anything about the outside world.

‘We lived in the Stone Age, killing each other, eating our enemies. We didn’t know any other life’, said Unus.

North Carolina-based global humanitarian organisation Operation Blessing sent a relief team on 4 September to Nassau, Bahamas, to bring emergency aid after Hurricane Dorian’s devastation.

Dorian ripped through the Bahamas destroying or severely damaging over 13,000 homes. The death toll is still unknown.

A woman was divorced by her Muslim hus-band after he discovered she owned a Bible, it was reported in August.

The husband of the 32-year-old mother of two children discovered that his wife was a Christian and owned a Bible. He demanded that she reveal who had given it to her.