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Thirteen years ago, my ‘gap year’ brought me to Tasmania. Now by God’s providence, wisdom and humour I find myself living and ministering to the university community (with the University Fellowship of Christians) in Hobart, along with my wife and two children.

There are close to 14,000 students on campus in Hobart but the University Fellowship has historically represented about 0.5% of that number. Our ministry is one of evangelism and training leaders. It is an exciting but arduous and slow mission field. Or at least it has been until this year…

Grace (GIS) is an amazing school for missionary children in Northern Thailand that was set up in 2004 by a group of parents who wanted to keep missionaries on the field.

They recognised a need for a good, affordable education for missionary children, that would enable their parents to stay serving in Asia, to support and care for their children, third culture kids with different needs. Grace is more than a school, to many it is family.

The kidnap of a pioneering American missionary on 14 October is a ‘terrible tragedy’ for the communities he served for 24 years, according to the local mayor, and it has raised security concerns among the country’s missionary community.

Jeff Woodke, 55, who worked for a branch of the US-based Youth With a Mission, was abducted by unknown assailants from the town of Abalak in northern Niger. They killed two guards and he was taken to eastern Mali where Mujao – a radical Islamic group – have a stronghold.

On 14 November a judge in eastern Sudan ordered a Christian school, that had been taken over by government officials, to resume classes under the prior Christian administration, according to the headmaster.

The Appeal Court for Administrative Affairs in Madani, Al Jazirah state, thus cancelled an order by the Madani commissioner calling for the closure of the Evangelical Basic School, which armed police along with civilians from Khartoum and elsewhere had seized on 24 October, said the Revd Samuel Suleiman Anglo, headmaster at the school.

Authorities in southeastern Sudan arrested the headmaster of a Christian school on 5 September and took over its property.

Armed police and officials from the National Intelligence and Security Services arrested the Rev Samuel Suliman and 12 teachers at the school in Madani, capital of Al Jazirah state. The Christians were accused of supporting the Sudan People’s Liberation Army-North (SPLA-N), a rebel group fighting government forces.

On July 10 1966 the Evangelical Church of Papua New Guinea (ECPNG) was born.

So, in July this year, there was much rejoicing and celebrating in the various districts as we remembered how God had brought his messengers with the wonderful Good News that ‘Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners’ – sinners from every tribe and nation in the world, including this island with 850 tribes!

Six years after the Third Lausanne Congress came the Third Lausanne Younger Leaders’ Gathering (YLG2016) in Jakarta.

YLG2016, held in August, was probably the most connected gathering of leaders ever. Its planning was chaired by a Brazilian, Sarah Breuel who, with her young family, is serving in Italy with IFES. In the previous year, an online platform was launched.

You might be walking through a snow blizzard in Hokkaido, or in the warm Caribbean sunshine of Trinidad, or in the shade of the forests of Belgrave Heights outside Melbourne, or driving along the sophisticated streets of Helsinki.

But in all of these locations you will see banners and posters advertising Keswick!

Pastor Michael Yat and Pastor Peter Yen Reith, members of the South Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church, were arrested in Sudan at the end of 2014, but released in August 2015.

Open Doors spoke to them about their experiences of persecution, of leading men on death row to Christ, and the difference it made to know people were praying for them.

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.