Countries Where We
Assist Native Ministries
Overview
Southeast Asia is home to an incredibly diverse population. The island nation of Papua New Guinea alone is home to more than 1,000 people groups who speak more than 800 languages. Christianity has taken root and continues to grow among ethnic minorities who face increasing persecution from oppressive regimes.
Islam is another challenge to native believers in Southeast Asia. Christians in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, face high levels of persecution from radical Muslims, who are pushing Sharia-inspired laws in more communities. Meanwhile, a growing Muslim population on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines continues to breed radicalism and hatred for Christians. In both of these countries, however, Christianity has sustained continued growth.
With the growth of Christianity in Southeast Asia comes an enormous need for trained church leaders. Thousands of rural congregations languish without adequate leadership, falling into unbiblical teaching, moral failure, and syncretism.
In addition to persecution from radical Muslims and hostile governments, native missionaries in Southeast Asia are challenged to minister to unreached people groups in regions of extreme poverty and where there is rampant drug usage. The countries of Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand comprise Southeast Asia’s Golden Triangle, one of Asia’s two main opium-producing areas. Myanmar is also the world’s largest producer of methamphetamines.
How You Can Make a Difference
Ways To Give
Evangelism & Discipleship
Through the work of one indigenous ministry in Vietnam, more than 3,000 house churches exist in the country’s Central Highlands. A ministry on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines has shared the gospel and planted churches among the island’s 13 Muslim-majority tribes through carefully trained native missionaries. Though ministry inside North Korea is impossible under the present regime, native missionaries established underground churches in six locations in northern China among North Korean women who were trafficked across the border. GIVE NOW to help evangelistic and discipleship ministries like these in Southeast Asia.
Community Engagement
In Indonesia, several Christian Aid Mission-assisted ministries are providing business training to desperately poor pastors and equipping them to start microenterprises to support their families and fledgling churches. GIVE NOW to help community engagement ministries like these in Southeast Asia.
Compassion
In Myanmar, where multitudes fall prey to drug addiction, a ministry is sharing the love of Christ through its two addiction recovery centers where addicts are cared for and discipled in God’s Word. GIVE NOW to help compassion ministries like this one in Southeast Asia.
Exclusive Stories from the Mission Field
Schoolteacher in Vietnam Leaves Old Life Behind
“Because she was so desperate, she wanted to commit suicide by drinking insecticide,” a ministry leader said of a schoolteacher in Vietnam. She had a handsome young husband, was raising two young children and was in so much pain that she wanted to kill herself. “When holding the bottle of insecticide intending to drink it,” the leader said, “her two children were holding her and hugging her and crying.”
Gospel Grows in Laos Despite Opposition
Pei, a widow in Laos, was secretly discipled at a local missionary’s church for five months before she developed the strength of faith to tell her daughter and son-in-law about her conversion. “After saying only a few words about Jesus, both her daughter and son-in-law immediately began to violently criticize her,” the local ministry leader said.
Christians in Vietnam Count High Cost for Faith
Invited to a local missionary’s house for dinner with other Christians in Vietnam, Thuan was surprised when they were somehow warm, fun and friendly without the drinking or opium-smoking common in his village. “He had heard the gospel from the local missionary many times, but he didn’t like hearing it,” the leader of a native ministry said. Thuan could not know that accepting the dinner invitation would set him on a journey to prison.
Rival Tribes Sow Kingdom Seeds in the Philippines
Members of a tribe in the Philippines lived in tense isolation from each other due to decades of conflict that at times flared into war. Then native missionaries arrived suggesting the unthinkable – rival factions working together in community farming. For the tribal villagers, it would be a necessary evil that brought unthinkable good.
New Pandemic Wave Hits Workers in the Philippines
With the second-worst coronavirus outbreak in Asia and hundreds of cases of the highly contagious Delta variant, the Philippines saw the highest daily increase in new infections in two months at the end of July.
100-Year-Old Pastor a Balm amid Suffering in Laos
A 100-year-old church leader has long attended a local ministry’s training seminars, where he has encouraged others with his faithfulness in the face of persecution. “He has endured so much in his walk with the Lord, to the point that he was imprisoned eight times for his faith,” the native ministry leader said.
