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
Help Church Plants Disciple Their Flocks in the Philippines
A ministry leader drove more than 100 miles on dirt roads to join in celebration with the congregation of one of the ministry’s church plants, which had organized a baptismal event along the Pacific Ocean for one of its families. Together, the mother, her husband, and their daughter were baptized in the ocean.
Provide Assistance To The Persecuted in Southeast Asia
A member of the Communist party heard the gospel from his aunt and became a believer in Christ. His life was so transformed that his parents, wife, and children all accepted Jesus, in addition to five other families in his village. But as word spread about the man’s decision, local officials became involved, visiting him many times to warn him away from his newfound beliefs.
Help Vulnerable Students Receive An Education in Myanmar
An 11-year-old boy was accepted into a native ministry’s school after the director happened upon him, his younger siblings, his mother, and grandparents following their escape from their village, which had been bombed as part of the ongoing civil war.
Support Discipleschip Of Persecuted Believers in Laos
A village leader known for his dislike of Christians gave five local Christian families an ultimatum: leave or renounce their faith. The families refused either option and instead continued to worship together in a home. But their defiance increased the village leader’s hatred.
Gospel Revives a Battered Life in Indonesia
A young man in Indonesia who had suffered setbacks throughout his life found himself trying to make a living by performing on the street. Osbert*, 28, told a Christian worker who engaged him in conversation that his wife had recently left him, and that he had no hope for the future, the ministry leader said. The worker shared how Christ cares for him so much that He died on the Cross to take the punishment for all sinners who accept His salvation.
“Since the first time he heard the gospel story, he immediately responded positively and then put his faith in Jesus,” the ministry leader said. “It wasn’t long before he accepted baptism.”
Provide Care to Traumatized People in Burma
The military regime in Burma continues to attack its own citizens to quash resistance, causing innocent civilians to suffer. A ministry reported that a village was destroyed just 10 minutes from its headquarters. At least 150 houses were burned, two people were burned alive, and four others are missing.
