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
Get the Gospel to the Unreached in the Philippines
Native ministry workers reported that an Islamic scholar began reading a Bible they distributed and ordered others from his ethnic community to form Bible study groups in various villages and sent people to share the gospel with his relatives. Another Muslim leader began listening to an audio Bible with the missionary team, telling them he had “goosebumps” when he heard the complete story of creation for the first time.
Help Workers Plant Churches in Indonesia
A secret Christian who has long been an influential Hindu priest has asked a native Christian worker to disciple him; he wants to learn more about how to follow Christ as he considers whether to make a public declaration of his faith.
Help Supply Compassionate Aid in Southeast Asia
Native Christian workers providing aid to cyclone victims found people afflicted by malaria, dengue and other diseases. Many people lost the roofs of their homes, some lost the bamboo they sold to make a living, and some lost their paddy fields to flooding.
Help Open Doors for the Gospel in the Philippines
A native ministry’s church has begun a new outreach that involves the ministry leader joining police and government officials in meetings to teach from God’s Word. This opens the door to sharing the gospel, and another government department has also asked the leader to teach the Word of God to members and beneficiaries of state service in three communities.
Help Bring Villages to Faith in Cambodia
Native Christian workers praised God for tribal leaders in their 70s and 80s who recently put their faith in Christ as Lord and Savior, resulting in entire villages coming to saving faith. Workers were also encouraged by responses to their radio broadcasts.
Enable Workers to Share the Gospel in Burma
In an area where the people were known for their cruelty and opposition to the gospel, native Christian workers found cyclone damage and military conflict have opened hearts to hearing about Christ. Having planted churches in rural villages for nearly 30 years, workers are also eager to establish congregations in a city.
