CHRISTIAN MISSIONS UNDER PRESSURES - PRESSING ON AGAINST ALL ODDS By Andrew Abah

Pressures have multiplied for every believer in our days. Like Apostle Paul rightly wrote to Timothy it is now very difficult to be a Christian (2 Timothy 3: 1). If it is difficult to be a Christian, it is certainly much more difficult to be a missionary. It is therefore important to prepare the body of Christ at the church level to embrace this reality so that individual members will choose whether to live up to the standard of the Scripture and particularly obey the Great Commission or reject it. Also, the curriculum for preparing prospective missionaries need to be reviewed to capture this reality.

In one of the Solemn Assembly, I was privileged to moderate in Nigeria, denominational and mission leaders gave reports of the pressures they found themselves. These pressures are as never before in history. One of the leaders reported that 8038 of her members including six Pastors have been murdered in the past few years. 700,000 of his members have also been displaced including 356 Pastors, 346 Assistant Pastors, and 1390 Evangelists. 178 out of the total Chibok girls that were kidnapped are children of members of the church. The situation across the nations is getting more and more hostile and more casualties are being recorded on a daily basis. Yet, the Great Commission must be obeyed! The world for whom Jesus died must be harvested. The kingdom of this world must become the kingdom of His dear Son, Jesus.

Joshua Adah and his family

Globally researchers have demonstrated that hostility against Christians is not only spreading geographically but also increasing in severity. The USA Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt observed that the hostility is getting closer to "genocide" while Bishop of Truro the Right Reverend Philip Mounstephen, observed that the Christians were the most persecuted religious group in the world and that an estimate of one in three persons suffer from religious persecution. Mr. Hunt noted that "political correctness" is the principal reason why the issue is not being well confronted.

Jeremiah Omilewa - Murdered

In Nigeria, the security situation has never been this bad. A particular church was reported to have spent over N100million to settle those that abducted their Pastors in less than one year. Kidnappers suddenly began to focus on kidnaping missionaries and pastors. In some cases like that of the Kaduna Living Faith Pastor, Jeremiah Omilewa, he was killed. The late pastor was returning from Abuja with his wife and his son on Sunday evening when the kidnappers forced their vehicle to stop and seized them.

No denomination is left out. The state of the Catholics Fr. Clement Ugwu of St. Mark Catholic Church in the Enugu is still fresh. He was returning to his parish house on March 13, 2019, after he had gone to a nearby town, not knowing what was waiting for him. It was about 8:30 p.m. and as his blue Prado jeep was blocked along the road in front of the parish house, three men who had been lurking around moved toward him. As Ugwu saw the men coming, he jumped out of his car and started running but was shot in the leg. He fell and yelled, writhing in pain. The gunmen dragged him inside his car and drove toward the highway. Moments later, residents of the community, who had taken cover, gathered around the parish house and saw bloodstains on the ground. Sadly, that was the end of his story.

Some like Fr. Celestine Ezeh and Fr. Paulinus Udenwangu in Southeast Nigeria was lucky. Fr.
Celestine Ezeh was released shortly after being abducted by gunmen. Fr. Paulinus Udenwangu was kidnapped while jogging in the morning. In 2017, Italian priest Fr. Maurizio Pallu was kidnaped by gunmen in Benin City on his way to Mass and was later freed after almost a week in captivity. The Baptist Church is not spared. Emmanuel Noma, was kidnapped along with his father, 60-year-old pastor Elisha Noma, at 1 a.m. on Aug. 14, 2019. According to him: “They forced us out of the house at gunpoint and took us away. After two hours they released me, with the demand that I should go and raise 20 million nairas [US$55,155] for them before they will release my father or else he would be killed.”

The kidnappers later reduced their ransom demand from the original 20 to seven million nairas. In Kaduna State, North West of Nigeria, no fewer than 500 Christians have been kidnaped in the past four years and churches have paid about 300 million Naira (US$827,321) as ransom. Beside Pastors and missionaries, the daughter of a Baptist pastor in the area of Kasuwan Magani was reported to be under the captivity of the kidnappers.

Catalogs of missionaries who were victims

Mark Ojunta, Murdered

Mark Ojunta - Mark Ojunta, a 36-year-old Calvary Ministries (CAPRO) missionary in Nigeria's northeastern state was shot and killed By Boko Haram terrorists. He had received a death threat and successfully evacuated his family from the region a day before he was murdered. He was reported to have returned back to the field because he had a class with some believers on Saturday. Mark is survived by his wife, Ema, and two children, 3-year-old Kambe and 9-month-old Akira, as well as his parents and sisters. The killing came less than three months after the murders of a Church of Christ pastor and his church secretary in Maiduguri.

David Usman and Hamman Andrew - Pastor David Usman and Hamman Andrew, the church secretary, were shot dead near the church in an area of Maiduguri called the Railway Quarters by members of the Boko Haram in the northeastern town of Maiduguri, Nigeria. The church was set on fire by militants, Pastor David had reportedly raised the problem of Boko Haram with his superiors and commented that the Government needed to do more to stop their aggression.

Joshua Okpanachi Adah - Joshua Adah, a Drama Director with the Nigeria Christian Corpers

Joshua Adah, Murdered

Fellowship(NCCF) in 2002/2003 at Taraba State stayed back to meet the need of the people after his National Youth Service Corps where he led The Way Missions. The 36-year-old husband and father of two hails from a little village called Ofugo in Kogi State and grew up in a comfortable, warm-hearted home. An outstanding feature of his ministry was the school he started that serviced the literacy needs of the orphans and vulnerable kids. The school that was entirely free of charge had an attendance of about 400 pupils from many villages around where he was staying. He engaged in farming in order to cater for the needs of the children. He would later leave Jalingo city to such villages as Kona, Murkuni among others, just to be closer to the vulnerable.

His associate, Dapo Azeez said he was killed on January 23, 2015, by unknown men around Bantaji village of Wukari LGA, Taraba State, when he was returning back to his mission field. He was laid to rest on January 29, 2015, around 1 pm at Murkuni village Kona, Jalingo. According to Azeez, the fan belt of his car cut and he got to a mechanic to fix it. As he continued with his trip, his car engine knocked. He couldn't move on, so he called his mechanic from Jalingo to come and meet him at that point. When the mechanic came, he gave him money to go get a towing vehicle. When the mechanic came back with the towing vehicle, he was not found at the spot where he left him, so the mechanic towed the vehicle away from the place and came back to look for him. When he was not found at the expected scene, the mechanic reached out to the police, who could not save Adah but managed to find his corpse. He was hacked to death by Fulani Herdsmen.

Mike Adegbile - Mike Adegbile is the outgoing Executive Secretary of Nigeria Evangelical Missions

Mike Adegbile, NEMA Executive Secretary

Association (NEMA). While returning from a NEMA Southwest event by road through Kogi State, he was forcefully stopped by kidnappers and taken to the forest. For days, he was in their den. Prayers were raised to the Lord from across the nations and the Lord intervened. He was released by the kidnappers but not without payment of heavy ransom.

Abraham Frama - Abraham Frama, leader of Global Outreach Ministry was not that lucky. He traveled from the Northeast of Nigeria on a day the fundamentalists were on the rampage in Jos, precisely in October 2018. Unfortunately, he got to Jos but did not arrive home. News filtered across that he was missing and prayers were made for him to be found alive. Sadly, a few days later the body of Christ was thrown into mourning as his battered body was found by the Red Cross and taken to the mortuary.

Missionary Kids Not Exempted
At Ganaropp in Plateau State, Nigeria, and all the neighboring villages, the Devil continued to unleash terror on the people. Houses of the villagers were burnt down and several persons killed. Some of these houses have been occupied by the attackers and are currently being renamed while the people that survived the attacks stares at their attackers helplessly from the Internally Displaced People (IDP) camps. There were reports of Pastors killed but thus far, we are not aware of any missionary killed. Just as we thought the crises have subsided, a different dimension was added to it in September 2019. The unfortunate dimension was the kidnap of one of the missionaries' daughters from the mission base.

At least, the sum of two hundred thousand Naira was paid out of the ten million Naira ransom demanded. Coupled with very intense prayers, the girl was rereleased. According to a report from one of the leaders: “While we rejoiced for her return, the Lord added to our joy by leading us to a prime suspect. Though revealed by revelation, the Lord provided pieces of evidence with great substance against the culprit which gave us light that God has been at work and even our money will be recovered. The unfortunate thing is that the suspect is one of the persons at the base. The loose ends he left, the Lord helped us to pick them and we neatly presented them before the Divisional Police Officer (DPO)” The leader further revealed that sources revealed that when the suspect was arrested, a police uniform was found in his custody which was enough to nail him since he is not a police officer. Efforts have been made to get a permanent allocation of security personnel to the mission base but prayer is required that the final step will not be delayed. The kidnapped girl was not molested even though she slept in the bush. Pray that she will be healed of every trauma.

Armed Robbery Dimension
As kidnapping and other insecurity continues, recently, the Evangelical Missionary Society in their digital prayer bulletin reported the attack on the lives of their missionary and Coordinator for New Karu DCC, Rev. Paul J. Ishaya and his family. He was attacked by arm robbers in his residence at the DCC office compound in New Karu. They succeeded in taken away some money and injured him and his wife during the attacked. They coveted prayer for quick recovery.

Beyond the shores of Nigeria

John Allen Chau, Murdered

Beyond the shores of Nigeria, the story is not different. In November 2018 on an obscure island in the Indian Ocean, John Allen Chau – a 26-year-old American evangelical missionary – was killed by the isolated tribe, the Sentinelese, who have made it clear over the years that they prefer to be left alone. He was laboring to see them enjoy the love of Jesus who paid the supreme sacrifice for them on the cross of Calvary.

When Chau's death became international news, Chau's father, Dr. Patrick Chau who is a graduate of Oral Roberts University believes the American missionary community is culpable in his son's death. According to him, John was an “innocent child” who died from an “extreme” vision of Christianity taken to its logical conclusion. All Nations, the evangelical organization that trained Chau, described him as a martyr. The “privilege of sharing the gospel has often involved great cost”, Dr. Mary Ho, the organization's leader, said in a statement. “We pray that John's sacrificial efforts will bear eternal fruit in due season.”

China Expels Missionaries
Revised religious regulations were enacted in February 2019 which have resulted in Christian

Joseph Nwajueze, Missionary to China, Murdered

churches in China coming under heavy persecution and increasing clampdown. A Nigerian missionary, Joseph Nwajueze was also reported to have been killed. Crosses are being removed, churches harassed, raided or shut down, and Christians put in jail.

Foreign missionaries are increasingly getting deported. Joe Handley from Asian Access, a church planting group told Mission Network News, “I'm hearing stories of at least five mission groups who have had members of their teams kicked out of China. I've heard of them kicked out in numbers of up to 30 people.” At the same time, other mission groups are experiencing pressure so intense, “they're worried about what might happen to their partners on the ground.” The current waves of the expulsion of foreign missionaries are seen as one of the largest since 1954 when the Chinese Communist government expelled all foreign religious workers after taking power in 1949. However, Handley notes, “When the Revolution occurred years ago and the missionaries were kicked out, that led to the fastest Church growth in the history of modern China.”

 No fewer than 5,000 Christians and 1,000 church leaders were arrested in 2018 alone which resulted in short-term detentions without criminal charges. The government either demolished or closed down thousands of churches, including Zion Church in Beijing; the Golden Lampstand Church in Shanxi Province; and the Bible Reformed Church, House of David Church, and Rongguili Lane Church in Guang-dong Province.

Pakistan
No fewer than 40 individuals are in jail for “blasphemy” in Pakistan including Qaiser and Amoon Ayub, who were sentenced to death by a district judge in December 2018 based on allegations that they insulted the Prophet Muhammad in articles and images posted online. Pakistan's well-publicized case of blasphemy is that of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman whom the Supreme Court acquitted of blasphemy charges in October 2018 after a lower court sentenced her to death in 2010 before the Supreme Court's set the lower court decision aside as not meeting the requirements of Pakistan's evidentiary rules.

Russia Government Fights Missions
In July 2019, the Russian president Vladimir Putin came up with a package which he refers to as anti-terrorism laws that usher in tighter restrictions on missionary activity and evangelism. The package includes laws against sharing faith in homes, online, or anywhere but recognized church buildings. The church hopes to appeal in court but in the interim, they have begun to prepare their communities for life under the new rules. According to the deputy bishop of the Pentecostal Union, Konstantin Bendas, the local police officer came to a home where a group of Pentecostals meet each Sunday and warned: 'Now they're adopting the law I'll drive you all out of here.' The Christians in Russia, according to the new law also won't be allowed to email their friends an invitation to church or to evangelize in their own homes.

North Korea
The State Department, for example, estimates there are between 80,000 and 120,000 political prisoners currently languishing in North Korea's notoriously harsh labor camps, known as kwanliso, and up to 50,000 of these detainees are believed to be Christians. This is because the North Korean government associates Christianity with the despised West, particularly the United States. They specifically single out Christians as the greatest religious threat and utilizes a sophisticated surveillance apparatus to actively pursue and imprison Christians practicing their faith in secret including their immediate and extended family members.

PRESSING ON 

The entire pressures the Devil is mounting on the church today are aimed at stopping the advance of the gospel. If the Devil could not stop Jesus from paying the ultimate price on the cross of Calvary, he certainly cannot prevent the nations from reaping the dividends of the finished work of Calvary. God's word is full of hopes and promises we can depend on. One of such is Matthew 16:18, which says: “…I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.” The advance is unstoppable. Another passage of the Scripture, John 24: 14 seems to be saying the pathway to advance is death: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it dies, it bringeth forth much fruit.” In other words, whatever the Devil seems to be doing, be it persecution including death becomes tools in God's hands to promote His kingdom ultimately.

The second-century Church Father, Tertullian, once affirmed that: “The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church.” From that time onward, the idea has persisted that churches – and individual Christians – grow most when the pressure is highest. There is so much evidence to back this unquestionable belief. Collections of stories, biographies, of how Christians persevered through the most intense trials eventually to witness great blessings in their lives and among the people they served and letters from Christian ministries testifies of large-scale conversions and church growth in such situations.

UNSTOPPABLE ADVANCE

China, South Korea, and Iran - No one could imagine China with just one million members evangelical Christians in 1949 would be more than 100 million Christians today. In March 2019, Sarah Zheng reported on how protestant Christianity has been one of the fastest-growing religions in China in recent years, rising from having just three million adherents in the 1980s to as many as an estimated 100 million this year. Yang Fenggang of Purdue University, in Indiana, says the “Christian church in China has grown by an average of 10% a year since 1980. He reckons that on current trends, there will be 250million Christians by around 2030, making China's Christian population the largest in the world. Mr. Yang says this speed of growth is similar to that seen in fourth-century Rome just before the conversion of Constantine, which paved the way for Christianity to become the religion of his empire”. He added that "Mao thought he could eliminate Christianity. He thought he had accomplished this," Prof Yang said. "It's ironic – they didn't. They failed.”

South Korea and Iran - Just some generations ago, South Korea Christianity was under fire; today, one-third of South Koreans are Christians. The pressures in Iran since the 1979 Revolution was on a very high side. Christians were imprisoned, coerced, threatened with death, or executed, and yet, Iran has the most significant number of believers to have embraced the Christian faith from across the Islamic world. The Fox News of Sept. 27, 2019, reported that Iran has the world's fastest-growing church, despite no buildings - and women mostly lead it (Parke, 2019).  A new film tells the story of how the underground, persecuted Christian movement in a country known for exporting radical Islamic terrorism emerges the fastest-growing people fleeing Islam in droves as believers bow their knee to Jesus (Parke, 2019).

Paul stated Philippians 3:14: "I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." He was pressing toward the mark that must be reached to get the prize in a challenging race. The Devil often want to stop us as individuals and as the body of Christ from getting that prize. We come under pressure every day and hour to stop running as he did to Adam and Eve by going to the tree whose fruit God had forbidden man to eat. We must put pressure upon ourselves to seek the prize Paul has in mind.

CONCLUSION

A mark is a goal worth pursuing. That is our passion. What we spend on and are spent for. The Apostle Paul was consumed to win a heavenly prize. We must not get distracted by things that will hinder us from this goal. Aligning our goal with the eternal purpose of Christ, which is enforcing His Lordship over the nations, is not optional. Harvesting the nations at all costs is worth pursuing. We must press on against all the odds. The odds to press against are the will of the enemy aimed at stopping us from realizing the purpose of God for the nations.

The persecution, the threats, the killings, the kidnapping, the banditry, etc. Gethsemane is the place where Jesus prayed the night before His crucifixion, while His disciples slept. Gethsemane means oil press or the location of the press. It was in Gethsemane Jesus pressed into His destiny of going to the cross. It was there He travailed to conquer Calvary. The inner strength and resolve to embrace Calvary was given to Him in Gethsemane (Luke 22:41-45). We have to press on to prevail against all the odds. We are sure that the end would be that a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language would stand before the throne and before the Lamb wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands in accordance to Revelation 7:9.

References

Conroy, J.O. (2019). The life and death of John Chau, the man who tried to convert his killers. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/03/john-chau-christian-missionary-death-sentinelese.

Egwu, P. (2019). Nigerian priests face increasing threat of kidnapping, murder. Retrieved from https://www.ncronline.org/news/world/nigerian-priests-face-increasing-threat-kidnapping-murder

International Christian Concern (2019). Expulsion of foreign missionaries in China has greatly increased. Retrieved from https://www.persecution.org/2019/02/13/expulsion-foreign-missionaries-china-greatly-increased/

Morning Star (2019). One Pastor killed, another kidnapped in separate attacks in North-Central Nigeria. Retrieved from https://morningstarnews.org/2019/08/one-pastor-killed-another-kidnapped-in-separate-attacks-in-north-central-nigeria/

Nanlong, M.T. (2018). Plateau shocker: Herdsmen rename communities grabbed from indigenes. Vanguard Newspaper. Retrieved from https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/06/plateau-shocker-herdsmen-rename-communities-grabbed-indigenes/

Parke, C. (2019). Iran has world's 'fastest-growing church,' despite no buildings - and it's mostly led by women: documentary. Fox News. Retrieved from https://www.foxnews.com/faith-values/worlds-fastest-growing-church-women-documentary-film

Shellnutt, K. (2016). Russia's newest law: No evangelizing outside of church.  Christianity Today. Retrieved from  https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2016/june/no-evangelizing-outside-of-church-russia-proposes.htmlhttps://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2016/june/no-evangelizing-outside-of-church-russia-proposes.html

Society of African Missions (2019). Nigerian priests face increasing threat of kidnapping and murder. Retrieved from https://sma.ie/nigerian-priests-face-increasing-threat-of-kidnapping-and-murder/

Yako, S. (2019).  Praise and Prayer October 2019. Retrieved from https://www.ecwausa.com/2019/10/01/praise-prayer-october-2019/