NEWS FLASHES

FROM CHINA BACK TO JERUSALEM The Chinese House Church Movement's vision is to 'bring the gospel back to Jerusalem', by sending 100 000 missionaries to the unreached nations along the Silk Road. They pursue this vision from God at great personal cost. Most leaders in the House Church Movement have been tortured and spent years in prison because of their fearless preaching of the Gospel. One of the main leaders, Chao (not his real name), sensed that God wanted to unite the House Church Networks to face up to the challenge of world mission. Before his imprisonment, Chao had a 3-year-old daughter. On his release she was already 16, and a zealous evangelist in the House Church Movement. Chao was released in 1996. In 1997 God blessed him and his wife with another daughter. In December 1997, the leaders of the various House Church Movements gathered for three days to discuss how their movements could cooperate in world missions. On the morning of the first day, Chao's elder daughter was hanging the washing outside the window of their fourth-floor apartment, with the baby on one arm. It wriggled with such strength that it fell out of her arms, dropping the four storeys onto a concrete slab, breaking its skull open - dead on the spot. Chao ran down the stairs and picked up what was left of his daughter, praying "Lord, heal my daughter. If You don't, my ministry for You is over, because I will not be able to stand the loss. And if this missionary vision is from You, heal her. If You do not, I will know that the vision is not from You.” Chao laid his daughter's body on the couch in his apartment, and went to the meeting. When he returned home that evening, his daughter showed no signs of life, but her skull was in one piece again. The following morning, she was still dead. Chao prayed the same prayer again. On his return that evening, his daughter was breathing, but still unconscious. The next morning, nothing had changed. When he returned home on the evening of the third day, he found his daughter awake; she ate, played and was healthy again! The missionary vision had been confirmed in a very unusual way! Source: Friday Fax PRAY FOR YOUR ENEMIES BY NAME "India repeatedly sees persecution. We recently heard how a number of people put pressure on Christians in a certain Indian city," writes Dawn Ministries' Sheryl Wingerd. "How did the Christians react? One of the city's prayer networks made a list of the people who wanted to cause the Church difficulties - and prayed for them by name! God intervened, and every one of them experienced something which stopped them persecuting Jesus' followers. One of the group's leaders injured his leg so severely, with a subsequent infection, that the doctors could only recommend amputating the leg. The Christians went to him to pray for his leg. He was healed! He no longer makes trouble for Christians, and the rest of his group had also become conspicuously quiet.” Source: Dawn Ministries MIRACLES IN INDIA DRAW VILLAGERS TO JESUS God is at work in powerful ways in the villages of India. A man suffering from leprosy was healed after two Christians asked Jesus Christ to restore his health, and the whole family now worship Jesus. Another man's son had not been able to walk for 12 years until Jesus healed his lameness, and his whole family now follow Jesus. A woman was bedridden for more than a month and as believers prayed for her, the fever vanished and she sat up, praising God! A man practiced witchcraft until hearing about Jesus, when he experienced a life transformation, threw away his idols and witchcraft instruments, and became a disciple of Christ. A woman succumbed to a lengthy illness and was pronounced dead at the hospital, but when a Christian leader from her village prayed, God restored her to life and she now testifies as to what the Lord Jesus has done for her. Praise God for the mighty wonders and deeds He is working among these villagers in India! Pray that He will continue to reveal Himself to the lost and hurting, drawing them to salvation and recording their names in the Lamb's Book of Life. Source: Advance