RIPPLES... AROUND THE WORLD...

The Word is spreading An average of 160 000 people a day hear the message of redemption in Christ for the first time. Every hour, 3 000 more people decide to follow Jesus Christ. The yeast of the Gospel In 1800 those who had never heard the Gospel were 75% of the globe’s population. Today the percentage of those who have not heard is 28% which is a major move forward. However, that still means about 1.5 billion people have not heard the Gospel Message even one time! Huge Middle East Church! A huge cave on the outskirts of Cairo accommodates the largest church in the Middle East; 10 000 meet weekly for worship, and a Prayer Conference there in 2005 hosted 20 000 believers. Iraq More than 5 000 Iraqis have come to faith in Christ over the past 4 years. There are 14 new churches in Baghdad and dozens more in Kurdistan, some with up to 800 members. The Internet - a ripe field! Over 1 billion people are now on the Internet! There are almost one million new connec-tions a day! Remarkably, the second most popular search topic is “spiritual and religious” information. Egypt During the 1990’s, the Egyptian Bible Society used to sell about 3 000 copies of the JESUS Film each year. Last year they sold 600 000 copies, plus 750 000 copies of the Bible on tape in Arabic and about half a million copies of the Arabic NT! Less American Missionaries The American career missionary work force is rapidly shrinking. In 1986 there were 69 000 career American missionaries, in 2006 that was down to 35 000; almost a 50% reduction in the last 20 years. “The whole Bible mandates us to take the Gospel to the whole world. If we are not doing so, we need to sit down and seriously reconsider our priorities.” [Source: YES! August 2008 (Published by Mission Activation Centre (MAC)].