What is God Doing in Pakistan?

Pakistan         

Population: 158 million

Capital:    Islamabad

People Groups:  488

Main Religion: Islam 96%

All Christians:   2.3%

The church planting movement which began in Pakistan in 1999 continues to grow rapidly. Last year, another 500 house churches were planted, each with at most 50 members; the churches divide when they reach that size. Another 500 new churches are planned for 2004, along with the necessary training centres. 45-year-old Akram had been a drug addict and dealer for a long time. One day, he heard Satar preaching the Gospel, and had a powerful encounter with Jesus. He repented of his sins, and was delivered from his drug addiction and baptised. A Muslim family's 7-month-old baby had been blind for 3 months. The parents took the child to every witch doctor they could find, but the child's condition progressively worsened. Finally, they took the child to a house church, where they heard the Gospel. During the service, the baby was healed, and the parents accepted Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.   Kingdom Ministries News, June 2004

Bert Smit, regional director for Adventist World Radio in Lahore, Pakistan, reports a tremendous increase in listener response. During 1997, the staff counted 1,200 letters, yet, during 1998, this number had increased to more than 1,700. "A full-time person is now appointed to handle the post", said Smit. "At this moment mail is coming into the Lahore office at a rate of 100 letters a week. Letters come from places as far away as India, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the Fuji Islands. Recently, a letter was received from a medical doctor in a Karachi prison. He was sentenced to death, as he was found guilty of murder. He wrote to AWR to express how sorry he was for what he did, explaining that it was a terrible accident. "I am on death row," he wrote, "awaiting capital punishment. While in prison, I was given a small radio and there, in the darkness of my prison, I discovered the light of the Voice of Hope." He [said] that he never knew about Adventists or AWR, but that [they] were messengers of good tidings. There, in prison, he accepted Jesus Christ. "Would you pray for me?" he asked. ... He is no longer alive but he had gained Jesus. There are many searching for light in the prison of life in Pakistan.   Adventist News Radio Bulletin, March 1999

The Pakistani Christian Rehmat Masih, once a happy father and farmer, barely survived an attack by Islamic fundamentalists in April 1994. He and the illiterate Salamat Masih were accused of writing "blasphemy" on the walls of a mosque. Despite the fact that both Christians were pronounced innocent by the appeal court in Lahore at the end of February 1995, the Sunni group "Jamat-e- Ahl-e-Sunnat Pakistan" and the "Mutehida Ulema Committee" have put up a reward of 1.3m Rupees for their murder. Rehmat Masih has now received asylum in Germany. In interviews, he says that Jesus appeared to him in a dream: "I prayed, read the Bible and then went to sleep. Early in the morning I had a dream which made me shake with fear. I saw a man on a white horse, a man with a white beard and a sword in his hand. He said 'Don't be afraid. I am here to help you. You won't be here long." In his opinion, "it was clearly Christ. He heard my voice and came to speak with me. I am convinced that I met Jesus in my cell. He told me 'Don't worry, I will save you' - and that has now happened."    Christian Solidarity International, July 1995

During Spring this year, an event unique in Northern Pakistan took place: up to 2,500 people per evening took part in evangelistic events in a city known for Muslim terrorism and a large number of Christian martyrs. The event was led by English Christians Dave Kitchen and Paul Randerson. Unusual about the event was that both Afghani and Pakistani Muslims took part, and many showed a desire to become Christians. Rain threatened to stop the events on a number of occasions. Once, shortly before the message, it again started to rain. The Christians prayed that the rain would stop, and eye witnesses report that it did. Over 300 people expressed a desire to become Christians that evening. Dave Kitchen, Paul Randerson, September 1998

A Hindu guru in Pakistan, who used black magic and hashish to keep his 104 devotees loyal to him, turned to Christ after an evangelist had witnessed to him for two years. A powerful community leader who harassed the former guru was run out of the village by his landlord. Cow dung plastered over a cross painted on the guru's house was washed away by a strong rain. Six new believers -- one a former sorcerer - have been baptized as a result. Praise God for delivering these Pakistanis from darkness. Pray for the bold, effective witness of this new congregation.  Advance, September 1997

"If I had not become a Christian I would have been a Taliban,"says Brother John, a full-blooded Pashtun, and founder of a ministry devoted to presenting biblical Christianity within an Islamic context. His houses near the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan are lined with prayer rugs, and have the feel of an Eastern worship center. They're completely filled with Islamic books except for one - the Bible.

People can stay there for extended periods while they read and memorize the scriptures. "When people come here they want to know what this black book is all about," John says. "If they?re serious, I tell them they can stay." Group meetings in his homes can last up to six hours, but he refuses to call this "church," instead preferring the term "Jaamat Rabaani" which means "gathering of the people of God." "If it looks like a church they will burn it," he notes. Like other males in his Pashtun tribe, he was sent to a madrasa at age four, where he was compelled to read, recite and memorize the Koran. "The children mimic or copy the mullah, who is very heavy-handed," he says. "You have to memorize out of fear"

By age 14 he was reading Shakespeare and searching for heroes, when he stumbled across the name "Isa," the Arabic name for Jesus in the Koran. "I read the name of Jesus and became curious," he says. "The Lord reached me right in the mosque." When he asked the priest about Jesus, he was told that Moses and Jesus were brothers. When John asked about how to find out about him they said, "You have to read the Book of Isa," he says. "Nobody had ever heard of a Bible." John searched for a "Book of Isa" for two years. When he asked his teacher or inquired at the library he was met with suspicion. "What are you up to boy? Do you want to become a Christian?" they asked. He met a young man at school rumored to be a Christian. "I begged him to get me a Book of Isa," he says. "He got so scared he never returned to school again. He thought they would stone him or kill him." There were times John rode his motorbike 30 to 40 miles because he heard about a gathering of Christians. "No one was willing to give me a Bible they were so scared."

"Being strong-willed, the more people stopped me, the more determined I became," John adds.One day he happened to meet a missionary passing through the area north of Islamabad handing out small New Testaments. John spied the man from a distance and hurriedly rode his motorbike toward him. "He looked at me and greeted me like a Muslim and said, "This is the Book of Isa.?" "It hit me like a bullet," John says. "I was almost paralyzed." Hesitantly, he asked the missionary the cost of the book. "Nobody can pay the price for it," he said. "If you want it, you can give me whatever you would like to give." John fished into his pocket and pulled out the U.S. equivalent of 20 cents. Racing home, John underwent a ritualistic cleansing, deciding this would be appropriate before reading such a book. "I didn't understand it in the beginning," he says. "But when I got to the fifth chapter of Matthew something supernatural and unusual happened in my mind." He read: "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled." After reading this verse, he believes the Holy Spirit fell upon him and filled him as his heart and mind were regenerated.

"I got saved without the help of any individual," John recalls. "I didn't say the sinner's prayer or go to any altar call," he says. "Within six months I discovered Jesus Christ is God in human flesh." It would be five years before John had any meaningful contact with other Christians or saw the entire Bible. In the meantime, he set out to memorize the New Testament. "As a Muslim, I thought every good Muslim memorizes the Koran," he recalls. "Naturally, Christians must be memorizing their books." He thought he should memorize the books before meeting other Christians. He also feared the book might be taken away from him at any time. During this time, his mother told him, "If I had known you would become a Christian I would have strangled you as a baby."

John believes more people with "guts" will be needed to carry out the Great Commission. "Jesus told us to go, but we don't go," he says. "There is too much education in America and not enough deployment." At the same time, he confesses it is difficult to leave the comforts of the U.S. behind for the ever-present risks in the Middle East.

One of John's ministry objectives is to establish new communities of "messianic Muslims" throughout the Middle East based on the Book of Ephesians. His next trip will be to Dubai and the United Arab Emirates. He likes to say his travel style is patterned after John Wesley. "I work in a circuit and then move on. I move fast," he says. "Some will follow along. There are a lot of people in the Middle East who are really hungry and seeking," he notes. "They only fear Western missionaries because they think they are cultural terrorists. We need to be one of them and go in on their level."
Assist News Service, September 2004