STORIES STORIES STORIES STORIES STORIES STORIES
Thank You
Live Dead is an initiative that partners with the global body of Christ to plant churches among unreached people groups through teams. This book is a collection of stories from Live Dead teams around the world. These stories represent only a small portion of what the Lord is doing and come from places in the world where gospel workers face difficult challenges.
These challenges pale in comparison to the great work and mighty power of the Lord. His Spirit goes before us and guides us. Our Live Dead church planting teams all over the world partner together in prayer with the wider body of Christ through Live Dead Pray Bands.
LIVE DEAD
We all pray relentlessly and engage in our own personal call to see the world reached with the life-changing message of Jesus.
God is on the move! And His Great Commission is not simply a suggestion for a few, but a command to us all. This book of stories is intended to encourage the praying body of Christ regarding what He is doing among unreached peoples and to appeal for more workers and more prayer. As you consider your role in planting the church among the unreached, the great need is more prayer and more missionaries. We trust this little book encourages you toward both.
Siblings
About a year ago my roommates and I became friends with our local Kırtasiye (school supply store) owners, a brother and sister who call themselves deists, meaning they believe in a god but not a specific one. As we got to know them, our friends shared that their ancestors were Christians but were forced to convert to Islam as it spread to Macedonia. As deists they were not convinced of the divinity of Jesus and therefore believed Jesus was simply a character in a story of history. Initially our conversations ended with them questioning us, wondering aloud how “such smart girls could ever believe in this stuff.” One time, as we left the store, they told us, “Say hi to the devil,” as they believed so strongly that my teammate and I were deceived.
It was the lockdowns during the pandemic that afforded one roommate and I the unexpected opportunity to share Jesus with them. Under normal circumstances we visited their store at least once a week, but during the lockdowns we could only call instead. The brother told us before the lockdown that he would start reading the New Testament we gave them, and that he would ask any questions he had. As he read through the Scriptures, we talked about Jesus’ role in the Godhead and suggested they watch The Passion of the Christ and The Chosen. Later in the lockdown, we also sent him personal testimonies of locals who had come to faith.
SILK ROAD
As the lockdown ended, we began to visit them again. We were delighted to discover that the brother had not only finished reading the New Testament, but the Old Testament as well. “I love it,” he told us. “After you answered my questions on the phone, the rest made sense to me.” We asked him if he wanted to believe, and he said yes. He was ready to believe that Jesus is God, that He died and rose again, that His sacrifice covered the sins of mankind, and that only Jesus can save. Our friend was ready to commit his life to Christ. My roommate’s and my joy were so evident that through our rejoicing he asked us, “Why are you guys freaking out?” We told him, “When someone puts their faith in Jesus, God also rejoices with that person. In fact, all of heaven is happy. A party happens in heaven!”
Our friend opened up about his journey to this decision and told us, “If you never try something, you will never know if it’s real or not. I didn’t believe initially because I didn’t give Jesus a chance.” He agreed to be baptized and asked to do so in the sea surrounding our city.
Since being baptized, our Kırtasiye friend and new brother in Christ burns brightly for the Lord. He is dedicated to reading the Bible and is continually asking insightful questions. One day after a conversation with him about Jesus’ command to share the gospel, he decided, “If this is true, then my sister is my next target.” We are praising God for His goodness and faithfulness as this friend continues sharing the news of Jesus and continues in discipleship.
Vipul
Vipul went to the States for college and met Christ through Chi Alpha on his university campus. He failed out of college and was forced to return home where he faced his family who disapproved of his decision.
He entered a period of staying at home. He became depressed as he had to start college all over again but continued praying to find any believers like those he had met in Chi Alpha.
When our family moved to the city, a Chi Alpha staff sent us his number. We met him and took him out for dinner, and my husband began weekly discipleship with him. He also jumped into the young adult community with his whole heart. He graduated this year and got a job, and he plans to start Chi Alpha in his neighborhood.
INDIA
Launching Into New Territories
We view our city as a very strategic place, not only for reaching our state of India, but all the “Seven Sisters” states of the region. Most travelers to the northeast journey through our city, and people from all over the region move here for school and work. We envision reaching the unreached and reviving the seed here though a community language and training center.
On our two vision trips to the area, we were able to make contacts and meet potential people of peace from various backgrounds and areas. Even though our official launch is a while off, we continue to remain in contact with these people and are believing for more God encounters and for fertilesoil souls once we arrive.
INDIA
Seeking the Troubled
Recently my husband was praying when the Holy Spirit gave him a word—a faith-stretching, middle-of-the-night, wake-up kind of word.
The Holy Spirit directed him to visit a local mosque, find one of the leaders, and ask if anyone there was having demonic dreams as he was being led to pray for them.
My husband faithfully responded. He took along a young local believer who is being discipled by men on our team. Upon arrival, they found a few religious leaders in the mosque and shared with them why they had come. Imagine their shock to hear an American man speaking their language and asking about a potentially demon-possessed man. Rather than laughing him off though, they wanted to know more. He shared about Jesus the King, the miraculous healer who cast out demons.
They listened, asked questions, and ultimately denied disclosing if there was anyone troubled by demons. Still, we rejoice that the name of Jesus was proclaimed in a place built to hold 30,000 Muslim worshippers. We rejoice that a young local believer is being discipled to reach his own people. We rejoice because Jesus is on the move throughout the Muslim world.
SILK ROAD
Two teammates, a local believer, and I met for prayer as we prepared for a time of evangelism. God immediately showed my teammate a picture of a woman wearing a purple head scarf. We prayed for direction on where to find this woman, and the Holy Spirit spoke the name of a local shopping center.
My teammate and I headed there to look for her, and sure enough, my teammate spotted her. She pointed the woman out to me, exactly as God had shown her. This teammate had only recently arrived on the field and could not speak much of the language yet, so she said to me: “You have to tell her what I say!”
I greeted the woman and told her that we had been praying and the Lord showed us her face. She accepted our offer of prayer, and we then shared the story of the lost sheep. “I believe Jesus is looking for you and sent us to find you tonight,” I said. I asked her if she felt close to or far away from God. She responded that she can’t read the Quran in Arabic as Islamic tradition dictates; she can only read it in her heart language. All she’d ever known is a far-off God who doesn’t speak her language.
In this moment, God had prepared a way for her to connect with Him as we presented her with a Bible in her own language. She took the precious gift with gratitude and thanks. Praise God! This moment was an awesome reminder that God sees each person individually.
This woman’s name translates to “precious” or “valuable” in English. Please pray that she learns how valuable she is to God our Father.
Her Heart’s
Idon’t know why I feel unsatisfied in my life lately. I feel so confused. I used to be able to do anything and feel no regrets, but now, I feel so confused. I want to find purpose in my life. I’m inspired by your faith in God. Maybe this year, I will find faith, too. I don’t know why, but I feel so much peace talking to you. When you return, maybe you can tell me more about your faith.”
These words are a small portion of a conversation I had with a friend as she painted a picture of a soul searching for purpose and meaning.
Years ago we had the priceless joy of being able to share the gospel with her for the first time, but up until now, she has remained very closed off to receiving it for herself. Pray for my friend that she has an encounter with God and that she will experience the life-giving purpose that He alone can give. Her husband is an influential leader; pray also for him.
Her cry represents the heart cries of millions in our area who have yet to hear the true hope we have in Jesus. Pray for them as well, for those who are so desperate to find hope and salvation for their souls.
CHINESE WORLD
Cry
Alice AFRICA
Alice has been involved in Bible studies with our team for over three years. She remembers early conversations in which we brought up things about Jesus, but at the time she simply wasn’t interested in asking questions or she would just change the subject.
But something shifted inside her in early 2019. Several conversations with Christians led to her watching the Jesus film and participating in discussions about Scripture, which then turned into her joining a weekly Bible study during which we sang worship songs, prayed together, and discussed scriptures.
Alice has faithfully attended this study and shown an atypical lack of fear as she lets her friends know that she enjoys learning about Jesus. She listens to large sections of the Bible with us, retains the stories, and engages in meaningful discussion.
Questioning things is a personality trait of hers that applies to both Christianity and Islam. She genuinely wants to know which path is correct and approaches both sides with a desire to learn rather than debate.
(Although we sometimes cannot help but debate a little.) Because of her years of study she can now clearly articulate what Christians believe about Jesus and about receiving salvation through faith in Him. She has even started talked about wanting to make a decision and the phrase “if I became a Christian” has been said in our conversations regularly.
While she is open to having conversations in earshot of her friends, her family is a different matter. We appreciate that she does not want to appear two-faced and she sees following Jesus as something she would not be able to hide from her family. She still professes to be a Muslim and cannot yet imagine what her life would like if she made a different choice. There are times she says that she feels close to faith in Jesus, but other times when the doubts and questions feel greater. Our team will study the Scriptures with her for as long as she wants to, and we pray for an encounter with God that will fill her with confidence and boldness to follow Him no matter what the cost.
ays after the war began a member of our team, Scott, engaged an unengaged people group in the republic of Dagestan for the first time in known history. For six years he had prayed and looked forward to engaging this specific people group. He moved to Russia and began seeking an inroad to this people. After a year of language study, he finally received a long-awaited invitation to visit the main village of these people through an insider he met via Instagram.
The start of the war brought a great deal of uncertainty for U.S. citizens: Could they remain in Russia? What would safety and security look like in the region? Together our team discerned and understood from the Holy Spirit that now was the time for Scott to go to the village. This was possibly his only chance.
As we write this story, Scott has made five trips to the villages. He has yet to meet a person of peace, someone who is hungry for the gospel, but he does have a connection that has become a dear friend, has opened the doors for him into the remote villages, and has introduced him to over one hundred locals. He discusses the Bible and fields questions on his faith all the time, which is an avenue for sharing the gospel.
Three Wise Men
ARAB WORLD
This is the story of three wise men. The first, a young university student, went to the mosque five times a day, praying and doing every good work. Yet, his soul was tired. The more he spent time praying, the more tired he became. Until one day, he began to read the Bible. The words were like water to his thirsty soul and for the first time he said, “I felt free.” He started to follow Jesus.
The second, an older man with a wife and four children who just retired, had wanted to know more about Christianity from a young age. He asked an English teacher for a Bible, has had dreams with Jesus in them, and has been discipled and loved by missionaries on ground. He has been fearful of the weight of the decision to follow Jesus as it would mean he would have to forsake all. Yet, he continues to join Bible studies and has professed Jesus as Lord and Savior.
The third, in his late twenties who was studying to be an Islamic scholar, read absolutely every religious script he could get his hands on. He is smart, gifted, passionate, and charismatic. He studied the Scriptures to find errors yet after two very intimate encounters with Jesus could no longer deny the truth of who Jesus is. He proclaimed Jesus as King of his heart and has been challenging family members with this truth ever since.
They had each believed that they were the only ones in their country who had these experiences with Jesus. They heard testimonies from neighboring countries, but none from their own. But recently, for the first time, these three men met each other. They met someone else “like them”—same culture, language, government, obstacles, experiences…and same Lord. They worshipped, prayed for each another, and shared their testimonies together.
Jesus is doing incredible things in the Arabian Peninsula, doing His work in such a way that only He can receive glory. The efforts and prayers of previous missionaries are being answered as we see the first seeds of house churches forming.
Mountain Tribes
In the 1860s the British went to the Arabian Peninsula to create a telegraph line to Bombay. They required coastal points for repeater stations to get communications to Bombay for trade interests, so they built a station on an island. The crustaceans ate their telegraph lines, the men stationed there died of heat exhaustion, and the local population was violent, so the station was closed. British officers had made contacts with the local sheikhs in the surrounding areas, but in the mountains they were met with rampant hostility and fierce independence.
In the 1930s, a British officer named Bertram Thomas wrote about pockets of remote villages noting that anyone who wanted to reach their villages would have to climb the rocky mountain terrain as there were no roads and no way for animals to traverse the landscape. While many locations on the peninsula can be reached by car today, the gospel has yet to reach the four northern tribes who live on its coast and in its mountains.
ARAB WORLD
These four tribes speak a dialect of Arabic only spoken in their area. This dialect is similar enough to Gulf Arabic to be understood, but it has no dictionary, no Jesus film, no Bible translation or gospel stories, and no basic language learning resources.
Recently, a team member began research of this dialect, and happily learned that members of God’s Team in the area had made a renewed effort to bring the gospel to these four tribes. He says, “It’s an exciting time for this work. It’s easier than ever to get in contact with these people. And the people in our professional circles (those who study the Middle East and Arabic) are more and more interested in this peninsula, putting us right in the middle of the action. This means that for us in God’s work we’re not just exotic foreigners driving around the villages, but we’re actually on the forefront of our academic fields with the opportunity to make contacts across the area. This is the intersection of our professional work and God’s work. A people historically described as fiercely independent are now a people who are urbanizing and leaving the villages where they used to hide.” A second team member who works elsewhere in the country works with people from one of these tribes.
Pray with us for the four northern tribes. Pray for our team members and members of God’s Team as they seek to make inroads into the villages. Pray especially for people of peace among them who will be open to sharing their language for the linguistics research, but who will also open their homes and hearts to many gospel conversations.
Early Islamic documents say that when these tribes went to a nearby town, they refused to pay the tribute tax. They would not convert to Islam, but they would also not pay the tribute tax. As a result there was a battle in which many were killed. Today, the tribes are all Muslim, but they continued in their independent-minded ways. Imagine if they got a hold of the gospel and the gospel got hold of them and the days of their refusal of Islam returned to the peninsula. Jesus, let it be.
Timur A
team member met Timur as a college freshman nine years ago. He is from a Muslim unreached people group, and from day one we began sharing the gospel with him. He has become a dear friend, and over the years, multiple team members have shared the gospel with him, studied the Bible with him, prayed with him, and always loved him.
At times it seemed like Timur would draw nearer to us and engage in more spiritual conversations with a desire to learn more about Jesus. At other times he would withdraw into Islam and pray and read the Quran more. This back-andforth went on for nine years.
But just a few months ago, something new and wonderful started to unfold with Timur. He asked a teammate to study the Bible with him again, and as they began to study, it became apparent that this time would be different. More than ever before, Timur had a greater hunger to know God. Within every Bible story they read, Timur began to identify truths to obey. He then shared these truths with his friends, his mother, and even his mullah.
Over the course of several weeks Timur made profound statements like: “Once I made the decision to obey the Bible, I began experiencing a peace and contentment I’ve never had before. The people of the North Caucasus need the message of Jesus. I can take it to them.”
After reading about the Last Supper, he told us he wanted to take communion in his home to honor the sacrifice of Jesus. Timur has not been baptized yet, but we believe he is on his way!
RUSSIA
Apas met me at a cafe on the main island. I said a few words in his language and he immediately responded with much joy and curiosity. He had never heard a foreigner speak his language!
We talked for a while and learned much about each other. He strictly adhers to Islam and has virtually no knowledge of the nature and truth of Christ. As I asked questions about his history and experience in Islam, the conversation went to the hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca) and the meaning and importance of the Kaaba (a sacred Islamic site in Mecca). He told me about how the hajj and attempts to follow the Quran help bring favor and mercy from Allah. I shared about my journey to faith in Christ and how I did not earn or deserve salvation but received freedom and redemption through my simple faith and trust in the provision from God for forgiveness and new life.
I also shared the story of the thief who was crucified beside Jesus and Jesus’ promise to the man that he would join Him in paradise that very day. I shared about how the grace and mercy of God is so strong that even at the end of this thief’s life, this man who deserved punishment was transformed without any ritual or requirement to earn his way to heaven and pay for the penalty of his sin. I watched as Apas heard a message that he had never fathomed before: a merciful God who did everything to make it simple and accessible for His children to be restored to Him. The seed of the gospel was planted for the first time in the soil of Apas’ heart.
Apas
SOUTHERN ASIA
A few days later, Apas showed up at our house late at night to have coffee, share more stories, and hear more about the unmerited mercy of God of which I spoke previously. Walls were lowered through our beginning friendship and the power of gospel proclamation. Pray that Apas continues to be open to stories and that the Holy Spirit will reveal truth.
INDIA Art Camps
Last summer we held art camps in our neighborhood. During these camps we do puppet theater, drama therapy, social-emotional learning through small group art, songwriting, and general creativity. It was so much fun to have forty-plus families sign up and pay for their kids to spend five days with us, learning about safe people, safe spaces, self-awareness and empathy, and how to be trustworthy.
Most of the 400 families in our complex are Hindus; there is also one Muslim family and three nominal Christian families. Everyone moved here from other cities to take jobs, and once they arrived, they formed their own communities within the complex. It’s like God gave us a village of 2,000 people to invest in and to do life with.
With the pandemic many of the families were stuck in 2- and 3-bedroom apartments with both parents working online while children studied. Often, the kids were exposed to unwanted elements on the internet and in classroom chats; they also saw a lot of domestic violence. It was our art camp that gave them the space to open up to our team and to process some of what they had been through.
Two months ago, the kids returned to physical school for the first time and many still need help due to social, emotional, and educational delays. Our city, and I imagine many others, are in desperate need of trained counselors, occupational therapists, speech therapists, and special educators. And everyone needs people around them who are kind, who listen and don’t shame, and who create a safe space.
We have been so grateful for the doors God has opened when we have offered music lessons and art classes and even counseling. There is definitely something stirring and open hearts despite the fact that other doors are closing.
Eddie & Will
My wife and I lived in a small, third-floor apartment on the campus where we taught. We spent so many days with our students and any other students we met. There was always something to do including playing basketball at one of the jam-packed basketball courts or taking our meals at any of the places students ate, including the cafeteria or one of the small hole-in-the-wall restaurants that lined the streets outside the school gates.
One day, I went out with two guys I had developed a friendship with: Eddie and Will. Both were graduate students, but Will had a wife and kids in another city while Eddie was a single guy from the far western part of the country. As we ate our fire-crisped bowl of rice with chicken, salad, and sauce, we landed on the topic of religion. We talked about Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, atheism, and Christianity among others.
They asked me if I believed in anything and I shared how I believed in Jesus. They listened closely, almost as if they had never heard of Him. They asked why I believed as I did and told me that while they don’t believe in anything, they think there must be something more. I didn’t push the conversation or work to fit the Romans Road into it; I simply let the conversation flow and during the moments of silence, I quietly asked the Holy Spirit to speak through me.
And God didn’t fail me. He used my simple explanation of Jesus and His sacrifice for humanity to plant a gospel seed in the hearts of two dear men while sharing a meal in a small cafeteria in our small town.
CHINESE WORLD
Amira is a young woman from Central Asia. Every month over the last couple years, she has met with teammates to study the Bible. She is always open and interested but has not made a decision for Christ. She is a person of influence and over the years has introduced teammates to many Central Asian friends and acquaintances in the city and invited us to share the gospel with them.
When the war began, she reached out and asked to meet weekly. As we studied the Scripture, her questions increased as she seriously considered following Jesus.
Recently, upon her invitation, we visited her family in her home city. She openly asked us to share the gospel with specific family members and introduced us to local friends who are actively seeking truth. We reminded her that she knows the gospel so well after hearing it so many times and can also share with her family and friends.
When asked what would need to happen for her to decide to follow Jesus, she replied, “Something would need to change in my heart. I would just need to believe.” She then asked, “If I follow Jesus, do you think my family will, too?” She has recognized the responsibility God has given her as a person of influence, and she herself correlates that influence with the future spiritual influence she would have on those around her if she were to follow Jesus.
Amira has since graduated from college, returned to her home country, and is preparing to get married. She participates in a weekly Bible study via video chat. Pray that she would experience a love encounter with the Father, something she has never experienced on this earth, and a power encounter for her mother who was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Sara
This is going to change everything,” Sara told me as we talked about what it meant to follow Jesus.
Sara and I had met on the street two months earlier through a friend of a friend, and we quickly made plans to meet again. Our first conversation over coffee drifted towards spiritual things, and Sarah told me that she was “definitely not” Muslim like her family, but that she still believed in a creator. The only god she knew utilized fear to control people into submission, sought no relationship, and was not trustworthy. I found out that four years prior she had rejected the religion of her family and had spent months researching the evidence to back her decision.
That evening, we talked about the nature of truth, the life of Jesus, the love of God, and the hope He offers. I asked her, “If God is real and cares for you, what if you ask Him to reveal Himself to you?” With curiosity, she asked if we could begin reading together to learn more. So, we began to meet each week and cook dinner together. She played the guitar as we hung out, and then we read together.
Week after week we met, and she began to learn things from the Word that led her to make observations about the character of Jesus. I watched as these observations about Him began to impact her life. As we studied the love and forgiveness of Jesus together, she told me stories each week of how she was loving deeper and forgiving more. Week after week this happened as we continued to study the life of Jesus.
On Christmas, my roommate and I held a Christmas celebration with eleven friends. The event was full of traditional North African dancing, a meal, and the story of Christmas.
The following day, Sara and I gathered for our weekly dinner and study night, but something was different. As we studied, she noted that if she followed Jesus, everything in her life would change. I shared once again that the free gift of a relationship with her Creator and salvation could be accepted that night. With a small shrug she responded with five simple words that brought tears to my eyes: “I have already chosen Him.” She told me that since she first heard about Jesus she had thought about all that God had revealed to her and the cost of following Him every single day. She then said that on Christmas night just before falling asleep, she decided to follow Him.
Tears filled her eyes as she shared that the next day God revealed Himself to her just as she had prayed for, He had given her peace, and her life would never be the same. For four years her heart and life had been changing, but she couldn’t explain what was happening when people asked; she now knows that it was Jesus working in her life and transforming her heart. She felt like she had simply become a new person, and she was eager to learn more about Him and how to be a follower with her whole heart and life.
Jesus continues to reveal Himself to her through the Word and in her daily life. Since becoming a believer, she has taken the initiative to share with her friends, she has started writing worship music in her heart language, and she clearly desires to obey as she discovers more of who Jesus is.
ARAB WORLD
Our small group core leaders decided that we would pair up to follow up with friends who have shown interest in spiritual conversations. It was incredible to watch the Spirit of God moving in and through the discussions.
One local core group leader that I have been disciplining, Ahmida, met up with her roommate and co-worker. They had recently taken up swimming classes together and asked me to come to the pool for a swimming lesson. After the lesson, we went to dinner together during which one conversation led to another. Then just before we were about to leave, Ahmida’s roommate asked us what religion we believe in. This led to a two-hour conversation about the gospel. This unbelieving friend was open and vulnerable, and she asked incredible questions. Her entire life she had heard that Jesus is a good prophet, but not God.
Ahmida and I are committed to pursuing her roommate together. It has been incredible to watch Ahmida grow, share, and walk out into deeper, unsafer waters for the sake of the gospel.
Obed
Our milk man Obed is a quiet, sensitive guy. We invited him to our Christmas party where we read verses about Jesus from Genesis, Psalms, Isaiah, Micah, Luke, and John. We gave out cookies and Injils (New Testaments) as gifts.
Obed was so grateful to receive a copy. He immediately began texting me questions and verses as he quickly became infatuated with the Injil and wanted to learn more. “I hope this will be a good beginning to a long journey,” he told me at our first Bible study.
At that first meeting we talked about the verses Jesus gave His disciples about counting the cost before beginning to build a building, which he called “a line that penetrates and stings my heart.” That was his starting point: If the New Testament is true and Jesus is who He says He is in the Word, then it will be costly to follow Him.
Within a matter of weeks we were studying together almost daily, and the journey was one of incredible growth in Obed. He loved to read John 1 and took everything he read to be true, even before he fully understood it. He was so excited to read and study together.
One day he was supposed to leave our study early but when the time came he just couldn’t leave. I told him to go if he needed to, but he replied, “People are at
AFRICA
my house waiting on me, but let’s study just five more minutes.” He then tried to describe what God was doing. “Every day I get something new put in me.” His smile was big even as I could tell he struggled to put it into words. I said, “It’s difficult to describe, isn’t it?” He started laughing and agreed.
I could barely keep up with his hunger and eagerness. One day he sent me Romans 10:9: “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” He said, “I have already confessed this, and I believe this in my heart. What does it mean for me?” The Bible led him to Jesus before I could! Obed believed in Jesus and confessed it with his mouth. But he also realized it could not stop there—he had to share his decision and doing that will cost him everything.
He continued to grow little by little as he took it all in and weighed it all. He thought about it every day. He prayed and asked God to give him strength. He told me, “I ask the Lord for His glory during these days so I can become a teacher of the gospel on this island. I am certain there is only one step in front of me [referring to both water and Holy Spirit baptism].” He later told me, “I feel peace inside from Jesus and it’s building me up more. I can’t fully understand the strength that pushes me forward. Jesus is my Savior. I have been attracted to Christianity for a long time but I didn’t have any influence. I believe many are like me. The gospel really does have power to change us.”
One day as we discussed what it would mean to follow Jesus, we talked about telling others. There was such a weight in the room. Our hearts were heavy as we imagined what the cost might be. He put his head down and said, “I don’t know. I don’t know what will happen. [This place] is different.”
Since then, Obed has wavered in his desire to openly share his faith. He is bound by fear. He still says he believes the Bible but is trying to find a way to reconcile that with the Quran and what he has known his whole life. Pray for Obed and others who face similar struggles of fear as they try to balance both worlds.
Self-Defense
Several years ago, my husband and I took our three teenage daughters to self-defense training. I was already a black belt in karate and had attended several such trainings, so I was mainly going so that my daughters could learn. But what I learned was so different than any previous training I’d had, and I loved it. The next year, we were invited to become trainers in this same program; I couldn’t wait.
Today we serve in a country in which human trafficking is rampant and women are seen as objects or servants. Unfortunately, abuse is viewed as normal and expected. One day a friend (who is a local that runs a rescue-and-restore organization for trafficked women) mentioned how nice it would be for everyone to receive self-defense training. We arranged our first session for twenty women—but forty showed up!
The class was quiet at the start, and the women seemed timid, shy, and withdrawn. We talked through the directions, but they still appeared quite nervous. But as I started to explain the first technique, their eyes lit up. “It’s that easy? Like this?” they asked.
There is a saying here that translates as “what to do?” In essence, the people believe the Hindu gods determine what happens and they don’t put up a fight. What happens is karma and they have no control over it. As we talked, I told them that as followers of Jesus, we believe that every person was created by God with a plan and a purpose, that every person was worth protecting, that they were worth protecting. As I said these things, I saw a few women start to cry. They had never been told that they were worth anything. They believed that what happened to them could not be changed.
Training
SOUTHERN ASIA
Once we reached the fourth technique, I could tell the women had grown in confidence and strength. They were smiling and laughing and seeing that they could do these simple defensive moves. They took my words to heart—they indeed have worth and bring value to this world, there is a God who loves them, and they are worthy of protection. After the training, one woman told me that she felt like she could be herself more now, that she could be happy and live life without as much fear.
I love the opportunity I have to use this self-defense training to share the message with so many who have never heard that they matter. That I can utilize this course in a country where I am unable to openly share the love of Jesus on the streets is amazing. In a classroom setting, I get to teach a valuable skill and share my life and the Giver of life.
The Bobs AFRICA
This has been a season of difficulties for our band of brothers (a.k.a. the Bobs). But the brothers have continued to stand firm. We are thankful for prayer partners who stand in the gap for our team and this band of brothers.
The Bobs live together as they were forced from their family homes. Their ties to each other and Jesus are strong, and as they live together, they help each other out as they are able. In the span of a couple months, the families (who are not happy with our brothers for their decisions to follow Christ) have abducted them several times. The men go willingly and peacefully, as the Spirit leads, when their families come for them in order to share their faith with those whom they love and desperately pray for.
Every time an abduction has happened, our team has asked for prayer, many people have prayed, and God has worked a variety of miraculous interventions to help the brothers out of these situations and to show His glory. Once, on the beach in the middle of the night while waiting for a boat to take them out to sea to be drowned, two brothers witnessed their family get swarmed by heaven-sent bees. Another time, the family tried banishment by taking a brother to the mainland to send him to an extremist school in a neighboring country—but he escaped. Another Bob’s family dropped him in the middle of the ocean channel to die. He swam around in the dark until he eventually saw the light of some fishermen in a boat. Of course, they had to finish their night’s work, so he had time to witness to them. Finally, two brothers were taken to the mainland and overheard family members talking about how many times they have tried to end their lives. This time the family wanted to set them on fire. After a short interval, the brothers heard a commotion and realized the electrical wires had caught fire at the breaker box and the fire was travelling through the wires in the walls. Chaos ensured and they were able to flee—the fire actually saved them.
Honestly, we think it’s a miracle these families are not yet confessing Jesus as Lord. Surely it is only a matter of time.
Get Involved
If this world will be reached for Jesus, it will take every member of the global body of Christ actively engaging in their part of His story. Not all can go to the same extent, not all can give in the same fashion, not all speak with the same authority, but all have an equally vital role to play.
Our desire is that you step into a role and flourish in your gifting for the sake of the gospel. There are many ways to advocate with us for the unreached:
• Partner with a specific church planting team through Live Dead Pray.
• Raise up short-term and especially long-term workers from your local ministry to join our teams on the ground.
• Host a Live Dead Summit at your church. This 1- to 2-day event is designed to help your church and those around you cultivate a heart for reaching the unreached.
• Become a primary partner and adopt a Live Dead team by which you could help fund and start businesses via registrations, property rentals, and equipment purchases.
However it might look, if you are ready to take your next step in fulfilling your unique role in the Great Commission, contact us at advocacy@livedead.org. We would love to share more about it.
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