Highlights of PCCF’s activities
Jordan
Persecuted Christians Care Fund provided regular financial support for a missionary active throughout the Arab Middle East from a base in his homeland of Jordan. Because of security concerns, he must remain anonymous.
Last year he made 2 important visits to Iraq, focused on the Kurds in the north. Under Saddam Hussein, Christian Kurds were imprisoned, tortured and killed. In free Iraq there are now 15 congregations, and this missionary has met with and provided ministerial training for 12 church leaders in several towns who also work with communities of Kurds across the border in Iran and Syria. Last May he was the featured speaker at a 3-day teaching conference with over 750 believers attending. He helped dedicate a new Kurdish Christian Church and baptized 14 new converts. In the spring he also led a 4-day youth conference attended by over 200 Iraqi teenagers and young adults.
Last January this missionary also led a 3-day marriage seminar for 40 couples, Sudanese refugees in Libya, and preached in Tripoli on 3 occasions to a total of 800 people. Later in the month he spent 4 days ministering to believers in Juba, capital of Southern Sudan. This involved relief work, assessing the need for medical equipment, TV and radio capabilities, micro development projects, and reconciliation conferences between the feuding Muslims of the north and Christians of the south. In February he spent a week ministering in the Palestinian West Bank towns of Ramallah and Bethlehem, with over 140 and 250 attending each service. A marriage enrichment seminar was held for 17 couples. He moved on to Gaza, speaking to 500 in a series of services in the Baptist Church, the only evangelical church serving 1.3 million people. “In spite of the fact that bombs were raining on vacant areas of the Gaza strip 50 km away, God was showering His blessings on many thirsty lives.”
In March he was the main speaker at a couples weekend in the Netherlands for over 300 Middle East refugees in Europe. In May he attended a German conference for churches planning to minister in North Africa and participated in strategic meetings with Arab Christian leaders from throughout the European Union. In June he met with Christians in Tunisia, visiting the churches and the Kalaline Christian School. While in Jordan, this missionary teaches at Jordan Theological Seminary and produces satellite TV programming for 5 different stations serving the Arabic-speaking world with an audience of several million.
Israel
Through grants to Bridges for Peace in Jerusalem, Persecuted Christians Care Fund participated in programs building better relationships between Christians and Jews worldwide through education and practical deeds of love and mercy. Through seminars, multicultural events, and by providing opportunities for American Christians to serve short-term in food banks and outreaches to the poor, the elderly, Jewish immigrants, and the Muslim minority, greater mutual understanding is fostered among the three religious communities.
Turkey
Persecuted Christians Care Fund provides ongoing financial support to a missionary called to work among isolated Christians. She is living in Turkey under cloak of secrecy to encourage and educate the Christian minority community (which nationwide numbers less than 5,000 out of a population of 72,000,000). She supports Turkish nationals who are being persecuted for their faith, helping with their legal fees and preparing them for their courtroom defense.
A small “house church” of about 15 meets in the missionary’s home 3 times a week. She also works with the Iranian and Iraqi immigrant communities and assists others who want to emigrate from Turkey. Emergency food, fuel, and medical assistance are provided.
TREATMENT OF CHRISTIANS IN TURKEY
Christian children are often subjected to cruel taunts and beatings by other students in the public schools. Since the outbreak of the second Iraq war, there has been a new wave of hostilities in Turkey toward Westerners and Christians in particular. For instance, a TV station in Ankara has vowed to continue its anti-Christian broadcasts until all churches are closed. The Ministry of Interior issued a directive requiring all provincial governors to investigate and take legal action against Christian fellowships not meeting in actual church buildings, even though permission to erect new churches has been denied since the founding of the Turkish republic in the 1920s. A lecturer at the local university told more than 800 students that Christians are plotting to overrun Turkey and restore the Byzantine Empire, and that Christian tours are bringing in terrorists. A Turkish Christian was charged with “crimes against the State” because he gave New Testaments to a few homeless street children.
“Christians have been victims of a press and media onslaught, especially against Protestant missionaries” reports our missionary. “Charges of ‘using money to convert people,’ being ‘traitors with aims of political subversion,’ ‘undermining national unity,’ etc., are regularly leveled against us on TV talk shows and in slanderous newspaper articles and books. Highway billboards warn the populace that Protestant missionaries ‘are here and are a threat to Turkey’s national security.’ We are constantly monitored, and our Turkish guests often are visited by the police in an attempt to pressure them to provide negative information against us.”
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