Food aid sent to help feed starving Christians in North Korea

Dear Friends,

Mal-Chin is one of the thousands of believers in North Korea whose life has been changed as a result of your compassion.

After serving his required time in the military, Mal-Chin found a job as a truck driver delivering food and other goods. But when food distribution stopped in the early 1990s due to widespread famine in North Korea, Mal-Chin lost his job.

In desperation, he began smuggling goods across the border from China to feed his family. During one such trip, Mal-Chin met Mr. C who began telling him the good news of the God who provides.”I heard the gospel for the first time and believed Jesus in my heart” he told us.

North Korea is currently suffering through another cycle of famine, largely due to corrupt and ineffective policies of the communist government. Mal-Chin is 53 years old now, but he and his family are sustained through the gifts of caring members of his spiritual family around the world.

In a recent letter, Mal-Chin wrote,”I am very grateful that Christians in other countries are helping the hungry people of North Korea. Please pray for the peaceful unification of Korea so that I can openly proclaim God’s goodness to North Korean people.”

Thank you again for caring for suffering North Korean believers.

Elisabeth Kirkwood
Director, North Korean Christians Fund

Jacob Mwangu is one of many happy church planting pastors I met in Kenya

Dear Friends,

I’m excited to report to you that I just came back from Africa where I met dozens of Heaven’s Family bicycle recipients, and dozens more who need bikes! What a joy to shake hands with these church-planting pastors who are busy going from village to village making disciples.

Jumping for Joy

Jacob Mwangu is 65 years old, and since receiving his bike in February of last year he has planted five house churches. He was a traditional pastor for many years, but began a church in his home several years ago. It was going so well he decided to reach out beyond his own village.

When I asked him what the folks in these groups like best about meeting in homes he said, “Mum, people are jumping for joy because they are free to testify in their meetings and have relationships with one another. Planting house churches is working so well for me since I received my bicycle, I can visit these groups with ease.”

Jacob asked me to please thank all those who give to the Mobilize a Minister Fund for helping this ministry grow and expand far beyond where he was able to go on foot.

Joyful pastors advancing the kingdom of God in Africa with a humble bicycle!

Just a few of the many pastors who asked me if they, too, could receive a bicycle from Heaven’s Family

As you can imagine, pastors were lining up to request a bike. I wrote many testimonies and took lots of photos of these men. Some of them currently walk over twelve miles in one day to minister to the needy. Thanks for linking arms with pastors to help them make disciples. Imagine how awesome it will be in heaven someday to have strangers thank you for helping a pastor bring the gospel to their village!

Happy to represent you in this kingdom work,

Karin Trotter
Director, Mobilize a Minister Fund

Prisoners in chains at the Yayachu work camp in Myanmar

Dear Friends,

I’m currently traveling in Africa, visiting several prisons, and when I return I’ll have many stories to share in the coming weeks and months. But this month, I’d like to share with you the following story from my visit to Myanmar in 2005. -Bob

“Many men died there,” John Siam told me as he pointed out the bus window to a large rock quarry on the side of the hill. The gravel “highway” we were traveling on from the capital city of Yangon to Mandalay was crushed—by hand—from rocks that came from that quarry.

The labor came from one of many prison work camps in Myanmar. The prisoners who worked on the road I now traveled on have, I was told, this saying about their harsh labor: “If the corpses of prisoners who lost their lives working on the Yangon-to-Mandalay Express Highway were lined up it would be longer than the road.” So many lost their lives on the project that it became known as “The Road of No Return.”

Thanks to Heaven’s Family national missionaries John Siam and David Seth, however, some prisoners are now on the “road to life.” They regularly take the love of God to the Yayachu work camp near the city of Kalaymyo, where David Seth lives. Most of the prisoners there are nominal Buddhists, but their horrible living conditions make them very receptive to the gospel. So far, John and David have baptized 31 new believers in the prison.

John wrote in a recent email that the guards at Yayachu have given David Seth favor and he wants to begin Sunday services so he can disciple the new believers there. He needs a guitar and a motorbike to continue this ministry. The guitar [$50] will allow him to bring praise and worship into the prison, and the motorbike [$800] will allow him and his helper to travel the 106-mile roundtrip to the prison. Currently he has to rent a vehicle, and it uses a lot of fuel. If the Lord leads you to help meet these needs, please let me know.

Our Heavens Family national missionaries preaching the gospel and baptizing in Yayachu prison

Thanks in part to your obedient and faithful gifts to the Prisoners Fund many souls are now on the road that takes them to the Kingdom of God, giving new and lasting hope to the prisoners in Yayachu work camp!

Thank you for your support to help “the least of these” in prison,

Bob Collins
Director, Prisoners Fund

Deogratias shows his big Burundi smile, thankful that his wounds have healed!

Dear Friends,

Deogratias is a young man living on the streets of Bujumbura, Burundi, in East Africa. He and two of his friends dedicated their lives to Christ and began discipleship training with Heaven’s Family partner Bienvenu Bizimana. One Saturday night Deogratias and the other disciples were caught by the police, beaten, and thrown into jail.

Deogratias was beaten on the head and needed many stitches to mend his right ear. He also received blunt force injuries to his head and torso

Bienvenu heard about what happened the next morning and hurried to the police station. He was told that the men were imprisoned for sleeping in the street, which was prohibited and punishable by the law. The police also said they suspected them to be troublemakers.

Bienvenu explained that he was their pastor, and showed the police photos of their baptisms in an attempt to prove that they were disciples of Christ, not the troublemakers they believed them to be.

The police then allowed Bienvenu to see Deogratias. Because he was terribly beaten and bleeding, they permitted Bienvenu to take him to the hospital. The other men had to stay in jail and would not be released until they provided government identification, which they did not have the money to purchase.

At the hospital, Deogratias received badly needed medical treatment. Heaven’s Family’s Critical Medical Needs Fund paid for his treatment, and we prayed for him as he healed.

The next day Heaven’s Family purchased the government IDs for the three men, and today they continue their discipleship training and witnessing for Christ in Burundi.

Deogratias and friends are so happy that they have their own IDs

Your donation to the Critical Medical Needs Fund made a huge difference in the lives of these brothers in Christ. Deogratias and his friends are very grateful for loving them enough to help.

“Whatsoever you do to the least of the brethren…I was sick and you looked after Me, I was in prison and you came to Me” (Matt. 25:38).

In His service with you,

Patti Samuels
Director, Critical Medical Needs Fund

Dear Friends,

We have just received this update from Intercessors Network:

Burmese soldiers are systematically using forced labor, torture and rape to persecute majority-Christian residents of Chin state in western Burma, according to a report released today. Entitled, “Life Under the Junta: Evidence of Crimes Against Humanity in Burma’s Chin State,” the report by Physicians for Human Rights documented “extraordinary levels of state violence” against the Chin ethnic population.

The Chin are estimated to be 90 percent Christian, and the study indicates that it is therefore difficult to separate religious attacks from ethnic and other human rights abuses. Persecution of Christians is reportedly part of a wider campaign by the Burmese junta to create a uniform society in which the only accepted religion is Buddhism, according to a 2007 government memo circulated in Karen state giving instructions on how to drive Christians out of the state.

Respondents specifically targeted for their Christian faith and ethnicity said soldiers had threatened them with the destruction of their homes or villages and threatened to harm or kill family members. A total of 71 households from 13 of 90 villages and towns surveyed also said government authorities had destroyed their local church buildings.

The most brutal attacks included the forced conscription, abduction or murder of children under the age of 15, and the rape of men, women and children. Burmese soldiers were responsible for 94.2 percent of all specifically ethnic and religious incidents in the survey.

When asked why the Burmese army acted as it did, 15 percent of respondents answered, “Because we are Christians.” Another 23 percent replied, “To persecute us,” and a further 23 percent said, “Because we are Chin.”

Heaven’s Family is involved in many areas of ministry assistance in Chin State: food distribution during famine times, national missionary support, village development and safe water funding. When the government demolished one of the orphanages we support, we funded its reconstruction. Now we ask that you join us in continued prayer to see how the Lord would lead us in further ways to aid our Chin brothers and sisters who are being so severely persecuted.

In His service with you,

Carole J. Collins
Director, Persecuted Christians Fund