Inside the communist nation, Christians are quietly sharing their faith.
In a remote Cuban town, believers in a small house church gathered around a desperately ill 10-year-old boy. Canadian missionary Gary Clow gently laid hands on the child, whose skin had turned a deathly yellow, and asked God to heal him.
“As we prayed, I raised a hand heavenward and experienced what felt like a surge of electricity pass through my body,” Clow recalls.

The next day, the boy’s father asked Clow if he felt anything unusual while praying over his son. He explained that his son—who had a liver disease—felt power coursing through him “as if his entire body was being cleansed.”

Today, the boy is completely healed.

God’s power is being unleashed in Cuba—the island nation off the coast of Florida that since 1959 has stood as a communist outpost, ruled by its notorious president, Fidel Castro. Since the communist revolution, Castro’s atheistic regime has tried to stifle Christianity. For many years, government suppression seemed to be working. To the outside world, at least, Christianity in Cuba appeared to be dead.

But today, as Castro faces health battles, the church in Cuba is thriving—full of faith, evangelistic zeal and the Holy Spirit’s power. In one of the most dramatic turnarounds in church history, missionaries report astonishing church growth accompanied by miraculous signs and healings.

Clow, a missionary with World Team, travels to Cuba—a nation of 11 million people—several times a year to encourage and strengthen house churches. He encounters believers who trek miles on foot to share the gospel and look forward to the day they are free to go as missionaries to other lands.

The church has grown so rapidly in the last 15 years that the island’s communist officials have been caught off guard. It’s difficult to find a village without an evangelical church. Periodically, pastors are intimidated, interrogated and imprisoned. Christians are routinely discriminated against in employment and schools. But persecution has simply strengthened the church.

Oklahoma-based The Voice of the Martyrs tells the story of Pedro (not his real name), a Cuban Christian jailed for preaching the gospel in public. Behind bars, Pedro exasperated his jailers by continuing to preach. “He’s a greater menace in jail than outside,” they complained.

When the police released him with a stern warning not to talk about Jesus, the stubborn evangelist walked directly to the next town to carry on where he left off.

Building Casas Culto

Pedro personifies the resolve and passion of Cuban believers—men, women and children of courage who are spearheading one of the most remarkable revivals of our era.

Prayer is the key to Cuba’s Christian awakening, says Hector Hunter, general superintendent of the Assemblies of God (AG) of Cuba. “I believe from the depths of my heart that there is revival in Cuba today because of the prayers of believers around the world,” he says.

The AG is the largest evangelical presence on the island, with several hundred established churches and thousands of house churches or cell groups, known as casas culto. With an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 casas culto meeting in private homes throughout the island, many Cubans are introduced to Christianity through the house-church movement.

Because of the sensitive political climate in Cuba, missionaries tread carefully when talking about their work. Almost all of those Charisma interviewed for this story wished to remain anonymous, fearful of a backlash. “We walk with a lot of caution because they pay the price for our indiscretions,” one Pentecostal leader says.

The price can be high. In recent months, evangelical and Pentecostal churches have been closed or their meeting venues destroyed. Persecution and material hardship feed the spiritual hunger of Cuba’s people, according to New York-based Pastor Jay (full name withheld for security reasons), a missionary to the island.

“Their poverty leaves them no choice but to trust God completely for food and other necessities,” he says. “If Cuban believers do not cling to God, they die.”

For several years, Pastor Jay has led teams to Cuba to train the native leadership of a burgeoning charismatic movement. “The local church leaders travel for hours by foot, by mule, or standing on cattle trucks to get to our training,” he reports.

Like Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego—the men who risked everything amid tyranny, as recorded in Daniel 3—Cuban believers place their trust fully in God. “This is their time in history,” Pastor Jay continues. “They believe they’ve been equipped by God through suffering to take the gospel to the hardest places of the world.”

Without steady employment, many Cuban Christians live hand-to-mouth. Yet one local missionary says they exude joy that many believers in the free world don’t possess.

“We’d say they have absolutely nothing to be happy about, but they have the joy that surpasses all understanding,” he says.

Persecution of the church is intensifying, he says, citing recent laws that require all house churches to register with the government. In his twilight years, Castro is reasserting control, Cuba watchers say, reversing the relaxed religious policies of the 1990s and steering the country back to an orthodox communist model.

Directive 43 and Resolution 46—introduced last year—require house churches to submit detailed information about the pastor and everybody living in the house. The rules prohibit worship in a home not registered for religious activity, and authorities have the power to supervise all “legal” worship.

Under the regulations, house churches cannot meet more than three times a week. That’s a major hang-up in Cuba, where Christians meet every day, sometimes twice a day, to pray.

Furthermore, Resolution 46 prohibits foreign missionaries from having any involvement with house churches without government approval. “It’s as if the government is afraid of the church because it’s so well-organized,” another missionary told Charisma.

Certainly, the communist regime has seen the power of the church at work. Scores of government officials have come to faith in Christ, giving up the security of their positions to join the ranks of impoverished believers.

Many missionaries view the latest crackdown as a desperate attempt to isolate the church and halt its growth. But it appears to be having the opposite effect.
“The Cuban church has gone through a long history of persecution, and [persecution] has contributed to its health,” notes a missionary who has ministered in Cuba since 1999. “Historically, when the church is persecuted there is a true refining process. Cuba is desperately in need of salt and light—and the Cuban church is truly salt and light.”

Other missionaries agree. “There’s a purity about the Cuban church,” remarks one denominational leader. “It’s a church that really ‘gets it.'”

Experiencing the Miraculous

The tremendous faith of Cuban believers is evident from miracles that occur across the evangelical spectrum. For instance, a Baptist missionary prayed for an elderly woman who explained she had bad knees. “She stood, walked around a bit, and told us her knees felt better but not perfect,” he told Charisma.

“We prayed again, believing that if God had begun something He would finish it. Then I did something which in hindsight seems a little dramatic. I said to her in Spanish: ‘Rise up and walk!'”

The woman jumped from her chair and ran around the room. Only then did her son reveal she had been lame for 10 years. “I don’t know if I’d have had the faith to pray for healing if I’d known that beforehand,” the missionary admits.

One rural congregation had no money for a building. Trusting that God would provide, the members began digging the foundation. Breaking ground, they struck something hard. As they unearthed the object, they discovered it was a box filled with gold coins—enough to fund their new church building.

Although the Cuban government does issue visas to American missionaries, Christians from the U.S. are viewed with suspicion. Russ, an independent missionary from Florida, was interrogated by the secret police.

Supported by his charismatic church, Russ (full name withheld for security reasons) has made 40 trips to Cuba in the last 12 years, working with native church leaders and mission groups. “I live and breathe Cuba,” the 41-year-old father of three says. “I’ve traveled all over Latin America, and I’ve seen nothing to compare with the move of the Spirit in Cuba.”

Like other missionaries to Cuba, Russ distinctly heard God call him to minister there. “The Lord laid Cuba on my heart,” he explains. “I was flying over Cuba and looked out at the island when I heard the Lord say, ‘One day, you will be preaching there.'”

In the midst of the island’s sustained revival, the commitment and fire of local believers is inspirational. “They’ve done such an incredible job of evangelizing their own country that they’ve run out of space,” Russ says.

Mainline churches, such as the Methodists, also are being filled with the Spirit and experiencing revival. Christian youth of all denominations—including young people who used to spread communist ideologies—now have a passion to go overseas with the gospel.

Even Castro’s family has been influenced by the island’s Christian awakening. One of Castro’s nephews reportedly attends one of the most dynamic churches on the island—and has, according to one missionary, actually invited the president along to church.

But Satan isn’t giving up without a fight. Realizing the emptiness of atheism, Castro’s regime has erected idols and images relating to traditional Cuban witchcraft—called Santería—at the entrances to many towns.

Santería, similar to Haitian voodoo, is a variation of West African spiritism, intermingled with aspects of Roman Catholicism. The Cuban government supports Santería under the guise of “national culture.”

Cubans steeped in witchcraft for generations are being set free as they turn to Christ. Yet as the church grows, spiritual warfare intensifies. One charismatic missionary put it like this: “The devil is just plain angry.”

The missionary, who has a sports evangelism ministry in Cuba, tells of a U.S. major league baseball star who had a brush with evil spiritual forces on the island. The player, from a Presbyterian background, came into contact with a Santería practitioner.

That night, he awoke in a sweat, convinced he had been visited by a demon. The unnerving experience opened his eyes to the reality of spiritual forces at work in the invisible realm, including those bent on harming the church.

In the midst of such dark oppression, though, there is no stopping the Cuban church. One pastor reflects: “We will just have to be on our knees more, shed a few more tears perhaps, but we will never turn back.”

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Julian Lukins is a freelance writer based in Sequim, Washington.

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In the Shadow of Fidel

The Cuban government has clamped down on churches in recent years.

Cuban authorities are clamping down on house churches—a fast-growing movement that President Fidel Castro’s regime considers to be out of control.

Earlier this year, the pastor of one of the largest evangelical churches on the island was forced to leave the country after authorities threatened to imprison him. According to an American missionary, the pastor’s family was granted refugee status in the U.S.

Across the island, the Cuban government makes it difficult for churches to meet. Those awaiting approval to put up a building have erected crude shelters, but officials order congregations to tear them down. Undeterred, believers meet in the open, even in the hot sun or driving rain.

One church of 300 members was told it could no longer meet in a yard—even though congregants had gathered there for five years. Now the church’s only option is to cram as many as possible into the tiny living room of a nearby house.

A missionary highlighted the situation facing a native Cuban evangelist. “Officials have threatened him and been very vulgar,” the missionary says. “He was called in by the Communist Party, which can be a very worrying experience.”

Oklahoma-based The Voice of the Martyrs reported Cuba’s secret police interrogated a Pentecostal pastor and confiscated a small printing press they described as “dangerous.”

After centuries of oppression, the nation of HAITI is still locked in a spiritual battle against occultism and poverty
The scene was like something out of an old horror movie.

The mourners at the young man’s funeral watched silently as the coffin was inserted into the crypt. They shuffled aside as a man stepped forward to brick-and-cement the casket inside.

The deceased’s brother etched a farewell message in the wet cement. Then, a metal gate was fastened in front of the seal and locked.

Why this strange, sinister burial ritual? Actually, it was a practical necessity.
In Haiti, Voodoo is a prevalent evil. Even the dead are not safe. Voodoo practitioners have been known to raid tombs to steal recently interred corpses and then use their body parts in gruesome ceremonies.

With justified fear, the grieving family dreaded their loved one being turned into a zombie-the legendary Voodoo image of the “walking dead.” Many in Haiti believe the zombie is more than a mere myth. They believe the spirits have the power to make the dead walk.

As one evangelical leader in Haiti told Charisma: “Voodoo is not a game. Satan has power. And the Voodoo power is very real.”

Voodoo’s Grip

“Voodoo is ingrained in the Haitian culture,” explains Becky Noss, a former U.S. missionary to this troubled Caribbean island nation just two hours by plane from Miami. “It keeps many Haitians in bondage.”

Noss, who witnessed the funeral service described above, encountered the deep-rooted influence of Voodoo during her 18-month term in Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. “Many Haitians are absolutely terrified of curses,” she says. “Voodoo has a grip on their lives.”

But Satan is not having things all his way.

There are many signs that God-not Satan-is in control, affirming Jesus’ words in Matthew 16:18: “’I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it’” (NKJV).

As Haiti’s evangelical and charismatic churches experience tremendous numerical growth, church leaders report that many Haitians from Voodoo backgrounds are finding freedom in Christ.

Noss, who is fluent in Haitian Creole, relays the testimony of a former Voodoo priest, known as a houngan. For years, the priest sought to appease five spirits that controlled him and gave him healing powers. Then, one of the spirits told him to sacrifice a specific type of cat. The priest searched everywhere but could not find the animal.

The spirit reacted by throwing him to the ground, badly injuring him. The priest’s fear turned to anger as he realized he had spent his life appeasing a spirit that treated him with contempt. He began a search that ultimately brought him to faith in Christ and led him to tear down his Voodoo temple. “Today,” Noss says, “a church stands on the site … praise God!”

The Real Voodoo

In the U.S., Hollywood portrays Voodoo as a theatrical form of witchcraft in which practitioners stick pins into dolls to cast spells and curses on their enemies.

“Many people in the U.S. think that Voodoo is a game, just a little play theater,” says Dr. Hubert Morquette, a Haitian physician and former stage actor. “They do not know, they cannot imagine, the power that this thing, Voodoo, has.”

Haiti is often seen as the “home” of Voodoo, but Voodoo actually traces its roots back centuries to the region of West Africa that today includes parts of Nigeria, Togo and Benin. African slaves brought Voodoo with them when they were forcibly shipped to Haiti and other islands in the West Indies. In 1791, the story goes, a group of these slaves dedicated Haiti to Satan. Haitian folklore teaches that the nation’s independence in 1804 came as a result of that satanic ceremony.

Voodoo-sometimes called Vodun or Vodou-teaches that there is a chief god, Olorun, who is remote and unknowable. Olorun, Voodooists believe, authorized a lesser god, Obatala, to create the earth and all living things. A battle between the two gods led to Obatala’s temporary banishment.

This mysterious religion revolves around a spirit world, the realm of demons. In a society riddled with fear of evil spirits and curses, many Haitians think spirit appeasement affords the best protection against personal calamity.

The purpose of Voodoo rituals, often staged in a temple known as a hounfour or humfort, is to make contact with a spirit and gain its favor and protection by offering animal sacrifices. At the center of the temple is a pole called a poteau-mitan, where the spirits communicate with the participants.

During a ceremony, followers of Voodoo believe that part of a person’s soul leaves the body when he or she is possessed by a loa, or spirit. Their greatest fear is that the soul will be harmed or captured by evil forces while it is absent from the body.

Rituals are often complex, involving various steps including the sprinkling of cornmeal on the ground and the shaking of a rattle accompanied by the beating of drums. As the ritual intensifies, the priest or priestess chants and enters into a frenzied dance, at which point he or she is possessed by a loa.

Finally, a sacrifice is made-usually of a chicken, sheep, goat or dog-and the blood is collected in a vessel. The possessed dancer drinks the blood to “satisfy” the loa.

The ritual is a mockery of God’s covenant with His Old Testament people, Morquette says. “Everything God asks His people to do, Satan asks his people to do the is why you see [animal] sacrifice in Voodoo … because the spirits ask for blood.”

Spiritual Warfare

Clive Calver, senior pastor of Walnut Hill Community Church in Bethel, Connecticut, described his experience at a Voodoo ceremony in Port-au-Prince.

Calver watched as the possessed priest writhed on the floor, rolling in fire only to emerge unscathed. “There was a definite sense of evil,” he recalls. “As C.S. Lewis said, Satan’s key strategies are to convince people that he is too powerful, or to convince them of his nonexistence.”

The unnerving experience reaffirmed to him the vital role of spiritual warfare. “We have to recognize our enemy Satan, expose him for what he is doing, and oppose him in the power of the Holy Spirit,” Calver says. “So many of us do not see the victory because we are too scared to go into battle.”

Although some will speak out, there is tremendous pressure on evangelical and charismatic leaders in Haiti not to “interfere with” or condemn Voodoo. “There is a lot of manipulation,” Morquette explains. “People say: ‘Voodoo is our culture. We should not speak badly of Voodoo or our ancestors.’ Let me tell you plainly: Voodoo is a satanic religion.”

During a Voodoo ceremony, the loa considers the possessed person to be his horse. “The spirit rides his horse,” Morquette explains. “After the ceremony, the possessed person does not know what has happened to him … the spirit used his body. This is totally different from the God of the Bible who works through our will, not replacing our mind. The true God respects our personality and our will.”

Despite its intimidating nature, the power of Voodoo fades in the presence of Spirit-filled believers. “The Voodoo spirits have power to heal, kill and do supernatural things,” he says. “But they are completely ineffective in the midst of true Christian believers. This is well-known in Haiti. Voodoo spirits cannot show up in the environment of Christians praying. It is so obvious that there is complete incompatibility.”

However, the pervasive influence of Voodoo on Haitian culture has, to some extent, penetrated the church. Lack of theological training and Bible teaching has left some converts vulnerable to false teachings and the acceptance of some Voodoo practices alongside Christianity, even in some evangelical churches, Morquette says.

Pastor Sylvain Exantus, a seminary professor with the Church of God in Port-au-Prince, confirmed that theological training is desperately needed in Haiti’s growing evangelical and charismatic congregations-in part, to enable the church to confront effectively the Voodoo influence.

“Voodoo is just one element of our culture,” Exantus told Charisma. “It is not the culture. Haitians are a spiritual people, searching for God, searching for purpose and the truth. Our pastors need to be equipped to shepherd their people … to live out the gospel of mercy and compassion.”

The arm of Voodoo, though, is far-reaching and extends into every sphere of Haitian life. Claude Jacquet, pastor of a 100-member Baptist church in Port-au-Prince, says Voodoo feeds Haiti’s AIDS crisis because it promotes sexual immorality. “The Voodoo priest is a very important person,” Jacquet explains. “He can choose to have sex with any member of his temple.”

Priests regularly prescribe sexual acts as the remedy for curses or sicknesses. For those who truly seek to serve Jesus in Haiti, the cost of discipleship is likely to be high. In the past, high-ranking officials have included Voodoo sympathizers and practitioners.

“If you speak badly about Voodoo, you risk being threatened with going to court because some Voodoo practitioners are top officials,” says Rev. Varnel Jeune, director of Radio Lumiere, the nation’s influential evangelical radio station. “Voodoo is everywhere in Haiti.”

Because of its official status as a state-sanctioned religion, Voodoo ceremonial marriages are legally recognized and Voodoo practitioners have been known to conduct marriages to dead people, Jeune told Charisma.

“I would say to the church in America: Please pray for Haiti!” Jeune pleads. “I believe in the future of the church in Haiti because Jesus has promised to build His church. There is much darkness in our land … but the light will come, of that I am sure.”

Freie Vachon’s testimony is proof that the Holy Spirit can turn the foulest darkness to light. “The Voodoo power is brutal,” says Vachon, a former Voodoo priest.
“When those demons possess a person, that person can do anything. You need to make a sacrifice … demons want blood.”

For Vachon, the ultimate goal was to sacrifice a Christian girl. But, Vachon testifies, he was hit by the power of God, came to faith in Jesus, and began proclaiming Christ.

No longer does Voodoo have a hold on him. Instead, the Holy Spirit is his source of strength. “I know that the real power is in Jesus,” he says, “not in Voodoo.” 3
Julian Lukins is a freelance writer based in California. He traveled to Haiti to compile this report.

Voodoo’sCurse

In Haiti, poverty, AIDS and family breakdown all have their roots in the national occult religion.

Voodoo’s destructive influence extends beyond the spiritual realm and into the physical lives of Haiti’s vulnerable people.

Many Haitians actually fear prosperity because they are terrified their good fortune will attract the jealous attention of others-and make them a prime target for a curse, says Dr. Hubert Morquette, a Haitian humanitarian worker with World Relief.

Subdued by such oppression, many Haitians are reluctant to acknowledge if they are healthy or doing OK, he says. In response to the question Kijan ou ye?-”How are you?”-most prefer to use the Creole phrase pa pi mal, literally, “not worse.” To admit otherwise could be to invite a curse.

Immersed in this culture of fatalism, Haitians suffer from very low self-esteem, fueled by the knowledge that their nation is the poorest and least developed outside Africa.

AIDS is a national crisis, rife among the most sexually active age group: 15- to 49-year-olds. However, Haiti’s churches are taking the initiative. Mobilized and trained by Baltimore-based World Relief, young volunteers in Haiti’s churches are spreading the dual message of abstinence and marital fidelity through a network of anti-AIDS clubs.

As a result, thousands of young Haitians have made public pledges of abstinence before their peers and churches. “It is a very spiritual ceremony in which we ask each young person to publicly take a stand in front of the assembly of the church,” explains 23-year-old Marckenzy Deteriere, a World Relief staffer in Port-au-Prince. “A young person is responsible before God and himself. There is no control, no pressure from us.

“We remind them: ‘When you make a vow, you have to keep your promise before God. Think about the vow you are making … think before you take the vow and not afterwards.’ We read Proverbs 20:25: ‘It is a trap for a man to dedicate something rashly and only later to consider his vows’” (NIV).

Deteriere reflects: “Our society would make a young person feel ashamed for being abstinent. We encourage youth to stand up and say: ‘Yes, I am going to be pure. I am going to be set apart for God, and I am not ashamed.’”

Sexual exploitation of children is another ugly reality being addressed by local churches with the support of World Relief, the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals in the U.S.

Child sex workers are known as Degaje-a derogatory term that refers to being in survival mode. “Many girls in our cities, and even in our churches, practice prostitution,” says World Relief’s Philippe Nicolas. “Their parents are desperate for food, so they encourage their 15-year-old daughters to have sex to bring in money. It’s a desperation trade.”

In response, World Relief equips and mobilizes local churches to distribute food and provide tuition scholarships to at-risk children in Haiti’s slums.

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Julian Lukins is a freelance writer based in California. He traveled to Haiti to compile this report.

Would you let immigrants from another country live under your roof? These families say they had no choice but to show Christian hospitality.
Melody Pahlow misses her house-guests from Africa.

The pile of 40 shoes by the front door is gone. There is no aroma of brewing chi (tea), and toothpicks no longer are scattered across the dining table. No voices are singing out the greeting, “Good-a morn-a-ing!” The dancing in the kitchen has ceased.

Her guests – a Somali Bantu family consisting of mom, dad and nine kids – moved into their own apartment after living 10 days in the Pahlows’ suburban Chicago home. It was the African familyís first days in America. They had arrived directly from a primitive refugee camp in Kenya.

It was the second time Melody and husband Ben, both 35, had welcomed a family of newly arrived African refugees into their four-bedroom home. Both experiences, they say, were unforgettable.

With four children of their own, ages 7 to 13, the Pahlows had all the reasons not to host a family of 11 strangers. Too busy, too crowded, not enough beds, not enough bathrooms – the potential entries on the excuse list were endless. Not to mention the single mom with two kids already living in the Pahlows’ basement and the lodger in their spare room.

After the Bantu family arrived – with one days notice – there were 21 people staying at the Pahlows’. The minority language was English.

The Pahlows’ willingness to open their home to complete strangers – many of whom don’t speak Englishóis remarkable.

“We call it ‘Hotel Pahlow,’ Ben quips.

But Melody says she’s no Martha Stewart. “I don’t know anything about being a hostess,” she says. “In fact, I’d say I’m domestically dysfunctional.”

The Pahlows agreed to temporarily host the Bantu family in February, and a similar family last year, because they want to obey Jesus’ call to practice hospitality toward strangers: ìëI was a stranger and you took Me in” (Matt. 25:35, NKJV). In this passage, Jesus links hospitality with true discipleship. Hospitality might involve providing lodging, sharing a meal or simply hanging out.

“Hospitality doesn’t necessarily mean cooking meals and doing people’s laundry,” Melody says. “It can be just giving people the chance to be who they are in your home.”

Still, Melody admits, with 21 people jammed into every corner, there were times when the slightest thing irritated her. She got cranky at times.

“The sound of my son brushing his teeth made my skin crawl,” she says. “It was like a mirror to the soul, revealing all my flaws.”

There were moments of comic relief, too. The Africans had never seen deodorant.
“Within a few days, we knew each other so well that I’d lift up their arms and roll it on,” Melody says.

While the Pahlows observed their guestsí sometimes seemingly odd behaviors (cooking chicken and pasta for breakfast, for example), the Bantu family eyed their hosts with similar bewilderment.

Ben recalls how the 45-year-old Bantu dadóperplexed by modern appliances -stuck his head inside the microwave to try to figure out how it worked.

Melody kept a diary, documenting the highs and the lows, and shared it by e-mail with members of her church. For them, the Pahlowsí daily log took on all the intrigue of a reality-TV show.

Two years ago, the Pahlows say, the notion of hosting a family from Africa was for them unthinkable. Then they met Providence, a refugee who had been forced to flee his native Rwanda and had been torn from his wife and family.

Alone in Chicago, Providence had no one to turn to. He frequented the local library, where one day during a conversation with Melody he shared his story. Thatís when the Pahlows extended the hand of hospitality and invited Providence in.

“It truly was ‘providence,’ Ben recalls. “God used our Rwandan friend to wake us up. Here was a chance for us to ëbe Jesus’ to someone in need.” Since then, Ben and Melody have also taken in a single mom with two children.

The Heritage of Hospitality

For most of church history, hospitality was central to Christian identity. The concept of hospitality, especially toward strangers and foreigners, is woven through both Old and New Testament writings. In early Bible times, to share food was to share life. Other acts of hospitality included allowing strangers to harvest the corners of oneís fields (see Lev. 19:9-10) and including the alien, or foreigner, in Passover celebrations (see Ex. 12:48-49).

For the early church, hospitality was an expression of lovingkindness, an attribute of God. Paul instructs believers to practice hospitality (see Rom. 12:13); the writer of Hebrews urges Christians not to neglect hospitality toward strangers (see Heb. 13:2); and Peter challenges believers to give hospitality ungrudgingly (see 1 Pet. 4:9).

As recorded in Acts 16:15, Lydia invited Paul, Silas and Timothy to her home. ìëIf you consider me a believer in the Lord,í she said, ëcome and stay at my houseíî (NIV).

However, according to a Barna Research Group survey, only 3 percent of born-again Christians in the U.S. today say they have the biblical gift of hospitality.

“Hospitality is not optional for Christians, nor is it limited to those who are specially gifted for it,” counters Christine Pohl, author of Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition (Wm. B. Eerdmans). “It is a necessary practice in the community of faith.”

Pohl, a professor of Christian social ethics at Asbury Theological Seminary, points out that one of the key Greek words for hospitality, philoxenia, combines the general word for love or affection for people connected by kinship or faith (phileo) and the word for stranger (xenos).

“Hospitalityís orientation toward strangers is more apparent in Greek than in English,” she notes. “We, like the early church, find ourselves in a fragmented and multicultural society that yearns for relationships.”

In Romans 15:7, Paul urges believers to “receive one another” (NKJV) as Christ has received them.

“Jesus’ gracious and sacrificial hospitality – expressed in His life, ministry and death – undergirds the hospitality of His followers,” Pohl says. “Jesus gave His life so that persons could be welcomed into the kingdom and in doing so linked hospitality, grace and sacrifice in the deepest and most personal way imaginable.

“People are hungry for welcome,” she continues, “but most Christians have lost track of the heritage of hospitality.”

According to Valorie Burton, a speaker on Christian living, hospitality means going out of your way to be compassionate. “Demonstrating Christís love means opening our hearts and serving others,” says Burton, who has spoken at T.D. Jakes’ Potter’s House church in Dallas and Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church in Houston. Burton adds, however, that people should seek Godís guidance and exercise Spirit-led discernment before inviting strangers into their homes.

Who Is a “Stranger”?

A “stranger” can be defined as anyone in need of friendship and Christian fellowship. Hilary Patterson was flustered when her husband, Dwayne, called home to say heíd met a recovering drug addict who had nowhere to stay. Yvette, a 23-year-old from San Diego, had come to Kailua, Hawaii, for rehab treatment and needed shelter.

“It was raining hard, so I told Dwayne, ‘Just bring her home,” recalls Hilary, 30, who co-pastored a Salvation Army church in Kailua with her husband, 36.

“We lived in a small fixer-upper and I was kind of embarrassed about the condition of the house,” Hilary told Charisma. ‘I made up a bed in the back room, but the only spare blankets belonged to my 2-year-old daughter and had teddy bears on them.”

Yvette stayed with the Pattersons for nine days. Hilary and Dwayne took her to the beach and showed her around the island. “We got talking about life, and I was able to share the gospel with her,” Hilary says. “She started to cry and said she felt like she had lost her soul and she had no hope.”

Before Yvette returned to California, Hilary bought her a Bible in which she inscribed a personal note of encouragement. The seeds of kindness and hospitality were sown. A few weeks later, Yvette called from San Diego to tell Hilary she was going to church and had been baptized.

Refugees and foreigners are perhaps the personification of those whom Jesus had in mind when He commanded His followers to welcome the stranger – the most alienated, marginalized and vulnerable individuals in society.

In 2004, 52,000 refugees – victims of war and persecution predominantly from Africa and Asiaówere admitted to the U.S. Thousands of them, including many from Muslim backgrounds, were welcomed by Christians.

The Holy Spirit empowers believers to be hosts, even when they feel inadequate, says Joshua Sieweke, a trainer with evangelical agency World Relief, which links refugees with hosts in the U.S.

“Without the love of Christ, itís very hard to find in yourself a love for people who might come across as strange or smell bad,” Sieweke says. “I am in awe of host families and their willingness to jump right in.”

Sieweke, who works alongside Christian host families in Atlanta, says nearly all are enriched by the experience. But romantic notions of hospitality, he says, sometimes end abruptly.

“One couple pictured everyone sitting around the table as one big, happy family,” he says. “Instead, they found they couldn’t communicate verbally and their guests tucked into the spaghetti without using their forks..”

Taking the Plunge

Barbara Cocchi has immersed herself in the world of refugees, convinced that hospitality is absolutely pivotal to the Christian walk.

“It is about being willing to put Christís desires ahead of our own and not allowing any barriers between the Holy Spirit and ourselves,” she says.

As director of World Reliefís refugee program in Atlanta, Cocchi has had plenty of personal experience with the joysóand frustrations – of welcoming strangers from lands where life is primitive. She has taught new arrivals how to turn a doorknob, flick a light switch, use a toaster and flush a toilet.

She recalls how members of a family from Africa watched with great concentration as they were shown how to operate the stove in their apartmentóthen proceeded to build a fire in the backyard to cook dinner. Such memorable experiences, Cocchi says, are part of the deal when one welcomes strangers from far-flung corners of the globe.

In Seattle, Eric and Sarah Showell took the plunge to host a young couple from South Asia. The Showells were in the midst of a difficult transition: adjusting to parenthood with a 6-week-old daughter.

“We were dealing with night feedings, and Sarah was still recuperating,” Eric recalls. “We could have waited for a better time, until everything was perfect, but that time never comes.

“It is hard for us in America to seek out people who are not the same as us, ethnically, socially or economically,” he adds. “Like Jesus, my focus needs to be on others and their needs, not me and my wants.”

Meal times were a challenge. Their guests had never eaten pizza.

“Fortunately, a Vietnamese work colleague came over and fixed curry one night,” Sarah recalls. She points out that, for a host family, a willingness to show friendship is what matters most.

“You could think: I can’t cook their food; I don’t have a big house or enough blankets, but the real issue is, will I welcome a stranger as my friend?”

The Showells forged a friendship with their guests.

“We fell in love with them,” Sarah says. “I thought that after 10 days I’d be saying to myself: “OK, it’s time for them to go,” but actually we didnít want them to leave.”

In many non-Western cultures, hospitality is provided to all – practiced with sacrificial generosity by the poorest families who have very little materially to share with their guests.

During a short-term missions trip to Costa Rica in February, Maryland farmer J.C. Lowery, 19, was bowled over by his hostsí reception. The family of eight lived in a tiny single-room house and slept on mats on the floor. At meal times, they didnít have enough chairs, so some perched on wooden blocks. Lowery was seated in the best chair.

The next day his hosts had cut branches and made him his own chair. “It blew me away to see how much they cared for me – a stranger – with the little they have,” Lowery told Charisma. “Their love for Christ just spilled over.”

It is time for Christians in America to rediscover the biblical call to hospitality, the Pahlows believe.

“I feel that the church in America needs to get real,” Ben says. “Most American Christians are totally self-focused. We need to develop an outward focus and invite the stranger in.”

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Julian Lukins is a staff writer for World Relief, the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals. In 2004, World Relief volunteers helped welcome 6,290 refugees to America. To learn more, go to <>.

Open Hearts Open Homes

One Chicago couple has learned that genuine hospitality opens huge doors for ministry.

Rick and Desiree Guzman have befriended many strangers. Their response, Rick says, is born out of a Spirit-led desire to reach out to people.

“For me, hospitality is summed up by Jesus in Luke 6:31: ‘Do to others as you would have them do to you,’” Rick, 27, says. “As a baby, Jesus Himself was a refugee in Egypt. His family had to depend on the hospitality of strangers.”

Rick and his 29-year-old wife, Desiree, a teacher, have come alongside several refugee families in their hometown of Aurora, Illinois-visiting with them, having them over for meals, taking them out on trips and even inviting them along on vacations.

Sharing their faith, Rick points out, is a natural progression. They befriend refugee families, many of whom have Muslim backgrounds, not with the “ulterior motive” of witnessing but because Jesus would have done the same.

Neither is the relationship a one-way street. “Our experience helping refugees and just doing life with them has probably had a larger impact on us than it has on them,” says Rick, who works for the Illinois Department of Corrections and hopes to attend law school.

He and Desiree launched their own nonprofit group, The Tolbert Refugee Assistance Foundation. They cut back their wedding expenses and requested donations in place of gifts so they could expand their outreach to strangers.

The bond with one family in particular, refugees from eastern Africa, has grown especially strong. Last year, when the mother, Halima, was about to give birth, she called and asked Desiree and Rick to come to the hospital with her. During labor and the delivery, Desiree was at her side while Rick paced the floors “like a nervous dad.”

When the baby was born, Halima announced his name: Rick Jabril Musa. Rick and Desiree, members of Community Christian Church in Aurora, were stunned.
“There’s little doubt in our minds that the bonds we have formed are lifelong,” Rick adds. “They are more like family to us than anything else.”

Although Rick and Desiree do not have children of their own, they bought a minivan fitted with three child seats to transport their refugee friends.

The Guzmans’ dream is to buy a boarding house to accommodate refugees and others at a reduced rent. Their idea is to set the rent money aside and later give it back to their renters to help them make a down payment on a house of their own.

Says Rick: “The most important thing, in my view, is reciprocating Christ’s love through practicing hospitality and loving others.”

Who says people have to worship in a building? Today more and more people are pointing and clicking their way to God from a home computer.
Ariel Santa Cruz loves going to church. He has a comfortable seat, stays focused on the sermon and enjoys the fellowship. But he doesn’t have to leave his home computer desk. Like so many believers and seekers worldwide, he attends church on the Internet.

For Santa Cruz and many others, Internet church–or virtual, Web or cyber church–is the real thing. Virtual church maybe in its infancy and largely experimental, but some believe the Internet has the potential of being at the forefront of church growth in the next decade.

Will the “virtual experience” spark a new wave of interest in church? Could this even become the church of the future?

The church as a whole has never been eager to embrace changes, sometimes for good reasons. The idea of worship and fellowship online is enough to cause some, especially those grounded in traditional styles, to crash their spiritual hard drives.

All Eyes on i-Church

In its rawest form, Internet church is a webcast of a service, a Christian chat forum or an online prayer board. At its most innovative, it’s a fully interactive experience.

“All churches need to have a strategy for the Internet because people’s spiritual needs do not fall into a neat slot,” suggests Alyson Leslie, former pastor of i-Church (), a Web congregation based in the United Kingdom.

I-Church was set up as an experimental forum for 20-50 people to study the Bible and pray together online. But within weeks the church, fueled by publicity, mushroomed to 900 core members and 1,000 “inquirers” from around the globe. Evangelicals, charismatics, Anglicans and Roman Catholics all took part.

Leslie was overwhelmed. She advised the project’s sponsor, the Anglican Church, to overhaul its Internet strategy so i-Church could cope with the response.

At a time when attendance is falling in many churches in Europe and North America, i-Church appears to be achieving what the traditional church at large has failed to do. It is opening the lines of communication and drawing the unchurched into a welcoming environment.

“Every time there is publicity about i-Church, it brings an avalanche of interest,” Leslie explains. “People come with their questions, spiritual needs and hurts–all of them looking to the church for answers. We should see the Internet, in spiritual terms, as a continent that needs to be evangelized.”

But is it really possible to have church online? It depends, Leslie suggests, on how “church” is defined.

“If you see ‘church’ as a building with programs at set times of the week, then Internet church is going to make you feel uneasy,” she concedes. “But if you see church as people, then it really does not matter where they meet and interact. Church, in my opinion, is about community, and i-Church offers people the chance to join a Christian community.”

Fellowship online is often deep and dynamic, Leslie adds.

“People quickly get past the social niceties and into deep spiritual conversations, sharing their spiritual longings and struggles,” she says. “You find that people are actually very quickly ministering to one another … giving of themselves to address each other’s hurts and questions about faith. I-Church has been a true blessing to hundreds.”

Much further afield, Web church is opening doors for the gospel in the Islamic world.

“The Holy Spirit is at work,” says the leader of an Arabic virtual-church project in the Middle East, not named for security reasons. “Almost every person in the Middle East can easily access the Internet. This is our opportunity now, as the church, to enter every home.”

In a region where persecution is reality, Web church provides a place of refuge for Christians to meet and worship together in safety. “You could call [Internet church] the church of the 21st century,” the leader told Charisma. He adds that it also provides an anonymous forum for Muslims to explore the Christian faith.

Cyber Saints, Virtual Visitors

In Western culture, however, do Internet churches pander to those who won’t make the effort to attend the traditional church?

“I don’t see it as a cop-out,” responds Stephen Goddard, co-editor of webzine Ship of Fools, which launched the world’s first 3-D, interactive
virtual church, called Church of Fools ().

“We’re concerned that many of the people coming to Church of Fools are not [finding] meaningful church offline,” Goddard says.

Lack of funding caused Church of Fools to suspend its interactive services in September 2004, though logging on and visiting the church is still possible. Its pilot run, however, attracted thousands of visitors from around the globe. Guest preachers included well-known U.S. evangelical Tony Campolo. At its peak, Church of Fools drew 41,000 visitors during a 24-hour period.

According to Goddard, more than 50 percent of Church of Fools’ visitors are under age 30, and 60 percent are male–a significant statistic, considering that young men are among the least likely to attend traditional churches. Describing itself as “an attempt to create holy ground on the Net,” Church of Fools incorporates groundbreaking technology.

Each visitor controls his or her own 3-D animated character. Characters occupy pews, kneel to pray, raise their hands, sit, stand, move around, introduce themselves to others, shout “Amen!” and interact in other ways.

Church “wardens” monitor services and “smite,” or log out, unruly visitors. One was hastily removed after he logged on as Satan and invaded the pulpit.

Wardens, however, are sensitive toward those unfamiliar with church etiquette. Most visitors seek a worshipful experience, says Church of Fools leader Simon Jenkins.

“At first, many people thought the idea sounded ridiculous,” Jenkins told Charisma. “But when people visited the church, they were surprised by how reverent and authentic the experience is.

“The first time I entered Church of Fools, I thought, Wow, this really is church,” Jenkins recalls. “Someone nudged my character and said, ‘We should pray.’ People form circles to pray with one another. The Holy Spirit is right there.”

Regular attendees were clearly disappointed when soaring costs forced Church of Fools’ high-tech worship services offline.

“This is the kind of inspiration we need to bring the message of the gospel to a generation that is often wounded by and suspicious of the traditional church,” wrote Hugh from Augusta, Georgia, on the church’s Web site.

“In today’s world, the hardest thing for Christianity is getting people into its churches,” commented Nik from the United Kingdom. “Here you offer people the chance to sample a little of the feeling of tranquility and peace … [upon] entering a place of worship.”

Goddard–who says he is hopeful services will be back online soon–acknowledged that the site would need “significant investment to make it happen.”

The funding dilemma raises an important question: Is Internet church financially viable and sustainable?

It cost tens of thousands of dollars to launch Church of Fools and operate it for the three-month trial period (sponsored by the U.K. Methodist Church).

“At some point, I expect it to be a lot more affordable,” Jenkins says. “But right now the latest interactive technology is very expensive.”

Upgrading Web Worship

Several well-known charismatic preachers in the United States also are experimenting with Web church. T.D. Jakes beams live webcasts of services via his ministry’s Web site ( ) and averages 3,480 viewers per month, according to his ministry, The Potter’s House.

“This is more than a fad. Our Web services are here to stay,” insists Tanisha Pace, a spokesperson for the ministry.

Since April 2003, Argentinean evangelist Sergio Scataglini, who is based in Indiana, has pastored a Spanish-speaking Web congregation of 100 international members. Congregants log on from as far away as Argentina, Spain, Peru, Uruguay and Mexico.

“It is not about staring at a static computer screen,” Scataglini explains. “Everything about Internet church is built on relationships. Church is the fellowship of believers, and relationships take priority over distance.”

Scataglini’s virtual church, ComunioNet (), is well-organized. It includes 24 cell groups, the leaders of which are trained in discipleship. The groups meet regularly online. Some of them also convene in person.

“This is real church,” Scataglini told Charisma. “Every step of the church can be fulfilled through the Internet. We baptize believers and take communion together.”

Baptism through the Internet? Scataglini presided over an actual online baptism as church members on another continent immersed the candidate. He believes Internet church is “the next natural step.”

I-Church’s Leslie agrees.

“God will use any and every means to reach people,” she says, “and the Internet can reach millions in their own homes. The Holy Spirit is present at Internet church–and He will do something wondrous.”

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Julian Lukins is a writer based in California. He and his wife, Becky, still prefer to attend a traditional church.

Homeless people in San Francisco know where to find a good meal and a warm bed. They look for the bus with their name on it.
On board a shabby old bus, pastor Evan Prosser belts out words from a classic hymn: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.”

Those famous words take on startling poignancy when one looks around the bus. Dirty, smelly “wretches,” some with eyes glazed by drugs and alcohol, mouth the words that speak of hope for the hopeless.

Welcome to The Homeless Church of San Francisco. Perched on lofty hills surrounding a breathtaking bay, San Francisco is a city of outstanding beauty, yet it harbors despondency beyond measure.

The Homeless Church meets in the bus six nights a week for Bible study and worship. It’s an unconventional church, born from a vision God gave Prosser 10 years ago when he was pastoring a “normal” church in Northern California’s farm country.

“I was driving along I-5 when I heard God’s voice,” Prosser, 62, explains. “God said: ‘I want you to start a church for the homeless in San Francisco–not a missions project but their own church, a church they can call their own and take ownership of.'”

In 1994, Prosser and his wife, April, also 62, resigned from the church
and headed south for the “Golden Gateway” city, where in their pre-Jesus days of the 1960s they had lived as hippies. The Prossers were convinced that God did not want them to put their efforts into a shelter or a counseling program, the ministry models favored by many homeless missions. Instead, He was calling them to live among the destitute, to fully identify themselves with the lowest of the low, to actually become “part of their world.”

And they have. Today, Evan and April live in a decrepit 1964 GMC school bus, parked among the homeless in their community. With threadbare sheets pegged up across the windows for curtains, the Prossers’ cramped home contains virtually nothing in the way of material comforts.

“We have cast in our lot with them,” Evan says.

Like those around them, the Prossers are being “moved on” regularly by the city police. In this way, too, they are identified with the homeless.

“Just after we’d moved into the bus, I was putting some trash into a dumpster,” Evan recalls. “A guy came marching over and yelled: ‘Hey! That dumpster isn’t for people like you!’

“I was taken aback, but then I suddenly realized that, yes, I was now one of ‘those people.’ And, you know, at that moment I felt kind of proud.”

A police officer once approached the Prossers’ bus and ordered them to “move that piece of junk.”

“When Evan mentioned he was a pastor and tried to explain what we were doing, the officer said, ‘Save that for your congregation,'” she recalls.

As she says this, a woman of about 40, her mind fried by drugs, yells frantically from across the street.

“When we came here, she was such an attractive young lady, very popular. Everyone liked her,” April explains. “The street eats people up pretty quick.”

As the troubled soul across the street rants, Evan summarizes her tragic story–one all too familiar here, where on any given night an estimated 14,000 homeless people roam the city streets.

“Her family lives in the Midwest,” Evan says. “They’ve come here, tried to help her.”

In despair, they returned home with the heart-wrenching image of their loved one–a daughter and a sister–tormented day and night on the streets. Despondency and discouragement surround the Prossers, but they do not see their neighbors as worthless, human “trash,” as many other people do.

“The homeless,” one San Francisco resident tells Charisma plainly, “spoil our city. They make it dirty.”

The Prossers see the addicts, the prostitutes and the hopeless through the eyes of Jesus, the one who had “no place to lay His head,” according to Matthew 8:20.

“Yes, I see people who are beaten up, dissed and defeated,” Evan says, looking out across the rolling city landscape.

“But ‘there’s gold in them thar hills,'” he adds, echoing the pioneers’ cry of the mid-1800s, when gold was discovered in the region.

“Beneath the brokenness, we’re finding nuggets of gold right here on the streets, people coming to faith in Jesus and being healed by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

Three years ago, a failed marriage pushed James Woods over the edge. He joined the homeless of San Francisco–where the average studio apartment costs $1,500 a month in rent–aimlessly pushing a shopping cart through the city streets.

“When I looked down at my cart, I suddenly realized what I had become,” Woods recalls. “I saw my reflection in a window–a sunken, old man with a grizzly beard, pushing a cart. I started to sob and cried out, ‘Jesus, help me!'”

At this crisis point, Woods was invited to stay at one of two “healing homes” donated to The Homeless Church–homes where destitute men and women can clean up, avoid harmful influences and “soak in Jesus,” as the Prossers put it.

“When I showed up, I was filthy, smelly and a total mess,” Woods says. “April came to the door and said: ‘Are you James? We’ve been expecting you.’ That just tore me up, to think that someone actually wanted to see me.”

Today, Woods is a pastoral assistant at The Homeless Church, which is affiliated with the Assemblies of God.

Margaret Billsborough, 37, a mother of seven, experienced abuse, addiction, prostitution, fits of rage and jail time–winding up on the streets. “I lost everything. All my children went to foster homes,” she says.

Billsborough found refuge at The Homeless Church last year. “April and Evan opened their arms to me,” she says. “Now I have Jesus, and God is bringing me and my children back together.”

A little more than four years ago, Agustin García was drinking himself into oblivion on the streets when the Prossers came by. “They came every day, talking about Jesus all the time,” he recalls.

When it hit 40-year-old García that Jesus wanted to set him free, he grasped the opportunity to repent and be baptized in the Holy Spirit. Now, no longer living on the streets, he hungers to share Christ with San Francisco’s down-and-outers.

“I want to tell them that there is hope–and His name is Jesus,” he says.

On Friday nights, García and others from the church head to the beach, where they light a bonfire and share the gospel. During the week, church members give out pastries and coffee. Every Thursday night it’s “soup and Jesus.”

But it’s aboard The Homeless Church’s two buses that many spiritual breakthroughs occur. That’s where the homeless come to their church, study the Bible and unload their burdens.

For Tommy, in his 30s, this is the first time at The Homeless Church. As he reads aloud from Job 15, he stops: “This is right where I’m at now,” he declares. “I want to make a new start.”

Evan leads Tommy and others on the bus in prayer. Again, the wonderful words of “Amazing Grace” seem to soar to new heights from the battered old bus: “When we’ve been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun.”

“It would be easy to glamorize the so-called sacrifice we’ve made,” Evan says. “But we’re having the time of our lives. We could not be doing anything more fulfilling than this. God is right here.”

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Julian Lukins, a former daily newspaper reporter, is a writer based in California.

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For more information, call 415-468-1690 or visit
Send tax-deductible gifts to Christian Life Missions, Attn: The Homeless Church, P.O. Box 952248, Lake Mary, FL 32795-2248

Even in this high-tech age, the lowly gospel tract still delivers a powerful message.

Josephine was walking to the abortion clinic in her war-torn West African city when she was forced to dive to the ground to avoid gunfire. As she lifted her head, she saw a dirty piece of paper–which turned out to be a gospel tract printed in America. After reading it, she changed her mind about having an abortion and rushed home in tears, where she begged God’s forgiveness. Josephine has since launched a crisis-pregnancy ministry.

Mary, a schoolteacher in the United States, often left tracts on her desk for her students. A lawyer on the school board fought to have her fired because of her overt witness.

In an uncomfortable twist, Mary found herself sitting next to the hostile board member at a funeral service. She felt compelled to hand him a tract–the only tract in her purse–one written by a Christian attorney. Soon afterward, when the board member’s daughter joined her class, Mary suggested that perhaps the student should be reassigned.

“That won’t be necessary,” the girl responded. “My dad has accepted Jesus as his Savior.”

Across oceans and continents, real testimonies such as these abound–stories from people convicted of their sins and drawn to Jesus through the simple, paper gospel tract. Since their “invention” in the late 1700s, tracts have been distributed by the gazillions in dozens, perhaps hundreds, of languages and have reached even the remotest and most unlikely locations.

In the United States tracts continue to evolve to capture the imagination of an increasingly media-savvy public. Though many pre-1980s tracts presented sin
and salvation in preachy, fire-and-brimstone style–with words such as “wrath” and “damnation” leaping off the pages–many modern tracts take a softer, more sophisticated approach.

Not surprisingly, tract writers have different ideas when it comes to presenting–or “marketing”–the gospel. But nearly all agree that even in today’s world of sophisticated softies, the bottom line is: Everyone needs to be confronted with their sinful condition and shown the way of salvation through the cross of Christ.

On Being ‘Seeker Insensitive’

The beauty of tracts is that people can pick them up anywhere–on countertops, inside library books, on buses and trains. The Holy Spirit even uses tracts tossed out as trash, as He did in Josephine’s case. At least one tract is designed to be dropped strategically on a sidewalk to catch the eye of a passerby (see “Little Paper, Big Message” on page 54).

Yet in this era of impersonal e-mailing and declining face-to-face communicating, tract evangelism also offers opportunities for old-fashioned, eye-to-eye contact. Tracts are conversation-starters. Many Christians insist there’s no substitute for the personal connection.

Before getting too carried away with evangelistic fervor, however, there’s a snag to note: Most believers are more likely to hand out garage-sale flyers than gospel tracts. In fact, the late Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, claimed that a mere 2 percent of American Christians (about one in 50) regularly share their faith.

What’s the problem?

“Fear,” says tract evangelist Ray Comfort, founder of Southern California-based Living Waters Publications. “Fear of rejection and ridicule.”

Comfort is one of those scary individuals who actually enjoy passing out tracts. Minutes before interviewing with this reporter, he was tackling his mailman with God’s message.

“Have you seen The Passion [of the Christ]?” he asked the unsuspecting postal worker.

“Uh, I’m in a hurry,” the carrier replied.

“I’ll walk with you to your van,” Comfort persisted.

Within the next 90 seconds, Comfort had gently shared the way of salvation with the man.

“I am not going to be obnoxious, but I am going to be as stubborn as an ox,” Comfort, a native New Zealander, explained to Charisma. “There’s nothing as important as someone’s eternal salvation.”

However, one of the most common criticisms of tract evangelism is that it’s too in-your-face.

“Jesus was the most in-your-face evangelist ever,” Comfort responds. “I’ve never said to anyone, ‘Woe unto you, you hypocrite!’ but Jesus did. Look at Paul and the other apostles. They were as seeker insensitive as you can get.”

OK, but isn’t handing out tracts just for extroverts?

“The Bible gives the analogy that we are like firefighters, pulling people from the flames,” he says. “I have known the shyest people to be the most compassionate evangelists.”

Well, surely honest fear is a good excuse?

“Many people live for the thrill and the fear of rollercoasters or of bungee jumping, but they say they’re too afraid to give out a tract; too fearful to pass along the only message that can save people from hell. How ridiculous is that?” Comfort fires back.

But you’re an evangelist. What about the rest of us?

“I consider myself to be an ordinary, biblical Christian. Only when I compare myself with most Christians in America today do I consider myself to be ‘abnormal’–and I think that’s tragic,” Comfort concludes.

Anointed Paper?

Still, so-called ordinary Christians hand out millions of tracts every year. In July, Jews for Jesus (JFJ) expected to hand out 1 million tracts in New York City alone. Globally, its workers have passed out more than 40 million tracts one-on-one.

“You’d think that [after] 24 years, handing out tracts would be easy,” says JFJ director David Brickner. “It isn’t for me. I still get that tightening in my stomach.”

Yet Brickner believes few other methods of evangelism are as powerful as passing out tracts. “When we put on our Jews for Jesus T-shirts and stand on street corners or in subway stations handing out tracts, we are declaring the wisdom of God,” he states.

Estimating that 25 percent of the people who take tracts from JFJ members discard them without a glance, Brickner cites Jesus’ parable of the sower, saying: “We sow our [tracts] as seed [because] each tract contains the Word of God.”

That sentiment is echoed by veteran tract writer Jack Chick, whose cartoon-style booklets have become icons. They actually are in the Smithsonian Institution as symbols of American religious pop culture. Chick’s most popular tracts–such as This Was Your Life! featuring the Grim Reaper–have drawn thousands, perhaps millions, to Christ.

“[Our] tracts are full of Scripture straight from the King James Bible,” Chick told Charisma. “God says: ‘So shall My Word be that goeth forth out of My mouth: it shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.’ [See Is. 55:11, KJV.]

“I am in prayer for the Lord’s leading on which tracts to write. God gives me the stories, and then I pray over every tract from beginning to end,” Chick explains. “God called me to this ministry, and He has blessed and anointed it.”

During the last 40 years, Southern California-based Chick Publications has sold more than 500 million of Chick’s tracts worldwide, making him perhaps the most widely read underground author in history. In the early years, Chick had a hard time getting Christian bookstores to stock his “revolutionary” gospel tracts.

“[They] were outraged at some guy using cartoons to present the gospel,” Chick recalls. “They thought it was sacrilegious.”

Today collectors reportedly are willing to pay as much as $500 for one of Chick’s rarest tracts. Negative criticism of the use of tracts–in fact, of any evangelistic approach–is almost inevitable.

Chick’s hard-line and hell-bound sinner approach has drawn stinging criticism and scorn from some Christians and nonbelievers alike. Critics charge that some of Chick’s tracts, such as ones that attack Roman Catholicism and Islam, are confrontational, judgmental, even insulting.

Even Dwight L. Moody, the great 19th century crusade evangelist and scholar, was once criticized by a woman who told him that she didn’t like his method of evangelism.

An Assorted, Spirited Bunch

So, who uses tracts? They’re a plucky band from all walks of life, from undergraduates to undertakers, from actors to roofers, from the famous to the obscure.

Actor Kirk Cameron, a Christian best known for his roles as Mike Seaver in the sitcom Growing Pains and Buck Williams in Left Behind: The Movie, has a passion for tracts.

“Maybe, like me, you have thought that passing out gospel tracts might do more harm than good,” Cameron, 34, writes in The Way of the Master,
co-authored by Comfort. “Since I’ve become passionate about reaching the lost, I’ve realized that the gospel on paper is infinitely better than no gospel at all.

“I hand out tracts as often as I can and say: ‘This is for you. I’d really appreciate it if you’d take the time to read it. It has a gospel message inside.’ It may not be as good as a personal conversation, but at least it allows me to share the gospel with gentleness and respect.”

Equally passionate about saving lost souls is Rich Carroll, a 49-year-old roofer who lives in Southern California. He has handed out thousands of tracts during the last 30 years. “When we sow the seed, we give the Holy Spirit the opportunity to work,” he says.

But people don’t want tracts foisted on them by someone resembling a pushy used-car salesman, Carroll cautions.

“We can come across as being just out to get people to say the sinner’s prayer,” he observes. “I ask people what they think about Jesus–and I listen to them.”

Joe Staniforth, 37, a teacher from Sun City, California, says the moment he takes a step to reach out to the lost he feels the presence of the Holy Spirit.

“When you pass out a tract, God is not only working through you, He’s working in you, too,” Staniforth says.

Of course, tracts can be used any time, anywhere, but certain events trigger their activity profusely.

When Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ hit movie theaters earlier this year, the American Tract Society (ATS) distributed 3.1 million Passion tracts in six weeks. They rank among the most popular tracts in the Texas-based organization’s 180-year history, according to marketing director Mark Brown.

Major life-changing events, such as September 11, provoke a flurry of tract evangelism. American Tract Society’s America Under Attack–hurriedly produced in response to September 11–sold more than 3.5 million copies in a month.

The most popular period for tracts to be distributed is Halloween. This year ATS expected to sell up to 5 million Halloween-theme tracts aimed at trick-or-treaters.

Timeless Words, New Frontiers

Far from showing signs of becoming old-fashioned or passé, the use of paper tracts is definitely increasing, Brown of ATS marketing says.

“Ten years ago, we were told that with the arrival of the Internet, printed materials would diminish,” he told Charisma. “Since then, we have grown every year.”

The Internet is actually expanding tract horizons with “digi-tracts,” or digital tracts, and e-tracts, both of which can be downloaded and sent via e-mail.

In many parts of the world, the influence of tracts is far-reaching. Gospel for Asia (GFA) reports thousands of conversions as a direct result of tracts finding their way into remote villages, often where people have never heard the gospel or seen a Bible.

The true, eternal impact of the simple, paper tract may never be known. Some of the greatest names in church history, such as missionary Hudson Taylor and evangelist George Whitefield, became Christians after reading tracts.

As the fiery English preacher Charles Spurgeon observed: “How many thousands have been carried to heaven instrumentally upon the wings of these tracts, none can tell.”

LITTLE Paper, BigMESSAGE

Christians serious about reaching the lost have come up with a myriad of ways to get the job done. Using tracts is only one method–but a unique one. Tracts circulating out there range from the terrific to the ingenious to the downright cheesy. Charisma ranked six of the best.

6. The Atheist Test Enough to confound even the most ardent atheist, this nifty little tract logically counters the theory of evolution and convincingly argues the case for a Creator God. It’s adapted from God Doesn’t Believe in Atheists by evangelist Ray Comfort.

Living Waters Publications

5. Steps to Peace With God An oldie but goodie. Penned by evangelist Billy Graham, this straight shooter clearly articulates step-by-step the way of salvation. Judging by its success (it’s a yearly million-seller), tract users agree that this one is a real gem.
American Tract Society

4. The Passion of the Christ Wow! Greg Laurie’s Passion tract is almost as powerful as the movie! This classy tract centers on the last words spoken by Christ as He hung on the cross. A real spine-tingler.
American Tract Society

3. Did the Butterfly Evolve? Not one for jumpy types. Open this card-style tract and a windup butterfly zips out. Sure makes you jump! This innovative tract claims there are 20,000 butterfly species–a detail revealing the creative genius of God and His intricate plan of salvation.

Living Waters Publications

2. The Wallet Stealth evangelism at its best. What better way to get someone’s attention than a wallet stuffed with $50 bills! Looking at it on a sidewalk from a few feet away, this tract looks like an authentic wallet. Perfect for anyone who’s too chicken to hand out a tract face-to-face.

Living Waters Publications

1. This Was Your Life! Love them or hate them, the hard-hitting cartoon-style tracts from Jack Chick have won thousands to Christ–and this multimillion-seller ranks as perhaps the all-time classic. Featuring the Grim Reaper and a Judgment Day scenario that brings on a clammy sweat, this is Chick at his most inspired.

Chick Publications

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Julian Lukins, a former daily newspaper reporter, is a writer based in California. He and his wife, Rebekah, have two daughters.

In the midst of tragedy and persecution, a vibrant underground church is growing in Iran.
Overwhelmed by the pressures of life, Afrooz, a young Muslim student in Iran, cried out to her god–Allah–to help her, to give her a sign that he was with her. That night, while Afrooz knelt on her prayer mat waiting for Allah to respond, a bright light flooded the room.

“I lifted my head and [saw] Jesus … wearing white,” she recalls. “I recognized that this could only be the Messiah.”

In the midst of this startling vision, Afrooz–who had never seen a Bible–wrote in her native Farsi language: “‘Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest'” (Matt. 11:28). It was the beginning of a spiritual journey that would bring her inner peace yet also test her resolve in the fires of persecution.

As her newfound faith in Jesus came to light, Afrooz was refused employment and treated with contempt. On her wedding night, the secret police burst into the newlyweds’ hotel and interrogated them.

Afrooz’s experience (as told by The Voice of the Martyrs) is not uncommon in this fiercely Islamic theocracy, where Christians–especially converts from Islam–face harassment, blacklisting and physical threats. Her remarkable testimony, however, reflects the growing number of Iranians being drawn to Jesus by the Holy Spirit.

New Faith, Ancient People

On December 26, 2003, the eyes of the world turned toward the Iranian city of Bam, where a catastrophic earthquake buried thousands of people under the rubble of their homes. While Western churches sent relief to Bam, international attention focused on the suffering of Iranian Christians and the growth and energy of Iran’s
underground church. With the situation in Bam opening doors previously slammed shut, missions leaders believe the compassionate response of the worldwide church to this horrific disaster could be a catalyst for explosive church growth in Iran.

Jesus is building His church in this biblical region of ancient Persia–the home of such Bible heroes as Nehemiah, Esther and Daniel. Acts 2 lists Elamites, Parthians and Medes (all Iranians) among those present at the feast of Pentecost celebration in the first century when the Holy Spirit came in power. Today, the church in Iran is growing–spurred by a fresh, sweeping move of the Holy Spirit and strengthened through the fellowship of suffering believers.

Missions experts estimate 20,000-30,000 indigenous evangelical and Pentecostal believers are in Iran today, most of them from Muslim backgrounds. Some experts–citing an unknown number of “secret” believers–claim the true figure could be much higher.

Missiologist Patrick Johnstone, co-author of Operation World, estimates Iran has 17,000 evangelicals, 7,000 charismatics and 4,000 Pentecostals. With annual church growth of 7.5 percent, Pentecostalism is the fastest-growing religious movement in Iran.

Everywhere, the charismatic influence is strong. Many indigenous churches practice prophecy and healing. Services, which are marked by vibrant worship and fervent prayer, can last for hours.

Yet church leaders often lack training and basic resources, including Bibles. As one missionary put it: “A Persian-language Bible is a hot item in Iran.”

Spiritual Hunger

For most Americans, the mention of Iran conjures up images of Islamic extremists, women in stifling black chadors and bearded zealots declaring America “The Great Satan.” Islam certainly has a grip on this nation of 67 million people–of whom 99 percent call themselves Muslims–but extremists represent a very small minority.

Many Iranians are nominal Muslims simply because they are immersed in an Islamic society that marries the Muslim faith with the Iranian identity. For millions of Iranians, there has been no alternative–until now.

Mounting social problems such as drug abuse, alcoholism, prostitution and suicide belie the public face of “unshakable” Islam while unveiling a culture riddled with despondency. In reality, many Iranians–especially the young–are soul-searching, disillusioned with the Islamic Revolution of 25 years ago.

Increasingly influenced by Western culture, Iranian youth are rebelling against the strict Islamic code. They are eager to express their individuality–and they are open to the gospel.

Today ministries with a heart for the Middle East are grasping unprecedented opportunities for evangelism in Iran. In February, San Antonio-based evangelist Sammy Tippit launched gospel broadcasts (with Farsi interpretation) into Iran via satellite.

Since May 2003, Oklahoma-based Harvesters World Outreach has beamed its Farsi-language Day of Salvation program into Iran three times a week. The response has been incredible, according to Harvesters’ founder, pastor Reza Safa, an Iranian convert from Islam.

“We’ve had hundreds of callers from Iran desperate to know more about the Jesus who saves, heals and delivers,” Safa says. “Most callers use phone cards to avoid surveillance; many stay on [the line] for 45 minutes from Iran.”

Ongoing testimonies of conversions and miraculous healings provide irrefutable evidence that many Iranians crave a personal relationship with God and thirst for a soul-satisfying experience with the Holy Spirit. It’s also natural for Iranian Muslims to be intrigued by and attracted to the “Christian Jesus.” That’s because almost all Iranians are aware of Jesus through their own poets and the teachings of Islam (which revere Jesus as a prophet but deny His deity).

“They are hungry to learn, eager to discuss the Bible and, in particular, Jesus. They’re searching for the truth.” explains Tom White, director of The Voice of the Martyrs, an Oklahoma-based ministry to persecuted Christians worldwide.

He notes that the courage and spiritual passion of Iranian believers is a key factor in the “spontaneous growth” of Iran’s house-church movement. Driven underground by persecution, thousands of Iranian Christians–as many as 30,000, according to White–meet in homes. They switch locations to avoid detection.

“In the past eight years, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of converts from Islam,” White told Charisma. “Much of the evangelism goes on inside people’s homes.”

Most Iranian believers shun the few official, state-sanctioned churches because the secret police scrutinize church membership rolls to root out what they call Muslim “apostates.” Although violent persecution has subsided, conversion to Christianity during the last decade has resulted in beating, imprisonment, torture and even execution. Despite the risks, some congregations continue to worship publicly–even placing crosses on the front of their buildings.

Persecution: An ‘Honor’

Although Iran’s constitution claims to guarantee religious rights, Christians face widespread discrimination. Those who openly acknowledge their faith in Christ are ridiculed and denied meaningful employment. Consequently, many impoverished believers face urgent housing and medical needs, and churches struggle to support their pastors.

Yet believers in Iran count it a privilege to suffer. “It’s an honor to experience persecution for the gospel,” Iranian pastor and church leader Mehdi (not his real name) told Charisma. “[Persecution] has been helpful in strengthening our faith and spiritual growth.”

Iran’s autocratic rulers expect church leaders to “knuckle under” their demands, just like the prophet Daniel was expected to conform to King Nebuchadnezzar’s decrees centuries ago.

During the 1990s–a period of intense persecution–Bishop Haik Hovsepian-Mehr, leader of a Pentecostal church in Iran, was given orders by the Iranian government that no services were to be conducted in Persian (the native language); all church members were to be issued identification cards; member-only services were to be held on Sundays only; and no new members were to be admitted without the Ministry of Information and Islamic Guidance being notified.

According to human-rights group Jubilee Campaign, Hovsepian-Mehr responded that “never would he or his ministers bow down and comply with such inhumane and unjust demands.”

He added: “Our churches are open to all who want to come. If we die or go to jail for our faith, we want the whole world to know. … I am ready for anything.” Soon after affirming his faith with such boldness, Hovsepian-Mehr was murdered.

Other Iranian church leaders have, like Hovsepian-Mehr, paid the ultimate price. Pastor Mohammad Bagher Yusefi–a 35-year-old Pentecostal evangelist and convert from Islam–left his house early one morning to pray. Later that day, his wife and two children were told, his body was found hanging from a tree.

Hearing such stories, many Christians in America might excuse their Iranian brothers and sisters from publicly proclaiming their faith. But Iranian Christians use the book of Acts as their guide to evangelism.

They are prepared, if necessary, to follow in the footsteps of Stephen, who was martyred; Paul, who endured severe civil punishments; and other first-century believers who were persecuted for Christ. They take to heart the rallying cry of Tertullian, the early church writer: “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.”

Call All Prayer Partners

Christianity in America might seem far removed from such suffering and sacrifice. However, pastor Mehdi insists that U.S. Christians are intertwined with the persecuted church: “Do not think that being … in America [should] give you total security, peace and rest. Instead, you should be thinking of your brothers and sisters in the faith undergoing persecutions and trials. The gospel–born in the East–has reached you. Now the burden of intercession … is being placed on you. In these latter days, it is your responsibility … to help and support [suffering believers].”

Many churches in America are catching pastor Mehdi’s vision. “Right now, we in America have the incredible opportunity to partner with Iranian churches to see tremendous church growth,” says the leader of a missions organization that works closely with churches in Iran.

During a recent visit to Iran, the leader (who for security reasons is not identified) spoke to an evangelical, charismatic congregation, encouraging them and prophesying over them.

“They locked the windows and bolted the doors,” he recalls. “It was a powerful experience that reaffirmed to me that we–the church in America–have a God-given mandate to support our brothers and sisters amid their tribulations.”

Pointing to Iran’s political and cultural influence in the Middle East and Eurasia, missions strategists believe the church in Iran could hold the key to dramatic gospel breakthroughs in neighboring Muslim nations, such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Turkey. Pastor Mehdi said he believes Iran has “a pivotal role in the establishment of God’s kingdom in the Middle East.”

It is not surprising then that the church today encounters such intense opposition amid this critical “battleground,” which spiritual forces have wrestled over since Old Testament times. Daniel 10 records that the archangel Michael battled against “the prince of the Persian kingdom”–whom some believe was a demon exercising influence over the Persian realm.

As this centuries-old struggle approaches its climax, Iran’s unflinching believers say they are looking toward the new era described in Jeremiah 49:39 when their daring faith amid tribulation will be rewarded: “‘Yet I will restore the fortunes of Elam [Iran] in days to come,’ declares the Lord” (NIV).

“The Iranian church faces shining days ahead–days of blessing and God’s favor,” pastor Mehdi says. “God has taken Iran into His own hands and has given us a chance to share in His reign.”

It’s God’s Hour for Iran

More Iranians have come to Christ in the last 20 years than in the last 14 centuries

In what some scholars believe is the homeland of the “wise men” mentioned in the biblical account of Jesus’ birth, modern Iranians find themselves on a journey similar to the ancient Magi’s. They too are searching.

A lone trucker drove his vehicle into a remote forest near the Turkmenistan border in northern Iran. He wasn’t making a delivery or stopping to take a nap. He was planning to commit suicide.

By accident he knocked a dashboard switch and the truck’s radio crackled to life. A Christian broadcaster was talking about the gospel in the indigenous Farsi language. Tears flowing down his cheeks, the truck driver surrendered to Christ.

More than 100 people were taking part in a chat room on the Internet. One person asked, “Is anyone interested to know why Jesus is God?” The comment was met with some derision–until someone asked why the question had been posed.

“Because Jesus has changed my life,” came the answer.

The two Web surfers kept in touch. Two weeks later they met at a park in Tehran, the Iranian capital. The inquirer turned out to be an Islamic scholar, seeking to know Christ.

“You can take all sorts of people from all walks of life–from prostitutes to truck drivers to university lecturers–and you find that God is touching them,” says Lazarus Yeghnazar, an Iranian-born evangelist now based in Great Britain.

From his home in the leafy back roads of a small English town, Yeghnazar, 55, is part of a massive gospel movement that reportedly is seeing “thousands upon thousands” of such conversions.

He directs a church-planting agency called 222 Ministries, a media organization known as Iranian Christian Broadcasting, and a Christian charitable foundation, the Ark Trust. It was through the Ark Trust that help was sent to support relief work after an earthquake on December 26, 2003, devastated the ancient Iranian city of Bam. Christians were among the first on the scene to assist survivors.

“Even the government, press and TV were appreciative of how quickly the local church responded,” Yeghnazar says. “Despite their shortage of finances, the church responded by collecting money.”

An American ministry set up a kitchen, and Iranian Christians supplied the manpower. Together they fed 3,000 people after the earthquake–and, according to Yeghnazar, met with an astonishing response among the locals.

The Muslims often would respond with tears and hugs when they discovered their rescuers were Christians. They would then ask for prayer “in the name of Issa [Jesus].”

Such breakthroughs are occurring after centuries of prayer, Yeghnazar believes. “In the last 20 years, more Iranians have come to Christ compared to the last 14 centuries,” he says. “We’ve never seen such a phenomenal thirst.”

He had his own divine visitation in Iran–when at age 6 he experienced, with the rest of his family, the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Others joined the household in their spiritual journey, until all together they formed the first Farsi-speaking Pentecostal church in the country since the 15th century.

When he was in his early 20s, Yeghnazar was ordained as an elder at the Central Assemblies of God Church in Tehran. He has served two brief prison sentences because of his “extreme efforts in evangelism”–both during a so-called era of freedom when the Shah of Iran, rather than Muslim clerics, ruled the country.

Yeghnazar and his wife, Maggie, left Iran in 1988 and settled in the United Kingdom. He has not visited his homeland since a close friend of his, a key Pentecostal leader in the country, was martyred 10 years ago–becoming one of several pastors who have paid the ultimate price for their allegiance to Christ.

Constitutionally, the rights of other religions are guaranteed but closely monitored. Christian proselytism is forbidden. The 1990s saw severe persecution–ironically, in the historical homeland of the wise men who visited the infant Jesus. Yet churches, both real and virtual, are being planted.

Through mass media such as the Internet, radio, television and even films, Yeghnazar and his teams are sharing the Christian message to Farsi-speaking people across the globe. They are propelled by a strong prophetic vision.

“I believe that this phenomenon [will] even snowball into a major avalanche,” Yeghnazar says. “This is still a rain. This is not yet the avalanche coming … but it will be happening very, very soon.”

He believes a “massive opening,” spiritually speaking, exists in Iran today. His conviction is supported by the findings of mission researchers Patrick Johnstone and Jason Mandryk. In their Operation World prayer guide, they point out the weaknesses of Iran’s Islamic Revolution that deposed the Shah in 1979.

“Twenty years of anti-Western, anti-Christian propaganda has opened many Muslims to seek for alternatives to Islam,” they write. “Iranians are more open to the gospel than ever before.”

When you witness Yeghnazar opening some of the evangelistic Web sites he has helped construct–as well as telling some of the stories behind the statistics–you start to believe his dream, too.
Clive Price in England
For more information about Christian work in Iran, visit or send e-mail to info@.

When a Nation Is Shaken

The recent earthquake opened huge doors for the gospel in Iran.

Within hours of the magnitude 6.7 earthquake that struck Iran on December 26, 2003, Christian relief organizations and churches across the United States were gearing up to help. Because visa requirements had been relaxed by the Iranian government, American relief teams gained access to Iran with unprecedented ease–and headed straight for the quake-ravaged city of Bam, where more than 41,000 bodies were pulled from the rubble and tens of thousands of survivors were left grief-stricken and homeless.

Amid Bam’s heartache, the door swung wide open for Christian humanitarian groups to work alongside Iranian churches, providing unparalleled opportunities for Christians in Iran to reach out with compassion to the Muslim community.

“Such an opening might not come this way again,” said Clive Calver, president of Baltimore-based World Relief, the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals. “We don’t distinguish between ‘Christian’ and ‘Muslim’ when it comes to helping people desperately in need of comfort and hope.”

Christian aid workers were able to pray with those in utter despair and sensitively share the hope of the gospel. “An Iranian pastor approached a young man sitting on a pile of rubble, under which his family was crushed to death,” Calver recalls. “The thing that this heartbroken man needed the most, the pastor was able to give him–the offer to pray with him in Jesus’ name.”

“Kash man ham morde budam! [I wish I had died, too!]” wailed a distraught grandmother whose entire family, according to the aid worker who witnessed her grief, suffocated under the rubble while she listened to their muffled cries.

“The people are traumatized, dazed and in shock,” explains Monty Crisp, a relief worker with Arizona-based Food for the Hungry. “To listen to them, to look with them at the photos of those who’ve died and to mourn with them seems as important as giving them things that meet physical needs.”

A relief worker with Elam Ministries agreed, recalling Ali who dug with his bare hands in a desperate attempt to rescue his wife and four children–all of whom perished. As they prayed and wept together, Ali repeated: “Dear Jesus, holy Jesus, help me, heal me.”

Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan’s Purse, summed up the relief efforts, saying: “Our hearts are broken. … We want to do all we can to help bring comfort.”

World Vision provided tents, blankets and other supplies for thousands of families sleeping outdoors in the bitter cold. In addition to shipping urgently needed medical supplies, Missouri-based Convoy of Hope helped set up a temporary school for displaced children.

Several major church denominations also sent emergency aid. Nazarene Compassionate Ministries shipped 7,200 Crisis Care Kits containing hygiene supplies and soft toys.

A Southern Baptist team from Alabama gained a remarkable opportunity to share Jesus when excited Iranians pointed to the word “Alabama” on supply crates. Loosely translated into Farsi–the main Persian language–“Alabama” means “God with us.”

While agencies transition from relief to rebuilding, Christians will be involved in the massive reconstruction effort, providing opportunities for ongoing witness. “Helping Bam’s people rebuild will take months or years,” predicts Kelly Miller of Seattle-based World Concern.
Julian Lukins

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Julian Lukins, a former daily newspaper reporter, is a writer based in California. He and his wife, Rebekah, have two daughters.

Most people stay away from gang territory. Roger Minassian saw what violence was doing to youth in Fresno, California, and he ran to their rescue.
Former gang member Toua Thao confessed he was worried the first time he met Roger Minassian in the inner-city ganglands of Fresno, California. “At first, he seemed a bit intimidating,” recalls 21-year-old Thao. “He can look real mean.”

Other ex-gang members agree. They know what it’s like to come face-to-face with the meanest, most violent dudes in the ‘hood. But cross Reverend Roger? The thought sends shivers down their spines.

Minassian’s 6-foot-5-inch frame and piercing glare could send boxer Mike Tyson hot-footing it down the street like Roadrunner. But the truth is he is not that scary. He’s a remarkably normal, down-to-earth, 64-year-old guy who is married, with three grown-up sons and just a hint of fatherly sternness.

What’s amazing is that he has helped lift hundreds of gang members off the streets and set them on the path to self-sufficiency and a productive life.

Born and raised in New York City, Minassian was sheltered from the darker side of urban life. The son of a minister, Minassian says his own faith in Christ began to blossom in college. After moving to California, and a stint in the U.S. Navy, he felt God’s calling to the ministry and was ordained in 1971.

Since 1993, Hope Now for Youth–founded and directed by Minassian–has placed gang youths in jobs and fostered caring relationships with them built on mutual respect, thus enabling individuals to transform their lives. The results are staggering. In just a decade, more than 900 at-risk and gang-oriented young men–a mix of Hispanics, Asians, African Americans and Anglos–have been placed in permanent jobs, with an 85 percent success rate.

Minassian says he’s simply being obedient to a vision God gave him after the infamous 1992 Los Angeles riots. It was then that Minassian says he felt God calling him to leave his comfortable pastorate in a middle-class church to minister to the lowest of the low: murderous, drug-pushing gang members on the streets of downtown Fresno, a central California city with a diverse population of 430,000.

“I remember watching the L.A. riots on television and thinking: ‘What despair causes people to set fire to their own neighborhoods? Where are the jobs they’re supposed to have?'” Minassian told Charisma.

Haunted by the images of destruction in Los Angeles and reports of gang-related homicides in Fresno, Minassian quit the pastorate and launched Hope Now. Leaving his church haven of polite handshakes and well-to-do parishioners, Minassian entered a vastly different world of crippling poverty, brokenness, violence and crime.

“I’ve always had a deep compassion for the poor and the underdog,” says Minassian, a Presbyterian, and author of the newly released Gangs to Jobs (Alpha Publishing). “But I’d always worked in middle-class-and-above parishes. I’d had absolutely no contact with the type of young men I am working with now. I didn’t even know that their world existed.”

Minassian recalls one of his first excursions into a gang-dominated neighborhood. “As I saw the kids around me, God began breaking my heart,” he says.

“I met a 14-year-old boy whose mom was a heroin addict and whose dad was in prison. I could see this boy’s heart-wrenching pain, his seething anger–the rage that creates gang members. As I drove away, I began to cry … deep sobs … and, believe me, I don’t cry easily. I cried out to God: ‘How do these kids stand any chance? Someone has to do something, or they’ve got no hope. Jesus, how do I reach them with Your love?'”

Isaiah 61:1-3 became the rallying cry for Hope Now: “The Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor … to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners … to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes … and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair … they will be called oaks of righteousness” (NKJV).

Explains Minassian: “At Hope Now, we are there to do this for the Lord because He cries for these broken young men just like we do. I have yet to meet one gang member who is not a wounded child in an adult body, crying out for someone to help them and care for them.”

Minassian says he has never felt seriously threatened even though he is working in a dangerous environment. “I’ve learned that these hurting young men are just as terrified of us as we are of them. In fact, our world is more fearful to them than facing the barrel of a loaded gun,” he says.

Not everyone, though, views the Fresno area’s estimated 11,000 hard-core gang members with the same compassionate acceptance. One woman approached Minassian and told him: “Most of us don’t care about these street kids so long as they’re shooting each other.”

But the wider church, and the law enforcement community, have embraced Hope Now–praising its life-transforming success.

Minassian and his team teach residents of the ghettos basic survival skills for the alien world of appointments, steady jobs and responsibilities. As relationships develop, former street fighters are coming to Christ.

The hard part is discipleship because the men come from a culture in which nothing is scheduled. “We show up at their workplace at lunchtime, take them out for a bite to eat and do a Bible study,” Minassian explains.

In the same way Hope Now participants must discipline themselves to live responsibly, U.S. Christians must discipline themselves to live obediently to God’s voice, Minassian adds.

“I am convinced that most Christians have been given a vision from God that they have deemed impossible and have ignored,” he says. “We say: ‘No way! I can’t do that!’ But if Jesus is truly giving us the vision, backed up by Scripture, then He will provide the means to accomplish it.”

Former gang member Vanna In, 27, who is employed as a Hope Now counselor, describes Minassian as a no-nonsense, fatherly figure. “This is not a game to him; it is very real,” In says. “He knows that the lives and the souls of young men are at stake.”

Imprisoned for seven years for second-degree murder, In understands firsthand the battle that is raging. “We know that our enemy–the devil–does not slack off,” he says. “And neither must we.”

When former gang member Corey McKenzie was imprisoned for a murder he committed as a teenager, his future appeared to be over. Two years ago, he was released on parole and joined Hope Now. Today he holds down a steady job at a local restaurant. “I have four months left on parole, and I am not going to violate,” he says.

Within Hope Now, 24-year-old McKenzie–like hundreds of former gang members–has experienced caring relationships for the first time. “I don’t know many people that I can call a friend,” he says. “But Roger Minassian is a true friend.”

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Julian Lukins, a former daily newspaper reporter, is a writer based in California. He and his wife, Rebekah, have two daughters.

For more information about Hope Now, call 559-434-8125. Send tax-deductible gifts to Christian Life Missions, Attn.: Unsung Heroes, P.O. Box 952248, Lake Mary, FL 32795-2248.