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I usually receive emails on persecuted Christians as well as other people going though problems so I'm creating this thread for the soul purpose of putting all of these prayer requests in 1 thread instead of making individual prayer requests. These prayers request maybe news related and personal and you may if you wish can post your own prayer request as well. So here are some prayer requests:
Christians targeted for destruction in West Africa:
Recent weeks saw the worlds attention focused on France. Rightly, there was almost universal condemnation of the brutal killing of 17 innocent people. A number of the worlds leaders flew to Paris to join arms and walk through the streets as an affirmation of unity and liberty. And yet in West Africa a new tragedy on a far greater scale is unfolding, to which little or no attention has been paid.
Church bus burned in two-day Islamist riots in Niger Last Friday, 16 January saw horrific attacks on Christians in Niger. Niger has been classified by the UN as the poorest country in the world. Its Christian population is 0.33%. In the town of Zinder every single church was razed to the ground, ten in number. The next day in the capital Niamey attackers destroyed another 55 church buildings. Some estimates put the total number of churches destroyed at over 70. Many Christian homes were also destroyed and Christians killed.
But Niger is not alone. In Cameroon there have been deadly attacks on Christians and many kidnappings. On Christmas Eve 24 December, Christians in Jéneme and Mouzlougoua were forced out as houses were burned. Two days later, all of the houses, millet, cotton, and peanuts were torched in Mbaljewel, where 60 bodies were discovered after shooting and fires. Militants also kidnapped up to 80 people, many of them women and children, in Cameroonian villages close to the Nigeria border on 18 January.
In Nigeria there are almost daily attacks on Christian-majority villages and towns. Whole communities are being systematically wiped out. Many hundreds of Christians are being killed: men, women, children and the elderly brutally slaughtered as if they were animals. Religious cleansing is taking place as militant Islam seeks to eradicate Christianity.
While Christians are a main target, the Boko Haram militants also attack Muslims in some contexts, and the total number of displaced and refugees is now thought to be over a million. The sheer brutality cannot be contemplated.
Christians in West Africa are pleading for help. They cannot understand why they have been forgotten, why their plight is unknown. When 17 Parisians are killed in two days the whole world knows, but when scores of West African Christians are slaughtered almost daily, their places of worship destroyed, their homes looted and burned, when they are abducted and kidnapped, silence reigns. A senior Nigerian church leader has urged the international community to take united action of the type shown after the Islamist violence in France, not just when it [an attack] happens in Europe, but when it happens in Nigeria, in Niger, in Cameroon.
They need your prayers as they seek to witness to their faith, to respond with love in the face of hatred, with hope in the face of despair and destruction, to be Christ-like when great evil is taking hold. Many have lost their Bibles, their church buildings are destroyed, both pastors and people are destitute.
Over 70 churches destroyed in Charlie Hebdo riots in Niger:
In two days of targeted riots that began on 16 January, violence across Niger has left ten people dead and over 70 churches are reported to have been destroyed. The rioters were protesting against the publication of a cartoon of Muhammad on the front cover of the French Charlie Hebdo magazine. More riots and protests occurred across many Muslim-majority countries, including many former French colonies.
The home of a Niamey church pastor was burned by Islamist rioters Following Friday prayers on 16 January, hundreds of mainly young Muslim extremists took to the streets in Zinder, Nigers second largest city, burning and destroying all of the citys churches, as well as the homes of Christians.
The next day, more than 55 churches, pastors homes, Christian schools and Christian organisations were burned or destroyed in the capital city, Niamey, as rioters targeted Christians and French-related businesses.
Ten people have been killed in the weekend attacks, one of whom was burned inside a church. And more than 200 Christian families are now being housed in military camps. The army has been deployed and the homes of Christians have been identified and secured. With the authorities overwhelmed by the scale of the violence, Christians have been told to stay together, just in case.
The situation is currently extremely unstable despite assurances from the authorities, says a Barnabas Fund partner in Niger. Churches have not been placed under police protection despite assurances from the Ministry of Security yesterday We are really scared.
Large-scale protests have also taken place in Pakistan, the Philippines, and Chechnya. Capital cities in Algeria, Somalia, Sudan, Jordan, Mali, Senegal, and Mauritania have also witnessed protests against the publication. Twelve people who were working at the Paris offices of the magazine were killed by two masked gunmen on 7 January and the magazine then went on to publish a cartoon of Muhammad on the front cover of its next issue on 13 January
A letter from a Syrian Christian in Aleppo:
A Christian doctor in Aleppo emailed Barnabas Fund on 17 January to update us on the desperate conditions there, as Syria approaches the fourth anniversary of its ongoing civil war. Babies and elderly are dying in the sub-zero temperatures, which people must try to survive without any form of heating. More and more Christians are leaving the city, but this doctor stays in order to try to help those who remain.
A church destroyed in Aleppo The situation here still is very gloomy and bad. The winter is very bitter, and temperatures are below zero. There is no electricity (just 1.5 hours every 36-48 hours) and little water. There are no heating systems or fuel at all. We are just sitting and wrapping ourselves with blankets and wearing three pairs of trousers and blouses just to get some warm. Life is becoming unbearable and intolerable. Daily we have deaths among babies and small children, and elderly people because of the bitterly cold weather. You cannot imagine the severity of the weather in such situations. People are putting their babies in cardboard boxes just to take them away from the cold a little.
There have been no specific changes for better here. But everything is getting worse, for sure. Tens and hundreds of Christians are leaving the country. Aleppo will be empty of Christians in due time. We are suffering and struggling to stay and preach the word. Just imagine what the need for the word is like. And this in spite of the mortars, rockets, shrapnel, snipers, lots of houses destroyed, churches attacked, and corruption expanding with no single aim or way to be controlled. Life here is unspeakable. With all these, the need for His word is expanding and the needs for prayers are many.
The situation in our church is going well. There are many new faces and new people are coming to the Lord. Yes, the burden is getting greater but He is in control and in charge.
Be blessed with all His blessings Eph. 1: 3
Greet all with His grace.
Two Christian communities attacked by Hindu activists, accused of forced conversions:
Suspected Bajrang Dal activists interrupted a Sunday prayer meeting on 11 January in Jehanabad, Bihar state, beating up the Christians present and damaging church furniture. In a separate incident on the same day, enraged Hindu activists demonstrated against Christians who were meeting at a worship service in Kushulanagar, Karnataka state.
Christians in India are often the victims of brutality because of their faith After receiving a complaint that the Kushulanagar church was involved in forced conversions to Christianity, police officials arrived at the Sunday worship service and when it was over, they took the pastor and some of the church members to the police station for questioning. The pastor was eventually released with a warning to be careful when leading worship services.
In Jehanabad, police confirmed that they found no evidence for [the] allegations of luring Hindus into converting to Christianity after Hindu radicals stormed a church prayer meeting where 50 members had gathered.
Responding to news of the attacks, Sajan George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians, said: Two attacks on the same day, in two different states of the country, are proof that extremist groups feel encouraged to attack Christians because they are not restrained by the law.
Six Indian states (Gujarat, Odisha (formerly Orissa), Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, and Arunachal Pradesh) have freedom of religion laws which are implemented to varying degrees. These are often mis-used against Christians engaged in evangelism, who can easily be falsely accused of converting people by force, fraud or allurement, all of which the law prohibits. It is noteworthy that the Christians in these two attacks were falsely accused of forcing or luring Hindus to convert even though neither Bihar nor Karnataka states have freedom of religion laws in place.
Threatening letter sent to Iraqi Christian exposes vulnerability of Christian minority in Kurdistan:
In strongly abusive anonymous email sent on 14 January 2015 to an Iraqi Christian based in the UK, the rapidly diminishing Christian population in Iraq is threatened with permanent loss of their property and told they must convert to Islam. Referring to the Armenian and Assyrian genocide, which peaked in 1915, the apparently Kurdish Muslim sender promises similar, large-scale destruction of the Iraqi Assyrians, a Christian people-group.
Displaced Iraqi Christians seeking shelter in Iraqi Kurdistan Kurds form the majority of the population in Iraqi Kurdistan, the relatively stable region where up to 200,000 Christians have fled from other parts of Iraq, seeking safety. These newly arrived displaced people are in addition to the Christian minority communities who have lived there for many centuries.
As well as Assyrians, the letter also refers to two other main groups of Christians in Iraq: the Chaldeans (called Kaldus in this letter) and the Syrian Orthodox (called Siryanis in this letter). It also mentions another religious minority, the Yezidis (spelled as Ezidis in this letter), and the Peshmerga, the Kurdish fighting force. It alludes to 1991, the end of the Gulf War in which a US-led coalition fought against Iraq.
This kind of threat is breeding fear within the Christian community in Kurdistan. Thankfully, the Kurdistan Regional Government and the vast majority of the Kurdish people, have welcomed the Christians and are doing their best to support and help them at this difficult time, and have rejected religious extremism.
Kenyan church leader shot dead in Mombasa city:
Church members who met to worship together on Sunday 11 January are in shock after church official George Karidhimba Muriki was gunned down by unidentified assailants on a motorbike, just inside the church entrance gate, in the Majengo neighbourhood of Mombasa city.
Kenyas coastal Mombasa city has seen several anti-Christian attacks in recent weeks It was reported that police stopped the gunmen from getting inside the church, preventing greater carnage. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but many suspect Somali Islamists Al-Shabaab to be behind the incident.
The attack is reminiscent of a shooting on 23 March last year, also in Mombasa, in which armed militants burst into a Sunday worship service, opening fire and killing six people. And in November, the group went on a rampage in the same city, targeting and killing Christians after police raided mosques thought to be involved in the recruitment of Islamist militants. Although Kenya is a Christian-majority country, the city of Mombasa is Muslim-majority.
Al-Shabaab promised revenge against Kenya after its government sent troops into Somalia to help in the fight against the Islamist group in 2011. Since then, Kenya has experienced repeated violence from Islamist radicals. In Mandera county, which borders Somalia, militants attacked a bus on 22 November, separating the non-Muslim (mainly Christian) passengers from the Muslims and shooting all 28 of the non-Muslims one by one. Just a few days later, 36 non-Muslim workers (including many Christians) were singled out and killed at a stone quarry, also in Mandera county.
Two Christians receive fines from Kazakh courts:
In separate incidents, two Kazakh Christians have been issued with heavy fines for exercising their right to freedom of religion without state permission. Both men are refusing to pay the fines and have been subjected to further punishments.
There are many restrictions on Christians in Kazakhstan According to Forum 18, in Uralsk, West Kazakhstan, Nikolai Novikov was fined twice in 2013 and again in 2014 for meeting to worship without state permission. In other court orders, Mr Novikov was issued with a ban on leaving the country and a restraining order was placed on his car.
In August 2014, he was imprisoned for five days, and now he is facing the confiscation of his garage. It is reported that court bailiff Erkebulan Andakulov ordered that Mr Novikovs garage be valued so that it can be forcibly sold off to pay for some of his fines.
These fines were illegal, says Mr Novikov. The fines issued go against international agreements that are legally binding upon Kazakhstan. Despite the fact that churches require state permission to meet, the church where Mr Novikov is a member, has refused to submit to this complex and highly restrictive bureaucratic procedure.
In North Kazakhstan, Maksim Volikov was fined on 19 December for talking to people on the street about his faith while giving out Christian literature in the village of Novoukrainka, without state permission. Over 165 books, booklets, magazines, and CDs were seized and he was issued a three month ban on activity.
Mr Volikov was previously fined for leading a church in his home without the permission of the government. His appeal against this fine was denied by the North Kazakhstan Regional Court in July last year. Forum 18 reports that he is intending to appeal both the new fine and the seizure of his materials.
Christians targeted for destruction in West Africa:
Recent weeks saw the worlds attention focused on France. Rightly, there was almost universal condemnation of the brutal killing of 17 innocent people. A number of the worlds leaders flew to Paris to join arms and walk through the streets as an affirmation of unity and liberty. And yet in West Africa a new tragedy on a far greater scale is unfolding, to which little or no attention has been paid.
Church bus burned in two-day Islamist riots in Niger Last Friday, 16 January saw horrific attacks on Christians in Niger. Niger has been classified by the UN as the poorest country in the world. Its Christian population is 0.33%. In the town of Zinder every single church was razed to the ground, ten in number. The next day in the capital Niamey attackers destroyed another 55 church buildings. Some estimates put the total number of churches destroyed at over 70. Many Christian homes were also destroyed and Christians killed.But Niger is not alone. In Cameroon there have been deadly attacks on Christians and many kidnappings. On Christmas Eve 24 December, Christians in Jéneme and Mouzlougoua were forced out as houses were burned. Two days later, all of the houses, millet, cotton, and peanuts were torched in Mbaljewel, where 60 bodies were discovered after shooting and fires. Militants also kidnapped up to 80 people, many of them women and children, in Cameroonian villages close to the Nigeria border on 18 January.
In Nigeria there are almost daily attacks on Christian-majority villages and towns. Whole communities are being systematically wiped out. Many hundreds of Christians are being killed: men, women, children and the elderly brutally slaughtered as if they were animals. Religious cleansing is taking place as militant Islam seeks to eradicate Christianity.
While Christians are a main target, the Boko Haram militants also attack Muslims in some contexts, and the total number of displaced and refugees is now thought to be over a million. The sheer brutality cannot be contemplated.
Christians in West Africa are pleading for help. They cannot understand why they have been forgotten, why their plight is unknown. When 17 Parisians are killed in two days the whole world knows, but when scores of West African Christians are slaughtered almost daily, their places of worship destroyed, their homes looted and burned, when they are abducted and kidnapped, silence reigns. A senior Nigerian church leader has urged the international community to take united action of the type shown after the Islamist violence in France, not just when it [an attack] happens in Europe, but when it happens in Nigeria, in Niger, in Cameroon.
They need your prayers as they seek to witness to their faith, to respond with love in the face of hatred, with hope in the face of despair and destruction, to be Christ-like when great evil is taking hold. Many have lost their Bibles, their church buildings are destroyed, both pastors and people are destitute.
Over 70 churches destroyed in Charlie Hebdo riots in Niger:
In two days of targeted riots that began on 16 January, violence across Niger has left ten people dead and over 70 churches are reported to have been destroyed. The rioters were protesting against the publication of a cartoon of Muhammad on the front cover of the French Charlie Hebdo magazine. More riots and protests occurred across many Muslim-majority countries, including many former French colonies.
The home of a Niamey church pastor was burned by Islamist rioters Following Friday prayers on 16 January, hundreds of mainly young Muslim extremists took to the streets in Zinder, Nigers second largest city, burning and destroying all of the citys churches, as well as the homes of Christians.The next day, more than 55 churches, pastors homes, Christian schools and Christian organisations were burned or destroyed in the capital city, Niamey, as rioters targeted Christians and French-related businesses.
Ten people have been killed in the weekend attacks, one of whom was burned inside a church. And more than 200 Christian families are now being housed in military camps. The army has been deployed and the homes of Christians have been identified and secured. With the authorities overwhelmed by the scale of the violence, Christians have been told to stay together, just in case.
The situation is currently extremely unstable despite assurances from the authorities, says a Barnabas Fund partner in Niger. Churches have not been placed under police protection despite assurances from the Ministry of Security yesterday We are really scared.
Large-scale protests have also taken place in Pakistan, the Philippines, and Chechnya. Capital cities in Algeria, Somalia, Sudan, Jordan, Mali, Senegal, and Mauritania have also witnessed protests against the publication. Twelve people who were working at the Paris offices of the magazine were killed by two masked gunmen on 7 January and the magazine then went on to publish a cartoon of Muhammad on the front cover of its next issue on 13 January
A letter from a Syrian Christian in Aleppo:
A Christian doctor in Aleppo emailed Barnabas Fund on 17 January to update us on the desperate conditions there, as Syria approaches the fourth anniversary of its ongoing civil war. Babies and elderly are dying in the sub-zero temperatures, which people must try to survive without any form of heating. More and more Christians are leaving the city, but this doctor stays in order to try to help those who remain.
A church destroyed in Aleppo The situation here still is very gloomy and bad. The winter is very bitter, and temperatures are below zero. There is no electricity (just 1.5 hours every 36-48 hours) and little water. There are no heating systems or fuel at all. We are just sitting and wrapping ourselves with blankets and wearing three pairs of trousers and blouses just to get some warm. Life is becoming unbearable and intolerable. Daily we have deaths among babies and small children, and elderly people because of the bitterly cold weather. You cannot imagine the severity of the weather in such situations. People are putting their babies in cardboard boxes just to take them away from the cold a little.There have been no specific changes for better here. But everything is getting worse, for sure. Tens and hundreds of Christians are leaving the country. Aleppo will be empty of Christians in due time. We are suffering and struggling to stay and preach the word. Just imagine what the need for the word is like. And this in spite of the mortars, rockets, shrapnel, snipers, lots of houses destroyed, churches attacked, and corruption expanding with no single aim or way to be controlled. Life here is unspeakable. With all these, the need for His word is expanding and the needs for prayers are many.
The situation in our church is going well. There are many new faces and new people are coming to the Lord. Yes, the burden is getting greater but He is in control and in charge.
Be blessed with all His blessings Eph. 1: 3
Greet all with His grace.
Two Christian communities attacked by Hindu activists, accused of forced conversions:
Suspected Bajrang Dal activists interrupted a Sunday prayer meeting on 11 January in Jehanabad, Bihar state, beating up the Christians present and damaging church furniture. In a separate incident on the same day, enraged Hindu activists demonstrated against Christians who were meeting at a worship service in Kushulanagar, Karnataka state.
Christians in India are often the victims of brutality because of their faith After receiving a complaint that the Kushulanagar church was involved in forced conversions to Christianity, police officials arrived at the Sunday worship service and when it was over, they took the pastor and some of the church members to the police station for questioning. The pastor was eventually released with a warning to be careful when leading worship services.In Jehanabad, police confirmed that they found no evidence for [the] allegations of luring Hindus into converting to Christianity after Hindu radicals stormed a church prayer meeting where 50 members had gathered.
Responding to news of the attacks, Sajan George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians, said: Two attacks on the same day, in two different states of the country, are proof that extremist groups feel encouraged to attack Christians because they are not restrained by the law.
Six Indian states (Gujarat, Odisha (formerly Orissa), Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, and Arunachal Pradesh) have freedom of religion laws which are implemented to varying degrees. These are often mis-used against Christians engaged in evangelism, who can easily be falsely accused of converting people by force, fraud or allurement, all of which the law prohibits. It is noteworthy that the Christians in these two attacks were falsely accused of forcing or luring Hindus to convert even though neither Bihar nor Karnataka states have freedom of religion laws in place.
Threatening letter sent to Iraqi Christian exposes vulnerability of Christian minority in Kurdistan:
In strongly abusive anonymous email sent on 14 January 2015 to an Iraqi Christian based in the UK, the rapidly diminishing Christian population in Iraq is threatened with permanent loss of their property and told they must convert to Islam. Referring to the Armenian and Assyrian genocide, which peaked in 1915, the apparently Kurdish Muslim sender promises similar, large-scale destruction of the Iraqi Assyrians, a Christian people-group.
Displaced Iraqi Christians seeking shelter in Iraqi Kurdistan Kurds form the majority of the population in Iraqi Kurdistan, the relatively stable region where up to 200,000 Christians have fled from other parts of Iraq, seeking safety. These newly arrived displaced people are in addition to the Christian minority communities who have lived there for many centuries.As well as Assyrians, the letter also refers to two other main groups of Christians in Iraq: the Chaldeans (called Kaldus in this letter) and the Syrian Orthodox (called Siryanis in this letter). It also mentions another religious minority, the Yezidis (spelled as Ezidis in this letter), and the Peshmerga, the Kurdish fighting force. It alludes to 1991, the end of the Gulf War in which a US-led coalition fought against Iraq.
This kind of threat is breeding fear within the Christian community in Kurdistan. Thankfully, the Kurdistan Regional Government and the vast majority of the Kurdish people, have welcomed the Christians and are doing their best to support and help them at this difficult time, and have rejected religious extremism.
Kenyan church leader shot dead in Mombasa city:
Church members who met to worship together on Sunday 11 January are in shock after church official George Karidhimba Muriki was gunned down by unidentified assailants on a motorbike, just inside the church entrance gate, in the Majengo neighbourhood of Mombasa city.
Kenyas coastal Mombasa city has seen several anti-Christian attacks in recent weeks It was reported that police stopped the gunmen from getting inside the church, preventing greater carnage. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but many suspect Somali Islamists Al-Shabaab to be behind the incident.The attack is reminiscent of a shooting on 23 March last year, also in Mombasa, in which armed militants burst into a Sunday worship service, opening fire and killing six people. And in November, the group went on a rampage in the same city, targeting and killing Christians after police raided mosques thought to be involved in the recruitment of Islamist militants. Although Kenya is a Christian-majority country, the city of Mombasa is Muslim-majority.
Al-Shabaab promised revenge against Kenya after its government sent troops into Somalia to help in the fight against the Islamist group in 2011. Since then, Kenya has experienced repeated violence from Islamist radicals. In Mandera county, which borders Somalia, militants attacked a bus on 22 November, separating the non-Muslim (mainly Christian) passengers from the Muslims and shooting all 28 of the non-Muslims one by one. Just a few days later, 36 non-Muslim workers (including many Christians) were singled out and killed at a stone quarry, also in Mandera county.
Two Christians receive fines from Kazakh courts:
In separate incidents, two Kazakh Christians have been issued with heavy fines for exercising their right to freedom of religion without state permission. Both men are refusing to pay the fines and have been subjected to further punishments.
There are many restrictions on Christians in Kazakhstan According to Forum 18, in Uralsk, West Kazakhstan, Nikolai Novikov was fined twice in 2013 and again in 2014 for meeting to worship without state permission. In other court orders, Mr Novikov was issued with a ban on leaving the country and a restraining order was placed on his car.In August 2014, he was imprisoned for five days, and now he is facing the confiscation of his garage. It is reported that court bailiff Erkebulan Andakulov ordered that Mr Novikovs garage be valued so that it can be forcibly sold off to pay for some of his fines.
These fines were illegal, says Mr Novikov. The fines issued go against international agreements that are legally binding upon Kazakhstan. Despite the fact that churches require state permission to meet, the church where Mr Novikov is a member, has refused to submit to this complex and highly restrictive bureaucratic procedure.
In North Kazakhstan, Maksim Volikov was fined on 19 December for talking to people on the street about his faith while giving out Christian literature in the village of Novoukrainka, without state permission. Over 165 books, booklets, magazines, and CDs were seized and he was issued a three month ban on activity.
Mr Volikov was previously fined for leading a church in his home without the permission of the government. His appeal against this fine was denied by the North Kazakhstan Regional Court in July last year. Forum 18 reports that he is intending to appeal both the new fine and the seizure of his materials.
