News / Thoughts

Middle East and North Africa: Five quick prayer points

Christians are facing pressure across the Middle East and North Africa. Here are five quick areas that you can be praying for this week…

Churches facing closure…

Several churches in Algeria have been closed in the past year. Pastor Muslih says:

“Sometimes because they said the buildings weren’t in line with the law. We organized ourselves to meet in houses. There we had our prayer meetings, our discipleship training. The authorities are intimidating churches, officials of the intelligence services have more frequently visited church services. That is very disturbing, it feels they’re interrupting our intimacy”.

• Pray that Algerian Christians would still be able to meet and grow in faith together.
• Pray that church closures would cease and that house churches would thrive.

Pastors under pressure…

Despite this, the church in Algeria is growing. And that means pastors are under more pressure from the authroties.
Pastor Muslih* explains:

“I heard of a pastor whose passport was taken by the police for many weeks. I know many examples of harassing Christian leaders and their family. Several leaders have been interrogated by the police for several hours in a row.. The incidents are happening again and again with shorter intervals. I believe this is all meant to frustrate my work and the work of other pastors. But they had no success: we are still here; we will stay here till our death.”

• Pray for wisdom and protection for church leaders facing pressure and intimidation
• Pray for those in prison or under arrest that they would stay strong in their faith

Muslims questioning their faith…

Many Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa have questions about their faith. Like Tunisian Issam*:

“I was born in a committed Muslim family. From the age of 7 on I visited the mosque. Between prayer times an elderly man trained us how to grow in faith. When I grew up, I started to ask more in-depth questions. His answer many times was: ‘You’re not mature enough to understand’. But that made me question: If God is sending me a message in the Koran that I can’t understand, why is He sending it?”

• Pray for those like Issam who are searching for answers and that they would find the truth of Jesus.
• Pray for Christians who can share the gospel with those who have questions.

Churches growing…

Despite the war and unrest in Syira, the church is growing. This is especially true among Druze and Kurdish Syrians – hundreds of people have come to know Jesus in the past years.

• Thank God that these new believers can come together at several locations in the country.
• Pray for those new believers, that they will get the training to grow in their faith.

The cost of new faith…

Often Christians need to flee from home because they become followers of Jesus. Sometimes their families push them out, others decide to run away because of the pressure on them or the violence used against them. Aizah* knows the cost of choosing Jesus:

“I walked away with only the things that fit in my backpack. I could stay for some weeks with another believer and after that two years with the family who led me to Jesus. It took ten years before I could talk with my father again… The good thing is that God walked all this time with me. I didn’t get a hardened heart. God helped me to not miss my father too much. God provided these moments that I saw my father walking in the streets when I was missing him more. God also made it possible to continue to talk with my mother, although my father had forbidden her to contact me.”

• Pray for Christians like Aizah who are now far from their family.
• Ask God to restore family relationships and that those like Aizah would find a new family in the church.

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