Airline crash in Nepal kills three beloved missionaries

Three missionaries—Rabin Hamal, Raju Takoor, Anil Shahi—were among the 72 killed in the recent horrific plane crash near an airport in central Nepal.  

Missionaires killed in crash: Rabin Hamal, Raju Takoor and Anil Shahi

All former Hindus, the three men had been travelling after attending the funeral of renowned evangelist Mathew Philip, 77, who had died only the previous week after losing a battle with cancer.

Evangelist Mathew Philip

Philip had been a tremendous help in establishing ALG churches in Nepal. He and his fellow missionaries will all be tremendously missed.

The Yeti Airlines crash—the worst air disaster in the Himalayan nation in 30 years—is still under investigation. It further highlights the dangers of air travel in a country often referred to as one of the riskiest places to fly.

Sadly, the pilot of the downed flight had lost her husband—a co-pilot for the same airline—in a similar crash in 2006, according to a Yeti Airlines spokesperson. She had decided to become a pilot herself after her husband’s death, using the insurance payout money to travel to the US for her training.

Thankfully we can know for certain these beloved missionaries are now safe in heaven. Please pray for their grieving families and friends here on earth.

Atheists are right: Christianity sounds absurd

By Darren Wilson*

Think about it. Christians believe in a man who lived more than 2,000 years ago in a series of backwater towns in the Middle East, was killed by some religious zealots, rose from the dead three days later, after which he floated up into the sky and disappeared, thus becoming the invisible man we now believe in and pin all our hopes on. On top of that, we believe in other unseen beings—angels and demons—who are all around, helping or hindering.

Meanwhile, another invisible spirit (the Holy Spirit) is constantly at work behind the scenes around the earth, keeping the whole thing straight and intervening whenever possible.

When put that way, even I think it sounds crazy. I consider myself a fairly intelligent person. I’m a former university professor, an author, and I’ve become something of a spokesperson not just for the existence of God through my films but for the idea that this invisible God is alive and well and doing amazing things in our world today. How then can I, as a rational, intelligent human being, actually believe in spirits and an invisible man?

I ask this question because it seems that lately, a good number of people have been coming out and saying that no, they don’t believe this nonsense anymore. Former Christians seem to be taking a long hard look at what they once believed, and are finding the courage to step forward and voice their opinion: that they think it’s all nuts. I have a feeling they aren’t alone in their struggles with belief, and the reasons for this crisis of faith are surely varied and compelling. But like everyone, at the end of the day I am only truly responsible for myself, and I wanted to step forward and try to explain why I will continue to believe in an invisible God-man, no matter what.

For a good portion of my life, I lived a kind of Christianity that I have a sneaking suspicion most people do as well. It was built around a set of pre-informed beliefs and its orbit was made up almost exclusively with well-meaning principles—all of which were gleaned from the Bible and were designed to both make my life better and make me into a relatively nice person. Jesus was the centerpiece, of course, but He was more of a benevolent, distant brother figure. God was relatively silent on most things—and always loomed large in my ‘Be good or else!’ mentality. The Holy Spirit was like smoke, a guiding force if you will, but one that was totally unknowable.

This was Christianity, for sure, but it was a neutered one. I simply had to believe the right things, be a good person, and not do too much bad stuff. If I did make mistakes, I had to make sure I said I was sorry, otherwise a kind of logjam of sin would start to build up, which was not good.

When your life revolves around trying to ‘be good,’ there comes a point when it all just feels fake and forced. I mean, if Jesus is real, shouldn’t my life be different? Shouldn’t I have this peace He kept talking about inside me? Should I really have to try this hard to change my behavior? And after a while, when principles are all that generally guide you, it just becomes too much and you wind up doing the Christian thing simply because you think you should and because that’s what you’ve always done.

Darren Wilson filming in Jerusalem

But then something happened, and this is where everything changed for me. I experienced God.

I am a rational person and not prone to manic episodes, hallucinations, or strange behavior. I’ve never done drugs a day in my life. I don’t ‘feel’ things spiritually, have never been ‘slain in the spirit,’ and I’ve never even spoken in tongues. But while making these films of mine, I experienced the reality and presence of God. I felt Him inside me and around me. My behavior changed, I felt peace for the first time, and my Christian walk was no longer about following principles, but about following a Person. And yes, that Person was invisible.

How do you explain experiencing God to someone who has never experienced Him themselves? It’s a lot like trying to explain love to someone who has never been in love. They can be surrounded by people in love, can see how strange it makes people behave, can understand the concept of love. They can even see the dangers of falling in love with that person over this person, but unless you’ve actually fallen in love with someone, you’ll never be able to understand the feeling it gives you or the certainty that you are, in fact, in love, and that it is very, very real.

So it is no surprise to me that, for example, a pastor who decides to ‘take a year off from God’ comes out the other side as an atheist. Honestly, it would be impossible for me to take even a week off from God, because I have experienced Him firsthand. I know He’s there, I can’t ignore Him.

No one who actually experiences God will ever deny His existence. For instance, for my film Holy Ghost Reborn, I filmed a ministry in Colorado that provides prayer and teaching almost exclusively to military personnel. Most of the participants go into this three-day intensive as either atheists or nominal believers at best. All of them—a full 100%—come out of these three days believing in Jesus. Why? Because they just experienced Him for themselves. And you can’t deny something that you have actually experienced. My guess is that the vast majority of people who have turned their hearts from God never actually experienced Him in the first place. They may have heard and believed, but the reality of His presence never took root because believing something logically is not the same as experiencing it relationally.

Yes, believing in someone who is invisible seems, on the surface, a little crazy. But just as Billy Graham once pointed out, we believe in the wind not because we can see it, but because we can see the effects of it. We can feel it on our faces, see it whipping through tree branches. I believe in an invisible God not because I can see Him, but because I can see the effect of Him on my life, and on countless lives around the world. I can feel Him inside me, around me, even working through me.

I’m not sure people leaving the faith is an assault on Christianity as much as it is simply showing the danger of building faith on principles instead of relationship. As good and as important as principles are, nothing will ever compare to the vibrant, healthy, biblical relationship that we were all created for with a God who is more real and more alive than many of us realize.
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*Darren Wilson is the Founder and CEO of WP Films, a media company with the mission to ask questions about God that no one else will. He has traveled the world since 2006 creating various feature-length documentaries, including Finger of God, Finger of God 2, Furious Love, Father of Lights, Holy Ghost, Holy Ghost Reborn, and The Greatest Fight.

You can read some of his fascinating blog entries here. In one—God Can’t Catch You if You Don’t Take a Leap of Faith—he relates an amazing God-incident which happened while filming in India for his movie ‘Father of Lights’.

Darren has also written several books, including Filming God and Finding God in the Bible. The company now also has an online channel called WP TV.

Carrying a mystery to term

 “For with God nothing is ever impossible and no word from God shall be without power or impossible of fulfillment.” (Luke 1:37, Amplified Bible, Classic Edition)

The mystery both enfolded by and enfolding the Christmas season never really ends. It didn’t even begin that first Christmas. It simply revealed itself to us: to all and any who could see or hear, listen—who had ‘eyes to see’ and ‘ears to hear’—in the eons to come.

In Mary’s encounter with the angel and then with the Holy Spirit those 2,000-plus years ago, the divine seed was planted. Young Mary treasured and wondered at the words spoken to her, and her body nurtured the precious ‘Word’ to term. A mysterious Word, existing since the beginning of time, wrapped in a baby and born into a world so already full of its own words, wonder, beauty and noise—that hearing, seeing, the capital-W Word and Wonder beyond and behind it can be nigh on impossible.

Imagine carrying and giving birth to a mystery. In a way every mother does, but can you imagine carrying and giving birth to a world-changing mystery that both pre-existed you, life itself, and contained the answers of time and eternity? Completely impossible to comprehend, and that’s the point. Mary embraced what she did not understand, nurtured and treasured it. The holy seed came to term and the world would never be the same.

Have you ever had an inexplicable, dramatic encounter with holiness, with God? By its very nature you can’t explain it to anyone else, but like Mary, you can treasure and nurture it. Trust that the divine seed will come to term.

People who hold onto and nurture what God has said to them or allowed them to experience—even though they may not understand it—carry the fruit of the revelation from God that says: ‘Nothing will be impossible with God.’ That’s the commonly translated version of the angel’s words to young Mary when she wondered aloud how on earth she could give birth. A more accurate translation from the Greek would be more like ‘no freshly spoken word of God will ever come to you that does not contain the ability to perform itself.’ What an astonishing gift!

Pre-Christmas jungle ministry results in hundreds of new Christians!

For the first week in December—while most of us prepare for, or at least think about preparing for, Christmas—Pastor Paul and a team of Bibles for Mideast missionaries visited with villagers living in mud huts by a forest in Karnataka, near the southern tip of India. Hinduism, sorcery and fear formed the shaky backbone of these tribal people’s belief system.

Living so close to the forest, the villagers often forage there for food and medicines, sometimes selling their excess to other locals to help support themselves.

A serious and growing problem in recent years has been an alarming rise in deaths—both of people and domestic livestock—due to wild animals encroaching on human settlements. Efforts to conserve wild animal species have been successful, but when those species lose their natural habitat to development, too many clashes with nearby settlers result. The resulting fear for villagers had brought further misery into their already difficult lives.

Elephants alone kill about 500 people each year in India, far more than any other wild animal. Leopards and tigers kill fewer, but the numbers of deaths continue to rise as the animals’ habitats diminish. Government officials and forest managers have been trying without much success to strike a balance in the competition for land between people and animals.

Wild elephants kill about 500 people each year in India

None of the fearful villagers had ever heard the Good News of Jesus until one of our pastors visited with them shortly before the larger team arrived. His witness and the receptivity of a few opened the way for the larger team of evangelists to make their recent trek. The team managed to visit every home in the village and by the end of their time there, a new ALG church had been established, with about 500 new believers.

Pastor Maruga has been put in charge of the new church, and since most in the area are illiterate, he has also launched literacy classes for them.

Please pray for these dear new believers, and for Pastor Maruga as he leads and teaches them. The new congregation will celebrate with joy their first real Christmas, but as Christians in a country opposed to the gospel and those sharing it, they also need divine protection.

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Bibles for Mideast establishes its 500th church!

The ministry of Bibles for Mideast reached a milestone recently, establishing its 500th church in Haima, central Oman. That same day, 54 former Muslims were baptized to become new members of this newest church!

Pastor Paul, Director of Bibles for Mideast, travelled from India to lead both the baptismal and dedication services.  Pastor Peter Haneef, President of the Assembly of Loving God churches along with Pastor Musthafa (Overseer of Africa for Bibles for Mideast),  Pastor Muthalib (who oversees the work in the Middle East),  Pastor Khani (who oversees the work in Bangladesh) and many other leaders assisted in the programs. Holy Spirit moved powerfully throughout the services, which included wonderful worship and concluded with a celebration of the Lord's Supper. 

Because of security concerns in this mostly Islamic nation, the dedication service began shortly after midnight on the chosen day. Everyone then boarded three buses for the trip from Haima to the Gulf of Masira in the Arabian Sea. A police van followed the buses for part of the route, but the travellers were relieved when they saw it turn back. Finally reaching the seashore about 3:30 in the morning for the baptism, Pastor Peter Haneef and the others could palpably feel God’s Presence and pleasure.

“Our Lord gave us a very blessed and bright moon light!” Pastor Peter recalls. “It felt like daylight! The sea was calm and quiet. Nobody felt afraid going down to the sea.”

The baptismal candidates reaffirmed their faith in Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior and were baptised. All then knelt down together, praising and thanking the Lord before returning back to the newborn church in Haima. A worship service with the Lord’s Supper followed, with believers from many different ALG (Assembly of Loving God) churches taking part.

Pastor Mubarak and his wife worked long and hard, facing much persecution along the path to establishing this newest Bibles for Mideast church. The couple spend hours meeting people in the street, sharing their own experiences with and in Jesus, and distributing sample gospels. They often face abuse and beatings.

One evening a man brutally dragged Mrs. Mubarek by her hair through the street. Another time, someone grabbed their bibles and sample gospels and set them on fire. When Mrs. Mubarek lay down on the bibles in an attempt to squelch the flames, she was brutally kicked by the attacker. Even so, midst all the persecutions, the Lord rescued even some of the persecutors as He built His new church.

The pastor, his wife, and the growing flock continued in prayer and fasting as the small band of believers multiplied in numbers and power. When healings began to manifest, even more attended. And so the church was born!

We request your prayers for Pastor Mubarek, his family and all the members of this church as they continue to face persecution. We do remember you in our regular prayers as well, and thank you for your support of the ministry.

Muscat, capital city of Oman. Religion in Oman is dominantly Islam as Muslims account for a total of 88% per cent of the entire population

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Can you help? Please click here: BLESSING Bibles for Mideast