Heroes in Hard Places

Posted on April 30, 2019

Have you heard that during April and May a generous supporter will double anything you give? We will give you an update next week on the progress we are making toward our goal of raising $100,000 to train more heroes to change the world. Thank you, thank you, thank you to those who have already given! We are encouraged!

Last week while many of us were celebrating Easter in the security of our congregations, some 250 Christians were brutally murdered in Sri Lanka in their churches. (Christians make up about 7% of the Sri Lankan population, which is mostly Buddhist.) South Asia is not an easy place to be a disciple, and Christian martyrdom is a reality in our modern world. A well-researched and growing body of literature is now emerging on the rise of martyrdom in the global church.*

While Christians are suffering, the gospel is not in retreat! In fact, it is advancing. A few weeks ago, I was traveling with our South Asia Director, Amit Mondal (pictured below), and he gave me a first-hand look at some of the hard places where Global Action is serving. We currently have 287 students in our program in South Asia, and I met students from Bhutan, Nepal, and Bangladesh who are studying so they can return to hard places with the gospel.

And Amit has a much bigger vision. He is currently working on plans for Global Action to raise up even more leaders in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, the Andaman Islands, and hard-to-reach places on the Indian sub-continent. Wow! And there is no fear in this man’s eyes. He’s “not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ.” He’s a man on a mission. In fact, he’s one of my heroes.

This May, I invite you to join my wife and me, along with our Global Action team. Double your gift and help us reach our goal to train more leaders. We will tell you how we are doing, and we will tell you how God is changing lives in the hard places.

Serving our Heroes,

F. Lionel Young III, PhD
Executive Vice President

*See John L. Allen Jr., The Global War on Christians (Image, 2013), Paul Marshal, et al., Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2013) and, for a more scholarly treatment, Michael L. Budde, Witness of the Body: The Past, Present and Future of Christian Martyrdom (Eerdmans, 2011).