The Shepherd's Staff, World MAP's

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DigOct08:DigJul05 10/8/2008 2:14 PM Page 12 "World MAP Has Trained You Very Well" World MAP’s Pakistan publications manager Alexander Sarfraz has grown and benefited from the 13 years of service he has given to World MAP. A former employee of an engineering firm, Brother Sarfraz chose to devote more of his life to ministry work after serving as a translator on the Urdu version of The Shepherd’s Staff. “I completed it in three years,” he says of the translation project. “I think it was God’s plan and way to bring us into fulltime ministry.” Today he coordinates the printing and mailing of the Urdu Shepherd’s Staff, as well as the translation, printing and mailing of the Urdu edition of ACTS Magazine. “The ministry has also blessed me and my family a lot,” he says. “I have become a full-time Gospel preacher. Different churches and para-churches invite me to deliver sermons, as a seminar speaker, and as a chief guest in their programmes.” He recalls with fondness one seminar in the northern part of Pakistan where he was one of two speakers addressing a group of 50 participants. His topic was “God’s Plan of Salvation”. Sarfraz turned to ACTS and The Shepherd’s Staff to prepare his material, and was pleased when one participant later told him, “World MAP has trained you very well.” Sarfraz listens to God’s voice when making ministry decisions. Twice he was offered jobs in churches; but he refused them, he explains, “because I don’t have calling of pastor.” Because World MAP is an interdenominational They Learn By Lantern... Overjoyed To Have The Shepherd’s Staff One pastor in Ghana says he has a vision similar to that of World MAP. “It was my vision to set up a Bible school program which could support young missionaries in their desire to share God’s Word over the world,” Rev. Kwame Darkwa recently wrote. Step by step, he said, the Lord led him. Today he is training 24 students for the mission field – and the number is set to grow. Today, his Bible Institute continues to make progress both in Israel and Ghana! Recently, three of his African students received The Shepherd’s Staff and “they were overjoyed!” said Darkwa. “Many thanks for your love, prayers and support. These young ministers are sharing wonderful testimonies of what God is doing in their lives.” Medie, a town in southern Ghana, is home to the Sar Shalom Congregation, where the pastor oversees a congregation of 70 people. Although his new auditorium is still being built, he said “the Shepherd’s Staff is helping bring LIGHT into the places of darkness.” Local medical school students have also been training for missions as well as medicine, and Brother Kwame worked with World MAP to see that they also received a copy of the Shepherd’s Staff. “These young people have a heart for missions both in Ghana and the world,” he said. “They have applied themselves to months of hard study. The Shepherd’s Staff ministerial manual will be a key tool in their desire to spread the Gospel of God’s forgiveness and righteousness by faith in Yeshua the Messiah.” “They learn by lantern but are overjoyed to have at their disposal The Shepherd’s Staff,” he wrote. “Thank you so much for these precious items. Please keep them coming. Your love and support is expanding the Kingdom and is very much needed! Blessings to you!” WMAP 12 • WORLD MAP DIGEST Brother Sarfraz presents The Shepherd’s Staff to Pastor Albert in Karachi, as Bishop Bashir Mall looks on. At right, Alex and Amina Sarfraz. organization, Sarfraz says God is providing him with “many opportunities to witness among Muslims, Hindus and national Christians.” “If I had been a worker or pastor of any denomination, churches and other communities would have not invited me to speak in their gatherings,” he points out. “I want to follow Jesus daily so that I become like Him and serve Him with the humble spirit of a child till death. May God use me to expand His Kingdom in Pakistan to bringing many people far and near to Him.” In addition to other challenges, economic problems are pervasive in his country, and Sarfraz asks that World MAP supporters join him and his wife, Amina, in praying for the economic condition of Pakistan and its people. WMAP
DigOct08:DigJul05 10/8/2008 2:15 PM Page 13 Praying for the World Join the World MAP Prayer Corps as we circle the globe with intercession for the advance of God’s Kingdom. ZIMBABWE: WASHING AWAY THE CHAFF Population: 12,382,920 50% professing Christianity while holding to native superstition 25% Christian 24% spiritist, ancestor-worshipping 1% Muslim, Hindu, other Chief of State of the Republic of Zimbabwe: Executive President Zimbabwe Robert Gabriel Mugabe (since 1987; Prime Minister 1980-1987) Vice President: Joseph Msika Vice President: Joyce Mujuru Commissioner General of the Zimbabwe Republic Police: Augustine Chihuri Life expectancy: 40 years Zimbabwean dollar inflation rate: estimated 4,000,000% The wrong lesson: Robert Mugabe, who has dominated his landlocked country since its violent transformation in 1979 from Rhodesia, a British colony, into Zimbabwe (meaning “houses of stone”), spent 10 years as a political prisoner under British rule. While incarcerated, he earned degrees in law and administration via correspondence courses from universities in London and South Africa. He also learned to despise white European colonialism – with, many believe, a bitterly racist intensity. Yet his hatred is not limited to color-prejudice. While quelling a 1980 uprising, his North Korean-trained 5th Brigade – an elite unit under his direct command, independent of the normal Zimbabwean Army hierarchy – massacred 20,000 civilians of the minority Ndebele tribe (Mugabe being of the majority Shona). Mugabe termed his campaign to quell the uprising gukurahundi – Shona for “the early rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains”. Chaff is indeed how Mugabe seems to view any opposition or dissent, and his national police are infamous for their cold brutality. PRAY FOR: • Economic relief for the suffering people of Zimbabwe. • A reformed government that tolerates dissent and encourages free political debate. • True regeneration among Zimbabweans professing Christianity, with the chaff of religious syncretism peacefully washed away. UNREACHED PEOPLE GROUP The SILVER PALAUNG of MYANMAR Home: Rugged, well-watered Shan State in eastern Myanmar (Burma). Population: 20,000 Religion: Buddhism, with a strong undercurrent of spiritism. Dark tyranny: The Palaung have five traditional enemies: fire, famine, flood, pestilence… and government. War, civil strife, strong-arm rulership and dark political intrigue have plagued Burma for centuries. The Palaung traditionally look to a far darker governance: nats, malevolent spirits they believe inhabit rocks, mountains, rivers, other natural objects and dead ancestors – spirits that must be repeatedly appeased to hold back the floodgates of calamity. The “silver” in “Silver Palaung” refers to heavy silver hoops Palaung women wear around the waist, supposedly for spiritual protection. PRAY FOR: • A joyful Gospel witness in this fear-infested spiritual landscape. • The Myanmar government to become a shining outpost of benevolence. • Wide dissemination of Scripture, the pure silver found only in the Word of God (Ps 12:6). WORLD MAP DIGEST • 13
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