I S S U E 1 4 9 M A R C H 2 0 1 6

GLOBAL

IN THIS ISSUE:

PAGE 2 The miraculous moment someone hears and embraces the gospelPAGE 4 When the Holy Spirit brings the pieces together to reach one lost sheep . . . PAGE 6 Our God gives the increase: Andrew is a missionary today because of missionaries

THE MYSTERY OF THE GOSPEL, MADE KNOWN

2 GLOBAL MARCH 2016

THE CALL

WHAT PART WOULD HE HAVE YOU PLAY?

A MIRACULOUS MOMENT . . . SOMEONE HEARS AND EMBRACES THE GOSPEL!

» Please PRAY Please stand with SIM in continuing to pray for Nepal.

Pray the Nepali people are strengthened as they struggle to rebuild

Pray that Nepali Christians serving at Mercy Clinic share spiritual hope and physical healing in the region

Pray that SIM missionaries and projects in Nepal reveal Jesus’ love into the hardships the Nepali people face

Please join us also in praying over these requests from around the world.

Pray Bingham Academy in Ethiopia finds the staff it needs

Pray the trauma healing ministries in Liberia and other parts of the world continue to bring relief to those suffering deep heart wounds

Pray God continues to bless the ministry of the Eleventh Hour Network as members evangelize among Muslims in Africa

Pray for the protection of missionaries among Muslims and for the encouragement of Muslim background believers

» Please GIVEDid you know that when you support SIM USA, you help push these ministries even further? Above and beyond the support you provide to missionaries, gifts to SIM help provide the critical tools, training, and field

support they need to minister most effectively. Please prayerfully consider making a generous contribution to SIM today!

» Please GODoes the very thought of carving out a path, pioneering a trail, and transforming the future of unreached people groups fill you with excitement? SIM is looking for qualified applicants willing to carry the gospel to unreached areas of the globe. Is this you? Visit SIMUSA.org/go.

How does it happen? How does a teenage boy who was lost, running far away from Jesus, come to embrace Him as Lord and Savior and grow strong in his faith? How does a demon-possessed man, who had never heard of Jesus, find freedom in His name and come to believe that He is the way, the truth, and the life?

These are just two of the many stories you’ll find in this issue of SIM Global, showing that God’s power in transforming a heart is nothing short of miraculous. He wipes away our sin, shatters our unbelief, and frees us from darkness. Then He freely pours into us a new life in Jesus.

And in His mysterious, perfect plan, He uses us to spread this good news. Your prayers and giving, missionaries’ living among a people, and SIM’s training and ministry support are all tools in God’s hand as He completes His work in the world.

Of course, there are barriers and hardships. Missionaries encounter many obstacles in sharing the gospel—language barriers, crises in the field, crises back home, even spiritual and emotional discouragement. But when you support SIM, you help provide the

training, crisis support, and ministry care that keep missionaries on the field, proclaiming the good news.

I’ll admit, things like training, logistics, and communication don’t sound very exciting or glorious. But the missionaries you support depend on these vital tools to spread “the knowledge of Him everywhere.”

Together, we can seize these God-given opportunities to share the love of Jesus Christ.

Be encouraged as you read this issue of SIM Global, and find how God, in mystery and majesty, brings all the pieces together to the miraculous moment when someone hears and embraces the gospel!

Your partner in mission,

BRUCE JOHNSON President SIM USA

“BUT THANKS BE TO GOD, WHO ALWAYS LEADS US AS CAPTIVES IN CHRIST’S TRIUMPHAL PROCESSION AND USES US TO SPREAD THE AROMA OF THE

KNOWLEDGE OF HIM EVERYWHERE.” —2 CORINTHIANS 2:14 NIV

3

In a long-unreached area of Africa, where Islam controls everything, Christians have suffered intense persecution. Islamic extremists are recruiting youth into the local terrorist group, while moral degradation and immorality in the community are yielding broken and dysfunctional families.

Yet here, now, God is powerfully at work! Our Eleventh Hour Network is leading people to faith in Jesus Christ, by the grace of God.

More than 50 young adults have joined the Eleventh Hour Network mission team—God is miraculously raising up believers from among the Muslim population to reach their own people. Your prayers and support are providing discipleship and evangelism training, sending them out to preach Jesus.

Our Eleventh Hour Network team was invited by local Muslim leaders to hold an interreligious peace dialogue in their community. This was the first meeting of its kind in this area, and many people had the opportunity to hear the gospel.

The team met several secret Muslim background believers and encouraged them in their relationship with Jesus Christ. One of them, Afiq, boldly welcomed our team into his home to share with his family. There we met his brother, Ahmad.

Ahmad shared his heartbreaking story of suffering years of demonic oppression. He’d tried everything. He’d even sought help from witch doctors and sheiks—including a ritual where they’d sacrificed several goats on his behalf—all to no avail. The haunting continued. Ahmad and his family were desperate and crying out for relief.

Our team shared the gospel with them. We shared passages of Scripture where Jesus confronted evil spirits and commanded them to leave. We prayed with Afiq for his brother’s deliverance. We prayed for God to intervene powerfully.

Hallelujah! He did! Ahmad gave his life to Jesus and was delivered from the oppression that very night! His countenance changed right before our very eyes. It was evident to us all—he’d been set free! And that’s not all. When neighbors heard what happened, eight more people came to hear the gospel for the first time! Afiq, Ahmad, and their family—and now even some of their neighbors—are testaments to the love and power of Jesus Christ in their community.

DELIVERED FROM THE DARKNESS

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These courageous Christian workers call themselves the “Eleventh Hour Network” because they know the time is short, but the

opportunity to share the gospel with Muslims right now is great!

MUSLIM BACKGROUND BELIEVERS NOW PREACH THE GOSPEL

4 GLOBAL MARCH 2016

Missionaries may be ministering on the other side of the world, but they are never alone. Jon Banke experienced all the pieces of the SIM missionary community coming together for another believer to be added to the kingdom.

The Banke family has ministered for years among the Fulani people in Niger. There, Jon got a glimpse behind the scenes of how God works, revealing just how much it takes for one lost sheep to hear the gospel.

Jon met a Christian group in Niger on their way to minister alongside a group of Tuareg believers in a small Tuareg village. They invited Jon to join them. Although he doesn’t speak Tuareg, Jon agreed to go. The team encountered a Fulani man there—and Jon was the only one on the team who could communicate with him.

“This man and I were having a great conversation, getting to know one another. Then suddenly, I felt the Holy Spirit say to me, ‘Ask him if he wants to hear the good news.’ I was hesitant at first. In fact,

I was really nervous. I sort of argued with God—this wasn’t the best setting, surely there was a better plan. The Holy Spirit persisted, ‘Now!’ So I asked . . . and the man said ‘Yes!’”

Later, Jon learned what was happening behind the scenes. The Bankes’ supporting church in Washington maintains a calendar, praying on different days of the week for different missionaries in the field. On the Saturday he was speaking with the Fulani man, Jon was the one on the prayer list back home. What’s more, he learned a group met to pray for him that Saturday at 9 a.m. “Allowing for the time difference,” Jon realized, “they were praying for me at the very moment I felt led to ask him, ‘Do you want to hear the good news?’”

Years later, after Jon, his support team, and SIM had prayed for the Fulani man, Jon met him again. He had believed and received Jesus Christ!

God had assembled a full team around the world laboring that this man might believe. “We’ve always appreciated SIM’s sense of family and community,”

WHEN THEHoly Spirit intervenes HOW THE PIECES COME TOGETHER

FOR ONE LOST SHEEP

A group of Fulani men studies the Bible with another SIM missionary, Tim Eckert.

5GLOBAL MARCH 2016

Jon said. “The network of missionaries and ministries on the field provides support, and also opportunity.”

God brought all of the pieces together: A missionary’s willingness to go, a financial support team that sent the Bankes to Niger, the prayers of the church, and training and support from SIM that prepared the Bankes for their work. Out of the opportunity the Holy Spirit orchestrated, the prayers of the sending church and supporters all converged, and someone who had never heard the good news of Jesus Christ before . . . now believes!

It’s no coincidence. This is how our God works.

“BUT YOU WILL RECEIVE POWER WHEN

THE HOLY SPIRIT COMES ON YOU;

AND YOU WILL BE MY WITNESSES IN

JERUSALEM, AND IN ALL JUDEA AND

SAMARIA, AND TO THE ENDS OF THE

EARTH.” —ACTS 1:8 NIV

The Banke family has ministered together among the Fulani people in Niger and Benin, serving in administration, teaching, and personal ministries with Fulani Christians and Muslims.

6 GLOBAL MARCH 2016

A Priceless Heritage . . .Andrew is a missionary today . . . because of missionaries.

Andrew Onguka’s grandfather was spiritually lost when missionaries visited his Kenyan village. They shared the gospel and discipled new believers—including his grandfather—and now, three generations later, Andrew himself is a missionary.

“I’m fortunate because I was discipled by my grandfather,” Andrew says. “I was able to watch him up close. He was the same person in private and in public. I have a heritage I can’t even put a price tag on.”

Today Andrew and his wife Stephanie run OneLife Africa, a discipleship program for young people in Andrew’s native Kenya. They see firsthand why discipleship is essential and cannot be neglected if we want to see lives and communities transformed for Jesus Christ.

“Eight-five percent of Kenyans identify as Christians,” Stephanie explains. “They’ve heard the gospel. They’ve been saved ten times! It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s impacted the way they live or if they’re truly following Christ. That’s why discipleship is so important.”

Andrew gives an example—a young man who recently came to faith in Jesus Christ through their ministry. “Janus is 14, new in his faith, and unable to defend his beliefs. In Kenya he is vulnerable. Groups like al Shabaab are actively recruiting teens. That’s what they do—they train their people to

target young Christians in the schools before they get their feet under them.”

Andrew noticed some suspicious activity on Janus’s Facebook page and a dangerous pattern in his social interactions. He was able to intervene in time, teaching him to follow Jesus alone. Today, Janus is being discipled, growing strong in his faith.

“This is what’s at risk,” Stephanie says. “New converts and new believers need receptive churches where they can grow, thrive, and become disciple-makers themselves. Churches where younger believers can watch mature believers, up close and in person—to learn how faith is put into practice. To learn what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ.”

To God’s glory, the story comes full circle—just as it did in Andrew’s own life. “As our students who are being discipled go back to school and start to witness,” he explains, “others are coming to be discipled.”

One sows, another waters—our God gives the increase!

BECAUSE OF A MISSIONARY’S OBEDIENCE

OneLife Africa provides scholarships and mentoring to academically talented students who otherwise could not afford to continue into high school.

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Meet Andrew and Stephanie OngukaAndrew grew up in a rural village near Kisumu, Kenya. Stephanie grew up in Damascus, MD. They met on a church-based mission trip to Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya, in 2005. They were married in 2006.

Your giving to SIM provides training, logistics, and support for missionaries like Andrew and Stephanie. Your support helps connect missionaries to ministry opportunities on the field, cares for them in times of emergency, and provides ongoing spiritual and family care.

“We had some challenges [in ministry]. But because we are with SIM, we are confident somebody has done this elsewhere, someone has been through this before. It is helpful to know we can voice our issues and our concerns, be heard, and be cared for. They have our backs.” —Andrew Onguka

Through discipleship, student leaders learn to apply the gospel to broken families and communities, practicing forgiveness and reconciliation.

“IN THE SAME WAY, LET YOUR LIGHT SHINE

BEFORE OTHERS, THAT THEY MAY SEE YOUR

GOOD DEEDS AND GLORIFY YOUR FATHER

IN HEAVEN.” —MATTHEW 5:16 NIV

PO Box 7900, Charlotte, NC 28241-7900 1-800-521-6449 SIMUSA.org SIM0389NL1

for your generous giving towards the many ministries in our Gift Catalog. It’s a blessing to share these updates on where your gifts are making a difference in people’s lives. Responding to need, Proclaiming the gospel, and Equipping the Church.YOU BANGLADESH BIBLE CORRESPONDENCE SCHOOLThe Word of God is unstoppable. Your gifts to BBCS are spreading God’s truth to a multitude who need to know Him. Shohag is one of our Bible students who comes from the northern part of the country. He began a ministry in his hometown, and hundreds of people have gathered there—they’ve started one church and will soon plant another.

BEAUTY FOR ASHES RESTORATION HOME IN INDIAThrough your support, young women who have been broken, suffered abuse, and lost hope are given an opportunity to start their lives afresh. Seven women have recently arrived—seven women who’ve found a safe place to be healed, find freedom from their past, and learn to follow Jesus.

CLEAN WATER IN BANGLADESHThrough your donations of water filters and test kits, we have been able to bring clean water to many living in danger of arsenic poisoning. Staff members, former Muslims who have come to faith in Christ, are actively sharing their faith through the program. One of these new believers recently asked to be baptized!

FOREST, FRUITS, AND FORAGE FOR FARM FAMILIES IN ETHIOPIAGod is good! Visiting local farms, we see a marked increase in production. Our area is now known as “the fruit producing area of northern Ethiopia.” Even more exciting, farmers and their families are opening their hearts to the gospel. Please pray God gives us more opportunities to share the good news.

HOPE DENTAL CLINIC & ORAL SCRIPTURE EVANGELISM IN PERUThanks to your support, 18 mobile clinics were provided last year in remote Quechua villages. Recently we ministered in Majuni, a town that had no church and no believers. In one evangelistic service—five families came to accept Christ!

God is at work through your gifts!

The updates we’ve shared, and the stories you’ve read in this issue of SIM Global, were accomplished by God’s grace through the sacrificial generosity of faithful friends like you. THANK YOU!

THANK