Dear Friend of Eurasia,
Gunshots rang outside Bhagya’s home in Sri Lanka late one evening. Her husband burst through the door, followed by men armed with knives and guns. The men proceeded to kill her husband, fulfilling the death threats they had made for months.
Bhagya’s husband was Pastor Supun, who planted the first Assemblies of God church in southern Sri Lanka. As people began coming to Christ, Buddhist extremists fought him for years until finally they took his life.
After Pastor Supun’s death, Bhagya made a promise to God that she would stay in that city, living among the people who killed her husband, in order to continue building the church.
She, too, has received death threats, but she continues to evangelize under God’s protection. Today, more than 1,000 Sri Lankans have come to Christ as a result of Pastor Supun and Bhagya’s ministry.
Sri Lanka, a tropical island nation just off the coast of southern India, is a land of geographical and cultural diversity. Yet despite all this diversity, the people have little tolerance for Christianity.
Persecution remains a threat in Sri Lanka—but it has not stopped the spread of the gospel!
Because of continued opposition, the church in Sri Lanka has been forced to go underground in some areas. It exists primarily in the form of house churches scattered throughout the country.
Christian house church planters are often harassed by non-believers, and their lives are often in danger. Because of this persecution, the leaders of these house churches cannot always attend traditional Bible schools. Instead, they receive pastoral training through online courses uploaded on electronic tablets.
These tablets cost $130. An entire school of ministry is purchased for each tablet at $7.25 per course—and $130 for the full 18 courses.
Will you provide Sri Lankan house church leaders with the tablets by which they can access the training they need to plant churches? And will you supply these tablets with school of ministry courses purchased at $7.25 each?
The Sri Lankan Assemblies of God has a goal to plant 10,000 house churches in Sri Lanka by the year 2020. They can accomplish this through the power of the Holy Spirit and through placing these course-filled tablets in the hands of house church leaders!
Because persecution prohibits a physical building for the school of ministry, these tablets are the only way to train house church planters in Sri Lanka. Your gift of $7.25 per course—or your gift of $130 per tablet—can help grow the church in this spiritually hostile nation!
The tablets will launch the ministry of house church leaders like Ashan, who plants house churches in central Sri Lanka.
“The first time we visited Ashan’s home,” one worker on the ground told me, “every single window was broken. The night before, radical monks surrounded his home, made death treats to his family, and threw rocks at the windows.”
Ashan, his wife, and his sons did not leave their home that night. They stayed and interceded for the protection of their family and the salvation of other villagers. God answered their prayers! Now, eight years later, many other house churches meet weekly throughout their village.
That’s right: one tablet, provided for house church leaders at the cost of only $130, provides them with an entire online school of ministry at $7.25 per course!
Nearly 400 lay leaders like Ashan await tablets containing evangelistic courses—their only chance for ministerial training.
Will you equip Sri Lanka’s house church leaders for planting and leading house churches by supplying them with tablets and with courses for the school of ministry?
Together, we can help the Sri Lankan church reach its goal of planting 10,000 house churches by 2020 by equipping Sri Lankan lay leaders with the tablets and training they need to plant and lead house churches.