The Greatest Story Ever Told...Keeps Getting Told

One of the exciting aspects of hosting The Meeting House radio program on Faith Broadcasting each weekday afternoon is to trace the hand of God at work around the world. One of my consistently intriguing guests brought back a first-hand report of observing the growth of the church in the nation of Iraq, plus on the blog site of a ministry he founded, he showed how people are coming to Christ in phenomenal numbers across the Middle East.

Joel Rosenberg is an author of nail-biting, page-turning fiction that it set in the future and revolves around Biblical prophecy. His titles include, The Last Jihad, The Ezekiel Option, and his latest, Dead Heat. He is the Founder and President of The Joshua Fund, which is designed to minister in Israel and the Middle East. You can go the the blog site at joshuafund.blogspot.com and read the March 23 (Easter Sunday) entry and prepared to be inspired. Here are some of staggering and inspiring statistics, according to the Joshua Fund blog:

Afghanistan. In that nation, there were only 17 known evangelical Christians in the country before al-Qaeda attacked the United States. Today, there are well over 10,000 Afghan followers of Christ and the number is growing steadily. Church leaders say Afghan Muslims are open to hearing the gospel message like never
before.

Uzbekistan. There were no known Muslim converts to Christ there in 1990. Now there are more than 30,000.

Iraq. There were only a handful of Muslim converts to Christianity back in 1979 when Saddam Hussein took full control of that country. Yet today, there are more than 70,000 Iraqi Muslim background believers in Jesus (MBBs), approximately 50,000 who came to Christ as refugees in Jordan after the first Gulf War in 1990-91, and another 20,000 who have come to Christ since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Kazakhstan. In Kazakhstan, there were only three known evangelical Christian believers before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Today there are more than 15,000 Kazakh Christians, and more than 100,000 Christians of all ethnicities.

Egypt. More than 1 million Egyptians have trusted Christ over the past decade or so, report Egyptian church leaders. The Egyptian Bible Society report that they used to sell about 3,000 copies of the Jesus film a year in the early 1990s. But in 2005 they sold 600,000 copies, plus 750,000 copies of the Bible on tape (in Arabic) and about a half million copies of the Arabic New Testament.

Iran. In 1979 when the Ayatollah Khomeini led the Islamic Revolution, there were only about 500 known Muslim converts to Christianity. Today, interviews with two dozen Iranian pastors and church leaders reveals that there are well over 1 million Shia Muslim converts to Christianity.

Sudan. According to church leaders, more than 1 million Sudanese have made decisions to follow Jesus Christ just since 2001. Since the early 1990s, more than 5 million Sudanese have become followers of Jesus.

Joel Rosenberg's website is http://www.joelrosenberg.com/ and the Joshua Fund site is http://www.joshuafund.net/.