Frontline Fellowship missionary, Charl van Wyk was invited this last weekend to speak at a political gathering of those who attacked the St. James Church, Charl was the one who shot back at the terrorists. Here’s his report:

Dear Friends

Imagine being asked by the leader of the terrorist group, which attacked your church, to come to a political rally celebrating his home coming, in his home village! I had met Letlapa Mphahlele several times before – the first time was in Parliament. I also took him to my home church for a Sunday morning service and visited Victor Verster prison with him to share the Gospel with the Azanian People Liberation Army (APLA) terrorist whom I had shot during the St. James Massacre. But this time it was 1700 km from Cape Town, in his home village at a Pan African Congress (PAC) political meeting, surrounded by 1000 PAC adherents who probably saw me as an enemy! (APLA is the military wing of the PAC)

November 2006

Christian Radio station dogged by power cuts, litigation and political battles.

Recently, our team met with the members of the committed Christian radio station, Good News Community Radio (GNCR). Over the last 11 years we have frequently been guests of GNCR and involved in many of their programmes. Over the last several years, GNCR has been fighting a desperate court battle to stay on air. However, on 30 June they were forced by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) to “ vacate the 98FM frequency .”

​The greatest threat to the Church today is presented by Islam. 
The largest block of unreached people (over 1 billion) are Muslims. 
In Africa, over 40% of the population (260 million people) are Muslims. 

Through the ages Islam has been the largest and most vicious opponent and persecutor of Christians. By the tenth century the Muslim armies had annihilated half of all the Christians in the world of that time. Today the Islamic Jihad against Christians continues and the sharpest confrontations between Christianity and Islam in the world are in Africa.

​In response to Charles Carlson of “We Hold These Truths” based in Arizona who has published numerous articles denying the persecution in Sudan and slandering missionaries who are serving the persecuted, we wrote this letter:

Dear Mr Carlson

Greetings in the precious Name of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Some mutual friends forwarded me your article“Why churches in Sudan are not bombed”. While I can only agree that many are abusing the issues in Sudan, especially slavery, in corrupt and disgraceful fund raising scams, I must challenge your assertion that churches in Sudan are not being frequently and deliberately bombed by the government of Sudan Air Force.

​On a recent visit to Zimbabwe, I took my family to visit the site of the old Elim mission station in the Vumba. As so much of my mission work is spent helping persecuted Christians, I wanted to show my children an example of how Christians suffer persecution. I also thought that it might help explain why I must travel away from home so often to serve those suffering for their Faith.

On 23rd June 1978, Marxist terrorists of Mugabe’s ZANLA murdered 9 British missionaries and 4 young children, including a 3 week old baby, at the Elim Mission station. I showed my children the school buildings and we walked onto the field where the missionaries and their children had been herded, then tortured and bayoneted to death.

The tidal waves of protests and riots convulsing capitals throughout the Arab world herald a seismic shift in world politics. More than a million demonstrators on the streets of a single capital, day after day, calling for the resignation of authoritarian leaders, some of whom have been in power for decades, is creating consternation, not only in the Middle East, but throughout the world.

​Are you prepared for persecution?

The Bible warns us: "everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted." 2 Timothy 3:12

Perhaps you will never suffer the vicious and violent persecution which the Christians in Sudan and Nagorno Karabagh are suffering at this time - but if we remain faithful to the Lord then there will be times when we will be misunderstood, slandered, discriminated against, threatened and abused.

Jesus said "If they persecute me, they will persecute you also." John 15:18

​When I heard that there was a new film out on Sudan, The Four Feathers, being set as it was in the dramatic time of the British Expeditiary Force of 1884 to 1885 when General Charles Gordon was being besieged in Khartoum, I was most eager to see it.

I've travelled and ministered throughout Sudan, and have intensively researched the history of Sudan, writing extensively on it. There most certainly is a great need for films to be made of this dramatic and vital period of history. A tremendous amount of heroism was displayed by British forces in the Sudan as the film so effectively shows.

​Much of the decline of the Christian Church has come through the ecumenical movement. Initially this movement sought to bring together the different Christian Churches, but over the years it has shifted its goal beyond the unity of Christians to the unity of mankind. The best known ecumenical body is the World Council of Churches (WCC) which was established in 1948 at a conference of 147 Protestant, Anglican, and Orthodox representatives. Since then, the WCC has grown to "348 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other Churches representing more than 560 million Christians in over 110 countries." 1)

​The ZANU-PF government of Zimbabwe has turned on churches and pastors in a campaign to clamp down on prayers for justice.

Over the last months, various church prayer meetings have been dispersed by police. Government officials claimed that these prayer meetings had been “convened without (their) permission” and “in violation of the security laws.”

Rev. Sony Chimbuya, of the Church of Christ in Masivingo, and a former senior official of the Zimbabwe Council of Churches, was summonsed by plain clothes police and interrogated as to why he was praying “anti-government prayers.”