“Jesus is my life,” says 60-year-old Badar, who is not giving up on his call, despite rejection and ridicule.

by Sarah Stone

Sixty-year-old Badar was a witch doctor before he met Jesus. He’s animated as he speaks. Clearly passionate and full of life. Asia-CMS partner Raj says he loves working with Badar for this very reason.

“Knowing God is the greatest joy of my life,” says Badar. “Knowing that he is the creator who created everything, who sustains us with the fruits and the vegetables that come out of the ground, and also that all parts of our bodies are created by him – that gives me joy.”

Badar is leading a small church in his village in remote, rural Nepal. He’s faced a lot of opposition from his community for choosing to follow Jesus, but Jesus is someone he’s unwilling to give up.

After faithfully following Jesus for 15 years, Badar is seeing some of those who ridiculed him come to know Jesus for themselves.

Faith out of desperation

It was in a time of desperation that Badar came to faith. His son was sick, and there was no treatment. “We went to doctors, [other] witch doctors, shamans, Buddhist priests – and we didn’t get any cure,” he says. “Then somebody from Beautiful Gate church told me about Jesus and the healing we could receive.”

Beautiful Gate is a church set up by and for people with disabilities. Pastor Adhikari was paralysed in 1984 when he fell from a tree while collecting fodder for his animals.

After the accident, he and his wife were ostracised from their community because of stigmas around disability in Nepal. Forty years on, they’re leading a thriving church, welcoming people of all disabilities and none to worship Jesus with them.

A new purpose

Badar found help for his son at Beautiful Gate church. But he also found his new purpose for living.

“Before coming to Christ, I had a lot of anxiety, I had a lot of pain, struggles in my heart and life,” he says. “But after coming to Christ, those things started to cease for me, and it was a kind of new way of life compared to my ancestors’.

“I was trained for 40 days at Beautiful Gate, and also for a month in India.” Through this training, Badar was equipped to minister to others.

Over the years, some of those who have found Jesus at Beautiful Gate church have planted daughter churches back in their home communities. Badar leads one of these seven churches, supported by Asia-CMS partner Raj.

“Brother Raj comes to our church from time to time, and he encourages us,” says Badar. “He shares the Word with us, and his presence is very encouraging in my ministry.”

Vital encouragement

Having encouragement is so important for pastors like Badar, who are outnumbered and can face a lot of opposition. Less than 2 per cent of Nepal’s population are Christians, and in remote areas the percentage is even lower.

Life for these Christians is increasingly challenging, with anti-conversion laws making it more difficult and dangerous to share Jesus.

In remote villages, Pastor Raj says Christians and their God are often blamed when something bad happens. “Many people come against us and there are lots of challenges,” says Raj.

“Many times people do not allow us to do the fellowship. [When someone in the family is a believer,] if anything happens to the family, they blame God. That is one of the big challenges our leaders face…. It is a huge pressure we are feeling.”

Badar says he hasn’t experienced any extreme persecution, but the stories he tells us show that he has faced rejection and ridicule for his faith in Jesus.

He describes how people have challenged him: “They say, ‘Why are you bringing this? These people are unholy…. So don’t come to us.’ It’s rare for people of my faith background to come to Christ.

“People have talked behind my back. They have ridiculed me for my faith in Jesus. They misunderstand me, and they accuse me, saying that I have followed this path for the sake of money – they claim that I follow Jesus because I get dollars. But no, it’s not that and I’ll continue on this path despite the ridicule that I face.”

“God has a time for everything”

Fifteen years into his ministry, Badar has seen miracles – and a few of those who mocked him for his Christian faith have come to know Jesus.

“Those people who have ridiculed me and rejected my message, two of them have come to know the Lord. One of them was a witch doctor like me, and now he has also taken baptism. So it seems God has a time for everything.” Badar says it’s important to be a living, loving witness for Jesus and to trust God to work in people’s hearts.

“I feel blessed when these people come to know Christ, and I see the change. I come to realise that we just need to trust in the living Word of God, and when we trust in that, things happen.”

Following Jesus and trusting he will work in his time and his way is challenging for all of us. But in a context like Nepal, it’s even tougher. Does Badar ever feel like giving up? Maybe surprisingly, he doesn’t. Why? Because, in his words: “Jesus is my life.”

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If you met Amit, you’d never know he was once a professional dancer and sought-after choreographer on a path to fame and fortune.

By Sarah Stone

This gentle young man is nervous and shaking as he begins sharing his story – how he found Jesus as a child raised in a different faith, almost lost him, and then found him again.

Now, facing financial challenges and the political and cultural pressures of being a Christian in a country that’s increasingly hostile to evangelism, 28-year-old Amit has one desire – to fulfil God’s vision. In pursuit of that goal, Amit is learning all he can about the Bible at a CMS partner college.

Here Amit shares in his own words why he sacrificed his dance career for the one thing he’ll never give up – Jesus.

The start of my faith journey – drums

My name is Amit and I am from the midwestern part of Nepal. My family were worshipping various gods and goddesses. When I was nine years old, my cousin took me to Sunday School. My mother didn’t stop me going to church because she had seen that [the Christian children] were so good in behaviour.

When I arrived there, I felt so good because there are many friends like me, and I saw they were singing, playing guitar, playing drums – and I had never seen that before. To be honest, I saw the drums, and I liked them so much. It was because of the drums I went to church.

After keeping going, one day I felt the conviction of the Holy Spirit that Jesus Christ is the Lord and only one Saviour of my life. I was convicted that I have to accept him.

A difficult decision: fame or faith

But after I came to faith, I became a professional dancer, and I also used to do choreography. Dance took me far from my Jesus.

One day during 2019, when I was 23, I heard a voice, the Holy Spirit, and that voice told me, “Amit, I love you more than your mother.” My mother loves me more than any other person loves me, so for the Holy Spirit to say he loves me more than even my mother, it shocked me. From that day, I quit dance.

Dance was my profession where I could earn money for me and my family. My dance group performed on many big stages, and we earned so much money and fame. So at that time, the thought came in my mind, “What will be your future? You have just one profession, one gift, one talent from which you can earn money.” And that used to kill me inside. So I thought, “I’ll go back to dance and just earn some money. And then I’ll come to Jesus again.”

All sorts of thoughts came inside me. But the Holy Spirit said to me, “No, you are not chosen for entertaining people. You are chosen to save the people.” So that voice provoked me to stay stable in faith.

Now I have only one desire, only one passion, only one vision – that I want to fulfil his vision. I want to be living evidence that proves Jesus Christ is still alive and there is power in the blood of Jesus.

Discovering more of Jesus

I wanted to know Jesus more, and I came to know that through his Word I can know him. But when I tried to find him through the Bible, I understood nothing, because there are so many things about Israel, about a different culture. So many parables I didn’t understand. So I decided to come to theological college to know Jesus through the Bible. I’m studying the Bible, and I’m getting closer towards him every day.

I’m living by faith. Now I’m in Bible college, I’m not earning money – I’m giving money for my study. So God is my provision.

This is not just a college, it’s a family. I’m going to remember every teacher, every friend and all the teachings. [Asia-CMS partners at the college] are doing so much. A lot of things I have learned, not just from their teaching, but from their life. They are really a good mentor for all the students, they are giving their 100 per cent day and night.

Whatever I have learned here, I want to teach to my people. First, I plan to go to my church, that church who really prayed for me and who taught me about Jesus. I want to go back to my church, and I want to teach whatever I have learned, and I want to serve.

I know that my community will not appreciate me, because in my community I think there are only three or four houses who are in faith out of more than 300 houses. But I believe that God will work through me in my community. I think that’s why I am here in Bible college.

My whole family, my father, my mother and my one elder sister, also came to Jesus Christ after five years. I prayed for them. [They saw my faith.] But it’s not of my effort. I can say it’s God’s grace. We all are saved, and we all are in faith.

I’m so happy and I really thank my Lord Jesus Christ. He didn’t just choose me, but he also chose my family. He saved my family. There are so many relatives who still haven’t accepted Jesus as their Lord and Saviour, but I believe that he again will show his mercy.

“I have no fear”

In our Nepali context, it’s hard, because Nepal is a majority Hindu country. There are around 33 million gods and goddesses Nepali people worship. In the midst of this, we few Christians are living. It’s culturally difficult and it’s politically also difficult. It’s so hard, but we know that God works in the hard situations.

I don’t have any kind of fear to tell people that Jesus Christ is my Saviour and Lord. Every morning at 4am I come to the chapel to pray for the people of Nepal. I feel the Holy Spirit is always nearby. I always feel his presence. The Holy Spirit is my teacher, my senior partner, my best friend. He is the reason that I am alive.

When I left dance my friends used to call me and want me to go back, because I was a good dancer, a good choreographer. Still now they want me on stage for the money. But I didn’t turn back. And I’ll not go.

In my testimony, there is one hero, and he’s Jesus Christ.

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The war in South Sudan had come closer and closer, until one day Lilias saw her brother’s daughter shot in front of her.

by Camilla Lloyd

Now Lilias knew it wasn’t safe for her family to stay in Kaya, South Sudan. She went home, gathered her four children and her husband and they left.

There was no time to take anything with them – the family left with just the clothes on their backs and fled towards the Uganda border.

In the confusion of their escape, one of Lilias’s children got lost in the bush. Not knowing whether she would see her child again was almost more than a mother’s heart could bear.

But Lilias and the rest of the family had no choice – their only hope was to keep running towards the border with Uganda.

The rest of the family made it to safety and were taken to a refugee camp, but it was two weeks before Lilias was reunited with her lost child.

Trapped in trauma

In the refugee camp, things got worse before they got better. Lilias and her family were kept in a war zone by their own memories.

Things they had seen and heard in South Sudan went round and round in their minds as if being played on a loop. Repressed memories could be triggered at any time, suddenly causing flashbacks and retraumatising them.

Even while sleeping, Lilias and her family weren’t safe from reliving the trauma they had suffered. War broke into their dreams and immersed them in gunfire and bloodshed once again.

Lilias and her family had been driven from their homeland and the trauma they had suffered meant they were barely surviving.

Lilias drank more and more, trying to numb her pain. But the drinking made her treat her family badly; she couldn’t drink and still be a good wife and mother. Her marriage was already difficult, now things were getting worse. Lilias didn’t know what to do or where to turn for help.

Things got so bad that she tried to end it all – but a lady called Grace stopped her. Grace told her about the hope Jesus offers, and invited Lilias to a trauma healing group.

In the trauma healing sessions, Lilias and the others read the Bible and learned about Jesus. Lilias could feel that people in the group cared about her and over time, she felt safe enough to share her trauma and begin to work through it.

Through the sessions, Lilias found the strength to stop smoking and drinking. She accepted Jesus into her heart.

Today, Lilias is happy, full of smiles, because through Jesus, she has found peace. “Now I am alive.”

Forgiveness is the key

Lilias believes she and her family may be able to return home one day. She believes peace in South Sudan is possible. How? In her own words, “The only way we can have peace in South Sudan is if we forgive one another.”

One of her favourite Bible verses is Colossians 3:13: “Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”

Because of Jesus, Lilias was able to work through her trauma and forgive others, even those who shot her brother’s daughter in front of her.

Because of Jesus, Lilias is alive today.

Because of Jesus, peace is possible.

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In northern Uganda, hundreds of acres of what used to be jungle is now home to around one million refugees spread across a number of refugee camps. Many of these refugees have been here for six or seven years, or even longer. Each of them has a tragic story of leaving South Sudan.

When the war began at the end of 2013, many communities descended into anarchy as different tribes fought each other. Children were drafted in as soldiers, women were raped, men were killed. Over the next few years, many ran for their lives to Uganda.

Betty remembers running from gunfire with her brother and his children. Betty’s brother looked back and was shot down. Betty kept running with his children and they made it to the border, where they were taken to a refugee camp.

Lilias’s niece was shot in front of her. Lilias went home and gathered her four children and they set off on foot towards the border. There was no time to take anything with them.

Hellen’s father was killed in the war in 2014. She found her way to the border by following strangers along the road – she didn’t have any family left.

There are one million more stories like theirs.

Leaving war behind, but carrying its effects

In the refugee camp, people are safe from the war, but their suffering stays with them. “Everyone is traumatised,” says Satimon about people arriving in the camps. Satimon is a facilitator of Bible-based trauma healing first trialled in 2018 as church leaders saw how trauma affected refugees’ daily lives.

At night, gunfire haunted them and they dreamed about the husbands, wives, brothers, sisters and children they had lost. During the day, they feared they would one day be killed by bullets too. This is what it looks like to live with trauma.

Many people also felt justifiably angry towards those who killed their loved ones. Weighed down by their trauma and hatred, people couldn’t live in peace with each other. For adults, in many cases, this leads to domestic violence, alcohol and substance abuse and sometimes suicide. In one camp, they lost six people to suicide, and there have been many more attempts besides.

According to Nimaya Badi Joseph, one of the children’s workers in the camps, children in the refugee camps act up, doing whatever they want, and their parents are unable to control them.

Finding hope in darkness

Betty, who escaped the war with her brother’s children, couldn’t move on from the fact that her brother had been killed. She lived with terrible pain in her heart and became very thin, wasting away through bitterness towards those who had killed him.

One day, someone gave her a small black device, about the size of a phone. This, she discovered, was a digital audio player (DAP), and it played Bible stories such as the story of Joseph being sold into slavery and later forgiving his brothers. Betty was also invited to a trauma healing group, where she could open up and talk about her trauma when she was ready. Through meeting Jesus, spending time in God’s Word, sharing with others and actively working at forgiveness, she has found God’s healing and now has peace in her heart. She has even been able to forgive those who killed her brother, and others can see the difference in her. She has returned to a healthy weight.

Many others like Betty have needed or still need trauma healing. According to CMS local partner Sam Malish, trauma healing is one of the greatest needs in the camps.

Following training with New Hope, Sam began the first trauma healing group in Satimon’s church in one of the refugee camps in 2018. The model is simple – the group meets together weekly and learns one Bible story (that they can later teach others orally), beginning with the story of Joseph.

Each of the stories in the programme focuses on someone in the Bible who faced trauma and looks at how God met that person in their trauma. Sam and other Christian leaders in the camps also distribute DAPs, which play all the same Bible stories. Following growing demand, they have also started playing the recordings through loudspeakers in the camps.

Identifying with the characters through hearing and acting out the Bible stories helps people process what they have been through and meet God in their trauma.

Members of trauma healing groups are also invited to a powerful healing activity where they can write their heartache on paper and commit it to God. The pieces of paper are burned as a symbol of repentance, showing that the old has gone and the new has come. When asked how it feels, Hellen, who committed her life to Jesus through trauma healing, says, “I feel so good. I feel so relieved. I feel as if there’s nothing that is traumatising me now. I am free.”

Is peace possible?

Many refugees seem surprisingly hopeful about the prospect of peace in South Sudan. “It is possible, because we are serving the living God,” says Hellen. Where there used to be tribalism, unforgiveness and enmity in the camp, there is now forgiveness and unity.

Grace, who is involved in children’s ministry, has seen a big change in the children over the years they have been here. Where they used to be badly behaved, disrespecting people and fighting with each other, Grace sees them being respectful, apologising and forgiving each other. She is passionate about raising up a generation of peacemakers who know Jesus. “Peace will be possible when we have a generation that can forgive. The next generation is growing up differently.”

Multiplying healing

Since they began trauma healing in 2018, Sam and the other facilitators have distributed over 1,000 DAPs and mini speakers and taken about 230 people through trauma healing.

Many of these people could go on to lead trauma healing groups themselves, as the programme is designed to train participants as they go through their own trauma healing.

Satimon himself became a facilitator after finding relief from his own trauma through a group. “The programme is multiplying healing in wounded hearts, bringing hope to the people,” he says.

Trauma healing is not a quick fix, and trauma isn’t healed in just a few sessions.

But Sam, the church leaders and the refugees in these camps haven’t given up.

Jesus hasn’t given up. Neither have we.

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We all see their work but not many of us see them. What they do is essential, but not considered valuable. This is the reality for many cleaners in the UK. Clean for Good wants to change that. Maritza’s story shows this is possible.

“Without a doubt, cleaning is one of the lowest valued kinds of work in the UK,” says Charlie Walker, managing director at Clean for Good in London.

Every day an invisible legion of women and men set off to make Britain’s office spaces usable. Yet, many cleaners are not given time off or sick days. Some suffer verbal and sexual abuse from their employers and almost none are paid a living wage.

The dirty reality

Maritza was one of these unseen people. Growing up in Colombia and Ecuador, her family was close-knit, but her father struggled with alcoholism, which took a toll on them all. Maritza got married at 16, thinking life would be better with her husband. But he became abusive towards her, just like her father had been towards her mother.

Her father-in-law told her if she went to church, she would find God and he would help her. She went, but nothing changed at home. She was lonely and unhappy.

Maritza, her husband and their three children landed in the UK in 1995, planning to get some documents in order and emigrate to the US. But it wasn’t long before Maritza’s husband abandoned them. She was stuck, alone with three children in a country where she didn’t speak the language. She eventually met someone who spoke Spanish, who helped her find a place to rent, and she got some cleaning work.

Working Monday to Sunday from seven in the morning to seven at night, she earned £90 a week, and £80 of that went on rent. “I had £10 left to buy food and pay for gas and electricity,” she remembers. Life was miserable. She couldn’t see a way forward, and considered doing something drastic.

But one day, as she was preparing lunch, somebody knocked on her door. Maritza tried to ignore them but they wouldn’t give up. On the other side of the door was a local pastor who invited the family to church.

Realising he’d interrupted their lunch, the pastor offered to take the family out to a restaurant. Later that day, he brought the family to his house to meet his wife.

“She just cuddled me. And that’s when I found Jesus,” Maritza says. The pastor’s wife cried with her. “In that cuddle… it was like I was telling her everything. She knew everything. After that, I felt peace and joy again. And I went back home and things were different.”

Maritza and her family got involved with this pastor’s church and accepted Jesus into their lives. But her job situation grew more untenable. Maritza was now working for a cleaning company who wanted her to work relentlessly and always be available.

Not surprisingly, her health suffered and she ended up in hospital, completely worn out. The doctor said she couldn’t go back to that job. But how would she provide for her family?

When she came home from hospital, she received a phone call from Clean for Good. She had never heard of them, but they had read her CV (which her daughter had sent out to help find an alternative role) and wanted to offer her a job under very different conditions.

A different cleaning company

Clean for Good, officially launched in 2017, is a commercial cleaning company that chooses to value people and aims to provide a higher standard of service than their competitors, while still turning a profit.

The Christian company was started in response to the problem of low pay, exploitation and oppression in the cleaning sector. A small church in the City of London, St Andrew’s by the Wardrobe (coincidentally where CMS was born), did a listening exercise with their parishioners in 2014 and discovered that many of those who worked as security guards or cleaners were exhausted and underpaid. They longed for respect, dignity and a fair wage.

Church member Miriam Goodacre took the idea for an ethical cleaning company to a Dragons’ Den-style competition at Greenbelt festival and won a grant and a place on CMS’s mission entrepreneurship course Make Good, where she developed the idea further. CMS became a founder-investor of Clean for Good alongside two other groups.

Clean for Good employs each of its cleaners with a fixed number of hours from day one (no zero-hour contracts) and pays the London living wage for every hour worked. Clean for Good also gives their cleaners 25 days of annual leave and bank holidays off and runs an occupational sick pay scheme.

Calling working at Clean for Good a “miracle”, Maritza says she’s gone from being treated like a machine to being seen for her worth as a person. She is now a manager at the company.

Clean for Good is not just paying a fair wage, but is also fighting for everyone who is trapped in a system dominated by low pay and oppression. The company’s vision is to set an example of providing an excellent service to its clients while valuing its cleaners as people made in the image of God.

“Jesus… wasn’t scared to confront injustices. And in a sense, that’s what Clean for Good is doing,” said Charlie Walker, managing director.

“One single mother who works for us had been doing 70 hours a week. Now she works 35 hours, and gets to see her children. In coming to work with us, another woman got a 350 per cent pay rise from where she’d been. Being part of this and being able to tell our clients and investors about this difference makes me really happy.”

Six years in, the way Clean for Good treats its employees is starting to influence other companies for good.

Take part

Do you have dreams of making a difference at the edges? Check out CMS Pioneer Mission Training:

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An incurable cancer diagnosis. Living with chronic pain. Plus pursuing an immense, often-misunderstood, calling. If anyone could be excused for giving up, it might be CMS mission partner and anti-FGM activist Ann-Marie Wilson. We asked her a basic question: how do you keep going? Following is distilled practical wisdom from a woman who refuses to give up.

Look to Jesus

I think Jesus doesn’t give up, because he was sent by the Father for a purpose, a job to do. And I too was sent with a purpose and I haven’t given up – because the job’s not done. Which doesn’t mean it’s not difficult. But I wouldn’t dream of giving up. I’m not done until I’m done.

Remember your purpose

I’m helped by the fact that my calling began with hearing the audible voice of God. I know it’s not that way for everybody.

I was volunteering in West Darfur when I met a girl, Fatima, age 11. She’d undergone FGM (female genital mutilation) at age five and at age 10 she was raped and became pregnant. We helped her give birth safely.

Realising Fatima was one of thousands of FGM victims impacted me greatly. I was due to return to the UK and I cried out to God: “Who’s going to look after these girls when I’ve gone?”

And he said: “You are.”

I figured God hadn’t talked to his HR officer. I wasn’t nearly qualified for this. But I’d heard his voice and I didn’t want to be like Jonah – if you run away from God you never really escape. I spoke with people from my church and others, recognising that I was a white woman wanting to work in the majority world and I needed to discern what part I was called to play in eradicating FGM. I had to be humble and re-train completely.

I wasn’t called to do everything; I was called to do my part. I’ve kept this in mind as I’ve merged the charity I founded 10+ years ago with another charity, and step back from being chief executive for a more advisory role. By grace, I do so with love.

Be truthful about struggles

Of course, I get tired. Or overwhelmed. I can get frustrated at the systems that keep women oppressed. It can be tempting to give up, but never on God. Because he’s called me and he’s with me in all my difficulties. And he helps me learn from them.

Not giving up doesn’t mean not resting

I make space for rest days weekly. Sometimes people say there’s too much work and no time to rest. But the work you do when you’re exhausted is slow. I say this as a recovering workaholic – rest should be part of our discipleship. God rested and if we trust God we will take rest and Sabbath seriously.

Remember blessings

When I started, this was really pioneering work. Back then, churches didn’t know what the initials FGM meant, never mind being prepared to hear me speak about such a graphic subject. So I’m grateful for the early successes and blessings – which weren’t always the same things.

You can’t go it alone

To resist giving up, we need people to encourage and challenge us. We know different people have different skills to bring to the table. And not just people in the present, but I also draw inspiration and sustenance from missionary pioneers who have gone before me. During the pandemic, due to my health I shielded for 18 months and was pretty much on my own. So I know the weariness isolation brings.

Glimpse grace

When I think of things I find difficult to accept, like my health or my singleness, I have to really press in to God. I’ve had to give up the hope of having children, which I would have liked. I do have seven godchildren, which gives me joy. And God has given me the opportunity to train and serve as a midwife in Pakistan and Nigeria. I’ve helped 10 women give birth. God brings fulfillment in amazing ways.

Recently, I had a hip replacement that went horribly wrong and I now have paralysis in my leg and constant pain. It’s something I have to put up with, but it doesn’t make me want to stop. I have to make sure people understand that I’m not Superwoman; I need more help than I used to. It’s tough to be vulnerable but probably a good thing.

Stay curious

When I was diagnosed with cancer in 2015, I saw an oncology psychologist. I told her I’d made a bucket list of 96 things I still wanted to do in my lifetime. She said most people with cancer wait until it’s too late to make this kind of list. After my first chemotherapy session, I did my first bucket list activity: I went to a ballroom dancing lesson and got spun around by the instructor across the wooden floor.

I’ve now done all 96 things. To commemorate my 60th birthday I’ve come up with 60 more things, including some exotic travel I couldn’t do during the pandemic. I don’t want any part of me to feel like it’s time to check out – I feel proud of the things I’ve been able to do and that I have followed my calling and, come what may, that feels like a special place to be.

Pray together

Pray for Ann-Marie as she works for an FGM-free world and advocates for disability awareness. Pray also that she will have continuing wisdom in how best to use her time and energy.

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My name’s Dayle and I’m from Canklow in Rotherham.

In the past, I prayed to Jesus and thanked him for everything, but that was as far as it went. I never went to church and never really read the Bible. I would never have expected to get involved in church.

Spiritual but not religious

I’ve been a spiritual person all my life. A few years back I kind of got into the New Age, with a sense of “God isn’t real, you look for things yourself. Your mindset does things, if you want to see it positively, you see it positively.” I went that way a little bit, and then I was a pagan and a witch and I was veering towards Satanism. And that was when God called to me.

My story starts with my cat, who I love to pieces. One night she was having a fit and I automatically just cried out to God, “Please help her.” And then I made a promise: “Jesus, I’ll buy a Bible if you get her through the night.”

Pulled to church

My cat made it, so I bought a Bible and started reading. I said to God, “I don’t know what you want me to do.” I started to see the Bible as a guide to live a happy and fulfilled life. And then I felt this constant pull to go to church, like a feeling in my stomach. I did ignore it for a while. And then I thought, “That’s Jesus.” I felt he wanted me to go to church because I kept coming across things about church.

I went along to Rotherham Minster. I was scared – it’s a scary thing to do. And then the minute I stepped in, that feeling in my stomach just completely disappeared.

When I’d been going to church for a couple of months, I thought Jesus was telling me to take the next step. I asked the vicar, “How can I get more involved?” He suggested I come to a Thursday group that was starting to read the Bible together.

Thursday group was started by Ali Middleton, a CMS-trained pioneer and associate vicar at Rotherham Minster and St Paul’s Masbrough. Ali invited people who had been asking questions about God and were interested in reading the Bible and learning more about Jesus. (You can read group members Steve and Claire’s stories on our Jesus Never Gives Up pages.) We started reading the Bible. We were reading Mark and that was fantastic because there were a lot of things for me to take away from it, thinking, “What’s it trying to teach us to help other people?”, instead of it just being a story.

Thursday group has impacted every single part of my life. The people at Thursday group know that if they need help, I’ll answer the phone, same as if I need help with anything. It’s like a proper family. And the best thing is when one of us has done something to upset someone, we know we’re in a safe place so we can say we’re sorry. It’s not a place where we come for an hour and then we go again.

Jesus is always there

Jesus means the world to me. He’s the first person I say hello to in the morning. And he’s my best friend. He’s the person that whenever I feel stuck, I’ll go to. And sometimes for fun, I’ll just say a quick prayer, “Jesus, you want to come down and watch this film? Or do you want to come out on a walk with me?” And sometimes I feel him. Sometimes I don’t. I always know he’s there.

Life before was full of stress and anxiety. I worried about everything. Since I found Jesus it’s very peaceful. It’s completely changed because I know that Jesus is now here with me, so I’m not stressing about everything.

Bringing heaven on earth

Canklow faces isolation, deprivation, antisocial behaviour. We have a few people who are struggling, so they take it out on people’s property or other people. But it’s a good place as well because we have community spirit and no matter what anyone goes through, guaranteed someone’s going to be there to help you. Which is what I’m trying to grab hold of and spread out more.

Before I really wasn’t involved in anything because I didn’t have anyone to talk to and I didn’t really know anyone because I was shy. Now I have a sense of calling, to bring positivity and help to Canklow. One of my goals is to bring God’s Kingdom of heaven down to earth.

Jesus has definitely changed how I interact with people on the estate. I live in the newer part of the estate, and I rarely talked to anyone who’s always lived there. And then the more I prayed and the more I walked around praying, the more people stopped to talk to me.

From litter to Lego

The first thing was that I did a litter pick because we needed to clean the place up a bit. We’ve got rid of so much rubbish, and now we’ve noticed there’s a decline in people dropping litter, which is making everyone feel better.

At the minute in Canklow, we do a monthly litter pick, a weekly get-together of crafters (knitting, crocheting, cross stitch, drawing, all sorts), game nights and hopefully we’re going to get funding for a Lego morning. It’s all helpful for mental health.

I do “God Rocks”, where you read a part of the Bible and then paint whatever verse that you feel called to on a rock and leave it somewhere for someone to find as a way of saying, God’s here with you. And I’m exploring the idea of garden church.

Some of the ideas come from the Thursday group. Someone will mention something and I’ll say, “Oh, that’s a really good idea. Can I borrow that idea and see where it goes in Canklow?” Ali is really supportive. When I’m stressed I go to her because she knows how I’m feeling. And every time I’ve got an idea, I’ll send a message or ring her up or whatever. And she’s always there to help.

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The post “Jesus, I’ll buy a Bible if my cat lives!” appeared first on Church Mission Society (CMS).

“If it weren’t for them, I don’t think I’d be here, to be honest with you.”

After several years of drug addiction, crime and homelessness, Steve felt he’d reached the end of the road. “I’d had enough. I was just getting nowhere… I was definitely planning on throwing myself into the Don.”

The Don is one of two rivers flowing through Steve’s home town, Rotherham. Rotherham was once a prosperous industrial centre. Steel mills and coal mining were core local industries. Not any more. Several Rotherham neighbourhoods are among the 10 per cent most deprived in the country. Health problems – both physical and mental – are a significant barrier to employment, leading in turn to financial difficulties. Steve isn’t the only one on the verge of losing hope.

But there is a twist in his tale.

“I did say a prayer, you know, so that God would help me.” A couple of days after this desperate prayer, Steve sat down on a bench outside Rotherham Minster, the church in the heart of the town. “And Ali come out of nowhere and said, ‘Do you want to come in for a cup of coffee?’ and it’s gone on from there.”

More than a market

Ali Middleton is a graduate of CMS’s pioneer mission training and associate vicar at Rotherham Minster and St Paul’s Masbrough. Since arriving in Rotherham, Ali has been part of the team running a social supermarket at the Minster.

The Minster team delivered food parcels during the first COVID-19 lockdown, and found, “People love the food, but actually what they really enjoyed was the chat on the doorstep.” When Ali started working at the church, they were asking: how can we meet social as well as food-related needs? Having seen a church in nearby Sheffield start something similar, they launched a social supermarket.

Ali explains: “A social supermarket works slightly different from a food bank. People are referred to us for around three months and during that time they pay a membership fee of £3 each visit, which entitles them to a weekly shop. They go over to our little shop and choose what to have. But we are just so much more than food, because food poverty is only one symptom of the situation.

“Our social supermarket members and volunteers, quite a few of them are what we would consider being on the edge of financial situations…. They feel forgotten [and] perplexed sometimes by society and systems and feel that it fails them…. People are wanting to have different lives. It’s just that they need a helping hand.”

Members of the social supermarket like Steve can get help with money management, be connected with other organisations including the Citizens Advice Bureau, and join a cooking course to help make the most of the food.

And community has developed too – while people come for a specific appointment in the shop, during opening times on Wednesdays and Thursdays people come into the Minster for hot drinks, snacks and a chat, and join in with community art projects.

Ali continues, “It’s amazing when you have people side by side doing things, how it opens them up…. We try to make it so that we’re being with people rather than doing for people. So although we provide the food, if everybody brings their talents and their skills, they’re part of what happens. And that is quite transformative.” Members are encouraged to stay involved, and several now volunteer.

So what change have they seen? “We’ve had people that have become more confident, people whose mental health has improved, people who have started their faith journey…”

Steve summarises: “It’s great, honestly. It helps a lot of people. And it’s like a gathering. We get talking, we have a cup of coffee and it’s a lovely day out.”

All to do with God

After people started asking questions about faith, Ali gave out some copies of Mark’s Gospel, and a Thursday group was formed to discuss their questions. Steve describes the Thursday group as the highlight of his week: “I’ve made new friends and it’s been great. I’m cleaned up from being on drugs and [I’ve] kept out of prison.”

People beyond the Minster community have noticed the change in Steve. A local police officer, a shop manager and Steve’s mother have all commented on how he looks healthier than he has for many years, now that he is off drugs, housed and looking after himself more.

Steve is clear about what drives the changes in his life: “Jesus has made a big difference to my life. Every time I read the Bible, there’s quotations there that make sense to me. I know God is helping me. I can feel his presence every day. It’s a struggle, but it’s helping. And for me to be clean off all that what I were on, it’s all to do with God.”

Seeing God afresh

Ali lights up as we ask how she sees God at work: “All the time…. And my understanding of God has changed as I’ve worked with people here. I’ve always known God is on the side of the poor, but I never really appreciated how much God reveals himself to people who are in poverty. And to see people who struggle with life to develop in their faith journey has helped me grow in my faith.”

Rotherham isn’t an easy place to work – and Ali credits her CMS training, particularly the module on community development, with helping her face the challenges. “My eyes were opened to the idea of encouraging people to bring what they have and allowing community to grow. I’ve been able to take those principles into what I do here.” Ali still connects with other CMS pioneer students to share questions and issues.

For Steve, this community is a lifeline, walking alongside him as he grows in faith. To give him the last word, “We turn our backs on God when something doesn’t go right. But then, I asked him to help me. I know I turned my back on God… but God has never turned his back on me.”

Jesus never gives up. Neither should we.

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I’m Claire. I’m a Rotherham lass, born and bred. Growing up, I never really had anything to do with church apart from the Nativity in school.

As an adult, I’d never have seen myself going into a church at all. It’s only because I came to Rotherham Minster through work that I ended up staying. When I did come here, it felt like home.

I first came to the social supermarket to help people with money management. That’s where I met Ali [Middleton, CMS pioneer graduate] and the rest of the team. And Ali’s been a big help for me through my journey.

I started asking questions about God because I was curious and I knew nothing. So it was general questions: “How do you know God exists? How do you know he’s real?”

As Ali answered, I was like, “This is weird because this is what I’ve felt all my life.”

I came along to a group that meets on Thursdays, where we’ve read a couple of Gospels, but it’s more than sitting and talking about the Bible and Jesus and God. If somebody comes and they’ve got an issue, we can all sit together in a safe space and talk about it and help each other.

A big part of Thursday group is the people. I’ve never been one for socialising, but everybody treated me like Claire, not Claire with the walker. I was treated as a human being. And as well as meeting them, obviously God was here.

The Bible is confusing at the best of times, so it helps that Ali explains things in plain English. To have somebody who can actually sit and talk to you about it and use language that you understand is really important.

Before I knew Jesus, life was okay, I just carried on plodding along. I felt like there was no particular meaning. There was just that one thing missing. And now I’ve found it. My life is different because I feel content in myself. I’ve always got somebody with me and I’m always looked after, listened to and thought about, and I belong.

Before, I was lost; I didn’t have a purpose. I was working for a bank for 13 years and I was just in the system being a robot. And now I can be myself, I can be Claire, and I can help all those people in need where they need it.

I just thought I came here for work, but I didn’t realise where it would lead me. God certainly didn’t reveal a plan, but he’s led me to a place where I’ve helped people in dire need. And that’s what my calling is.

I came for work and I’ve gained a family.

I’m so happy now. For the future, I just want to stay with the church. I want to stay working with people because I think this is where I’m supposed to be.

Jesus never gives up. Neither should we.

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When Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year, many people expected CMS mission partner Alison Giblett to return to the UK for her own safety. But Alison decided to stay on in Ukraine, where she has continued to bring God’s transforming love everywhere she serves.

One February morning last year, she woke up at 5am, knowing she needed to pray. At 6am, she heard that Russia had invaded. At 7am, the pastor’s wife rang to invite her to join them for a couple of days. Plans developed, and soon, 40 members of their church were evacuating Kyiv together and relocated to a village just outside the city in hopes of being safer there.

Choosing to stay

Alison has spent the past 18 years in Kyiv, working in church planting and growth and leading the Genesis addiction recovery ministry. When Russia invaded, she had the option to leave her church, Tabernacle of the Living God (TLG) and return to the UK, but Alison stood firm.

“I felt very strongly that if God’s called me to serve and to be a help in Ukraine, that I shouldn’t leave when people really need help,” she says.

One thing that stuck in her mind was Mordecai’s challenge to Esther (Esther 4:14) – perhaps, like Esther, Alison had been placed where she was “for such a time as this”?

CMS supported her decision to stay, deferring to her local pastor Valery Alymov’s judgement. In his opinion, Alison’s staying on wouldn’t pose an increased risk to anyone else, and he and others were hugely encouraged by her commitment.

Searching for safety

Having moved to a village in hopes of being safer there, they had in fact placed themselves almost in the path of the invading Russian troops. The group prayed continuously for their own safety and that of others, taking turns to pray during the night. They spent much of their time in worship and sharing what God was revealing to them.

It wasn’t long before their power was switched off. With it, they lost running water, heating and then ran out of gas to cook anything. The group knew they had to move on, but how? The main road wasn’t safe, and as a group of 40, with children and animals in tow, they couldn’t leave as easily as they had come.

They prayed for God to make it clear to them when they should leave, and felt God would show them in three specific ways: it would be a sunny day, they would have plenty of time to pack up and there would be someone to help them get out safely. One sunny day, humanitarian aid workers reached them. Having come in to the village through fields and back streets, the aid workers were ready to guide the group of 40 out the same way, and they were afforded several hours to pack up and ready themselves to leave. The fulfilment of these three signs gave the group peace to know that this was God’s timing for them to leave.

Having safely left the village, they moved on to a new location, and a third location a few days after that. After six weeks away from Kyiv, the region was de-occupied and they decided to return to help with reconstruction.

Repairer of broken walls

Returning to Kyiv, TLG quickly set up a ministry group called Repairer of the Broken Walls, and set about doing just that. They started by clearing rubble and just talking to people and listening to their stories. They wanted people to know that they weren’t forgotten and give them hope to keep going.

Beyond clearing broken glass and rubbish, the team from TLG also provided food parcels and medicine and organised a few camps for children, creating space for children to have some fun and talk a little bit about what they’d been going through. Following these camps, Alison and others from the church worked to keep up and develop relationship with the children as well as with the local school, headmaster and other people in the village. Later, they worked with the same children to build a bomb shelter for the community.

Working through the winter

Following their initial restoration ministry, the church has been able to expand their ministry and visit other de-occupied areas in eastern and southern Ukraine, repairing more broken walls and ministering to more people. They have set up a refuge centre in Kyiv itself, where people can come for warmth, light and for electricity to charge phones, torches and anything else. The centre also offers spiritual and emotional support, food and, if necessary, a bed for the night.  

Almost a year on since the Russian invasion, the scale of the destruction across Ukraine is immense. Thousands on both sides of the conflict have lost their lives and millions of Ukrainians have left everything to seek refuge and a new life in other countries.

“It’s one thing to say God is our protector and our provider when we live in nice, comfortable, warm homes and we haven’t been hungry for months. But having lived through months of war, I’m really grateful to be able to say that I know that God is my provider, my protector and our healer, and a God of love in the midst of all the destruction and pain.”

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Fewer than half of people in Britain said they are Christian in the latest census, the results of which were published in November.¹ This has dropped dramatically in the last 20 years. Britain is most definitely now in a post-Christian era.

by Jonny Baker

The next largest response is now the “no religion” box or what some call the nones. We should be slow to leap to the conclusion that those people are atheists. In Linda Woodhead’s research into that group she found that only a few are militantly secular, and less than half considered themselves atheists.² The largest group were made up of maybes and doubters and don’t knows and a group who believe there is “something there”. Interestingly, the younger the cohort, the smaller the proportion of atheists. So paradoxically Britain might also be post-secular!

At the risk of too many “posts”, the other one that is worth a mention is post-Christendom. Christendom describes the time in Europe when church hierarchy dominated the landscape in its alignment with political power and empire. The cultural memory and cultural presence in Britain is still there and we still have a state religion, but it is a faded reality.

An exciting context

Some reactions to all this are quite gloomy, but I find this quite an exciting context for mission. CMS intuited this was coming back in the 1970s, when members discerned through a vote that God was calling CMS to mission in Britain and Europe.

We are a minority-Christian country in which lots of people have not experienced Christianity at all. That could be positive, as they might well come across it as fresh and new rather than having been put off by negative experiences of formal religion. Christianity might be discovered as gift rather than obligation.

Sharing from the edge

It can really help us to move away from sharing faith in a dominant way if we can see ourselves as a minority, so we are sharing our faith from the margins, not from the centre. We may well find ourselves alongside and in solidarity with others in marginal and minority positions. Stories of being strangers or exiles might be rich and fertile ground for mission.

Rather than focusing all our energies into attracting people to our churches, we might do better to focus on nurturing communities of missionary disciples, who follow the way of Christ to be present with and among people as salt and light, sharing faith where opportunity arises in these borderlands.

The vast majority of people in Britain do not go to church. I was interested to discover that of those, 85 per cent say they are unlikely to do so. And yet so much focus in mission seems to go on trying to do church better to attract people to it. Let us go to and be with these people where they are instead!

This is why we are here

That is exactly what we train pioneers to do and they are doing it in such brilliant and creative ways. The Partnership for Missional Church training helps churches to develop mission practices that will help them to innovate in this changed context. And mission partners in Britain are all situated in spaces sharing the love of God with those at the edges. Jesus was always found dwelling at the fringes. We hope to follow in the way of Christ and see where God is at work and join in.

This is our edge in Britain – the post-Christian borderlands in which we seek to join in with what God is doing and share God’s love.

1 Office for National Statistics, Religion, England and Wales: Census 2021

2 Linda Woodhead, The Rise of ‘No Religion’ in Britain, Journal of the British Academy

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The post Imagining the possibilities in post-Christian Britain appeared first on Church Mission Society (CMS).