Shakir is one of 26 million Saraiki speakers who live in the Southern Punjab in Pakistan. The area is predominantly rural and poor, despite providing much of the country’s wheat, cotton, sugarcane and mangoes. In recent years, flooding has devastated…
There is a famous Minang poem that concludes with the line: alam takambang jadikan guru (nature becomes the teacher). Zul, who grew up and still lives in the rural heartland of the Minangkabau people, would have heard this poem. The…
Hussain grew up as the only child of a moderately Muslim couple, but within a fundamentalist Islamic regime. In his mid 20s, he worked in a fitness centre where one of his workmates was a follower of Jesus. One day,…
The Western Cham are a Muslim people group with their own language who have lived in Buddhist majority Cambodia since the 17th century. Traditionally fishermen and farmers, they were severely persecuted under the Pol Pot regime, with more than a…
Some years ago, Gulnora visited an Uzbek village. “The mullah proudly showed me the new mosque and probably expected criticism from me as a Christian. But I complimented the design of the mosque, and said that I hoped that God’s…
It was market day in a small village in eastern Burkina Faso. Suddenly jihadists came and began threatening the people. A young Christian had positioned his small radio on the market well, with a broadcast about Jesus in Fulfulde. In…
Salim, an older Shabak man, helps with testing translated Bible chapters for comprehension. When he was given Luke 15 to read, Salim was sure he had identified the turning point in the parable of the prodigal son, understanding it to…
About six years ago, Yusif had back surgery. The recovery was long and painful, and he was confined to bed. As he lay in bed in Guba, a city in northern Azerbaijan, he thought a lot about his life. He…
James relaxed in his airplane seat, relieved to be heading off to a Christian conference and a few days of rest. As he thought about the week ahead, he felt God say to him: “Tell the lady sitting next to…
Nadim is an Urdu speaking Bihari whose forefathers came to Dhaka, Bangladesh after the partition of India. Caught up in the events of political changes, the Biharis became an impoverished minority people group living in camps in Bangladesh. They are…
