GAME CHANGER 🤯 Mass Number of Foreign Missionaries Flee China for Ministry in Middle East
There is a wildly strange event taking place right now that is dramatically increasing the number of missionaries in the Middle East – and they are all coming from China!
China’s current zero-tolerance policy for Covid has created an almost impossible situation for foreign missionaries, which has caused many of them to move out. Many have moved to the Middle East to wait for China to open back up and they are ministering there while they wait.
“We have one missionary that lives close to us,” Joseph (not his real name) said today while we were in a taxi cab together in Istanbul, “and he had to leave China with his family for medical reasons. They have not been able to return to China – not even to sell their furniture – so we helped them to pack up all of their belongings and ship them to the Persian Gulf where he is currently making a new life.”
Joseph runs a business in an undisclosed Arab nation, but I was able to spend some time with him this week in Turkey, as he shared about all of the new missionaries that are arriving in his remote location of the 10/40 Window.
What Joseph is seeing is not isolated. It is happening all across the Middle East.
“We have seen so many western missionaries from China arrive in Turkey in the last year,” Robert (not his real name) said. “In Istanbul alone, we have seen our language school boom with new missionaries that have not been able to stay in China. Some language classes are as high as 90% missionaries from China!”
The same phenomena is being reported in the U.A.E., Oman, Qatar, Jordan, and even Iraq.
Did Covid in China create a missionary diaspora to the Middle East? If so, it will be interesting to see the long-term impact.
It’s possible that this one event in history could catapult the completion of the Great Commission at a faster rate than many had anticipated.
2 Comments
But what about China? This must be impacting them?
How lovely that Middle East Arab Nations opened their doors for you people from China to seek asylum and start a business. Many people who must leave their Nation because of Political reasons or Religious Freedom or fear of getting killed in their Nation or opposing view points regarding how their Government is running things or war conditions or impending war to escape horrible conditions of poverty or lack of food is a huge relief for everyone who escapes their Nation for these reasons. Having no HOPE in your own Homeland is so frightening and horrible to live by everyday. Not having safety and feeling safe in your Nation is equally frightening. The only solution out of desperation is to flee. I remember when I was on my Facebook page during the BLM Riots in America a young Jewish Mother single facebooked me her video walking and talking to me about how terrorized she is living in the United States pleaing where do I go, because it’s not safe to live here anymore. I wrote her back telling her to move to Israel and you’ll be safe there.