Did you know that there is a great gap in the world of Christian missions?

Right now there are 2.7 billion people—nearly a third of the earth's population—that have little or no meaningful access to the gospel. Leading missions experts also say that, of all the foreign missionaries serving around the globe, only one out of every 10 is actually ministering among these 2.7 billion unreached people. Most are serving people groups that already have access to the gospel.

Our commitment at Pioneers is to step into this gap. Our missionaries are faithfully going out to the least reached corners of the earth, taking the gospel to individuals like the young Muslim man who recently wrote us saying, "I haven't found the answers to my problems in my country or my religion. No one seems to care. Please help me find hope…"

As Pioneers missionaries continue to persevere abroad, we have secured a $475,000 matching gift to for our 2012 "Close the Gap" Campaign. This initiative will help us provide greater security for missionaries in some of the most dangerous and needy corners of the earth. It will also fund training programs that our missionaries are requesting as they seek to grow as church planters, and it will help us send more workers to join the missionary teams we already have in the field.

Would you please consider financially investing in this work? Every dollar given will be doubled through the matching opportunity!

To date, we have raised 70% of the $475,000 match for this campaign.

• Take a look at the table below to see how your gift can make a difference!

Through the current matching gift opportunity, your gift of...

$50 = $100 towards the training of a non-western missions partner

$100 = $200 towards the recruiting and sending of a new missionary to an unreached people group

$200 = $400 towards the equipping of a Pioneers missionary who has requested training in the principles of "church-planting movements"

$500 = $1,000 towards the provision of security trainings for our missionary families

• See a full PDF proposal on the 2012 "Close the Gap" Campaign. Download, print, and share!
• If you have any questions, please email us.

Help us bring real change to the Arab world!

The protests, revolts, and revolutions sweeping across the Arab world have revealed deep discontent and anger among Arab world Muslims. But this dissatisfaction is not just the result of political and economic injustice—it goes deeper.

You can hear the spiritual need of this region in the words of a Middle Eastern man who just recently contacted us through our Arab World Media ministry:

“I am a young man who does not have an income, a wife, or anything to look forward to. I am fed up with life and think a lot about committing suicide. I haven’t found the answers to my problems in my country or my religion. No one seems to care. Please help me to find hope and be touched by the grace of God.”

This coming year, we have an opportunity to extend eternal hope to Arab world Muslims through our 2012 “Winds of Change” Campaign. The goal of this initiative is to supplement Arab World Media’s current pan-Arab broadcasts with messages that appeal specifically to different demographics in 10 strategic countries. This will also include the distribution of Bibles and film packets.

Would you please make a gift to support this campaign and see real change sweep the Arab world? This is a historic moment that God may use to open doors to the hearts of Arab world Muslims. A gift of any size will help us get the gospel to Arab world Muslims!

• See a full PDF proposal on the 2012 “Winds of Change” Campaign. Download, print, and share!
• Watch a video that shows the next generation of Arab world Muslims who are waiting for us to respond to Romans 10:14-15.
• Read more about Pioneers’ Arab World Media ministry here.
• If you have any questions, please email us.

A film project sharing Christ with oppressed peoples.

Despair is Rampant…
In Asia there are several minority people groups whose land, culture, language, history, and opportunity are being stripped away by the majority people’s racism, violence, and destructive colonial policies. Despair is rampant. Poverty is everywhere. People turn to drugs, violence, or their traditional Islam or Buddhism for escape and a sense of identity. Nothing can take away the bitterness.

We Have the Hope of Jesus…
We as Christians can't change their political plight, but we can offer them something even better than preservation and independence. We can offer them citizenship in an unshakeable Kingdom, with hope and joy that come from knowing the One who died to set them truly free, and lives to rule all nations.

How Can We Communicate that Hope?
"Hope After Oppression" is a project that will produce and distribute short videos highlighting the testimonies of believers from Native American tribes. These Native American brothers and sisters will answer questions like:

• What is the stroy of your tribe?
  
• How can you say God loves you, or your people?
  
• How can you forgive the people who did this to you?
  
• What are you hoping in now?
  
• What is your identity?
  
• As a follower of Jesus, how do you respond when harmed, cheated or slandered?

From their translated responses we will communicate to these marginalized Asian minorities that new life is found in Christ, who is the fulfillment of every culture, and can bring wholeness and beauty out of even the worst destruction and loss.

• Click here to watch a trailer video and read more about the project.
• With more specific inquiries, contact by email.

Persevering for the Gospel in West Africa

Despite persecution, the recent loss of a child, and unreliable financial support, a team of missionaries from Pioneers-Africa are persevering for the gospel in northern Benin. Click here for a special PDF report that describes how the Lord has blessed their sacrifice. Through their faithfulness, the son of a local chief has come to know the Lord, transforming his village. Please feel free to share this encouraging story with others by downloading and distributing the PDF or emailing this web link to others.

Though this missionary team is seeing remarkable results, they still desperately need financial support.

• To receive email updates on similar stories from around the world, please click here.

Encouraging the local church in Papua New Guinea

Today we can rejoice at the number of believers in the country of Papua New Guinea (PNG). It is a testimony to the power of God that these once unreached peoples are now missionaries themselves, reaching out to the people of western New Guinea (the Indonesian western half of the island of New Guinea, also known as West Papua). Here Islam is aggressively expanding, and Papuan missionaries have a great role to play.

Among the Gobasi people of PNG, however, the church has been struggling with false "Christian" teachers. The purpose of the Gobasi Project is to encourage this local church. In order to do this, a Pioneers family who had previously served among the Gobasi (near the PNG and Indonesian border) would like to make two short-term trips to the area between 2012 and 2013. Specifically, they will be going to encourage the local pastor and his congregation, as well as to provide materials and funds needed to renovate and expand the community church, health center and air strip.

Would you please prayerfully consider supporting our efforts to strengthen the Gobasi church? The following breakdown of project costs shows how you could be involved in making this a reality.

Any gift you make will be used to meet a real, felt need. As you can see, just $200 would provide for river travel and evangelism. And most of the repair costs, include assorted parts with prices often ranging from $25-50. This means any gift counts!

Preparing believers for ministry among Muslims.

Did you know that there are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world and that 86 percent do not personally know a Christian who could share the gospel with them? This means that Muslims constitute the largest unreached religious group in the world!

As believers struggle to reach out to Muslims, they often lack understanding of Islam and Islamic culture. Encountering the World of Islam (EWI) is a ministry of Pioneers-USA that is filling this gap. Specifically, EWI is equipping Christian leaders and churches to understand Muslims, communicate the gospel effectively, disciple new believers and establish churches in unreached Muslim communities.

In addition to its classes in the US, Canada and the United Kingdom, EWI has web-based distance learning courses and has been translated into Korean, Chinese, Indonesian and Russian. Since 1992, EWI courses have been endorsed by many mission agencies in addition to Pioneers, including Frontiers, Operation Mobilization and YWAM. In the past six years, EWI has equipped over 12,000 people through 300+ courses in at least 13 different countries. (To learn more about the course, please visit EncounteringIslam.org.)

Once trained, course coordinators and instructors can reproduce their own EWI courses. Currently, new courses are planned for Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine. But EWI needs new partners to help move this work forward.

Please join us in praying that the Lord would provide for the expansion of this ministry. And as you pray, would you please consider supporting this work financially? Each training event costs $500 per person, which means that one 36-trainee event would cost $18,000.

For more information, please send us an email.

Answering the Lord’s call to international missions is both a great testament and test of faith.

Held at the US base in Orlando, FL, CONNECT is a weeklong opportunity for our missionaries to physically relax, emotionally unpack, and be renewed spiritually. Here they can share their experiences in a safe environment, connecting in small groups with others who understand the challenges of the mission field. It is a time for “rejoicing with those who rejoice…” and to “…mourn with those who mourn.” (Romans 12:15)

Many have been touched during their time at CONNECT, saying “It was exactly what we needed and didn’t know we needed…” and “…I had no idea what the Father had for me here.” As their parents relax and decompress, the children of our missionary families engage in day trips to the local attractions and have their own opportunities to share what it has been like to grow up overseas. Kids of all ages come away at the end of the week saying, “Do I have to go home?”

Updated needs will be posted at a later date. 

Since the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan on March 11th, the response from the global Pioneers family has been astounding. To date, we have raised over $40,000 for disaster relief. Praise the Lord, and thank you to all those who have given!

Recovery is going to be a long-term process, but the results from our initial relief efforts have been very encouraging. In partnership with local Japanese churches, CRASH (Christian Relief, Assistance, Support, & Hope), and members from several other agencies, a team of five Pioneers missionaries has setup a base of operations in the city of Hitachi. Over 20,000 pounds of supplies have been delivered to local churches, which have formed community distribution networks. Remarkably, some of the Japanese churches in this area had never spoken to each other before this tragedy. Now, not only are these churches working hand-in-hand, but those who would never have been open to talking to Christians are engaging with us.

Please join us in praying that this is just the beginning of what the Lord will accomplish in the midst of this terrible disaster. For our part, Pioneers workers will continue to participate in relief and rebuilding efforts over the next coming months—making a point to partner with Japanese churches. Pray that these churches would continue to unify, that resources would make their way to those most in need, and that many hearts would open to the hope of the Gospel.

We've received many generous gifts towards this effort, and we are no longer taking donations at this time. Please click here for a video from our workers in the field.

“Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” – Matthew 25:40

This project has been closed.

Today, over 140,000 Tibetans live in exile in South Asia, having fled from their homeland after it became a part of China. The Tibetan Project is a groundbreaking effort to reach these exiled Tibetans for Christ, so that they may then share the Good News with their brothers and sisters around the world. Ninety-five percent of the 7 million Tibetans around the world remain unreached!

Print, web, audio, and visual media will be used to reach whole communities and families. Mothers, fathers, grandparents and children will be invited into discussions about biblically-based principles for family life. Those seeking to know more will be connected with our local workers (including Tibetan nationals), who will guide them to the gospel.

Will you please lift up this project in your prayers? 

Source: All figures are taken from the Joshua Project (www.joshuaproject.net).

History

In 1959, Arab World Ministries (AWM) launched the “Radio School for the Bible.” Later known as AWM Media, this initiative produced radio and television programs, discipleship material, evangelistic websites, and new follow up strategies. Following the merger of AWM-USA into Pioneers in 2010, AWM Media became Pioneers’ “Arab World Media” ministry. Today, Arab World Media continues to pursue its original mission: reaching the Arab world through media and supporting those ministering to Muslims in the Arab world.

Overview

Arab World Media is leading the way in cutting-edge media strategies. Primarily, web outreach is being conducted through a website called Maarifa, while follow up activities are being run through the Global Response Management System (GRMS). Together, these programs are identifying Muslims seeking the truth and placing them in contact with believers in their own countries—expanding the body of Christ as never before!

Launched in January of 2008, Maarifa.org is changing the landscape of Christian media in the Arab world, introducing new ways of engaging, evangelizing and discipling. Through the website, Muslim seekers learn about Jesus Christ, download Bibles and literature, receive training and more. (Maarifa means “knowledge” in Arabic.) Despite the rising levels of cyber attacks from those who oppose the gospel, this work continues to flourish. For the latest information on Maarifa, click here.

GRMS was launched shortly after Maarifa, in late 2008. This follow-up system provides timely responses to Muslims who have been led to the gospel through a broad range of media initiatives, including websites and television/radio broadcasts. Trained volunteers answer the questions of Muslim seekers, encourage those coming to faith and work to confidently connect new believers with other Christians in their own country. For the latest information on GRMS, click here.

Partnership Opportunities

We are excited about the progress Arab World Media is making, and we hope you are too! Please consider joining us in prayer for this ministry, that the Lord would use media to open the eyes of the lost. We would also invite you to partner with us financially. 

Links

• Website: ArabWorldMedia.org
• Facebook
• Twitter

PRAISE – Matching Gift Met!

Thanks to many, many faithful partners, we have met the $450,000 matching gift opportunity for Pioneers’ 2011 Missionary Empowerment Campaign. This blessing has provided over $900,000 for our missionaries and their work among those with no access to the Gospel. Thank you to all those who have joined us in this initiative!

Through the 2011 Missionary Empowerment Campaign, we are able to continue doing the following:

• Provide for the security of our missionaries in dangerous parts of the world. The killing of Usama bin Laden on May 2nd has increased security concerns for our missionaries, but we praise God for how He has provided for our members to carry on their work.
• Mobilize more missionaries to go to the world’s 2.7 billion unreached people. Through this campaign, we have added another Pre-Field Coach to help train the more than 300 missionary appointees we have preparing to head overseas.
• Utilize cutting-edge media outreach to share the gospel in the Middle East as the “Arab Spring” continues to shake the closed countries in this region. Through these efforts, we have seen 179 new enrollments in our online, Arabic Bible studies between January and March of this year.

Please join us in praying for those the Lord is calling to Himself, like one young man who just recently wrote us saying, “I have become a Christian in secret because I am afraid of my family. In my country whoever changes his religion is sentenced to be hanged. I would like to proclaim my faith and get baptized by a pastor. I would like to be free. Do you happen to know of a Christian country which might accept me? I am trusting the Lord. God be with you.” The harvest is ripe, and through the partnership of faithful brothers and sisters like you, we can see many more reached for the Gospel.

This project is closed.

Less than 8% of Gambia’s population is Christian.

With so many in need of the gospel, Pioneers-Africa has made Gambia a priority for 2011. Two African believers have been trained for ministry in this country, with the goal of establishing a church-planting movement that will be led by Gambian nationals. Now that Pioneers-Africa has finished surveying unreached peoples in Gambia, all that remains is to raise the financial support needed to sustain these two missionaries in their work for the next two years. The ability of the African church to support these workers, however, is limited. So, it is up to the larger Pioneers community to help send our first African missionaries to Gambia.

How You can Partner with Us: Please pray that the Lord would provide the financial support needed to send missionaries to Gambia. They individually need only $18 per day, for two years. Monthly this means that $550 is needed for each missionary, for a total cost of $1,100 per month.

Opening the Arab world to the gospel!

Pioneers is seeing the Lord open the hearts of Muslims as never before. At least three countries over the past 50 years have seen 100,000 or more Muslims come to faith! And it is media outreach that is breaking down barriers to the gospel in this part of the world.

One of Pioneers’ most cutting-edge media outreaches is a website called Maarifa (www.maarifa.org). Through Maarifa, Muslims can learn about Jesus, download the scriptures, and join online Bible studies. 

According to reports from the latest quarter, visits to the Maarifa website rose by more than 14,000—to 231,576 visits! During this quarter over 14,000 Arabic Bibles and almost 69,000 Christian teaching books were also downloaded from our online library.

How You can Partner with Us: Please pray that the Lord would provide for the expansion of this ministry. We would also invite you to partner with us financially. 

A featured project of Story ’10

Around the world, children are the most vulnerable to the hardships and challenges of life in poverty. Red Card (www.redcardkids.net) is an eight lesson course that is raising awareness about Children at Risk. The course aims to: (1) illuminate the plight of children worldwide, (2) share God’s heart for children, (3) cultivate prayer for Children at Risk, and (4) encourage the families to take collective action to protect children around the world.

How You can Partner with Us: Please pray that the Lord would continue to use Red Card to move His church to protect Children at Risk. We would also invite you to partner with us financially.

Groundbreaking outreach follow up!

GRMS (the Global Response Management System) is an exciting new means to initiate personal conversations with Muslims seeking the truth about Jesus but are living in countries that are closed to the gospel. This network of trained volunteers supports the work of Arab World Media and websites like Maarifa (www.maarifa.org), which are bringing the Good News to Muslims across the Arab world.

As Muslims respond to the gospel, their emails and phone calls are handled by GRMS. Trained volunteers answer questions, encourage those seriously seeking the truth, and help those coming to faith to confidently make contact with believers in their own country. 

In spite of the unrest and difficulties in the Arab world, on average, thirty new people are in contact through GRMS every day!

Recently a Middle Eastern man wrote us, asking for answers regarding the Truth:

"I have many questions that I want you to answer frankly and transparently: Is the Messiah God or the son of God? Why did God not take a son for himself sooner – say, from the time of Adam? Does God need a son? Who is the Holy Spirit? What is his role in relation to the father and the son?"

What an extraordinary opportunity to share the Good News with a man who could not openly ask such questions in his country!

How You can Partner with Us: Please pray that the Lord would provide for the expansion of this ministry. We would also invite you to partner with us financially.

Groundbreaking discipleship training!

PALM (Preparing Arab-world Leaders for Ministry) addresses the need of Arab world believers for discipleship and leadership development in three ways.

• First, by hosting trainings programs in the closed countries of the Arab world, we are strengthening local the faith of local believers without removing them from their most strategic place of ministry—their homeland.
• Second, lessons are taught in a reproducible manner, equipping believers to lead others to faith and maturity.
• Third, PALM’s materials are tailored specifically to Muslim-background believers and the challenges they confront in their journey of faith.

Recently, as we were training some Arab Christians who are ministering to Saudi believers, they told us, “For years, we have looked for a program like this. This is precisely what we need.”

Across the Arab World, PALM partners with people who are living out the gospel at deep personal cost. In August, 2011, two colleagues with a partner mission received threats upon their lives. They moved their families to safety, but delayed departure for a last meeting with local believers. One of the two was slain before that meeting could occur. But his sacrifice was not in vain. At his funeral, his father and fourteen others came to faith in Christ, and his widow steadfastly continues to serve in the same area.

Without discipleship, the hard-won fruits of such sacrifice are often quickly eroded. Discipleship and leadership training are vital tools in multiplying the investment they have made. Would you please join us by financially supporting this work with a gift of any amount today?

During 2012, PALM’s strategic objectives include:

• 25 more Level I discipleship groups.
• 4 more Level II discipleship groups.
• 2 new courses developed.
• Library holdings on par with standards for accreditation.
• A new, user friendly website providing online delivery of course materials.

A matching gift opportunity!

As Pioneers looks forward to 2011, there is tremendous opportunity, but also many challenges. We are sending out record numbers of missionaries, but this growth is stretching our capacity to provide workers with high quality training, support, and care.

To meet these challenges, Pioneers has drawn up the 2011 Missionary Empowerment Campaign. For an update on this campaign, click here.

Praise the Lord! We met the $180,000 matching gift opportunity!

The merger of Arab World Ministries with Pioneers offers enormous potential to reach Muslims in the heartland of Islam. And friends of Arab World Ministries—now Pioneers' Arab World Region—have offered to match, on a dollar for dollar basis, all gifts made to the Maarifa Media Matching Project!

Through the Maarifa Media Matching Project, Arab Muslims will have access to the gospel message—and a wide range of Christian resources—via the internet.

Maarifa, meaning "knowledge" in Arabic, is a website for Muslim seekers and new believers from a Muslim background. Found at www.maarifa.org, the purpose of Maarifa is to present the Good News of the Gospel to young Arab Muslims, to answer seekers' questions about Jesus Christ and faith in Him, to disciple new believers in their own environment, and to encourage them to find fellowship with other believers from a Muslim background.

Response to Maarifa is strong. Total visits have risen from 38,702 in the 4th quarter of 2008 to 141,300 in the 2nd quarter of 2010. Young Arab Muslims are not only exposed to relevant Christian content, but can access a wide range of resources: legally downloadable Christian books, the Old and New Testaments in Arabic, Christian music from across the Arab world, and more.

The Maarifa site encourages direct interaction. As Muslims and new believers make contact with Maarifa, all new and continuing conversations are tracked through the Global Response Management System, a contact management system serving Pioneers and a growing number of media ministries. The Global Response Management System also enables media contacts to be referred, when ready, to on-field missionaries and national workers.

So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. (Romans 10:17, NKJV)

This project is closed.

“But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of Him everywhere”. -2 Corinthians 2:14

Pioneers workers are currently holding classes in an office space strategically located in an urban center in Bosnia. They offer intermediate and advanced levels of English instruction and charge a very competitive fee compared with other English language services in the area. By finding financial partners to help support the ministry, they are able to keep the costs for students low, making it possible for more students to attend, more relationships to be built, and more people to hear the gospel.

In the summer of 2008, Pioneers workers and a short-term team held an intensive two-week language course. One worker shared, “On the second night everyone was to bring an object that described something about them. Tom’s* object was his Bible and Anna's* was her Huguenot necklace. Lots of conversation and chances to share came out of that. Two of the new students in this class have said they plan to join us for fall classes too. God is slowly building our influence here.” This is only one example of how the Lord is using the faithfulness of this team to make inroads for the gospel in this spiritually impoverished area.

Bigger Picture: Recovering from a devastating war, Bosnia is both a hurting and a hardened place. It is difficult work to persevere in sharing the gospel in this dry and thirsty land. One worker said, “Bosnia is like a bare field with many rocks just under the surface. At this point I think we are all still picking rocks.” Even when the fruit may be hard to see or slow to grow, Christ is leading in triumphal procession. Through Pioneers workers and other believers the aroma of Him is spreading in Bosnia and beyond. Lord-willing, these efforts will lead to a revival and the start of a church-planting movement. Will you take part in spreading the “fragrance of the knowledge of Him” in Bosnia?

*not the actual name

This project is closed.

After an extensive translation process, a new translation of the Bible has been prepared for a particular Muslim unreached people group in East Asia. The team carrying out this project is now ready to run two different versions. One is a full, hard cover Bible with full Islamic design characteristics printed and bound on high quality paper. As these people will be encountering the Bible for the first time, this version matches their impression of what a true Holy Book should look like. Additionally, a soft-cover New Testament with Psalms and Proverbs will be produced for active use and secure portability. The total print will produce 10,000 Bibles.