December 27, 2022 By: Stan Jeter Global News Alliance
Just consider the radical Islamic nation of Iran. Citizens of all ages are out on the streets, protesting religious restrictions and harsh government suppression.
Hundreds have been killed and thousands arrested, but the protests continue. Perhaps not surprisingly, independent research shows that only a third of all Iranians still believe in Islam. Here comes the good news: so many are converting to Christ that Iran now has the fastest-growing church in the world! How’s that for an amazing, revolutionary news item?! God is at work changing nations!
“So what I’ve been saying in the past that Iran is no longer an Islamic nation…now it’s proven!”
“The suffering in Iran has opened the spiritual heaven in Iran” says Dr. Hormoz Shariat, a former Muslim who broadcasts daily into Iran by satellite. “The more suffering in Iran, the more people in Iran are open. The rate of conversion the last two, three years, has jumped ten to twenty times.” FACT: The darker the world, the more the light of Christians will shine–and GNA is here to bring you those encouraging reports.
I interviewed Dr. Shariat in his Texas studio for the GNA report. To watch this encouraging story click here or on the image above. Over the past twelve months we’ve supplied Christian broadcasters with hundreds of GNA reports from around the world. Yet one of our most far-reaching strategies could be our GNA news training.
Last March, at the invitation of Dr. Tariku Fufa of Campus Crusade, my colleague Dr. Sam Ebersole (below) and I were in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to provide “smartphone reporter” training for a key group of their ministry leaders. Over eighty new friends from Mauritania to South Africa (plus the well-equipped Joshua, below) can now pull out their smartphones and capture great stories of God at work all over Africa!
As funds allow, we plan to train 300 more smartphone reporters this coming year in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and beyond. Imagine the joy of seeing fresh stories of God’s work in so many new places! Obviously, this will take a good amount of training and mentoring, and we invite journalists and media professionals to partner with us to make it happen.
As a nonprofit news agency, GNA depends on donations from friends like you. Your tax-deductible “investments” will enable us to produce many more of God’s amazing stories in 2023. There IS plenty of good news to share! Happy New Year!
