PAKISTAN ON A PRECIPICE - CHURCH AT RISK

A call to pray for Pakistan

By Elizabeth Kendal, World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission (WEA RLC), Special to ASSIST News Service, November 19, 2008

The security situation in Pakistan is deteriorating. Al-Qaeda-Taliban jihadists, having already captured most of the north-western tribal regions, are escalating their terror right in the heart of Peshawar, the capital city of North West Frontier Province. They are also ramping up their terror attacks in Pakistan's major cities, including Islamabad. Pakistan's Christians have seen their rights and security decline over nearly three decades of advancing Islamisation and escalating radicalisation. Pakistan's blasphemy law is one of the most insidious tools of religious persecution in the world today. An al-Qaeda-Taliban victory in Pakistan would be disastrous for global sec urity and totally devastating for Pakistan's three million Christians (two percent of the population), some of whom are already suffering under Taliban rule in the north-west. Please pray for the Church in Pakistan.

PLEASE PRAY SPECIFICALLY FOR:

* God to protect, sustain and provide for Pakistani Christians in NWFP presently suffering under Taliban repression, persecution and advancing jihad.

* God to draw the Pakistani Church into the scriptures and prayer, building their faith, maturity and unity; may he protect them from terrorism.

* the Holy Spirit to empower the witness of the Pakistani Church so that confused, disillusioned Pakistani Muslims may be transformed by the gospel of grace (Romans 1:16).

* God to demonstrate his radical grace by witnessing directly through dreams and visions to jihadists throughout the FATA.

'And falling to the ground he heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" And he said, "Who are you Lord?" And he said, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting."' (Acts 9:4,5 ESV)

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