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Tell of His glory among the nations, His wonderful deeds among all the peoples. For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised.
1 Chronicles 16:24-25
L A B O L E L G OSP G
The 10/40 Window is the rectangular area of North Africa and Asia between 10 degrees north and 40 degrees north latitude. The 10/40 Window includes the majority of the world’s Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists. An estimated 4.09 billion individuals, residing in approximately 7,026 distinct people groups, live in the 10/40 Window. The 10/40 Window is home to some of the largest unreached people groups in the world such as the Shaikh, Yadava, Turks, Moroccan Arabs, Pashtun, Jat and Burmese. The 10/40 Window is home to the majority of the world’s unevangelized countries. The “unevangelized” are people who have a minimal knowledge of the gospel, and have no valid opportunity to respond to it. While it constitutes only one-third of the earth’s total land area, approximately two-thirds of the world’s people reside in the 10/40 Window.
MESSAGE NOTES
At 16, Bektas had nothing good to say about God. He had studied at the mosque - the only place young men in Uzbekistan know to go in search of God. But faced with repeated disappointment in his life, Bektas felt only distance from God. “Maybe God had a plan for everyone else, but he didn’t seem to have one for me.” Then one day in the late 1990s, as the First churches were springing up among the Karakalpak people of Uzbekistan, a man shared the Gospel with young Bektas. “He told me two things. One: ‘God loves you.’ “‘God loves me?’ I asked. ‘How? Like this? My parents abandoned me. I can’t get into university. I have no way to get married.’” While struggling with the implications of such an extraordinary statement, Bektas was confronted with a second truth in the form of a question: “Doesn’t God speak Karakalpak?”
MESSAGE NOTES
Suddenly disbelief in God’s love was swallowed up in an overwhelming certainty that the God of the universe spoke his language. His Muslim religious leaders said Arabic was the language one must know to speak with God, but Bektas saw that this kept people from truly knowing God. Anger and the pain of abandonment eventually melted into faith in Jesus, and this young man who had once prayed every night for God to take his life, now understood that God had plans to give him hope and a future. But Bektas could not have imagined in those early days where his earnest belief in Jesus would take him.
MESSAGE NOTES
A little over a year after becoming a believer, Bektas was pastoring a small church when police raided his home and arrested him. Though the police threatened to send him to prison, Bektas was eventually released after paying a Fine. Faced with a choice - to continue to share the gospel, to distribute Bibles and lead churches - Bektas saw no choice. His allegiance was to Jesus.
MESSAGE NOTES
After his five arrests, Bektas reflects on his own sufferings in relation to those of Christ. Today, Bektas’ commitment has made him a man without a home to call his own. After Five arrests, he was recently forced to Flee Uzbekistan for a neighboring country. Along the way, he started two more churches.
MESSAGE NOTES
PRAYER GUIDE MONDAY
TUESDAY
Praise God for this amazing testimony of the great saving grace of God and the sweet mercy He poured out on Bektas. Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short too save, nor His ear to dull to hear. (Isaiah 59:1) Our God is the God of Central Asia and all the earth and He is greatly to be praised!
Lift up our brothers and sisters in Uzbekistan, speciFically our brother Bektas who was recently forced to leave his home country due to persecution for his faith in Christ. Pray for God to sustain His church and to keep the local church in unity and peace - always persevering in love and patience with one another, bearing one another’s burdens and spurring each other on to love and good deeds.
THURSDAY
Pray for the world’s unreached people to have a chance to hear the Gospel and to know the saving power of Jesus Christ. Pray for God to prepare their hearts to hear the Good News!
SATURDAY
* information was gathered from the book: Along the Silk Road, Beth Alexander
Pray for the Gospel to go through every mosque in Uzbekistan so that every young muslim man in search of God may Find Him through the saving power of Jesus!
WEDNESDAY
FRIDAY
r e so u r c e * Information gathered from: in fo : http://centralasia.imb.org/blog/?page_id=3
Ask for God to stir the heart of His church. Let us not be just hearers of the Word, but also doers. Let us risk our lives and sacriFicially give of ourselves for the sake of the lost with the hope of knowing God deeper and being satisFied in Him while we are obedient to His Word. Let’s thank God for what He is doing in our faith family. Pray that God would bring deep unity to our church that we may lean on one another and lock arms together as we press on to know Jesus and show Jesus to this lost world as we wait for the day of His great return.
GLOBAL GOSPEL for mor e deta iled info rma tion on glob al min istry at Broo k Hills visit www .bro okh ills.o rg