Iran - Bakhtiari People

The colourful Bakhtiari people number between 750,000 – 1,000,000
and live in south western Iran in the clean and beautiful highlands of
the Zagros Mountains. The Chahar Mahal Province has plains, snow-capped
mountains, valleys, rivers and dense forests. It is the habitat of
leopards, sheep and bears, and grows wild pistachio, almond, walnut,
plum and ash trees. The Bakhtiari are divided into tribes, sub-tribes
and clans. About half of the people retain their traditional lifestyle
of shepherding for the men, and carpet-weaving and home making for the
women. The rest are settled and involved in agriculture and a variety
of commercial activities.

Bakhtiari women enjoy a high degree of freedom in this patrilineal
culture. They traditionally wear beautiful bright coloured long full
skirts, blouses and headscarves. For thousands of years they have
undertaken a 4-6 week annual migration in the Spring, moving from their
winter quarters in Khuzistan to summer pastures in the Chahar Mahal
region south west of Esfahan. Men, women, children and animals –
thousands of them, travel across some of the most difficult mountain
country in Iran in their search for grass.

The Bakhtiari language is used across generations at home and in
commerce, but many Bakhtiari also speak Persian. There are about
350,000 monolingual Bakhtiari speakers, especially among older people
and women.

Like the majority of Iranians the Bakhtiari are Shi’a Muslims. There
are just a few small cell churches and scattered believers throughout
the region. In addition there are small numbers of Bakhtiari believers
in certain places around the world. Some initial Bible translation work
has begun in the United Kingdom.

Prayer Starters

* May God soften the hearts of the Bakhtiari people towards the followers of Jesus so that they will be receptive to the Gospel.

* Pray with a prayer partner for intercessors to be raised up for the Bakhtiari people.

* Pray for the development of suitable ministry materials and means
in the Bakhtiari language including: Scripture translations, radio
broadcasts and the “Jesus” film.

* Pray that Bakhtiari speakers who are already believers will
develop strong ministry skills and become effective in reaching out to
their people.

Gospel for nations …

Jesus has told us that the Gospel will be preached to all the
nations before the end of this present age (Matthew. 24:14). In Greek:
the word nations in the text is “ethnos,” which is related to the
English word ethnic, as in “ethnic group.” These groups have common
ancestors, history, language, customs and practices.

Religious Affiliations: World Ethnic Groups
Christianity: 5,923 | 37%
Muslim: 3,109 | 20%
Ethnic Religions: 2,963 | 19%
Hinduism: 2,324 | 15%
Buddhism: 481 | 3%
Other / Undefined: 887 | 6%
Total: 15,687 | 99%
Mission Frontiers Magazine, March / April 2007

There are over 245 Muslim people groups of over 100,000 population
which are completely unreached and for whom no one is actually engaged
in proclaiming the Gospel.

YouTube Link: BAKHTIARI TRIBE IRAN [4:19]

— see also Iranian Muslims turn to Christ despite threat, persecution !

Background Material on Iran can be found here >>

Gospel Language Recordings: Six 1/2 minutes or 2 evangelistic messages for Iran:

Why do most Christians remain spiritual babies? The author of Hebrews
tells us it is because they choose not to go on to maturity in Christ
Jesus.

The capacity for entering into deeper spiritual truths
depends on the faithfulness with which the soul has been obedient in
discerning good and evil in our daily lives.

Our fellowship with
God depends upon our obedience to His Word, and our obedience
determines how much spiritual maturity takes place in our lives. If we
do not act upon what we know to be true in God’s Word, we will not grow
in the likeness of Jesus Christ. Neither will we move from “milk” to
“meat” in God’s word.

It is very simple; if we love Him, we will obey Him. There is no getting around that spiritual truth.

The
writer of Hebrews carefully tells his readers, "Concerning Him we have
much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of
hearing" (Hebrews 5:11). Charles Williams words it this way, “You have
become lazy. You have become so dull in you spiritual senses. You are
so slow to grasp spiritual truth.”

Why had the early baby
believers become so dull in their spiritual hearing, and sluggish, even
slothful in gaining spiritual insight? They had never progressed from
the need of spiritual milk. Solid food is for full-grown individuals
“whose senses and mental faculties are trained by practice to
discriminate and distinguish between what is morally good and noble and
what is evil and contrary either to divine or human law” (Amplified
Bible, Heb. 5:14).

Maturity produces more maturity. Immaturity
reinforces and leads to more immaturity. You do not jump from
immaturity to a fully mature person. Christians become mature
spiritually “on account of long usage have their powers of perception
exercised to the point where they are able to discriminate between both
that which is good in character and that which is evil” (v.14, Wuest
Expanded Translation).

The emphasis is on spiritual progress.
Laziness prevents spiritual development. When you drift from God’s
word, you will begin doubting it, and you will become “dull listeners.”
If you have the attitude that everything spiritual is dull, you will
begin a dangerous slide into spiritual immaturity. The Bible is dull.
The preacher is dull. The Sunday School lesson is dull, and you are
dead spiritually. When there is no hunger and thirsting for the
righteousness of God, you are spiritually dead or in grave condition.

The
neglect of past opportunities to put into practice God’s teachings or
moral truths results in spiritual dullness. We become lazy spiritually
and unresponsive to the pleading of the Holy Spirit to pursue godliness.

Both milk and meat are needed for nourishment, but the former is for infants and the latter for adults.

The
Christian in every generation is confronted by the cultures of the
world. Pressure is constantly applied for us to conform. "Therefore I
urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a
living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual
service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be
transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what
the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect"
(Romans 12:1-2). We are to focus our eyes upon Jesus Christ who always
confronts every culture of every generation. Meat for strong Christians
deals with the hard issues of moral good and evil. It distinguishes the
difference between that which is good and better, and better and best.

The
spiritually mature believer by the exercise of his senses discerns good
and evil and builds through these experiences a standard of
righteousness by which he exercises an even more mature spiritual
discernment.

How is your spiritual appetite? What are you hungry for spiritually?

Maturity comes with habitual spiritual practice. Our spiritual perception and discernment comes through constant practice.

When
we put into daily practice the spiritual light, we have already
received which prepares us for more spiritual truth. We move from
spiritual milk to meat as we obey our Lord and Master.

Selah!

(c)
2006 Message by Wil Pounds. Anyone is free to use this material and
distribute it, but it may not be sold under any circumstances
whatsoever without the author's written consent.

Testimony

Her name is Noora.

She is one of 10 children. She loves fashion. She loves makeup, though
it is covered by the burqa (face covering). She loves talking on her
cell phone. She loves shopping. She loved university. And she has great
hopes. At 23 years of age, she longs for a man ... for children ... for
a happy, normal life.

Noora has a special Book which she must keep hidden. Its words convey
power and strength. The book is hidden on her MP3 player. Noora loves
to listen to the Words of the Book. Sometimes the Words help her
through the challenges or painful moments of a day. They bring her joy
and peace and teach her how to live.

Noora wanted her cousin to taste this Bread of Life. Her cousin heard
just a few of the Words. She said they were interesting, but she was
afraid of them, because they were so radical. "How can I love my
enemy?" she said. "No one in our tribe has ever loved his enemies."

Noora's girlfriends have noticed a change in her. She often radiates
the meaning of her name, which is light. While Noora is often alone,
she feels a supernatural presence. She is a Saudi follower of Jesus.

---
Pray with us for many more like Noora to find the joy and peace of
Christ and to radiate it to family and friends.

    More
testimonies are on our website and more will be added during our prayer
time in September.
    Blessings, Ron
    PS. The above is an extract from this years booklet.

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Dispatches From Iraq: Stake Through Their Hearts, Killing Al Qaeda

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

By Michael Yon

Michael
Yon is an independent journalist and former Green Beret who was
embedded in Iraq for nine months in 2005. He has returned to Iraq for
2008 to continue reporting on the war.

———————————————

Click here to read the full dispatch for "Stake Through Their Hearts, Killing Al Qaeda."

The
sun was setting over Nineveh as four terrorists driving tons of
explosives closed in on their targets. On Aug. 14, 2007, the Yezidi
villages of Qahtaniya and Jazeera were under attack, but only the
terrorists knew it as they drove their trucks straight into the hearts
of the communities.

The shockwave from
detonation far outpaced the speed of sound. Buildings and humans were
ripped apart and hurled asunder. Superheated poisonous gases from the
explosions gathered the smoke and dust and lofted heavenward, while the
second detonation quickly followed. The terrorists had landed their
first blows straight through the heart of the Yezidi community, turning
a wedding party into hundreds of funerals.

But
the attacks were not over. Yezidi men grabbed their rifles, and while
two more truck bombs rumbled toward Qahtaniya and Jazeera, a hail of
Yezidi bullets met them. The defenders who fired the bullets were
killed with honor while standing between evil and their people. Two
other truck bombs detonated on the outskirts of the villages.

When
the sun rose the next morning, screaming victims remained trapped in
the rubble. Survivors clawed and ripped at the wreckage, working
themselves to exhaustion to rescue their wives, husbands, children and
brothers.

The attacks on Qahtaniya and Jazeera
killed more than 500 people and garnered international news. No group
claimed responsibility, yet the attacks bore the mark of the Al Qaeda beast in the way that fangs to a jugular vein spells "Dracula."

Al Qaeda is still trying to spin Iraq into civil war, but whereas in 2005-2006 Al Qaeda was succeeding, today Al Qaeda is being shredded.

An
Iraqi officer near Sinjar told me that recently a group of perhaps 20
"jihadists," many of them foreign, descended on a Nineveh village. The
Iraqi officer said the terrorists killed some adults and two babies.
One baby they murdered was 15 days old.

Until
recently, such terror attacks inside Iraq could have coerced the
village into sheltering Al Qaeda. Yet this time, the "jihadists" got an
unexpected reception. Local men grabbed their rifles and poured fire on
the demons, slaughtering them.

Nineteen
terrorists were destroyed. Times have changed for Al Qaeda here. Too
many Iraqis have decided they are not going to take it anymore. Al
Qaeda in Iraq is still fighting, and they are tough and wily, but Al
Qaeda Central seems to realize there are easier targets elsewhere,
perhaps in Europe, where many people demonstrate weakness in the face of terror.

Al
Qaeda was apparently not in Iraq before this war, and at the current
rate they will not be here when it’s over. The Iraqi army and police
are doing most of the work these days, but their own operations are
significantly augmented by what we bring to the fight.

The
main American helicopter unit in Nineveh is 4-6 Air Cavalry Squadron.
The normal strength of the "Redcatchers" is 40 helicopters -- 30 Kiowas
and 10 Blackhawks -- but the Squadron has lost one Kiowa and a
Blackhawk in Iraq, costing more than a dozen lives.

The
soldiers were lost forever, but the helicopters were replaced, and the
Squadron is flying as hard as ever and to great effect. The pilots and
crews work 24/7, performing direct combat and combat-support missions.

I
flew from Mosul in one of the Squadron’s Blackhawks from "Darkhorse"
troop en route to FOB Sykes near Tal Afar. The "Hawks" are powerful,
fast and loud. Blackhawk rotors are better designed than Vietnam-era
Huey "choppers" and do not generate the percussive "whop whop whop."

And
so despite that Blackhawks are loud, when they fly low, fast and into
the wind, they can at times literally sneak up on people on the ground.
First there is silence and then "VRROOOOMMMM," the Hawk flies right
over your head.

We flew low from Mosul to Tal
Afar in broad daylight, and if we happened to cross paths with a
surface-to-air missile, the day could get exciting and final.

Click here to read the full dispatch from Michael Yon.

Click here to go to Michael Yon's Web site.

Talking Religion and Politics without Getting Co-opted
by John Ortberg

Anybody but me notice that this is an
election year? I have loved politics since I was a kid; one of my first
and favorite books was a little Cold War classic called Being an American Can Be Fun.

But it's an odd thing. The church—where we're
supposed to be fearless; where we're supposed to challenge people on
sin, and be prophetic, and face martyrdom—the church is also the place
where we're told, "Don't talk about politics!" Or at least we're told
that in the kind of churches where I grew up. Other traditions are
different. In the African-American church, for instance, for decades
church was the one place where politics could be safely talked about;
leaving a legacy that is reverberating pretty loudly this year.

Here's the problem: politics is an important sphere
of human activity, and as such God is keenly interested in it. It was
the Dutch theologian and politician (why don't we have more of those?)
Abraham Kuyper who famously said, "There is not one inch of creation
about which Jesus Christ does not say: 'This is mine!'"

However, as soon as human beings (including church
leaders) start assuming they are in a position to pronounce God's
political leanings, things get a little dicey.

In Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, which
remains the high water mark in presidential theological reflection, he
notes that "Both (the North and the South) read the same Bible, and
pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other." So
maybe a way to place politics in its proper context is with a little
thought experiment.

Imagine that we elected all the right people to all
the right offices. President, Congress, governors, right down to the
school board, city council members, and dog catcher (which, by the way,
does anyone still get to vote for?) Let's imagine that all of these
ideal office holders instituted all the right policies. Every piece of
legislation—from zoning laws, to tax codes, to immigration policy, to
crime bills—is just exactly the way you know it ought to be.

Would that usher in perfection?

Would the hearts of the parents be turned toward their children?
Would all marriages be models of faithful love?
Would greed and pride be legislated out of existence?
Would assistant pastors find senior pastors to be models of harmony and delight?
Would human beings now at last be able to master our impulses around sexuality, and anger, and narcissism?
Would you finally become the woman or man you know you ought to be?

In the words of theologian Macaulay Culkin: "I don't
think so." Because no human system has the ability to change the human
heart. Not even democracy, or capitalism, or
post-modern-emergent-ancient-future-missionalism. T.S. Elliot summed up
our quandary brilliantly: "We want a system of order so perfect that we
do not have to be good."

Systems are important but they're also complicated.
Historian Mark Noll notes that evangelicals often fail to add value in
politics because we like simplicity: good vs. evil; right vs. wrong.
Political and economic arrangements are full of complexity and nuance.
Well-intended legislation may lead to poor results. When we condition
people to think that every bill is a battle between the forces of
righteousness versus the minions of darkness, we do not serve the
process well. But we specialize in polarizing. No parachurch
organization with a political agenda ever sent out a fund-raising
letter noting that an upcoming bill was "likely to do 40 percent more
good than harm."

We ought to be engaged in the political process. We
ought to vote, be educated, be involved. We should do it in a way that
is civil and respectful and redemptive. (I saw a cartoon recently where
a guy showed up at the pearly gates to hear St. Peter say: "You were a
believer, yes. But you skipped the not-being-a-jerk-about-it part.")
But we should also remember that the church is not called to be one
more political interest group.

The human race needs an administration of another
kind. There is one possibility. Someone needs to be in a position to
say: "The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe the Good
News." Scholars like N.T. Wright remind us that these words were
politically loaded. They deliberately echo or parody the claims of
Rome—that Caesar was Savior, that his kingdom was Good News.

The Gospel of the early church was, among other
things, a deliberate in-your-face to the empire. Pretty cheeky when you
think that the church had a few thousand ragged cohorts and the Empire
ruled sixty-five million hearts. It was pretty clear which horse to bet
on. But here we are, two thousand years later, and we give our children
names like Peter, Paul, and Mary; and we call our dogs Caesar and Nero.

These gospel words of the early church were
deliberately politically loaded. But they were not to be co-opted. They
are to stand above every human party and candidate and political
platform. The church historically has not done well when it gets too
closely associated with empires. The gospel words must transcend higher
to go deeper.

My daughter got a CD for me recently from an old
Broadway show called Camelot. Richard Burton is singing at the end ad
the dream of Camelot is about to perish in a great battle. He
sings/speaks in a tone of unbearable wistfulness:

'Don't let it be forgot,
That once there was a spot,
For one brief shining moment…'

I wondered why that was so evocative. Until I
remembered—there is a longing. But it is not really about Camelot, or
King Arthur, or Shangri-la, or Constantine, or whoever your favorite
candidate is. It's for a carpenter-turned-rabbi, who once ran for
Messiah, and got crucified.

John Ortberg is editor at large of Leadership journal
and the pastor of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in Menlo Park,
California.

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