Dear Brothers & Sisters,
This month we will accomplish a crusade that has been one of the most difficult ones for us to accomplish in our 20+ years of ministry. Close to 18 months ago I began planning a crusade in a least-reached country in Asia with our crusade director. The preparations began. The pastors began to prepare and mobilize their congregations. And then I received word from our crusade director: “We must postpone the crusade.” He began to share with me that the persecution against Christians in this area had become so severe that he did not see a safe way for us to hold our crusade. While we often go to dangerous places, we also want to use wisdom and to be sensitive to the believers who must live in these areas. We don’t want to unnecessarily endanger them, nor do we want our crusade to be shut down before its conclusion, so we had to postpone the crusade for Fall 2022.
At the beginning of 2023 the situation had changed, and it seemed as though persecution had subsided to the point that we could begin to plan this crusade yet again. We planned it for May 2023. Preparations were resumed, the pastors were reinvigorated, and I purchased plane tickets. All seemed well. Then, as before, our crusade director wrote me with yet another sobering message, “The persecution against the Church here has worsened and it is not safe for you to come or for us to have such a large meeting here. We must postpone again.” I was devastated; the pastors were even more so. But we postponed again, and I rerouted my flights and we held a fantastic crusade in a different part of Asia in May.
Now, this crusade director is a good friend for 20 years now. We have done many crusades with him without issue. In our 20+ years of ministry we have never had to postpone a crusade twice. But this summer we began to talk and pray once again and the current situation is such that he told me that they were ready for the crusade. That crusade is now less than two weeks away. As you read this, I am about to fly to this Asian nation for what we believe will be a transformational event for this region so that those persecutors of Christ will turn into evangelists for Christ, just like the Apostle Paul. But as you can see, this is a sensitive situation, and we need your prayers. I have been fasting and praying along with the pastors in this city that what Satan has so desperately tried to stop from happening would be stopped no longer and that this city would be forever changed by the power of the Gospel! Please pray for protection, for favor and for a powerful move of God as I travel to this persecuted place in Asia this month!
For the Lost,
Evangelist Joshua Wagner