What is the vision behind God's Remnant Assembly? At what point was the vision given?

God's Remnant Assembly was birthed by the Holy Spirit precisely on March 9, 1989. The vision behind God's Remnant Assembly can be found in the entire chapters of MICAH, ISAIAH, EZRA AND NEHEMIAH with references from Genesis to Revelation. Our vision is to be conformed to whom (Jesus Christ) we preach, whom we serve (Jesus Christ) and whom we worship (Jesus Christ) as His devout followers fulfilling the Great Commission among the unreached in the continents of Africa, Asia and the Middle East (known as the 10/40 window of the world) through training, sending out and assisting qualified laborers in partnership with the entire Body of Christ.

We are convinced that God's primary means of relating to and transforming the world is the church. Thus, where there is no church, we are committed to evangelism and planting vibrant mature Churches as led by the Holy Spirit (Isaiah 52: 7, 65: 1, Rom 10: 13-15, Rev 7: 9, 10: 11). Where a church exists, we are committed to strengthening the church by establishing them in the present truth (11 Pet 1: 12), developing leaders, and equipping the church to fulfill and finish Christ's Commission. We seek to humbly serve and boldly challenge churches in the love of God in their obedience to God's mandate to be witnesses in the entire world with a keen focus on the unreached nations of the world. The Lord saysI (God) will surely assembly , O Jacob, all of thee: I will surely gather the remnant of Israel ; I will put them together as the sheep of Bozrah, as the flock in the midst of their fold: they shall make great noise by reason of the multitude of men. The breaker is come up before them: they have broken up, and up, and have passed through the gate, and are gone out by it: and their king shall pass before them, and the LORD on the head of them" Micah 2: 12, 13 KJV

Where are your areas of operations?
We focus on the unreached peoples of the world who have not heard the gospel of Jesus Christ, specifically those who live in the 10/40 Window in Africa, Asia, Middle East and beyond. The 10/40 Window is the rectangular shaped window of the globe where majority of the unreached people of our world live. It is sometimes referred to as the "Resistant Belt." It is actually an area located from 10° North to 40° North of the Equator and stretches from West Africa to East Asia covering about 53 countries of the world. This specific region is home to the majority of the world's Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists. Take a closer look at the staggering statistics:

97% of the people, who live in the least evangelised countries in the world, live in the 10/40 Window. 2.7 billion Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists live in the 10/40 Window. All of the top fifty least evangelized cities are in the 10/40 Window. 82% of the world's poorest of the poor live in the 10/40 Window (Average wage: $1.40/day) and only 8% of all missionaries work among them.

Some of the strongest of Satan's strongholds enslaving billions of people to deception, disease, destruction and death are in the 10/40 Window. The Lord is strategically establishing His kingdom (His Church) through us at the following nations. Undergound Churches have been specifically established in some of these nations by the mercy and grace of God through GRA and the rest of these nations will be reached as several willing individuals are currently being tutored and governed by the word of the Lord, and are invariably being sent by the Lord of the harvest to go and reap in precious souls of men into the barn of the Lord. These nations include but is not limited to Afghanistan , Algeria , Azerbaijan , Bangladesh , Belarus , Bhutan , Brunei , Chad , China , Comoro Islands , Egypt , Ethiopia , Kuwait India, Iran , Iraq , Laos , Libya , Malaysia , Niger , Pakistan , Qatar , Saudi Arabia , Somalia , Sudan , Tunisia , Turkey , Uzbekistan , Vietnam , Yemen and others.

Regardless of your age, gender, educational background, ethnicity, physical ability, income level, or occupation, you can be a missionary. You don't have to quit your job, leave your spouse, move to seminary, or even learn to preach. It's not just about talking and criticizing folks but to actually do something about it. You can be a missionary – and God has called every Christian to be His missionary. But the issue is who will answer this call?

Missions is generally regarded as a difficult area in evangelism. Were you not afraid when you started?
We are never at one time confronted with fear when we started because of the love of God that has been shed abroad in our heart by the Holy Spirit and if and when fear tries to knock the door of our hearts we allow “Perfect love” who is Jesus Christ, love that is perfected in our hearts to drive it out. It's has this simple but it's the truth.

He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him, because he first loved us.” 1 John 4: 16-19. It is necessary for a missionary to love those he is trying to convert with the real love of God that cast out all fear. Zeal, which is defending the honour of God, and desperation to save someone from hell are dangerous motivations.

What are the risks involved in missions? Can you share some of your dangerous experiences with us?

Twice our team was miraculously saved from execution in Kuwait , when 4 men attacked us with swords for preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God . And then in North Africa when militants raided our house, 8 of them armed with machine guns at 1.00am. We had hundreds of Bibles in our house at the time. Also we had been stoned many times, spat at and hit with eggs in several places etc. But could this be compared with many blind, deaf, dumb, crippled people and those with various sicknesses who had received healing in Jesus name, what about those who are demon possessed who received their deliverance and are set free by the power of God in several places. All these put together cannot even be compared to our names that are written in heaven and inscribed in the palms of God's hands in addition to several souls that are being saved and added to a maturing Church, to God alone be all the glory and honor and majesty.

Who can be a missionary?
A missionary is someone “sent” to tell others something. So, if you are a Christian, Jesus has “sent” you to be a witness of Him to everyone. You don't start being a missionary until you go far away or learn another language or even eat strange things. You become a missionary the day you become a Christian and that means from that time onward you must start to witness about the love of God to all anytime and any place: Your home, church, school, neighborhood, community, state, nation, and the unreached world! You are a missionary, if you can pray, if you can witness where you are and where you are sent, if you can give your financial substance and the ultimately if you can go to where the Lord sent you, but where has the Lord sent us to be a witness (two or three), where in the world has the people not been opportuned to hear the gospel of the kingdom twice or thrice?
Let's take a closer look at the 10/40 window nations, may the Lord will resonate His desire once again in our heart. Don't be discouraged, my Christian friend. You can be a missionary and yes you are one.You're a Christian. You have been for many years. You read the Bible, take your family to church, and tithe every week. However, there's little more to your Christian life than the mundane events of what has become common in contemporary Christianity. A Sunday service here, a Bible Study there, and maybe a Christian concert now and then. But is that all there is? Doing the same old thing? Think back to all the stories you know so well in Scripture. The Israelites fighting for God's glory, Jesus feeding the multitudes, Paul starting churches among the unreached people of the world. What excitement! What vision! What purpose! But wait. That was then and this is now, right? That kind of thing was for the founders of the faith. It was for people God had “spoken” to, right? Well, if you study hard and enough and pray hard enough, the real answer may surprise you. It may cause you to rethink your life and even reconsider what it means to be a follower of Christ.

What is missionary life like in places like Middle East and Islamic Republics of Asia ? What are the dangers involved? What dangers your organisation faced?
Missionary life in places like the Middle East is very exciting. First of all we have a lot of tentmakers in GRA. A Tentmaker is a trained, experienced Christian worker who uses his/her secular profession or training as a vehicle for entering cross-cultural ministry, particularly in closed or restricted access countries.Missionaries have increasingly become targets of Muslim harassment since 9/11. "I am reminded of the calling and how strong my calling was to come to Yemen . There's a reason for being here," one slain missionary had said this prior to her death. "I might not know what one little thing it is that I am here to do. But I am here and I will continue to stay until God tells me to go home."

Two others did go home in a way because they never quite considered this world their home and this happen when a man cradling a gun in a baby blanket slipped past security at one hospital in Yemen. "I heard some shooting. I saw the guy running outside. I was afraid. I heard them saying ‘he killed the doctors'! He killed the doctors,'' Abdel Salam, eyewitness said. The shooter never met his victims. Never felt their healing touch. Never saw the lives saved by their work. To the gunman, the doctors' crime was simply being a Christian missionary.

Medical missions has in modern mission history been a way for Christian compassion and the spirit of Christ which is His love to be expressed in the midst of human need in the nations where GRA Mission Squad serve the Lord's Christ. the relative safety of medical missions is no longer guaranteed in these nations. What about a Christian missionary nurse in her early thirties who was shot in Lebanon when there was a knock at her door and after which she answered was shot by a man three times in the head. In the weeks after her death a leading Muslim cleric was quoted in local media as saying she had deserved death.

In spite of this attacks not one GRA Mission Squad member had said he or she would stay home because of this. One of GRA Mission Squad who is a medical doctor said, and I quote, “To not go and preach the message of the Kingdom in these nations would result in a different kind of death for me because I feel like that's who I am made to be," she said. "I feel like that's who God has called me to be. And that's my passion and my love and so for me to deny that in hopes of having a safer life would result in a death of who I am." Another member of GRA Mission Squad who is a dentist said, "My greatest fear is not going. My greatest fear would be to let people to die without knowing Christ. I do not want to stand before God one day and say 'Lord I didn't go.' 'Why not?' 'Because I was afraid.'" It's not a failure anytime God's people are obedient. There are people today in Jebba, Muscat , Kuwait continuing to live out the Gospel of Jesus Christ and love the people in the name of Christ and that is never a failure."

Is there any organised understanding or attempt by the missionary world to evangelise the Muslim world or it's just an individual thing?
We can no longer ignore the Muslim world. Although the terrorist act was carried out by extreme fanatics, the whole world has been confronted by the challenge of Islam. Most of us are now learning about Islam, the names of Muslim countries and who the people are. The western politicians are learning names and politically correct terms they did not know existed. One sixth of humanity is now staring us in the face. There has to be a response. People are now praying even for Osama Bin Laden to be saved. While the Governments will act within their parameters, the whole church will have to respond as salt and light. There is no middle road here. We have to know what Muslims believe and why, and their resultant worldview. What they believe is already affecting us. Understanding Islam and Muslims has become the theme of many emails circulated and seminars conducted now in the Western world. No more are they "out there somewhere" to be ignored; our attention is now focused on them. In spite of greater efforts in the Muslim world in recent years, still only about 6% of all foreign missionary efforts are concentrated there. Yet out of every three non-Christians in the world, one is a Muslim. "Love your neighbour" must now also refer to Muslims. We cannot ignore their physical, humanitarian and most importantly their spiritual needs. Thank God for the few Churches and individuals (Remnants) are that are addressing these needs they are the first fruit that have been apprehended with the high calling of God and it will soon become a mainstream cutting across the entire body of Christ by the power of the spirit of the living God.

Would you say missionaries are using the right strategies and tools in this 21st Century mission work and evangelism?
There are several ways and strategy we operate mission work in places like the Middle East and Asia continent. These are strategies the Holy Spirit birth in and through us in the place of prayer and each of these strategies are peculiar for the need of the area where we serve hence the need to always depend upon the Lord for a new and fresh strategy. For example in order to attract young Muslims in Bangladesh , we set up a special Muslim school named Madrasat ul-Masih, in which we teach the Bible to destitute Muslim children. The school has obviously been given an Islamic-sounding name in order to attract Muslim children. It has also a small medical center, which is visited mainly by poor Muslim patients. Even in this apparently purely humanitarian effort the ultimate goal of conversion is paramount, through the medical center it is easy to make friends and share the Gospel. Sometimes we set up children's homes, schools, craft centers, agricultural training and relief and medical projects.

Yet, behind these noble ventures the ultimate goals are evangelism and Church-planting among Muslims. Projects currently runs in some of the Islamic nations in Asia continent include adult literacy programs, counseling and vocational training with emphasis on Math and English. The current classes being offered include: Soap Making, Crocheting & Knitting, Tie and Die, Batik, Arts and Craft, and catering.

We currently own a Mobile Clinic in some communities and in addition offer free medical education. In Europe the numbers are just as overwhelming. France has 10% Muslims, nearly 6 million people, making Islam the second religion. 5% of the UK population (over 2 million people) come from 10/40 window countries. Germany has 1.6 million Turks; 500,000 Kurds; 290,000 Arabs; 115,000 Iranians; and 70,000 Afghans. Every European country has people from the 10/40 window. They are now our neighbours. They come to us from many countries where the Gospel cannot be preached openly. We need to love them; see ourselves as missionaries to them; seek to understand and appreciate them; look for the positive aspects of their culture. Why else would God bring them to us?

To be concluded in next edition.