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B.A.S.I.C. NEWSLETTER #46
March 7, 2005

I Cor. 16:9   For a wide door for effective work has opened to me,and there are many adversaries.

NEWS - ETAGO CLC, KENYA
With more children left from Aids parents' deaths, this for Christians is becoming a great mission field to bring up those children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.   Our brethren at Etago, Kenya have been operating a school for children orphaned by Aids.   They have had up to 80 children in school.   Each year they plan to add another grade.   Four women now teach in the school.   The school evidently has been appreciated, as some parents have asked if they could send their children to the school for tuition.   Complete religious instruction is in the charge of our members. So far the school has been conducted in the church building.   Now the men are working on the first classroom on donated land next to the church.   Their plan is to build one new classroom each year until eight classrooms exist.   Work on the building has progressed and completion is anticipated in March.   Pray for this Christian venture. We thank the Lord that our brothers and sisters have undertaken this work for the Lord.

TO THE EAST BOTH NORTH AND SOUTH - part 4
In the West - In 597 Augustine with 40 missionaries arrived in England. The Gospel entered England previously after 43AD through Roman legionnaires who were Christians.
500 IN THE EAST - Cosmas, 'the India-Sailor' reported about 525 that in Taprobane (Ceylon)...there was a church of Christians with clergy.   Also in Malabar as well as in Bombay, India there were churches.   The bishop of Bombay was appointed from Persia.   He reported further, "And so likewise among the Bactrians, and Huns and Persians, and the rest of the Indians, Persarmenians, Medes and Elamites, and throughout the whole land of Persia there is no limit to the number of Churches with bishops and very large communities of Christian people,   as well as martyrs..." p. 29-30 from Young's "Handbook of Source Materials for Students of Church History". Regarding Japan, the Seventeen Articles of Injunction of the Regen tPrince, Shotoku (574-622) apparently include a grant to Nestorian Christians of full liberty and personal rights. In the 500's Afghanistan had a metropolitan bishop at Herat.
IN THE WEST - In 692 Willibrord was working among the Frisians inthe Netherlands.
600-700 IN THE EAST - By the seventh century a flow of teachers, students, novices and monks from Japan to China and back, often following long periods of study, brought back books and knowledge from China's diverse religious and political traditions...The trade routes of the 'Silk Road' are also known to have reached Korea, Japan, and what is today eastern Russian by this time, contributing to these exchanges. Against this background it is from China, in particular from Chang-an and during the Tang Dynasty, that Christianity also first came to Korea and Japan.In the case of Korea, where Christianity seems to have been present, as Buddhism was, prior to its introduction to Japan, evidence has been found in the Korean Chronicles Samguk Yusa and Samguksa, for the presence of Nestorian Christianity during the united Silla Dynasty (661-935).The total number of Christians in Persia by the contemporary estimate in the late seventh century, well over a million, the majority being Syriac-speaking but a significant number being of Iranian stock. From the mid 600's to the mid 700's the Nestorian churches went from Syria in the west to Japan in the northeast and to Sumatra in the southeast.   Their hierarchy included nine metropolitans and ninety-six bishops.

Pastor David Koenig

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B.A.S.I.C. NEWSLETTER #47
March 18, 2005 

I. Cor. 16:9   For a wide door for effective work has opened to me and there are many adversaries.

EASTER CELEBRATION
As we celebrate His glorious resurrection it is a good time to remember how many witnesses there were to it.   At least eleven different resurrection appearances during the forty days are recorded in Scripture.
Easter Morning
- to Mary Magdalene: Mk. 16:9, Jn. 20:11-18.
- to the other Women: Mt. 28:9 
- to Peter: I Cor. 15:5
Easter Afternoon
- to the two on the way to Emmaus: Lk. 24:13-35
Easter Evening
- to the ten Apostles in the Upper Room: Jn. 20:19-24
One Week Later
- to the eleven Apostles in the Upper Room: Jn. 20:26-29
At the Sea of Galilee
- to the seven: Jn. 21:1-2, 9-12
To the 500: I Cor. 15:6
To James the son of Zebedee: I Cor. 15:7
At the Mt. in Galilee: Mt. 28: 16-20
At the Ascension, Mt. of Olives: Lk. 24:50-51

May God bless us all with a full appreciation of His sacrifice on Calvary and of the proof of our salvation in His Resurrection.

TO THE EAST BOTH NORTH AND SOUTH   part 5
In the West - The time of Charlemagne in Germany/France was around 800.   His method of conversion of the Saxons was 'convert or die'.   Not a method we would agree with.
700-800 in the EAST - Mission work in the East was of quite a different sort along the trade route of the 'Silk Road'.East Turkestan - From the seventh century on, under the leadership of such energetic patriarchs as Timothy I (780-823), Syrian (Nestorian) missionaries penetrated east of the Pamirs to the Turkish peoples of Kashgar, Yarkand and Khotan; south to Tiet and Ladakh,  to Nuakith (in modern Pakistan) and Gandishapur (in modern Kirgiziyaand Kazakhstan); further east to the oases beyond the Gobi Desert, of Turfan, Hami and Dunhuang.   Kashgar and Yarkand would later have bishoprics as would Almalik, Hami and Dunhuang,   Many of these centers, such as Khotan, retained Christian churches until the eleventh century at least and some, like Kocho, until the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. 
Burma - The presence of Christians in the kingdom of Malea (North Burma) in the ninth century is recorded along with other south Asia centers by Didacus de Couto.   It should be remembered that Marco Polo discovered Nestorian Christians amongst the Shans when the Mongol armies entered Burma in 1252.   (The first USA foreign missionary to Burma was in the early 1800's, Adoniram Judson.)
IN THE WEST DURING THE 900'S - THE GOSPEL CONQUERED THROUGHOUT THE SCANDINAVIAN COUNTRIES.
900 in the EAST, Central Asia - From the fourth to the seventh century Syriac-speaking refugees from the Persian Empire, where persecution erupted periodically, bishops and monks from the eastern dioceses of the church along with Persian and Sogdian merchants spread Christianity through the Oxus region.   Herat had bishops by the fifth century, until the eleventh century at least as did the Hephthalite Huns (Turks).Large numbers of white Huns accepted Christianity as a clear example of the mission thrust in the East.   Great work was done by two Nestorian laymen, John of Resh-aina and Thomas the Tanner, assisted for short periods by four priests and two bishops.   This shows the importance of laymen in outreach.   They baptized and preached, devised and taught a written language for the Huns and with the help of a Monophysite Armenian bishop taught also agricultural methodsand skills. Armenian churches were also being founded to the east.   In the late sixth century Bishop Abel was appointed to the Armenian community of the southeast Caspian Sea.   A blossoming of Armenian Christian culture took place in the ninth to eleventh centuries. 
Syria and Iran - In the tenth century Albiruni had declared that the majority of populations of Syria, Iraq and Khurasan were in fact Christian and until the thirteenth century almost half of the seventy-five bishoprics in fifteen provinces of the old Persian Empire still survived. All of this attests to the power of the Gospel in the face of opposition and the love of God to reach out to these peoples.   In the Old Testament God affirmed that His Word would reach into all the World: Ps. 22:22-27, 98:3, Is. 24:14,16, 49:6, 66:19-20, Jer. 16:19,Zech. 8:23   At the conclusion of the four Gospels we have the words of our Lord that His Word would go into all the world.   And He did it.

Pastor Koenig