MENA (MNN)—This month, members of A3 are meeting with Christian leaders of major Muslim-background believer networks in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), to learn more about how to best provide support to believers in the region.

“We want to see God glorified among every unreached and unengaged people group, and we know that the MENA region has about 400 Muslim unreached and unengaged people groups that number in the hundreds of millions,” says Jannelle Stoops of A3. “As we want to see people come to know Christ, this region is going to be crucial and strategic to see the Great Commission fulfilled.”

Christians in the MENA region face a wide variety of challenges.

“Some of the leaders we are working with are in countries that are experiencing war—sometimes wars that have been going on for several years,” says Stoops. “Other times, they’re facing a crisis such as a natural disaster—an earthquake, for example, or a tsunami. And then leaders in nearly every country that we’re working with are facing persecution or pressure of some kind, and this can be anywhere from people ostracizing them all the way to facing serious death threats or being imprisoned for their faith.”

A3 has worked with Voice of the Martyrs, Open Doors, Alliance for Defending Freedom, and Global Christian Relief to help support these regional leaders.

“We’re working to not only equip them in leadership best practices, but also to equip them in resilience—this is a huge way that we can come alongside local Christian believers there,” says Stoops.

This can look like strengthening leaders’ personal walk with God, teaching and encouraging them in the practice of lament, offering training in trauma care and healing, and teaching how to lead in crisis.

Pray on behalf of A3’s members—that God would give them wisdom as they discern how to best serve leaders in the MENA region—and for leaders in the region, especially those who are facing persecution—that God would make His presence and His comfort known to those believers and to their families.

“We really feel like if we can see the Gospel get to the Middle East and saturate and penetrate the Middle East, as we see people there come to faith, that is going to have a ripple impact across the entire Muslim world—so we feel like there is such a strategic opportunity to strengthen the believers in the Middle East.”

Learn more about A3 and how to partner with them at a3leaders.org.

Header image courtesy of Lara Jameson via Pexels.