The Christian church is growing in Ethiopia, an east African country that has suffered drought, famine, and war for the past 20 years.

About 100,000 people attended evangelistic services in Nekempte, western Ethiopia, March 9–12. Thousands of Christians "were broken, weeping," and confessing their sins. "God has really worked during these days," Ethiopian church leader Joseph Karasanyi said. "We’ve seen a great harvest."

Evangelical Christianity is growing swiftly in the nation of 60 million, a church leader who left the country last year because of persecution told Religion Today. Persecution by a Marxist government that reigned from 1974–1991 brought Christians together. "Churches were confiscated and pastors imprisoned for many years and, interestingly, that was a tremendous contribution to church growth," he said. His home church had only 2,500 members before the revolution, but has 25,000 today.

Laymen are on the cutting edge of evangelism. Ordinary people are bringing thousands of their peers to Christianity by their personal witness, the church leader said. "They have a tremendous impact through the testimony of their lives. It is black or white for them—either you are Christian, and live like it, or you are not."

Lay leaders are training others. Fifty lay leaders—"the cream of the crop"—receive intensive training in principles of leadership, evangelism, and administration every year. Each student is told to return to their church and train 20 others, who in turn will each train 10 more. "In this way we can equip 10,000 new leaders every year," the church leader said.

Every church member is involved in evangelism. Most do not follow a pre-set program, but "just go out and evangelize," he said. Now "everywhere you go, God is at work."

The full Bible has now been translated into 2,233 languages, Ecumenical News International reports. The United Bible Societies (UBS) is involved in 708 translation projects.

The principal of a school in Novopolostsk refused to let two members of The Gideons International pass out Scriptures in class, so they stood in the hallways giving them out, Victor Goncharenko, a representative for the ministry, said. The principal ordered the men outside, but students followed them, forming a long line to get a copy. She called the police, who arrested the men, Goncharenko said. At the police station, the chief of police released the men and asked them to hand out copies of the New Testaments to everyone on his staff, Goncharenko said. Then the chief drove the Gideons back to the school and told them to finish giving out their Scriptures.

About 33% of the world's people are Christians, at least in name, American missions statistician David Barrett says. The Global Evangelization Movement said that 2,015,743,000 of the Earth's 6,091,351,000 people believe in some form of Christianity. Church members total 1.898 billion, and 1.3 billion attend services. Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity is growing fastest; 482 million belong to such movements and 680 million can be described as "Great Commission Christians," Barrett said.

Muslims comprise the second-largest faith group. Followers of Islam number 1.215 billion, followed by 786 million Hindus, 362 million Buddhists, 225 million members of tribal religions, and 102 million members of "new religions."

The world also has a large number of unbelievers. A total of 774 million consider themselves "nonreligious" and 151 million say they are atheists, Barrett said.

A sobering statistic: It is estimated that 165,000 Christians will be martyred for their faith in Christ this year, Barrett said.

There are 24,000 missions organizations worldwide, which collect $120 billion a year. The income of all church members is $12,700 billion, of which $220 billion is spent on Christian outreaches including Christian radio and TV stations. There are about 4,000 Christian radio and TV stations, and they can reach 2.15 billion people with the Gospel this year, Barrett said.

Large cities are key mission fields of the future, Barrett said. An estimated 2 billion people live in poor urban areas, 1.3 billion of them in slums. The world has 410 cities with more than 1 million inhabitants and 4,100 with at least 100,000 residents.

New archaeological evidence shows that stories recorded in the Bible occurred, U.S. News & World Report says. A number of findings refute skeptical secular scholars who assumed that accounts of the supernatural were only stories meant to illustrate theological points, not actual occurrences, according to the magazine. The article cites the discovery of an Assyrian stone tablet in Israel dating to the ninth century B.C. that mentions David, the "king of Israel," as among Assyria's foes. Skeptics had assumed that King David was a legend. The discovery of the remains of a crucified man, who was a contemporary of Jesus, buried in a family grave shows that the Romans allowed for that kind of burial, a fact that scholars have long doubted, the article said.

About 15,000 people are becoming Christians daily in India, Guine Anderson of the Hong Kong-based Sowers Ministry told Religion Today. In north India, more than 5,000 congregations have been started by workers from 25 denominations or missions agencies since the 1970s, AD2000 and Beyond said.

Prayer and a new missionary zeal are behind the success, Anderson said. Christians used to be reluctant to travel to the north because of its difficult terrain, climate, and hostile spiritual atmosphere. But the prayers of Christians worldwide have given the Indian church more boldness. "Now, because the Spirit of God is moving, people are willing to sacrifice--you have to be willing to sacrifice your very life--and we are sending more native and local missionaries there."

Many Muslims and Hindus, discouraged from trying to gain salvation through good works and religious rituals, respond immediately to the message of grace preached by Christians, Anderson said. "When they hear that Jesus sets you free and gives you eternal life, they respond very quickly."

Others become Christians after seeing a demonstration of God's power. Hundreds of people became Christians after a woman was cured of a stomach tumor. "Her husband said he had gone to the [Hindu] temples all his life and made all the pilgrimages, but still had no meaning in life and his wife was dying," Anderson said. The evangelists told the man that Jesus Christ would heal his wife and he invited them to his home to pray for her. That night in a dream he saw Jesus Christ touch his wife's stomach, and later told the workers. In the morning her stomach pains were gone and a visit to the doctor confirmed that the tumor had disappeared. More than 80 families from their village became Christians.