If you become an evangelical Christian in Laos, the communist neighbor of Vietnam and Cambodia, you likely will be "asked" to sign a fill-in-the-blank form. The form reads in part: "I, (name), who live … in (location), believe in a foreign religion, which the imperialists have used for their own benefit to divide the united front and to build power for themselves against the local authorities. Now, I and my family clearly see the intentions of the enemy, and regret the deeds which we have committed. We have clearly seen the goodness of the Party and the Government … . Therefore, I and my family … voluntarily and unequivocally resign from believing in this foreign religion."

If you sign, you also promise not to participate in this "foreign religion"--Christianity in every reported case--or any of its meetings and ceremonies. You also agree that if the authorities should catch you continuing to practice your faith, you must "accept that the government shall do to me whatever is required by its laws."

If you don't sign, you can expect humiliation, harassment and persecution--including probable imprisonment. Some Christians who refuse to sign have been placed in wooden stocks.

Despite the persecution--and in some cases because of it--Christians in Laos have more than doubled, from about 32,000 in 1997 to 80,000 or more today, according to a well-informed observer. Some estimates put the total much higher.

Some believers renounce their faith under pressure, but the crackdown often backfires: "The local people say, 'There must be something to this if the government is taking such a strong stand against it. It must be right,'" the observer stated. As for Christians themselves, "We've seen people grow stronger in the midst of persecution. Once they've been refined by it, their faith is just so strong."

Most people regard them as little more than Christmas card adornments, but at least 800 Britons claim to have had encounters with angels, the first academic research into the subject has found.

One of the most striking reports came from a doctor who was doing her training at Guy's Hospital, London, when a three-year-old girl was brought in after falling under the wheels of a truck. "When they whipped her clothes off, there wasn't a mark on her," she wrote.

"The girl came round and immediately asked, 'Where is the man in white?' A male doctor stepped forward and said, 'I'm here,' but the girl said, 'No, the man in the shiny white suit who picked me up when the lorry went over me.'"

Dena Bryant, from Gloucestershire, described how she was frozen to the spot when two cars collided and one was hurtling towards her. Then she claimed to have felt feathers behind her legs and a force lift her out of danger.

David Barber, from Worcestershire, nearly drowned at his local swimming pool until his late grandmother appeared in angelic form and carried him to the surface.

Canon Anthony Thiselton, professor of Christian theology at Nottingham University, said many theologians were skeptical about the existence of angels but he was not. "It would be human pride to think that God created no other agents than human beings," he said. "The Bible does refer to guardian angels and it would be very high-handed to rule out their existence."

ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA--The rented hall was hot and crowded when more than 700 members of Faith Army of Christ International Church gathered on a recent Saturday afternoon to praise their Lord. Congregants paced the aisles absorbed in prayer or lifted up their open palms, celebrating Jesus.

The free-form worship of this three-year-old church was a far cry from the ancient liturgy of Ethiopia's 1,600-year-old Orthodox Church, which for centuries has defined the nation's Christian life. But these foot soldiers of the Faith Army, and growing numbers of evangelicals like them, are forging a new Christian identity in Ethiopia.

Evangelicals now represent an estimated 10 percent of Ethiopia's 60 million-strong population, and their numbers are growing quickly. Islam and the Orthodox Church divide the rest of the population equally, with animism representing less than 5 percent.

Tesfaye Tadesse grew up in an Orthodox household, but only "heard about Christ" from a friend when he was 16. "When he told me that God was a loving God, I didn't hesitate to accept," said Tesfaye. The Marxist government known as the Derg was then in power; while it uneasily coexisted with the Orthodox Church, the regime cracked down on evangelical churches, jailing many of their members. Evangelicals say the real growth of their faith took place under this state repression, which ended in 1991 when the Derg was forced from power. It is only now that believers are declaring their beliefs openly, said Tesfaye, who is writing his doctoral thesis on charismatic healing at one of three Protestant seminaries in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital.

"Many people are ready to try something new," said David Emmert, a Southern Baptist missionary from Tennessee.

Foreign missionaries are playing an important role in promoting new forms of evangelical Christianity. Emmert and his co-workers, for example, target the spiritually lost of Addis Ababa by teaching English classes, running a free library for book-starved students and distributing thousands of popular soccer schedules with evangelical messages on the back.

"We are not trying to defeat the Orthodox Church," said Emmert. "We are just bringing the Gospel to the people whoever they are, Muslim, Orthodox or Protestant."

Paul Balisky, country director of the Society of International Ministries (SIM), an interdenominational missionary organization, pointed to a lack of Biblical literacy among Orthodox church members: "If you ask an ordinary lay person who Jesus Christ is, they won't know, because they just hear the Bible read in Ge'ez," Ethiopia's ancient scriptural language that was a forerunner to the modern Amharic widely spoken in the country today.

The evangelical churches have even given birth to a trendy new genre of Ethiopian Christian music. The tunes, booming out from corner shops and commuter minibuses, are indistinguishable from modern Ethiopian pop music, except for the Christian lyrics. The new hymns are luring souls from the Orthodox Church, where the beautiful but labored music of the liturgy takes years to master.

The Bible is a bestseller in Mongolia. One day after the first Mongolian Bible went on sale, all 10,000 copies were sold, missionary Rick Leatherwood said in his newsletter. "I felt like Peter at Jesus' tomb," when he saw the empty storage site that had been full the day before, he said. Leatherwood and a team of translators from several missions agencies have worked several years to produce a Bible in the Mongolian language. The church in the formerly communist country has grown from fewer than 50 people in 1991 to about 10,000 today, he said.

Last year, the United Bible Societies distributed 627 million copies of biblical literature worldwide—7.2 percent more than in 1998. The number of distributed complete Bibles (Old and New Testament) rose by 15.7 percent to 24 million. A rise of 11.9 percent was registered in Africa. Bible distribution in Europe and the Middle East rose by 22.8 percent. The Bible or portions of the holy Scriptures are available in 2,233 languages. UBS is the partner organization for 135 national Bible societies. Not included in the statistics are Bibles distributed by other organizations.

Persecution of Christians is on the increase in India, according to a report by Mission Network News. India Evangelical Mission President G.V. Mathai says the Hindu government is putting some restrictions on their work. "Open-air meetings, now they are prohibiting that one. Hindu fanatics come and stone them and say, get out of here, and in some places they have said if you stand here and preach we will set you on fire."

Despite the restrictions, thousands of people are coming to Christ. Mathai said that comes with persecution. The more persecution increases "in every place there is a public meeting, there are more crowds. More people are trusting the Lord Jesus Christ. As history repeats, wherever the persecution increased the Lord has drawn many people unto Himself."