The Chairman’s Report for August

In this issue of the newsletter
New: American corporations use Chinese AI that hides Christian persecution in China
Update: Situation for Christians in Bethlehem worsens as lockdowns block travel
New: Sunni Muslim Fulani murder relatives of one of our students – Attacks increase
New: Did Congress pass a law that is being used against mainstream churches in the USA?

Chinese AI Hides Persecuted Believers, God Still Works Miracles

For months, he sat in a cramped cell without contact with his family, facing years in prison simply for preaching the Gospel without his sermons being censored.

What would DeepSeek, a low-cost artificial intelligence platform developed in Communist China say about pastor Jin? DeepSeek is increasingly being adopted by major American corporations eager to save a dollar. You get what you pay for!

When I queried DeepSeek about Pastor Ezra Jin and the CCP’s harassment of underground house churches, the software danced around the issue. DeepSeek systematically sanitized reality. DeepSeek AI denied that Pastor Jin was a prisoner of conscience and wiped away any mention of the regime’s brutal suppression of believers.

This is a grave warning. By adopting cheap Chinese AI models, Western corporations and institutions are unwittingly embedding state-sponsored CCP censorship directly into American technology. These systems actively rewrite history, erase ongoing human rights violations, and attempt to impose a digital curtain of silence over persecuted Christians.

A Breakthrough in the Real World

While authoritarian technology tries to rewrite truth, our God remains a God of miracles.

On July 3, 2026, after 266 days in prison, Pastor Ezra Jin was unexpectedly pulled from his cell, placed on an aircraft, and reunited with his family in America—just in time for American Independence Day. His sudden release came after President Donald Trump personally confronted Chinese President Xi Jinping during diplomatic talks, demanding freedom for the imprisoned pastor.

Shortly after his release Pastor Jin wrote:

“Mine is a God of miracles… Such a future might seem impossibly remote, but so did my release. I couldn’t be more thankful and pray that others still imprisoned will experience this same freedom soon.”

Pastor Jin’s release is an answer to fervent prayer, but we must remember and pray for those church leaders not as fortunate.

As Pastor Jin reminded Western media upon arriving in the United States, at least eight other leaders and members of Zion Church remain locked in Chinese prison cells, sleeping on bare floor mats alongside hundreds of other unregistered house church believers.

Please continue to pray for the church leaders imprisoned in China and other Communist controlled nations particularly in Vietnam and North Korea.

Bethlehem Update: Bypassed by the UN, Trapped by Conflict

Our ministry team in Bethlehem recently investigated claims by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) that it supplies food to 1.6 million Palestinians across Gaza and the West Bank. After interviewing local Christian pastors, charity leaders, and residents across Bethlehem, Beit Jala, and Beit Sahour, our findings were clear: not a single Christian family receives food aid from the UN.

While demanding hundreds of millions in Western tax dollars, the UN operates out of a secure compound in Jerusalem. Their aid distribution is funneled through local mosques and Islamic networks, completely bypassing the dwindling Christian minority.

Because international institutions ignore our brothers and sisters, our project, Heart for the Persecuted Church, delivers direct food assistance to vulnerable Christian families.

Many of these households care for family members with severe, permanent disabilities. We also support shelters which provide sanctuary for handicapped and abandoned Christian children.

Conditions on the ground have reached a critical point. Over two years of total collapse in tourism have stripped away Christian livelihoods in hotels, restaurants, and souvenir shops. Families cannot pay for food, water, utilities, or tuition. Prices for basic necessities continue to soar as local suppliers exploit shortages.

Compounding this crisis, major military operations between the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and Palestinian militants in July and August have led to widespread closures across the West Bank.

Israel has installed new checkpoints, gates, and earth mounds, effectively sealing off Christian communities.

Lockdowns caused by clashes are so severe that even emergency ambulances carrying critical medical patients are blocked at military checkpoints for Israeli soldiers to check for weapons. Working parents cannot reach jobs in neighboring cities, and families are trapped inside their neighborhoods sometimes for days.

Please pray for an end to the conflict near Christian areas!

Without tourism, ignored by UN aid programs, and now physically locked down by regional conflict, Bethlehem’s Christians face an existential threat. If we do not stand in the gap, even more Christian families will be forced to abandon the birthplace of Jesus forever.

Through Heart for the Persecuted Church and the Religious Freedom Coalition, we remain committed to keeping the Christian presence alive where the Gospel first began. Please keep these precious families in your prayers and consider supporting our Holy Land programs.

Nigeria: Relatives of One of Our Orphans Murdered in Fulani Attack

The slaughter of Christians in Nigeria continues unabated. Armed Fulani militias continue to wage a relentless campaign of terror against Christian farming communities across Plateau State, leaving a trail of destroyed villages, burned churches, and shattered families.

Early on July 12, 2026, Fulani Sunni Muslims struck the villages of Wereng-Camp and Kum in the Riyom Local Government Area of Plateau State.

These areas that were attacked are less than 20 miles from our orphanage!

The heavily armed Fulani militias launched a well-planned, hour-long assault with the intent of killing as many Christians as possible. During the attack on Kum, the Fulani invaded a Christian home and gruesomely murdered nine members of a single family—including a 38-year-old mother and her children, including a three-month-old infant.

The local village head barely escaped with his life and remains hospitalized with severe injuries, while surviving family members report that the militia threatened to return.

This horrific attack hit directly at our ministry family. On July 13, our staff received confirmation that a mother murdered in Kum along with three of her children was the birth mother of 17-year-old Joshua, a longtime resident of our orphanage.

Joshua was brought to our facility seven years ago as a starving ten-year-old boy after his mother had abandoned him at age four because of the loss of her husband. He had been cared for by a woman until he was ten. When her husband died, she was unable to feed him and brought him to our orphanage.

Although Joshua had been estranged from his mother since early childhood, our ministry team accompanied him back to his hometown in Riyom to visit the graves of his half brothers and sister, and to stand with the grieving community.

Through the Religious Freedom Coalition and Heart for the Persecuted Church, we provide direct relief to Christian IDP camps in Plateau State. Many of the children in Wereng-Camp are direct beneficiaries of our food and aid programs.

One of the families that was massacred received a monthly stipend from our ministry to help support a child they had taken in whose parents were murdered by the Fulani. This was not the first time a family we were supporting in Plateau State was attacked and family members killed.

Hundreds of families in the locations attacks have occurred near Jos are directly supported by our stipend program to encourage them to take in children of relatives that have been murdered by Fulani.

In the past 24 months the brother of one of our teachers was murdered by Fulani; a brother of one of the orphans was murdered by Fulani; and lastly the murder I just reported above of an orphan’s mother and half-siblings.

The grieving Christian communities are currently facing ongoing death threats from the Fulani militia groups. Please pray for God’s comfort over young Joshua, for protection over our staff on the ground, and for peace across Plateau State and the Christians of Nigeria.

Did Congress Approve Lawsuits Against Churches for Religious Practices?

On behalf of the Religious Freedom Coalition, I signed two multi-faith letters—alongside over 50 leading religious freedom organizations, legal scholars, and advocates—sent to President Trump and Congress regarding the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA).

The letters warned that when Congress amended the federal forced-labor statute (18 U.S.C. § 1589) in 2000, it inadvertently opened a dangerous avenue for lawsuits by expanding “serious harm” to include subjective, non-physical “psychological coercion”. This lack of limiting principles allows normal religious instruction, communal life, and voluntary service to be reframed as illegal forced labor. This definition exposes churches and ministries to civil and criminal liability where no actual physical or legal coercion exists.

The Religious Freedom Coalition and others urged President Trump to take executive action through the Department of Justice and Congress to take legislative corrective action now. Acting now is crucial as the TVPA is up for reauthorization. The damage being done to our First Amendment protections for religious practice must be stopped.

This is the United States, not China! Churches in our nation should not be subjected to the kind of repressive laws that exist in China.

Prayer Focus: Please join me in praying for the families who have lost loved ones during the continued attacks by Sunni Muslim Fulani in Plateau State, Nigeria and for the safety and wellbeing of Christian families in Bethlehem and other Christian areas under Palestinian Authority control.