In the face of a worsening economic crisis and civil unrest, our team in Sri Lanka continues to speak hope in the island nation.
TWR has been broadcasting from the island since 1978. In addition to daily medium-wave (AM) broadcasts for Indian audiences, we work with local partners who produce and broadcast programmes in languages spoken by most Sri Lankans: Sinhala and Tamil.
With its economy strapped by the pandemic and repercussions from the war in Ukraine, Sri Lanka last month declared bankruptcy for the first time in the history of the 74-year-old country and the entire island is now virtually out of all fuel. Our personnel there are not exempt from the challenges facing the 23 million people in the teardrop-shaped country, which is slightly smaller than Scotland.
Discontent over the economic situation sparked demonstrations and violent clashes last week, which left eight people dead and more than 200 people injured, according to media reports.
However in the midst of difficulty “God has provided for the TWR team there,” said Jonathan Lee, TWR Asia communications director.
“Our co-workers in Sri Lanka are experiencing the same hardships as their fellow countrymen,” Lee said. “We thank God for keeping them safe and enabling them to faithfully continue ministering as best as they can in the face of such challenges – especially through the limitations of power outages and curfews.”
Our work in Sri Lanka is bearing fruit in South Asia. Here’s an unsolicited testimony of one listener in Sri Lanka, responding to the Tamil broadcast of the In Touch program:
“I happened to tune in to this programme by chance and it was my first exposure to this type of programming. This is a fantastic programme. The facts were well explained by the speaker and they were simple to grasp. I had been dealing with a lot of issues, so listening to this programme gave me a lot of energy and made me feel like I was mentally healed.”
Please remember to keep Sri Lanka in your prayers:
- Pray for an easing of the crisis and for stability in the nation.
- Pray for God’s continued provision for our TWR partners there.
- Pray that as the TWR team share the gospel it touches the hearts of those listening.
