Serving Restricted-Access Countries

Dear Team,

Let me visit with you for a minute. During the Cold War, when Harriett and I were working in the communist countries of Eastern Europe, I used to say, “The two areas from which we have the most problems [today] are the communist world and the Muslim world. Ironically these are the two areas most neglected by Christian missions because of the difficulty associated with working there. If you go to the communist world you may wind up in jail. If you go to the Muslim world you may wind up dead.” We lived and worked in Europe for 22 years.

As many of you know, our ministry is directed toward preaching the Gospel and serving persecuted Christians in communist and other restricted–access countries. As that world expanded, we moved our base of operations to accommodate that expansion. This led to founding IN TOUCH MISSION INT’L in 1981. ITMI’s ministry expanded steadily into Asia and Africa. In 2001 we moved to South Africa, which now has a defacto communist government.

Living in Cape Town we have noticed a dramatic increase in Islamic influence. While the percentage of Muslims in South Africa is less than 2% they control about 60% of business and banking and 35% of the government, including key ministries of Education and Justice. Their influence is out of all proportion to their percentage of the population. And it’s growing! Rapidly. South Africa is even more strategic for Islam than for the communists – because they want to establish an Islamic theocracy worldwide.

When we lived and worked in communist Eastern Europe we couldn’t say very much about our ministry (when we visited the West) lest we compromise our mission and become personae non grata. It’s the same now in South Africa. We have increasing opportunity to work with and among Muslims, but cannot go into much detail. We really need your prayers for wisdom and discernment.

One very positive factor is that Muslim converts can blend into the Christian culture of South Africa and not have to go into hiding or change their identity. They are also free under the present constitution to witness to fellow Muslims. Thus we have a window of opportunity, which ironically we cannot say a lot about. Only the Lord knows how long this “window” will remain open. Do please pray for us.

To complicate matters even further, TIME Magazine is apparently preparing to run an expose series on “Tentmakers” – Christians working at secular jobs in Islamic countries. With ‘friends’ like TIME who needs enemies?

ITMI’s Director, Steve Evers and I plan to be in Romania late April–early May. There are a bunch of reasons we need to go at this time – and again, we need your prayers. Thanks Team. We live in gratitude to God for your faithfulness.

Yours in His grip,




Bill Bathman

P.S. ITMI’s Treasurer says, “The general fund really needs some serious encouragement.” We thought you’d want to know.