These beautiful tropical islands are 99.9% Muslim and for security reasons we refer to this area as the Indian Ocean Islands rather than naming individual islands. Islam is deeply rooted on these islands and to be an islander is to be a Muslim. There are a small number of believers on each island but many follow Jesus secretly for fear of rejection and persecution.
Political instability and a lack of natural resources has left these islands underdeveloped, and all our teams serve islanders in areas such as education and medical work. The work is slow, but God is building his church here, and we wait in faith for the day when we see small groups of believers springing up across the islands, worshipping God in their own language, strong and unified, boldly speaking of the hope that they have to all around them!
Amelia lives and works on an Indian Ocean Island as part of a church planting team. We asked her, in the context of her work, why bother with church planting and what benefit it has in reaching the lost with the good news of Jesus Christ?
