Suriname
Summary
First explored by the Spaniards in the 16th century and then settled by the English in the mid-17th century, Suriname became a Dutch colony in 1667. With the abolition of African slavery in 1863, workers were brought in from India and Java. The Netherlands granted the colony independence in 1975. Five years later the civilian government was replaced by a military regime that soon declared Suriname a socialist republic. It continued to exert control through a succession of nominally civilian administrations until 1987, when international pressure finally forced a democratic election. In 1990, the military overthrew the civilian leadership, but a democratically elected government – a four-party coalition – returned to power in 1991. The coalition expanded to eight parties in 2005 and ruled until August 2010, when voters returned former military leader Desire BOUTERSE and his opposition coalition to power. President BOUTERSE was reelected unopposed in 2015. [1]
📷: Wikipedia
Statistics
From the The Joshua Project [2]
In the News
📷: Wikipedia
Prayer Guide
Less-reached peoples. Pray for these:
a) The Javanese are predominantly Muslim, but nominally so. New generations of Javanese Christians, across denominations, rise to the challenge of reaching their own people. CMA and IMB now facilitate church planting training and mobilize churches to reach the Javanese. The Suriname Javanese NT was published in 2000, and plans are underway to translate the OT.
b) The Indian community is only now beginning to respond to the gospel. WT, in partnership with SKS (a Hindustani organization), seeks to see a church within walking distance of every Hindustani. But local congregations are slow on the uptake regarding outreach to this long-neglected group; pray for this partnership to spark greater zeal for ministry among them. Currently, there is no work or witness among Muslims within the Hindustani. Pray that the barriers of prejudice and misunderstanding be removed and the spiritual powers preventing their evangelization be rendered helpless.
c) Chinese churches are growing and actively joining other local churches and missions to plant more churches among Chinese in the region. CMA and the Moravians are involved in this outreach to the Chinese, who come mostly from the southern coastal provinces of China.
[3]