Angie Mercer wondered if she was the only person freaking out in the hospital room. The others—an international student from China, his pregnant wife, and his mother—wore stoic expressions. The mother-to-be was deep in labor, yet the doctor had not arrived, and the understaffed nurses were busy elsewhere.

The frankness of the Middle Eastern pastors is remarkable. They are learning, growing, reconciling, and repenting as their challenges deepen. The main reason? They can’t afford not to.

The assaults of the Syrian war—which enters its eighth year this month—and the ravages of Islamic State opened neighboring countries and their churches to new fears, new threats, and throngs of refugees at their doors.

I used to think that nothing brought me more delight than to hear someone respond to a story or column in WORLD by saying quite simply, “I didn’t know that.” Now I know I was much too easily satisfied. Real gratification comes, I’ve discovered, when someone reads, reflects, agrees—and then, as a result, changes his or her behavior in a significant manner.

When ISIS kidnapped and murdered two young Chinese nationals in Quetta, Pakistan, last May, the Chinese government didn’t blame ISIS or Pakistan but the victims themselves. The reason: Li Xinheng, 24, and Meng Lisi, 26, had gone to the country as missionaries studying Urdu and teaching Mandarin at a local private school run by South Korean missionaries.

Paul Jackson took his first short-term mission trip during his junior year at California Baptist University. He came home convinced God had called him to life in the mission field. He and his girlfriend, Riley, spent the month of Ramadan praying over where God might eventually send them. They emerged with a heart and vision for the Muslim world. (Paul and Riley are pseudonyms: Publication of their names would jeopardize their safety and work in a Muslim country.)

PAPUA NEW GUINEA—Flanked by a mass of bodies singing in Kasua, “God’s book has come,” four men shouldered boxes of the first New Testaments in their language toward the Musula village center in remote Papua New Guinea.

In front, three women adorned with paint and cassowary feathers danced in circles before the procession. Behind, a throng with rattles of gourds and pill bottles kept time to fierce drumming by men with faces in rigid feather frames. They wore percussive peacock tails of reeds and clusters of crayfish shells.

March 4 is Oscar night, and the “best actor” favorite is Gary Oldman for his portrayal of Winston Churchill, who famously spoke of fighting on the beaches and never surrendering. But in Pasadena, 18 miles northeast of the Dolby Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, sits the campus of William Carey International University (WCIU) and Frontier Ventures (FV), two interlinked ministries that are not having their finest hour.