A web based ministry for the Shawi people
Since 2019 we have been running a website for the Shawi people of Algeria. For three years we ran Google Ads which enabled us to attract over 430 thousand visits to our site. Then copyright claims put that on hold. During that time over 20 million people were invited to visit the Injilchaoui website, which has an easy-to-remember name for someone who has grown up in an Arabic speaking country. We are encouraged to know that a good number of visitors were spending a significant amount of time each month on the site - it contains the majority of Christian material in existence in the Shawi language and a video gallery that assembles all its videos on one easy to browse page.
During the period of the ads we did not see much real response to the message of the gospel. In May 2021 we activated a questionnaire on our site in four languages (English, French, Arabic, Shawi). Each visitor to the site was invited to respond - the responses could be entirely anonymous, and the questionnaire was designed to be unintrusive. Until the end of 2023 over 4,500 individuals responded to this questionnaire but very few entered any useful information. We are aware that the Shawi people provide much of the police, the army and the administration for the Algerian state. Christians are not treated gently so those who dare to investigate the Christian message need to be extremely careful.
This is the first episode of prayer bulletins which are intended for a group of praying Christians dedicated to the Shawi people. With God's grace we will propose more episodes in the future.
Who are the Shawi people?
They are the brown group 4 in the map below, located in north-east Algeria (the numbered groups are the largest unreached peoples of the region).
This image of dry ground reminds us of the well known Scriptural passage of about dry bones which holds we think a key for our intercession for the Shawi people (see notes below). The Lord sees the dryness and He can bring rain, and breathe life into the spiritually dead. So lets pray for this people.
A video you might like to watch about the Berber peoples
What is the meaning of the Valley of Dry Bones in Ezekiel 37?
Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones (Ezekiel 37:1–14) came to him after God had directed him to prophesy the rebirth of Israel in chapter 36. God announced, through the prophet, that Israel will be restored to her land in blessing under the leadership of “David, My servant [who] shall be king over them” (Ezekiel 37:24), clearly a reference to the future under Jesus Christ the Messiah, descendant of David (Isaiah 7:14; 9:6–7; Luke 1:31–33). However, this promise seemed impossible in light of Israel’s present condition. She was “dead” as a nation, deprived of her land, her king, and her temple. She had been divided and dispersed for so long that unification and restoration seemed impossible. So God gave Ezekiel the vision of the dry bones as sign. God transported Ezekiel—probably not literally, but in a vision—to a valley full of dry bones and directed him to speak to the bones. Ezekiel was to tell the bones that God would make breath enter the bones and they would come to life, just as in the creation of man when He breathed life into Adam (Genesis 2:7). Ezekiel obeyed, the bones came together, flesh developed, skin covered the flesh, breath entered the bodies, and they stood up in a vast army. This vision symbolized the whole house of Israel that was then in captivity. Like unburied skeletons, the people were in a state of living death, pining away with no end to their judgment in sight. They thought their hope was gone and they were cut off forever. The surviving Israelites felt their national hopes had been dashed and the nation had died in the flames of Babylon’s attack with no hope of resurrection. The reviving of the dry bones signified God’s plan for Israel’s future national restoration. The vision also, and most importantly, showed that Israel’s new life depended on God’s power and not the circumstances of the people. Putting “breath” by God’s Spirit into the bones showed that God would not only restore them physically but also spiritually. (edited from https://www.gotquestions.org/valley-dry-bones.html)