Yemen
Yemen occupies the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula — a land of dramatic contrasts, from the Hadhramawt valley's ancient mud-brick tower cities to the high mountain plateaus of Sana'a to the Tihama coastal plain. This is one of the oldest continuously inhabited parts of Arabia, home to the ancient Sabaean kingdom — the civilization of the Queen of Sheba, who traveled to Jerusalem to test Solomon's wisdom. The ancient South Arabian kingdoms controlled the frankincense and myrrh trade routes, luxuries the entire ancient world desired, making Yemen fabulously wealthy. Islam came to Yemen in 628 AD during the Prophet Muhammad's own lifetime, making it one of the earliest and most deeply Islamicized lands on earth. The Ottoman Empire, Zaydi Imams, British colonial control in Aden, and eventually two separate republics — North and South Yemen — united in 1990. In 2014, Houthi rebels swept out of the northwest, and the civil war that followed drew in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iran, and others, turning Yemen into the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
41,774,000
People live in Yemen today in the middle of a catastrophe without end. Over four million people have been displaced, millions face food insecurity and disease, children are dying of preventable illness, and the institutions of a functioning state have largely collapsed. Yet the spiritual situation is equally desperate: Yemen is among the least-reached countries on earth. Fewer than one in five hundred Yemenis is a follower of Jesus — and most of those are foreign workers, not Yemeni Arabs. Islam entered Yemen during the Prophet's own lifetime, deeply woven into Yemeni tribal identity and family life. The tiny number of Yemeni believers who exist navigate extraordinary danger. This is a land the gospel has almost never reached, in a country the world has largely given up on. God has not.
Prayer points
Millions Who Bow Without Knowing
Pray for the millions of Yemenis who prostrate five times a day toward Mecca — who know the discipline of submission, who carry the weight of religious devotion, and who have never heard the name of the One who said "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." Ask God to meet these praying millions through dreams, through digital media, through the rare worker willing to enter a war zone with the gospel. "How can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?" (Romans 10:14)
The Queen of Sheba's Land
Pray for Yemen — a land with one of the oldest connections to the story of Scripture. The Queen of Sheba came from this territory to test Solomon's wisdom with hard questions, and went home changed. The frankincense and myrrh of the ancient world's most sacred moments — including the birth of Jesus — came from South Arabian trade routes. Ask God to call this land back to that ancient encounter, to give Yemen's people not just questions but the one Answer that satisfies them all. "When the Queen of Sheba heard about the fame of Solomon and his relationship to the Lord, she came to test Solomon with hard questions." (1 Kings 10:1)
A Nation in the Valley of the Shadow
Pray for Yemen's devastated population — over four million displaced, millions hungry, cities in ruins, a generation of children who have known nothing but war. Ask God's mercy to reach Yemen's most vulnerable, and for aid workers on the ground to carry something of the love of Christ in their service. Ask God to use this catastrophic moment — when every human system has failed — to open Yemeni hearts to the only foundation that does not crumble. "Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me." (Psalm 23:4)