By Abdul Masih —
Hearing that Hindus and even priests were becoming Christians, a religious fanatic showed up at a village meeting in the Sindh province of Pakistan ready to kill the Christian who was responsible for converting coreligionists.
“He was angry and said that those who were leading Hindus astray should be attacked,” says Arch Bonnema, an Oklahoman who preaches via WhatsApp in Sindh’s villages with the help of his team. “He even declared that he wanted to carry out an attack on a person present there.”
When he arrived, the preaching of the word was going on, so the would-be killer sat in the last row and listened.
The killing was averted. God touched his heart through the Bible message.
“Today I came with very bad intentions,” he declared after the service. “But God has the power to change even intentions.”
From within his garments, he produced the knife that he had intended to use to kill Christians — before the Holy Spirit convicted his heart.
“Today I repent,” he said. “I leave Hinduism and I accept Christianity.”
Welcome to the cutting edge of evangelism where you can lose your life trying to give eternal life.
Sindh is famous for extreme temperatures (often at 120° F), extreme poverty and extremism. On the border with India, it has the largest Hindu population in Pakistan, clocking in at 9% Hindu. Both Hindus and Muslims here kill Christians who show any effectiveness at evangelism.
“In this province, it’s not illegal to kill Christians,” Bonnema says. (His comments probably reflect attitude and lack of police enforcement, not statutes.)
Only the bravest Christians dare enter Sindh.
Brushes with death have been the mark of Arch Bonnema’s ministry. For preaching the Gospel, he got shot at in Vietnam in 1971, swung at with machetes in Southern Mexico and poisoned in Ethiopia on the border of Eritrea. (Ironically, he says he felt the safest in Iran when he preached there in 2008.)
His team in Pakistan now bears the brunt. The knife attack described above was one of two such.
In another brush with danger, a Muslim man came with a club and proceeded to beat one of the team members until he was restrained.
On another occasion while Arch was preaching and being translated, a Muslim man was protesting outside the area of the sermon. No one paid attention to him.
So he hung himself and died.
But the worst incident was Easter of 2025. A Muslim man came by passing out candy to the children of the Christian event. It was laced with poison. About 20 kids were hospitalized.
The doctor, himself a Muslim, warned them. “We’ve seen this before. Don’t get your hope up. They always die.”
But only three died. The rest were nursed back to health and are alive today. “I can’t explain how this happened,” the doctor said, per reporting of the translator.
Arch Bonnema is a financial planner who makes money to spend it on spreading the Gospel. Before Covid, he traveled the world with his wife, so the shutdown disappointed him — at first.
As a result of the shutdown, he discovered he could still reach people by preaching via WhatsApp. Now he preaches more times and reaches more people for cheaper.
“It turned out to be really good thing,” Bonnema says. “I reach far more people this than I did the other way.”
Arch sets his alarm to wake up around midnight and preaches in Pakistan five days a week. His team visits villages that have internet signal, invited nearby villagers without signal, and the present the Gospel and do baptisms. More than 100 a day are getting saved, and baptisms are in the double digits.
In April, he ministered to 12,750 people, saw 3,195 salvations and baptized 928.
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