By Katey O'Malley | May 15, 2025

India/Pakistan (MNN) — Next steps for India and Pakistan remain fragile in their days-old ceasefire.

Greg Kelley with Unknown Nations says their indigenous partners in both nations are feeling the effects of uncertainty and travel restrictions. Regions of northern India outside of Kashmir — Jammu and Delhi, Kelley says — are also impacted.

“Then you add in the fact that you’ve got nuclear powers — so you’ve got people with historical hatred towards each other, and the ability to wipe out thousands and thousands of people. [It] is a very precarious situation,” Kelley adds.

“For so many different reasons, a ceasefire couldn’t have come quick enough, because this is a tinder box just ready to explode.”

But Kelley says that as Christians, we must look through the spiritual lens, not merely the physical.

Hindu-majority India has the world’s highest concentration of unreached people groups. Meanwhile, Pakistan is the second largest Muslim-majority nation in the world. 

“As with any issue that’s country to country where hatred is so deep, it’s a matter of the heart, which means the only answer is the gospel,” says Kelley. 

So, how can the Body of Christ position itself for spreading the gospel? Unknown Nations’ partners are already on the ground in this border conflict. “These people are deployed on a daily basis. They’re distributing our solar-powered audio Bible[s]. We do water projects. We train these leaders, and then second-generation leaders,” Kelley says.

“When we’re talking about countries like India and Pakistan, we have to build a ground game where there [are] leaders on the ground that are properly equipped to share the gospel and multiply. That’s where a lot of our efforts are at.”

Kelley recognizes that people who have lost everything will quickly begin to question their worldview.

“This (situation in Kashmir) is beginning to get to the place of an insecurity among the people where they are questioning,” he says. “Both of those worldviews (Islam, Hinduism) — that’s the second and third largest religions in the world — are going to be open to the gospel now.”

As a member of the global church, consider how you might deploy your resources to hotspot areas like the India-Pakistan border, starting with your prayers.

“We need to pray intentionally, but with the right kind of vocabulary: not country-oriented, but people-group oriented,” Kelley says.

Photo from Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, India (Courtesy of Jannes Jacobs via Unsplash).

Original Article Posted Here: https://www.mnnonline.org/news/spiritual-realities-behind-india-pakistan-tensions-should-call-us-to-prayer/