With almost 200,000 spread around most major cities, the UK has Europe’s largest Somali community. Since the big wave of refugees from Somalia’s civil war of 1989-92, others have joined them from European countries while a trickle still continues from the Horn of Africa. With a distinctive, proud and very cohesive culture of their own, it has been hard for them to integrate. Drifting from welfare into low-paid jobs, they tend to cluster in deprived urban neighborhoods. Fiercely Muslim for over a thousand years, they are “aggressively resistant” to the Gospel; conversion to Christianity is seen as betrayal and not tolerated. Converts and ‘seekers’ usually have to be secretive, and so the new social media project should be a game-changer in supporting, discipling and bringing them together. However, younger generations who have grown up here- and almost half of UK Somalis are under 21 - are becoming more integrated. We need to pray that they will become disillusioned with Islam, have positive experiences of Christians, click on our posts, and be drawn to Jesus
