Category: News

Recently we told you about a grassroots effort to dedicate Haiti to Christ. According to those who participated, God moved.

Pastor Robert Ulysse, a minister in the northwest region of Haiti, says they prayed each day at a different crossroad in the region.

According to Ulysse, “After we closed the seventh crossroad event on Saturday, a Voodoo priest named Solivert Josep, came forward with his wife. They both declared that they wanted to renounce their Voodoo practices in favor of the ‘Living God.’ We filled three pickup trucks with Christians and drove to the Joseph’s home to remove and burn their Voodoo articles.”

People in one South Asian village accused Dhevan Das of forcefully converting people to Christianity—a serious allegation, which landed him in jail. But he didn’t sit in his cell grieving about the situation. Instead, he saw it as an opportunity to share God’s love with his fellow inmates.

The Charges against Him
The accusations came after a believer in his church expressed interest in attending a Bible college. Pastor Dhevan was helping her enroll in the college when villagers began accusing him of forcing her to become a Christian.

He was arrested July 28 and formally charged with forced conversion. Initially, the police were going to release him on bail until a group of 30–40 people gathered in front of the police station shouting, “Do not release him! He is destroying our religion.” They also filed a complaint against Dhevan.

Four months after a recent convert to Christianity from Islam in eastern India’s West Bengal state was stripped and beaten, about 50 Muslim extremists yesterday disrupted a prayer meeting held in her home, threatening to burn it down if she did not return to Islam, area Christians said.

The extremists warned Selina Bibi of Motijil village in Murshidabad district that if she did not return to Islam, then she must either leave the area or see her house burned down. At her baptism at Believers Church four kilometers from her home on March 29, a large crowd of Muslim extremists disrupted the service, said a pastor identified only as Bashir.

“I pleaded with them to let me at least finish the worship service before they attack us,” he told Compass.

In a rare move in Pakistan, a lower court in Punjab Province on Tuesday released on bail a young Christian man accused of blaspheming Islam.

The Magisterial Court of Chichawatni, Sahiwal district, granted bail to Babar Masih, who suffers from a psychiatric disorder that causes him to shout in fits of rage for as long as an hour without knowing what he is doing or saying. In the face of Islamic extremist threats, generally lower courts in Pakistan do not dare grant bail or acquit a Christian accused of blasphemy, leaving such decisions for higher court judges who enjoy greater security measures.

The complainant in the case, Zeeshan Arshad, states in the First Information Report (FIR) that Masih was “addressing the stars and calling names of Muslim sages and holy personages” when he made the alleged remarks blaspheming Islam. The FIR itself states that Masih never intended to hurt Arshad’s religious feelings, and that no sane person would draw the ire of area residents by talking in this way.

Hiba Abdelfadil Anglo, 16, has escaped from a gang of Muslims who kidnapped her last year, but it may be a long time before she recovers from the trauma.

As she told Compass how the kidnappers beat, raped and tried to force her to convert from Christianity to Islam, she broke into tears for nearly half an hour.

“They did many bad things to me,” she said, tears streaming down her eyes.

A car blast outside a Syrian Catholic church in Kirkuk, Iraq, Tuesday morning left 13 wounded as police located and disarmed two more car bombs targeting churches in the city, according to area sources.

Online video images of the attack against the Holy Family Church showed one of its walls blasted open and all its surfaces covered with broken glass, rubble and dust from the entrance where the explosion took place to the sanctuary on the far end of the building. The explosion occurred on the second day of the month-long Muslim fasting period of Ramadan.

Nearby houses in one of Kirkuk’s oldest quarters, where Muslims and Christians had lived together peacefully, were seriously damaged, and cars on the street were left in twisted piles of metal. Shattered glass wounded 13 residents as they slept, area sources said.

An alliance of global Christians, churches and faith-based poverty-fighting organizations are uniting to eradicate global poverty. The Christ-centered global initiative known as 58: was founded on Isaiah 58 where God calls on the church to to end global poverty.

Ten organizations have collectively worked through the 58: initiative to simplify the steps necessary to achieve what some may see as an impossible feat. But for Dr. Scott Todd, senior advisor at Compassion International and one of the architects of 58:, doesn’t question the possibility itself. Instead he says, “The question is, ‘How fast?’” At 58: partners are convinced it can happen within the next two decades. In fact, they have set 2035 as the end date.

Statistics prove the percentage of people living in extreme poverty continues to decline. In 24 years alone, the percentage of those living in extreme poverty has dropped from 52 percent to 26 percent. Child mortality rates and the rates of disease infection has declined as well. And now those behind 58: ask, “What will it take to finish the job?”

New guidance for GPs on praying for patients has been released by the Medical Defence Union (MDU) – with backing from the General Medical Council (GMC) and one of the country’s leading doctors.

The guidance quotes an official from the GMC suggesting that a ‘tactful’ offer to pray for patients could be appropriate:

“Nothing in the GMC’s guidance Personal Beliefs and Medical Practice precludes doctors from praying with their patients. … It must be tactful, so that the patient can decline without embarrassment—because while some may welcome the suggestion, others may regard it as inappropriate,” says Jane O’Brien, assistant director for standards and fitness to practice.

It’s another hot and dusty Sunday morning, and service is about to begin at the Camp Kunduz Chapel.

No, this place of worship isn’t nestled in a small town in the heart of the Bible belt. It’s about as far away from there as one can get. Furthermore, the small plywood structure is nothing reminiscent of a massive cathedral capable of housing a huge congregation of worshippers.

Still, for soldiers of faith stationed in the heart of northern Afghanistan, the place serves its purpose quite well.

While almost 13 million people are on the brink of starvation in the Horn of Africa, relief agencies are frustrated that they may be unable to help those most desperate. It’s not because they don’t have the food. It’s because terrorist groups linked to al-Qaida are preventing the aid from getting there.

Todd Nettleton with Voice of the Martyrs says Somalia is the biggest challenge. “The al-Shabaab militant terrorist group has made it a stated goal to completely rid the country of Christians. They literally are hunting down Christians, and anyone who is thought to be Christian or rumored to be a Christian is a potential target.”

Well-known Christian aid groups have been forced out of the country in areas where al-Shabaab cell groups are in power. Nettleton says: “There’s so much lawlessness. And in the midst of that, you have so many people who are starving to death. But the reality for someone who identifies themselves as a Christian to go in: they really paint a target on their back just to go into the country.”

His heart pounding, Rasul Gupta hurried into hiding to escape from angry family members who wanted to beat him. What did they have against him? He chose to follow Christ.

A few months ago, Gospel for Asia-supported missionary Pallab Singh met Rasul, a member of the Brahmin caste, and the two struck up a conversation. As they talked, Pallab had the opportunity to share about how Jesus had touched his life. He also explained the gospel to his new friend. After thinking about Pallab’s words, Rasul ended up deciding to surrender his life to the Lord. At the church where Pallab serves as pastor, Rasul testified that he wanted to follow Jesus, and he joined the congregation.

But his new faith sparked frustration from his family members. Staunchly devoted to their traditional religion, his parents, in-laws and even his wife chastised Rasul for his decision to serve Christ. Like many other Brahmins, they believe any connection with Christianity, which is often considered a low-caste religion, would make them impure.

As schools nationwide prepare to open their doors for another year of learning, most parents are shopping for back-to-school bargains using a school-issued supply list as their guide. But this year, U.S. kids are thinking beyond their own backpacks and buying supplies for kids they have never met.

Americans are stocking up on items for Operation Christmas Child—a massive year-round project of international Christian relief and evangelism organization Samaritan’s Purse—where participants fill shoe boxes with school supplies, toys, necessity items and letters of encouragement for kids overseas.

After a year of discussion and surrendering their ideas to the
Lord, Bible League International (BLI) and World Bible Translation
Center (WBTC) announced on Friday their plans to merge in an effort to
deepen their impact and ministry around the world.

“We began to understand that if any of us in the Christian
ministry world are going to be successful it will not be on our own.
It has to be through partnership,” President and CEO of Bible
League International Robert Frank told Charisma News.

The decision to merge came as a result of a unanimous vote by both
organizations’ boards.

Historically BLI has provided training materials and has worked
through networks of churches and other community organizations around
the world in 63 countries to get the Word of God in the hands of
people in order to bring them into fellowship with Christ and His
church. For more than 30 years, WBTC has provided accurate
translations of God’s Word into various languages of the world.

Widows like Swati Baidya and Mridula Das don’t often hear that someone loves them. Swati and Mridula live in South Asia, where being a widow is something like being a pariah: Widows are kicked out of their homes, rejected by society and often find themselves begging for even a little something to eat. In spite of their lot in life, Swati and Mridula have found real hope in their lives.

Mridula’s Story
Mridula is only 33, but she felt as though her life was over. This young widow was left alone with three children to feed when her husband died. And her society did not do anything to help. Rather, it blamed her for causing her husband’s death.

As if Mridula’s status in society wasn’t bad enough, her life got worse when she started having serious health problems. She had to spend more and more of her meager earnings on medicine, but she kept working. She tried to work, but after several years of fighting her weakness left her unable to work.

When GFA-supported missionary Kerketta Rai started a prayer fellowship in her village, Mridula started going. She heard the gospel and began to understand the power of prayer. So she asked everyone who attended the prayer meetings to pray for her. As a result, she was completely healed. Slowly, she began to understand the truth about Jesus and she chose to give her life to Him.

A half a million minor girls are working as prostitutes across India.

The problem is especially significant in West Bengal. In just one year, 2,500 teenage girls were trafficked from the region. Some girls were kidnapped, others coerced into a life of sexual slavery.

Women with children sometimes choose to enter the realm of brothels and slavery as a means of survival. According to the EFCA ReachGlobal website, the average daily wages for rural women laborers in India is 34 to 43 upees (76 to 96 cents) a day, but prostitutes routinely make 100 to 300 rupees ($2.25 to $7.75) per customer and average three or four customers per day.