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India While violence and threats of violence against Christians continues in India, Christians are moving forward with outreach opportunities. India Partners is no exception. They're asking you to help them with their Winter Blanket initiative. India Partners' Brent Hample says this project is focused on villagers with no protection from the elements. "These are villagers in India in very remote areas. They live in huts that have no heating. No doors. No windows. It can get very cold. One of our partnering agencies provides blankets. In the process of giving the blankets, they share the Gospel of Jesus Christ." Associates with India Partners have directly been affected by the persecution in Orissa. Hample says a partner in a village in Orissa was threatened. "A couple of men with big sticks came in and disrupted the worship service and threatened everybody. The villagers ran into the jungle. They threatened the leaders of our agency to leave right away or they would hurt them." While initially Hample says the spread of the Gospel is hindered, it actually strengthens the message of the Gospel in the long term. Hample says, "If the church responds to the hate and responds to the persecution out of love and with prayers, as long as the Christians stick with that, the Gospel will grow even more deeper in the soil of India." Hample says the Winter Blanket campaign will move forward, but India Partners needs your help. "We're asking for a gift of $40 which will purchase five winter blankets. And then if people also want to help with supporting the persecuted church in India, they can also send us any amount for that." In the meantime, Hample is asking Christians worldwide to pray "that the church would remain true to Jesus' words and to not retaliate, to pray for the persecutors, and to lift up one another--our brothers and sisters --n prayer." Source: Mission Network News http://www.mnnonline.org/article/10838 Pakistan A Pakistani pastor has been murdered because of his involvement in evangelistic work. Christians face severe opposition from militant Islamic groups. Muslims make up about 97 percent of Pakistan's people, while Hindus make up 1.5 percent, and Christians 1.7 percent. According to Voice of the Martyrs' Canada, 29-year-old Sajid William was shot and killed by a masked gunman on his way home in Peshawar on January 17. Pastor William was the office manager for the Christian relief and development agency "Shelter Now," active in Pakistan for nearly 25 years. The organization runs two projects in the country--a fish farm and a building project for 105 schools. The schools were ruined during the earthquake that shook Pakistan in 2005. The agency is also providing clothes, shelter and nourishment for thousands of returning refugees who are without shelter during the harsh winter. Pray for God's comfort for Pastor William's family. He is survived by a wife and an 18-month-old daughter. Ask God to embolden Pakistani Christians to follow his example of faithfulness. Pray for protection for Christians facing intimidation and threats from those around them. Mission Network News http://www.mnnonline.org/article/10841 North Korea A disconcerting report is coming out of a fairly reliable North Korea watchdog source. According to the report, the North Korean government is reportedly setting up fake underground churches and disguising national security agents as defectors to expose Christians. Voice of the Martyrs Canada's Glenn Penner can't confirm specifics. However, based on the source, he says, "Apparently, they're going into China, infiltrating the Korean churches that are assisting the North Korean defectors, and then coming back into North Korea with money and with Bibles, with the whole idea of unmasking Christians and also taking the funds and then using them for the North Korean government." Penner says it's not a totally new strategy. He notes the Soviets did something similar during the Cold War, but he urges prayer. "Continue to pray for wisdom and for discernment on the part of believers who work in such restrictive nations. There's always the fear of discovery. You don't want to be controlled by fear, and these are really good prayers to be praying for our brothers and sisters, that the Lord would rule, and not fear." Source: Mission Network News, January 2, 2008 Papua New Guinea ¯ New Tribes Mission's Nita Zelenak says they had a breakthrough in Papua New Guinea just last week. Their team just launched its first teaching series in the remote Yembiyembi village that goes through the Bible. "About 80-percent of the tribe of the village showed up to hear the lesson." When rumors that the spirits would kill anyone who attended proved false, even more people came to participate. The missionary team is using the analogy of building a house to help the people understand that this teaching will take a long time. The Inanbimali people (who live in the YembiYembi village) understand this idea, knowing that building a house is a painstaking, step-by-step process. Zelenak explains, "They started actually planting the seeds of the Gospel by beginning to teach from Genesis." Missionaries will be teaching 5 nights a week for the next three months. "Towards the end of that, they will start with the story of Christ and bring them to a clear understanding of how God has provided a way of salvation for them." The missionaries have also taught how the Inanbimali people fit into history and how God's "talk" made its way from Israel to America and around the world. They also taught about the omniscience of God, the Trinity and how God spoke creation into existence. The commitment to the Inanbimali drives the team forward. This people group is very tied into the surrounding area through marriage and trade. If they clearly understand and believe the Gospel, it will have a powerful ripple effect throughout the entire region. Representatives from 6 other language groups are sitting in on the lessons. Zelenak says the effort needs prayer. "The main three prayer requests that the missionaries are asking is: First, pray that the tribal people will consistently attend because they will not have a clear understanding unless they attend consistently. Then, they are asking for the health of the missionaries, for wisdom as they teach. Pray also for clear understanding on the part of the tribal people." Pray that the Yembiyembi people would respond to the Gospel as they continue to hear God's Word taught in their language. Source; Mission Network News Full story: http://www.MNNonline.org/article/10840 Egypt – An Egyptian judge is scheduled to rule next week on the case of a Muslim-born convert to Christianity whose court hearing threatened to turn into a brawl earlier this month, the convert’s lawyer said. Next Tuesday (January 29) Judge Muhammad Husseini is expected to decide whether to allow former Muslim Mohammed Ahmed Hegazy to drop his case to change his religious affiliation in order to correct certain legal mistakes, lawyer Gamal Eid said. The conservative judge also is expected to rule on a range of religious freedom issues, according to Eid. Among other things, Husseini will decide on a case by Islamists to force the government to implement a legal punishment for “apostasy,” or conversion away from Islam. Hegazy has aroused widespread criticism in Egypt as the first known Muslim-born convert to Christianity to petition the government to change his religious affiliation. The convert’s January 15 hearing, which he did not attend due to death threats, became heated after Islamist lawyers charged the government with doing too little to stop Christian evangelization. One lawyer told the court that Christian priests in every Egyptian city were baptizing Muslims and paying each convert 100,000 Egyptian pounds (US$18,212). Led by Wahid el-Wahsh, the Islamists filed a complaint with judge Muhammad el-Shazly against the government and Al-Azhar’s Grand Imam, Egypt’s top religious authority. The lawyers demanded that authorities outlaw “apostasy,” based on Article 2 of Egypt’s constitution, which designates Islamic law as the basis of Egyptian legislation. In July, top Al-Azhar cleric Ali Gomaa made a controversial statement that “apostasy” only merited punishment in the afterlife. He later clarified that “apostates” could be punished on earth if they were “actively engaged in the subversion of society.” Many mainstream Egyptian interpretations of Islamic law dictate that “apostasy” warrants death. Tensions mounted when Christian human rights lawyer Naguib Gabriel requested to join the case to fight against the Islamists’ demands that “apostasy” be outlawed. He told Compass that he was not planning to represent Hegazy, but rather to join the side of the government to fight for freedom of religion. The hearing was cut short when at least 15 Islamist lawyers tried to attack Hegazy’s attorneys. The convert’s representatives escaped the courtroom unharmed, but the trial was postponed to the following week. “They were shouting at Rawda [Ahmad] and tried to beat the other lawyer [Adel Rafie],” Eid said. “They were very angry because they think this kind of case is against Islam.” Eid said that his organization, the Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), had decided not to lodge an official complaint against the rowdy lawyers, fearing that it would play into their attempts to grab media attention. “Some of them are Islamists, and some of them are just looking for fame,” Eid said. Appeal to Drop Case At the following hearing on Tuesday (January 22), Eid requested that Hegazy’s case be dropped because of technical mistakes made by the convert’s previous lawyer, Mamdouh Nakhla. Nakhla withdrew as Hegazy’s attorney just days after filing the case in August because of death threats from Islamists and Egypt’s security police. Eid said that dropping the case would give his client time to file a request with Egypt’s Civil Status Department to change his religious affiliation. Once refused, the convert would then have evidence with which to pursue his case against the Egyptian government. Following Eid’s request, a lawyer representing the government against Hegazy also agreed to allow the case to drop, prompting Husseini to promise a decision by next Tuesday (January 29). Eid said that the hearing last Tuesday (January 22) was relatively peaceful, though El-Badyl newspaper reported the following day that Islamist lawyer Nabih el-Wahsh had again raised the issue of Christians evangelizing Muslims. “[El-Wahsh] presented a file to the judges including a list of names and locations for what he called the ‘mafia of evangelizing and baptizing’ in Egypt,” the article stated. Converting for Non-Religious Reasons Another group potentially affected by Husseini’s upcoming ruling may be Christians who have become Muslims and then wish to return to their original faith. Between 2004 and April 2007, 32 such converts had won the right to re-convert. For many of them the move to Islam had been motivated by the desire to obtain a divorce, remarry, or marry a Muslim. Egyptian Christian family law forbids divorce and remarriage, while Islamic law bans marriage between a Christian man and a Muslim woman. Such “re-conversions” were brought to a halt in April 2007, when Husseini ruled against another 45 converts to Islam who were seeking to return to Christianity. The outcome of their appeal is still uncertain. A new ruling from Egypt’s religious body may influence Husseini’s upcoming verdict. Al Azhar issued a fatwa, or religious edict, calling for tough penalties against people who convert to Islam for non-religious reasons, according to a January 20 news report. News website AlArabiya.net reported that the fatwa condemned the practice of re-converting after converting to Islam and that offenders should be punished according to Islamic law. It did not specify a penalty. In hiding since his case began in August, Hegazy and his wife Zeinab gave birth to a baby girl on January 10. The convert’s main motivation for changing his religious affiliation was the upcoming birth of his daughter. Under current Egyptian law, unless Hegazy can change his religious affiliation, his daughter would be forced to attend Islamic religion classes and marry a Muslim man. Source Compass Direct News http://www.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=lead&lang=en&length=long&idelement=&backpage=&critere=&countryname=&rowcur= Philippines Philippines (MNN) ¯ The government and published new sources report that armed soldiers are being placed outside of churches and parishes to protect foreign and local Christian workers. This comes after a Christian worker was killed last Tuesday, reportedly by the Islamic extremist group Abu Sayyef. Abu Sayyef is listed as a terrorist organization in the United States, Europe and the Philippines. They are notorious for their kidnap-for-ransom activities which still takes place in the region. Seperatist groups have been fighting in the independent state for more than 30 years. One news outlet said that police efforts in the area are working to neutralize the armed groups, and the military is ready if the threat becomes imminent. An army major reported that the week before the murder, other foreign workers had received threats. Despite the threats, workers have not requested to be transferred. One worker who has worked in the Philippines for two decades said times like these call them to continue to dialogue about peace and hope. The Christian worker who was killed spent the last ten years doing outreach with poor among Samah and Tausog villagers. Pray that the extremists would hear the message of the Gospel. Pray for peace in the region. Source; Mission Network News http://www.mnnonline.org/article/10835 In 24 hours  |