Nepal - Formerly the only official Hindu country is now open to the preaching of the Gospel

The world’s formerly only official Hindu country is now open to the preaching of the Gospel, a Christian missionary working there declared joyfully this past weekend. Christians were reportedly arrested and imprisoned for preaching the Gospel in Nepal, speaker Narayan Sharma, Gospel for Asia’s Nepal country leader, said at the GFA “Renewing Your Passion” Conference in Dallas, Texas, on Friday. He recounted when he himself was arrested and put into a dungeon-like prison cell because he shared his faith.
“In all this darkness, there was no imagination that the country would ever be open,” Sharma said.
But in April, Nepal held its first election for a new legislative assembly, and in May lawmakers legally abolished the monarchy and declared the country a republic. The king was previously considered to be a god. Newly elected officials also promised to allow religious freedom in the government. Now, Gospel programmes are aired over the same government-owned radio stations that used to carry reports of Christians being arrested, Sharma said.
“The Bible says that after the night, joy comes in the morning, and morning has come to Nepal!” Sharma told the audience of more than 1,000 people.
Missionaries from Burma, Sri Lanka, India and the United States also spoke. The Burmese missionary recounted how locals saw the heart of God when missionaries and volunteers brought them food and supplies after the recent cyclone disaster.
“Buddha did nothing while we were suffering. But your Jesus loves us,” the missionary recalled a family telling him. “Now every Sunday they are coming to church and worshipping the Lord,” he added.
Following a message about the importance of prayer, GFA leaders and attendees held a late-night prayer vigil on Saturday. GFA says it has 16,500 native missionaries working in 11 south Asian countries. The “Renewing Your Passion Conference” began on Friday with GFA president and greetings from founder KP Yohannan and ended on Sunday.

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Christian in Iraq - Never give up

A leading Iraqi prelate has told how Christians have reacted with a show of defiance following the tragic death of an archbishop – an event which shocked the world.
Despite the ever-present risk of kidnappings and bomb-blasts, Easter Mass-goers have packed churches across the country both Sunday and the weekend before.
At least two Iraqi priests, until now studying in Europe, have decided to return to Baghdad in a move bound to boost the confidence of the country’s dwindling Christian community.
Discussing the Christians’ defiance in an interview with Aid to the Church in Need, Bishop Andreas Abouna of Baghdad said the people’s determination gave new cause for hope.
Speaking from Baghdad, the auxiliary to the Patriarch of Babylon (Baghdad) of the Chaldeans, said: “Our people are used to being part of a persecuted Church – it’s all we’ve ever known, almost from the beginning starting barely 400 years after Christ.
“They know it is their life to go through this.”
Bishop Abouna was speaking on Monday nearly three weeks after the death of Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, of Mosul in northern Iraq.
The archbishop, 65, was kidnapped on the steps of his cathedral in an attack which left his driver and two bodyguards dead.
Archbishop Rahho died about two weeks later, apparently of natural causes, and was buried in a shallow grave in Mosul.
Meantime, reports have come in showing how Christians in the nearby Nineveh plains have held peaceful demonstrations calling for the arrest of Archbishop Rahho’s kidnappers.
Acting on an Easter appeal by bishops in Nineveh, Christians have taken to the streets with pictures of Archbishop Rahho and other ‘martyrs’ walking through villages including Karamles, where the prelate’s funeral took place on Friday, 14th March.
Bishop Abouna said there was still no further information about the kidnappers’ identity or motive. He refused to rule out the possibility of them striking again.
The bishop went on to stress how Christians were determined to “keep faith”.
The bishop said: “Many of the churches were packed with people – although in Mosul, it is different because until now the situation has been unstable.”
He said: “We – both us bishops and priests – have told the people that they have to stand by for anything and that they have to defend their faith. We have asked them not to lose hope in Christ.
“Christians in Iraq do not like being a persecuted Church but if persecution comes, we are ready.”
He spoke of his delight at the imminent return to Baghdad of the two priests, who cannot be named for security reasons. “This is wonderful news – a real sign of hope,” he said.
The return of the priests, who have received funding from ACN, will help allay fears that Archbishop Rahho’s death would spark another mass exodus of Christians from Iraq.
Before 2003, Christians in Iraq numbered up to 1.2 million but it is now thought that almost two-thirds have fled abroad, especially to Syria, Jordan and Turkey.
About Aid to the Church in Need:
Directly under the Holy See, Aid to the Church in Need supports the faithful wherever they are persecuted, oppressed or in pastoral need. ACN is a Catholic charity – helping to bring Christ to the world through prayer, information and action.
Founded in 1947 by Fr Werenfried van Straaten, whom Pope John Paul II named “An Outstanding Apostle of Charity”, the organisation is now at work in about 145 countries throughout the world.
The charity – whose UK office is in Sutton, Surrey – undertakes thousands of projects every year including providing transport for clergy and lay Church workers, construction of church buildings, funding for priests and nuns and help to train seminarians. Since the initiative’s launch in 1979, 45 million Aid to the Church in Need Child’s Bibles have been distributed worldwide.

First Church In Qatar

DOHA -- A bitter debate has broken out in the tiny, oil-rich Gulf state of Qatar over construction of the Muslim country's first Christian church, set to open next month in time for Easter.
Critics have branded the concept as "repulsive" while supporters said building places of worship for other religions is a right guaranteed by Islam.

One former minister insisted there should have been a public referendum.
"The cross should not be raised in the sky of Qatar, nor should bells toll in Doha," wrote columnist Lahdan bin Issa al-Muhanadi in the Doha daily Al-Arab -- adding an apology in case the concept upset any readers in this country of 900,000, of whom only 200,000 are native Qataris.
The former dean of the sharia (Islamic law) school at Qatar University, Abdul Hamid al-Ansari, disagreed, saying having "places of worship for various religions is a fundamental human right guaranteed by Islam."
Ansari has written several newspaper articles welcoming the Roman Catholic Church in Doha, which is called St. Mary's and will be inaugurated on March 15 by Vatican envoy Cardinal Ivan Dias.
Four other Christian denominations are also planning to build churches in Qatar, whose ruling family and most of its small native population adheres to a strict rigorous doctrine of Islam known as Wahhabism.
Once St. Mary's opens, neighbor Saudi Arabia, which also practices Wahhabism, will be the only Arab nation in the Gulf that bans churches.
Gas-wealthy Qatar has opened up since current ruler and staunch US ally Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani seized control and ousted his father in a 1995 palace coup.
Qatar's leaders have even hosted Jewish rabbis and Christian clerics alongside Muslim religious scholars at annual inter-faith forums.
But Ansari sees the old influence in the current opposition. He attributes it to "a fanatic culture resulting from religious teaching (stipulating) hatred for the other and from social norms that denied non-Muslims their rights on the basis of old political and security considerations that have become obsolete."
St. Mary's parish priest, Father Tomasito Veneracion, a Filipino, stressed in comments to the daily Al-Raya that the church would be "merely a place for collective prayer."
It would not have crosses outside the building or serve as a platform for proselytizing, he said, adding that it would finally provide a place of worship for those who up to now were forced to practice religious rituals at home.
It would be open in time for the solemn Easter holy day, which this year falls on March 23.
For other Christians, construction of an Anglican church will begin in May, according to Qatar's Anglican priest Canon William Schwarz.
Building has already begun on a Greek Orthodox Church and another for Copts.
The Vatican website estimates about 100,000 Qatar residents are Christian. Most are Indians, Filipinos, Lebanese and Western nationals who, despite praying in private, have celebrated Christmas publicly for about a decade.
The debate meanwhile has spilled into the letters pages of Doha's dailies.
Engineer Rashed al-Subaie, in a letter to Al-Watan, agreed Christians should be allowed to practice their faith but should do so "in line with public morals without being given licenses to set up places of worship."
Christians should "worship their God in their homes," not publicly, he wrote.
Lawyer and former justice minister Najib al-Nuaimi also objected to building churches in Qatar on "legal and social" grounds.
"Qatar is a Muslim -- not secular -- state, as per its constitution. There should have been a referendum on the building of these churches in order to ensure they are socially accepted," he told Agence France-Presse.
But Ansari hit back at those citing Islamic texts to justify their rejection, notably Muhanadi who has quoted the Prophet Mohammed saying "no two religions will come together in the Arabian peninsula."
"This does not mean that churches should be banned in Qatar because [Islamic] religious scholars believe it applies to Hijaz -- specifically Mecca and Medina," Islam's two holiest cities in Saudi Arabia, Ansari said.
"Let's all welcome the presence of churches in Qatar as a demonstration of Islamic tolerance and human brotherhood," he said.
Agence France-PresseFirst Posted 12:59:00 02/19/2008

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C.H. Spurgeon - Oysters of Life

I wish, brothers and sisters, that we could all imitate "the pearl oyster"—A hurtful particle intrudes itself into its shell, and this vexes and grieves it. It cannot reject the evil, but what does it do but "cover" it with a precious substance extracted out of its own life, by which it turns the intruder into a pearl! Oh, that we could do so with the provocations we receive from our fellow Christians, so that pearls of patience, gentleness, and forgiveness might be bred within us by that which otherwise would have harmed us.
-- Spurgeon, C. H.

The Christian Struggle in Islamic Countries

An Egyptian court has ruled that 12 Christians who converted to Islam and then reverted to Christianity can have their faith officially recognised.
The decision overturns a lower court ruling which said the state need not recognise conversions from Islam because of a religious ban.
This is a case that has tested Egypt's tolerance of conversions from Islam.
A lawyer for the 12 Coptic Christians described the case as a victory for human rights and freedom of religion.
He says it could open the door for hundreds of other Copts who want to revert to their original faith from Islam.
Limited application
It appears, though, that the court's decision will have a limited application.
Reports say the judge decided that the Copts should not be considered apostates for converting from Islam, because they had been born Christian.
This suggests that Egyptians born Muslim will still be unable to convert to other faiths and have those conversions recognised on their identity cards. Many Muslims believe that converting from Islam is wrong, and some believe it is punishable by death.
Last year, an Egyptian convert to Christianity was forced to go into hiding when he received death threats after trying to have his conversion officially recognised.

Not so FREE speech!!

A Dallas man was told he had to buy a transit system ticket before he could talk about God to passengers waiting at a bus station, but officials quickly backed down when issues of free speech were raised.
The man, Daniel Bailey, is disabled but for two years had peacefully expressed his Christian faith by witnessing to passers-by at a Dallas area transit station, and distributing Gospel tracts, according to the Alliance Defense Fund.
Then officers at the system's West End DART station approached him and told him that a policy change would not allow him to continue witnessing, the ADF said. The officer reportedly told Bailey to either purchase a ticket or leave, so Bailey left, and contacted the ADF.
The organization, a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the truth, wrote a letter to Gary C. Thomas, president of the Dallas Area Rapid Transit, over concerns the situation raised.

The Human Race

I heard this yesterday on Radio 4 while driving to an immigration prison in Oxford, how appropriate:

I've just got back from holiday to a pile of mail that includes an invitation to a dinner on Friday organised by the Indo-Pakistan Friendship Society. It's to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the partition of the sub-continent to form the new states of India and Pakistan.
To me, it's a bit like a couple separated in a bitter and acrimonious divorce getting together to celebrate an anniversary of their parting. In this case the parting cost more than a million lives with millions more, including members of my own family, fleeing homes in which they had lived for generations. Previously friendly neighbours turned on each other in fear and politically induced hate. Overnight, Sikhs found that many of their holiest places of worship, including the birthplace of their founder Guru Nanak, were now in what seemed, an alien and hostile land.
On what might be termed the plus side, Britain found a convenient exit strategy to leave a difficult to govern sub continent, and ageing Congress and Muslim League politicians got the power they had long craved. As India's first Prime Minister, Pandit Nehru wrote in his memoirs, 'if we hadn't taken power at that time, we might not have had another opportunity in our lifetime'.
To me the partition of the sub continent was one of the most shameful peacetime acts of the 20th century whose reverberations are still being felt today, as are the fall outs from the arbitrary division of other lands in the cause of political expediency.
Even worse is the argument used to justify partitioning countries: that people of different religions cannot live peacefully together. The actual thrust of religious teachings is in the very opposite direction of showing respect to others. In the parable of the good Samaritan, Jesus reminded Jews of the goodness that can be found in neighbouring communities. The Sikh holy scriptures, the Guru Granth Sahib includes uplifting writings of Hindu and Muslim saints to illustrate the same truth, and Guru Gobind Singh taught that we should look beyond labels like Hindu or Muslim or Shia and Sunni to an understanding of the oneness of our human race.
The tragic lesson of history is that people of different faiths all too easily allow themselves to be manipulated by the power hungry or in the cause of political expediency. It's a lesson well worth remembering in looking at today's turmoil in Iraq and other parts of our suffering world.

Indarjit Singh from Radio 4 - Thought of the Day

Chinese Christians

Check out this article called Christianity Finds a Fulcrum in Asia. The author puts forth a number of stunning claims and predictions, including . . .
10,000 Chinese become Christians every day.
Chinese may comprise the world’s largest concentration of Christians by 2050.
China feels an enormous spiritual hunger caused in large measure by its new-found prosperity.
The massive migration of Chinese from the countryside to the large cities contributes to their openness to the gospel.
There are now more than 100 million Christians. That number could double by 2050.
Islam will have no answer when China Christians take the gospel “back to Jerusalem.”
The house church movement is the fastest growing part of the church in China.
Chinese Christians, having suffered enormous persecution, evangelize with passionate fervor.
Freedom of worship is the first precondition for democracy.
China’s house churches may become the leaven of democracy.
Time will tell about the accuracy of these predictions, but no one can deny that God is up to something big in China. One year from now the Summer Olympics will be underway in Beijing and the eyes of the world will be on China as never before. Would you join me in praying for the spread of the gospel in China, for the strengthening of the Chinese churches, and for those who are giving themselves to take the Good News to the world’s largest nation?

Free Thinking

Judas knows.....

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Mankindtoons

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Reverend Fun

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