Day: March 3, 2016

 

In This Issue:

1. BURMA: Week of Prayer March 7-13
2. NIGERIA: Churches Unite for First Time to Address Violence in North
3. INDIA: More than 500 Rescued from Slavery
4. ISRAEL/PALESTINE: Palestinian Christians and Messianic Jews Issue Joint Statement
5. MEDITERRANEAN: Migrants Sold Fake Life Jackets

Greetings!

This past week’s major news stories unsettled me. I felt as if the world was changing too fast to make sense of it. Not until I sleuthed for news we could use for Missions Catalyst did I find relief. I found stories about the things that matter most and that speak of the good news of the Gospel and its advance.

Consider the story of Shahid, a Libyan man who came to Christ and now reports baptizing Muslim-background believers on the same shores where ISIS beheaded 21 Coptic Christians (Light the Way), or the story of a skateboarding disciple-maker in one of Asia’s urban centers who is seeing lives changed (Pioneers). I’m also encouraged by reports of those reaching out in love to the world’s refugees.

If your head is spinning by what you are hearing, take heart. Heaven’s headlines are always GOOD News.

In Him,
Pat

 

Source: Christian Solidarity Worldwide

This March, we’re dedicating the whole week of 7-13 March to praying for Burma. In November 2015, Aung San Suu Kyi’s National league for Democracy (NLD) party was elected to power, ending over a decade of oppressive military rule.

We’re excited about this important step for Burma, but this is just the start of a long road. Aung San Suu Kyi herself said in a recent interview that “Prejudice is not removed easily and hatred is not going to be removed easily.”

March 7-13, CSW will be holding an online week of prayer. You can join us by signing up for daily prayer emails, so you too can pray for the future of Burma at this critical time.

» Learn more or sign up to participate.

» Editor’s note: The government of Thailand has decided to send back to Burma the nearly 100,000 refugees, mostly persecuted minorities, who live in camps along the Thai-Burma border. Read a report from Vision Beyond Borders about their plans to relocate vulnerable refugee children during these dangerous days. And, for an interesting glimpse of Burma’s history, see Gospel-singing Nurses Key to General’s 140-mile Retreat from Burma.

Source: World Watch Monitor, February 23, 2016

The world’s deadliest terrorist group is not in the Middle East. It’s in Nigeria, where the Islamist insurgency Boko Haram and other forces killed more than 4,000 Christians in 2015.

That tally was a 62 percent increase from the previous year, according to Open Doors, a global charity that supports Christians in places where their faith exposes them to government, social, or sectarian hostility.

In response, Nigeria’s largest confederation of Christian churches is, for the first time, jointly endorsing a commitment to revive the Church in the country’s north, before it collapses from a decade of violence that has killed thousands of Christians and driven away more than 1 million.

At the same time, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), has jointly published with Open Doors a detailed study of the violence and its impact.

CAN is comprised of councils representing Protestant denominations, indigenous Evangelical churches, Pentecostal churches, and the Catholic Church. Together they encompass about half of Nigeria’s 173 million people.

» See full story with map and pictures.

Source: International Justice Mission, March 3, 2016

In an ongoing rescue operation, Indian police and IJM staff have rescued 564 children, women and men from forced labor slavery at a massive brick kiln.

This is IJM’s largest anti-slavery operation ever—and it took place in the exact same, sprawling factory where [IJM] helped rescue more than 500 people in 2011.

The kiln owner had evaded arrest in that first operation, but today his impunity has ended. Police arrested him and five other accomplices from an organized trafficking network. They are currently in custody and will face charges under India’s anti-trafficking laws and Bonded Labour Act.

Over the next few days, Indian officials and IJM staff will stay with the families and make sure they have nourishing meals and medical care. IJM field workers will help the families return to their home villages by train on Friday.

For the next two years, IJM staff will meet with the families regularly and connect them to long-term rehabilitation programs and opportunities so they can rebuild lives in freedom.

IJM will support local police as they build the legal case against the kiln owner and the trafficking ring that helped him grow his business—hopefully ending this systematic abuse of the poor for good.

» See full story with pictures and read more coverage of this dramatic rescue operation in The Times of India, The Hindu and The New Indian Express.

Source: Lausanne News, February 25, 2016

Thirty Palestinian Christians and Messianic Jews met in Larnaca, Cyprus, January 25-28, 2016 for four days of prayer, fellowship, and study. They issued a statement affirming their unity as believers in Jesus and calling on their communities to join them in reconciliation initiatives.

The Lausanne Initiative for Reconciliation in Israel/Palestine (LIRIP) hosted the conference. Its vision is “to promote reconciliation within the body of Christ and our wider communities in Israel and Palestine by creating a network that encourages, under the auspices of the Lausanne Movement, models of gospel-based, Christ-centered reconciliation that will have prophetic impact in relation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

The Larnaca Statement highlights the issues and challenges affecting reconciliation, noting:

“In times of tension and violent conflict, relationships suffer, while suspicion, accusation, and mutual rejection thrive. At such times it is even more essential that we who affirm our unity in the Messiah must uphold ethical standards of life that are worthy of our calling, in all our attitudes, words, and deeds.”

It recognizes that “we hold very different theological positions regarding the land, and also very different perspectives on the causes of the social, political, and economic realities that impact the daily life of all who inhabit the land.”

Nevertheless, it calls for “a generous theological stance, which makes room for and respects the conscientious convictions of others that they sincerely derive from their reading of Scripture” and for “every effort to maintain our fellowship with each other as a witness to the unity of the body of the Messiah and to the boundless love of God for all people.”

» Read full press release.

Source: ASSIST News, January 10, 2016

“It is raining like crazy in Lesvos tonight and people who got soaking wet arriving on boats today have not been able to dry up at all,” [writes refugee advocate Zrinka Bralo]. “I met a great crew from Zagreb on the beach today. They are working with unaccompanied minors in Moria camp and came out to help on the beach. It was truly humbling to see the efforts to of one American lifeguard from the Dutch Boat Refugee Foundation to save a life of a man who was so hypothermic that he slipped away and stopped shaking.”

Zrinka went on to say, “I am still sticking with my policy of not taking photos of people in distress, especially children. I am also finding it increasingly difficult to restrain myself when I see other people hugging children off the boat and pulling out big lens cameras and sticking it into the terrified children’s faces. But that is another story. I leave you tonight with my rage, my guilt, and a few photos of the fake life jackets I struggled to pull off tiny children this morning.”

Recently police have raided and arrested people working in factories in Turkey making these “fake life jackets” to sell to the people. The Guardian reports that police allegedly seized 1,263 lifejackets filled with non-buoyant materials from an illegal workshop in Izmir that employed two Syrian children, according to Agence France-Presse and Dogan news agencies.

The raid came in the same week that the bodies of more than 30 people washed up on Turkish beaches, having drowned in their attempt to reach Greece. Some of the dead were pictured wearing lifejackets, leading to suspicions that they may have been fake.

» See full story with pictures and read Turkish police find factory making fake lifejackets in Izmir.

» Other stories related to the refugee crisis report that nine Christian leaders in Australia were arrested for protesting deportation of refugees (Christian Post / Christian Headlines) and that refugees were tear-gassed in France (Foreign Policy) and Macedonia (Al Jazeera). See also A Street View of Immigration (SAT-7 video).