VIETNAM JAILS 17 MONTAGNARDS FOR ‘UNDERMINING NATIONAL SECURITY’

300,000 ATTEND 4-DAY BILLY GRAHAM CRUSADE IN CALIFORNIA

PASTOR IN MUSLIM AREA OF RUSSIA FACES PRESSURE FROM AUTHORITIES

MINISTRY AIMS TO COLLECT 100,000 PAIRS OF SHOES FOR ORPHANS

* INSTABILITY FORCES MOST MISSIONARIES TO EVACUATE C ”TE D’IVOIRE

Today’s News Stories:

VIETNAM JAILS 17 MONTAGNARDS FOR ‘UNDERMINING NATIONAL SECURITY’ A court in Vietnam’s central highlands has sentenced 17 Christian Montagnards (hill tribe people) to up to 10 years in jail for “undermining national security and unity” during an Easter weekend protest, an official reported. In three separate trials in Dak Nong province last week, the provincial People’s Court handed down jail terms from three to 10 years for members of the Ede ethnic minority group, the court official said on condition of anonymity. They were convicted of forcing ethnic minority people, collectively called Montagnards, to flee to neighboring Cambodia, luring people to join protests causing national security and public disorder, and distorting the policies of the communist party and government, he said. Tens of thousands of Montagnards took to the streets in Daklak, Dak Nong and Gia Lai provinces on the Easter weekend to protest government restrictions on their Protestant Christian faith and confiscation of their ancestral lands. International human rights groups claimed 10 protesters were killed in clashes with police, but Hanoi said only two died after being pelted with rocks thrown by other protesters. At least six Montagnards have been jailed in Daklak and Gia Lai provinces for their involvement in the protests. More than 500 who fled to Cambodia have been put under U.N. refugee protection. Most indigenous Montagnards are Protestant Christians who have suffered expropriation of their land and religious persecution for years. (WorldWide Religious News/Associated Press)

300,000 ATTEND 4-DAY BILLY GRAHAM CRUSADE IN CALIFORNIA Evangelist Billy Graham’s ministry came full circle as his Greater Los Angeles Crusade was held Thursday-Sunday, Nov. 18-21, at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. This crusade ended 55 years to the weekend from his historic “Canvas Cathedral” tent revival in downtown Los Angeles that launched his ministry into worldwide prominence. “So many of us have been praying that God will move mightily in this town and be the beginning of a spiritual awakening,” Graham said. “But I think we’ve had a number of factors that lead to that including the whole period of President Reagan’s death. There was a spiritual tone in the whole country. I feel that people are looking for something, searching for purpose and meaning in their lives, and they can find it in Christ.” That search was evident throughout the crusade as crowds averaging more than 73,600 attended the meetings, including 90,000 teenagers for “The Concert for Our Generation” — the largest audience for a non-sporting event at America’s Stadium. Of these, an average of more than 3,150 people came forward each night to make a commitment to Christ. More than 1,400 churches representing 100 denominations participated in the yearlong preparations, mobilizing some 20,000 volunteers. Graham has been invited to hold a crusade in the New York area in June 2005. (Billy Graham Evangelistic Association)

PASTOR IN MUSLIM AREA OF RUSSIA FACES PRESSURE FROM AUTHORITIES Rafis Nabiullin, the pastor of a small evangelical church in the town of Aznakayevo in the mainly Muslim republic of Tatarstan, Russia, said he has been threatened by a local security service officer. He said an officer visited his apartment in late October, threatening to halt the church’s activity and drive him out of town. “At first he wouldn’t identify himself, but did so eventually,” Nabiullin said. “At the end he told me he had come ‘unofficially’ but that security authorities in the town didn’t want us there and intended to drive us out.” Eduard Khamidulin, president of the Association of Evangelical Free Churches of Tatarstan, also expressed some concern about the security officer’s visit. Danis Valeyev, the town’s security chief, denied that any of his officers had visited or threatened Nabiullin in the past year. However, he admitted issuing a warning to Nabiullin in 2003 because he had obtained an apartment “by deception” and invited children to services without the permission of their guardians. Nabiullin moved to Aznakayevo four years ago and started a small Christian fellowship in his apartment. (WorldWide Religious News/Forum 18 News Service)

MINISTRY AIMS TO COLLECT 100,000 PAIRS OF SHOES FOR ORPHANS Buckner Orphan Care International is giving feet to the gospel through its Shoes for Orphan Souls program. This year Buckner is working to collect 100,000 pairs of shoes with plans to collect 150,000 next year. The ministry is now raising funds to ship 11,000 pairs of shoes to orphans in St. Petersburg, Russia. “The opportunity gives us to go in a share the gospel because we have opened the door through providing shoes for these children is just tremendous,” said Buckner spokesperson Amy Norton. “We can go in and put shoes on children’s feet and ask if we can do a vacation Bible school and the answer is almost always, yes.” (Mission Network News)

* INSTABILITY FORCES MOST MISSIONARIES TO EVACUATE C ”TE D’IVOIRE A resumption of fighting, ethnic conflicts and lack of progress in resolving a two-year-old division of the West African nation of C ´te d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) have forced most missionaries to leave the country.

Jon Shea, SIM’s deputy international director for West Africa, said all SIM staff members and their families were evacuated from Ivory Coast last week. Eight persons from the northern city of Bouak © left by land for Bamako, Mali, on Saturday, Nov. 13. In addition, a group of 21 SIM missionaries, along with personnel from Christian and Missionary Alliance and other mission agencies working in the coastal city of Abidjan, left via a jointly chartered aircraft on Tuesday, Nov. 16.

Both groups from SIM have since met in Dakar, Senegal, for debriefing. “All of the missionaries will either be redeployed in West Africa, or they will begin home leave,” Shea said. “No one is going back to Ivory Coast for now.”

A total of 46 foreigners (including the eight persons from SIM) from the International Christian Academy (ICA) outside of Bouak © were evacuated from the country on Saturday, Nov. 13. The school for missionary children, owned by Colorado-based Conservative Baptist International (CBI), is operated by a consortium of mission agencies. The school had reopened this fall with a limited enrollment after being closed two years ago.

Shea explained that it was the Nov. 6 bombing attack against a school nearby ICA, occupied by French military peacekeepers, that triggered the immediate French destruction of the Ivorian air force and subsequent retaliation against French nationals throughout the southern part of the country.

CBI spokesman Rick Allen said two ICA staff members have remained at the ICA campus along with French forces. “The rest of our staff have gone up to Mali, Senegal or the U.S.,” he said. “The only other missionaries staying in Ivory Coast are way up in the northern part of the country at the hospital in Ferkess ©dougou. Up until now things have been quite calm in that area, and they’ve been able to carry on life as usual.”

New Tribes Mission announced on Tuesday, Nov. 16, that most of its missionaries had “safely left Ivory Coast in the wake of the increased unrest and anti-foreign violence. The mass exodus of foreigners from the country has made evacuation difficult and prolonged as roads and flights are congested.”

Ruth Hubbard of Wycliffe Bible Translators’ communications department said all of the ministry’s personnel in Ivory Coast were evacuated this weekend, including 15 adults and three children. All are Americans except for one Canadian couple. They are now either in France or Mali, awaiting further instructions. “It was a pretty low-level evacuation,” Hubbard said. “There were no problems, no incidents . . . just small logistical problems . . . with so many people trying to leave the capital. Everything went well, and everyone is safe and fine.”

All three missionary couples serving with HCJB World Radio in Abidjan also have been safely evacuated from the country, including Sub-Saharan Africa Director Lee Sonius and family, missionaries on loan from SIM. They arrived in the U.S. this weekend for home ministry assignment along with another American couple. A French couple with HCJB World Radio returned to their home in Paris, France, last week via a French military flight.

Fighting in Ivory Coast’s resumed on Nov. 4 with bombing raids on its rebel-held north. A Nov. 6 air strike killed nine French peacekeepers and an American, prompting immediate French destruction of Ivory Coast’s tiny air force. Clashes erupted in much of the government-held south, pitting President Laurent Gbagbo’s loyalists against foreigners and members of other ethnic groups. Many other foreign nationals were endangered as well as those targeted by loyalist groups.

As the refugee crossings into Liberia continued Sunday, local people were emptying their own food stocks to feed hungry, exhausted newcomers, said a local official, Albert Farnga. Villagers have been reduced to stripping rice out of the fields before it was ready for harvest “to save our brothers and sisters,” he said.

In other recent developments, U.N. helicopters escorted by peacekeepers flew the first food aid Sunday, Nov. 21, to the Liberian border town of Butuo which has been overwhelmed by thousands of refugees from Ivory Coast. Children swarmed the helicopters, setting down in a soccer field, before the blades even stopped turning — desperate to get at the grain, oil and beans inside.

Butuo, just two miles from the border, has received the largest share of what local U.N. officials say are 19,000 refugees crossing from Ivory Coast. (HCJB World Radio/Mission Network News/SIM/Conservative Baptist International/Evangelical Baptist Missions/Wycliffe Bible Translators/Associated Press)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * James A. Ferrier HCJB World Radio U.S. Ministries Communications Director E-mail: Phone: 1-719-590-9800 Fax: 1-719-590-9801 Web: http://www.hcjb.org http://www.beyondthecall.org * * * * * * * * * * * * *

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