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Today’s News Headlines:

TRIBAL WARFARE IN DEM. REP. OF CONGO DISRUPTS MINISTRIES RUSSIAN SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS CLOSURE OF BIBLE COLLEGE HOLOCAUST RESCUER FROM POLAND DIES AT AGE 85 AFTER FALL KURDISH CHURCHES IN IRAQ CONTINUE TO FLOURISH DESPITE PRESSURE U.S. LABOR DEPARTMENT JOINS WORLD VISION TO HELP ‘CHILD SOLDIERS’ STUDY: PARENTS IN U.S. DO LITTLE ABOUT CHILDREN’S FAITH TRAINING

Today’s News Stories:

TRIBAL WARFARE IN DEM. REP. OF CONGO DISRUPTS MINISTRIES Full-scale tribal warfare broke out near the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo earlier this month, although the United Nations says a cease-fire went into effect Friday. Sam Vinton of Grace Ministries International says the unrest is causing major disruptions to the ministry. “Many of the pastors have fled into Uganda,” he says. “Others have been evacuated. I think it has really disrupted the work.” The ministry’s theological school in Bunia was forced to close after suffering heavy damage and looting. However, other Bible schools continue to operate, graduating 50 to 100 students per year. “The churches are continually moving forward, and it’s going to be exciting when we can report some of these things when the conflict is over,” Vinton says. (Mission Network News)

* HCJB World Radio works with local partners in the Democratic Republic of Congo to broadcast the gospel on FM stations in Boma, Bukavu and Kinshasa. Programs go out in English, French, Kikongo Fioti, Lingala, Luba and Swahili. Weekly programs in the Songe and Kikongo San Salvador languages also air from local FM stations in the country.

RUSSIAN SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS CLOSURE OF BIBLE COLLEGE Russia’s Supreme Court has upheld a March 21 ruling by the Primorsky Krai Regional Court to liquidate the Vladivostok-based Faith in Action Bible College. Regional public prosecutor Valeri Vasilenko accused the college of conducting religious education without a state license. At the appeal hearing in Russia, Vladimir Ryakhovsky of the Moscow-based Slavic Legal Centre argued that according to Russia’s 1997 religion law, a basic feature of a religious association is the “teaching of religion and the religious upbringing of its followers.” He denied that the college was engaged in “professional religious education for preparing clergy and religious personnel” which is subject to state licensing. However, the three-judge panel disagreed, upholding the lower court’s ruling. (Forum 18 News Service)

HOLOCAUST RESCUER FROM POLAND DIES AT AGE 85 AFTER FALL Irene Gut Opdyke of Yorba Linda, Calif., a native of Poland who risked her life to save at least 18 Jews during World War II and feed hundreds of others starving to death in Jewish ghettoes, died May 17 of complications suffered after a fall. She was 85. Opdyke was 17 years old when Hitler’s Panzer divisions overran Poland in 1939, separating the young nursing student from her family and launching her on a mission to save Jews from certain death. “God blessed my hands to save many lives,” said Opdyke in an interview just weeks before her death. Her 1999 book, In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Survivor, is being made into a movie. In 1940 Opdyke befriended 12 Jews who were forced to work as dressmakers and tailors for the Nazis in Tarnopol, Poland. She hid them in the laundry room of a confiscated villa where she worked as a housekeeper for a German officer. One day a 70-year-old major discovered her secret and said he would keep it only if she became his mistress. Whenever Opdyke overheard Nazi plans to destroy Jewish ghettos, she warned residents. She also smuggled food and supplies to about 150 Polish partisans and Jews hiding in a nearby forest. The Israeli government named Opdyke a “Righteous Gentile,” planting a tree in her honor in 1982 at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem. (Assist News Service/AP)

* DEO Recordings, HCJB World Radio’s partner ministry in Poland, operates 24-hour-a-day FM radio stations in five cities of southern Poland, including one in Auschwitz, infamous for its Nazi-era concentration camps. The stations make gospel broadcasts available to more than 5.7 million residents. Plans are being made to start a Christian satellite radio network to link the Polish stations and expand the ministry.

KURDISH CHURCHES IN IRAQ CONTINUE TO FLOURISH DESPITE PRESSURE About 4 million of the world’s 30 to 45 million Kurds live in the U.N.-protected zone of northern Iraq. The first Gulf War was the catalyst for the first church among the Kurds, and there are now active fellowships — each with 60 to 200 believers — in four cities. Christians affiliated with the National Protestant Evangelical Church have been reaching out to fellow Kurds from the beginning, training the disabled, helping widows and orphans and offering basic medical care. With the help of Partners International, the denomination also operates five bookshops, a radio ministry and even a Christian elementary school with local government approval. However, some new believers have been arrested or lost jobs, and in February Kurdish Christian Ziwar Mohammed Ismaeel was shot dead by an Islamic extremist. His widow and five children are being cared for by local believers. (World Pulse)

U.S. LABOR DEPARTMENT JOINS WORLD VISION TO HELP ‘CHILD SOLDIERS’ The U.S. Department of Labor is teaming with World Vision to combat the plight of child soldiers. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao unveiled a $13-million initiative to offer education and rehabilitation for former child soldiers. “The plight of child soldiers offends the world’s sense of decency and the code of conduct of civilized nations,” Chao said. An estimated 300,000 children are fighting in more than 34 conflicts worldwide, reported World Vision. In the past 10 years the agency estimates that 2 million children have been killed in armed conflicts, 6 million have been disabled and 20 million have been left homeless. Children are often recruited or abducted against their wills to fight, serve as spies or guards, lay or clear land mines, or work in prostitution rings. Some children are as young as 7 or 8, while most are between 10 and 15 years old. “The atrocities these children have seen — and many have been forced to commit — are nothing short of appalling,” said Bruce Wilkinson, World Vision’s vice president for international programs. (Religion Today)

STUDY: PARENTS IN U.S. DO LITTLE ABOUT CHILDREN’S FAITH TRAINING Most parents believe that they are primarily responsible for the spiritual development of their children, but few of them spend time interacting with their youngsters on religious matters. The study from the Barna Research Group indicates that 85 percent of parents of children under 13 believe they have the primary responsibility for teaching their children about religious beliefs and spiritual issues. But related research revealed that a majority of parents do not spend any time during a typical week discussing spiritual matters or studying religious materials with their children. Although about two out of three parents of children under 12 attend religious services at least once a month and generally take their children with them, most are willing to let their church provide all of their youngsters’ spiritual training. The survey of 1,010 U.S. adults found that parents typically have no plan for the spiritual development of their children, do not consider it a priority, have little or no training in how to nurture a child’s faith, have no related standards or goals that they are seeking to satisfy, and experience no accountability for their efforts. (Religion Today)

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