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Today’s News Headlines:

TURKMENISTAN OFFICIALS STEP UP CRACKDOWN ON PROTESTANT CHURCHES MINISTRY RUSHES AID TO ALGERIA FOLLOWING MASSIVE EARTHQUAKE SAUDI ARABIA PREPARES TO DEPORT ANOTHER EXPATRIATE PASTOR PERSECUTED CHURCH LEADER FROM BELARUS SEEKS ASYLUM IN U.S. THOUSANDS RESPOND TO GOSPEL DURING CAMPAIGN IN MAJOR RUSSIAN CITY MAF EXECUTIVE NAMED PRESIDENT OF PARTNERS INTERNATIONAL

Today’s News Stories:

TURKMENISTAN OFFICIALS STEP UP CRACKDOWN ON PROTESTANT CHURCHES Amid a new crackdown on Protestant churches across Turkmenistan, five members of a church in Abadan have been warned not to meet together. Church members said they were subjected to hours of questioning at the police station and town administration following a May 31 raid on the apartment of two church members. Officials threatened to confiscate the apartment. The crackdown has seen at least six other Protestant churches raided during services since early May. Chief mufti Kakageldy Vepaev reportedly took part in at least four of the raids. Government officials in the capital Ashgabad refused to comment on the raids or on Turkmenistan’s violation of religious freedom. (Forum 18 News Service)

* HCJB World Radio works in partnership with Back to the Bible to air Christian Turkmen programs. Twice-weekly broadcasts began airing from an undisclosed site outside of Turkmenistan in 2001 and moved to daily programming earlier this year.

MINISTRY RUSHES AID TO ALGERIA FOLLOWING MASSIVE EARTHQUAKE Nerves continue to fray under the aftershocks that are reminders of a deadly earthquake that struck Algeria 11 days ago. More than 2,600 people were killed and more than 10,000 others injured in the quake. Tens of thousands are now sleeping outdoors, afraid of the continuing aftershocks. That’s where a ministry called Food for the Hungry steps in. “We need to make sure that people can be kept alive, and that’s why we’re providing food, water and blankets until they are able to return to living in permanent structures,” says ministry spokesperson Beth Allen. “The government announced a program to rebuild 20,000 houses, but it will take years for all of that to come to fruition.” Allen says the reconstruction phase gives the ministry’s national partners a way to exemplify the hope of Christ. “You think about Christianity, or think about Christian relief, as being just a matter of taking care of the situation when it occurs,” she says. “But in reality, Christians can do a lot in their community by preparing and by trying to prevent disasters before they happen.” (Mission Network News)

SAUDI ARABIA PREPARES TO DEPORT ANOTHER EXPATRIATE PASTOR While an Ethiopian Christian was deported from Saudi Arabia for alleged “Christian activities” nearly three weeks ago, a fellow Christian prisoner of Eritrean citizenship remains jailed in Jeddah. Girmaye Ambaye, who was arrested on March 25, reportedly cannot be processed for deportation to Eritrea until local authorities complete the official transfer of a car purchased in his name. The paperwork is expected to be completed by this weekend. The jailed Eritrean Christian continues to experience health problems while incarcerated in a crowded waiting cell at the Bremen Deportation Center in Terhil. Both Ambaye and Endeshawe Yizengaw (who was deported to Ethiopia May 16) had been active in the ministry of the Ethiopian-Eritrean Christian congregation in Jeddah where they served for more than 10 years. After the men had their residence permits secretly revoked in March and April, they were tracked down and arrested by Saudi police. (Compass)

PERSECUTED CHURCH LEADER FROM BELARUS SEEKS ASYLUM IN U.S. One of the most persecuted Christian leaders in Belarus is seeking political asylum in the U.S., saying the degree of religious repression in the former Soviet republic has become unbearable and dangerous. “We have had to practically go underground,” said Father Yan Spasyuk, 36, administrator of the tiny Belarussian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, during an interview in New Jersey Wednesday, May 28. “There are large fines for praying at home. You can even end up in prison.” He said the situation became more acute after a repressive new religion law was signed by Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko last October. The law favors the country’s dominant Russian Orthodox Church and lays the legal groundwork for a clampdown on minority faiths in the country of 10 million between Russia and Poland. The plight of Spasyuk’s 7,000-member Belarussian Autocephalous Orthodox Church figured prominently in the U.S. State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report released last October. The report documents Spasyuk’s attempts to erect a church building on his property and his subsequent arrest. Last August security forces sealed off Spasyuk’s village of Pohranichny near the Polish border and used bulldozers to demolish the brick church constructed by parishioners. (Religion Today)

THOUSANDS RESPOND TO GOSPEL DURING CAMPAIGN IN MAJOR RUSSIAN CITY Thirty-three churches in the Russian city of Volgograd worked together in a six-week evangelistic outreach with the theme, “Power to Change,” that concluded in late May. Mission Volgograd was perhaps the most visible city campaign in Russian history. The campaign was widely advertised via newspapers, billboards, television and radio. Participants distributed 50,000 evangelistic books and 50,000 copies of a special magazine to selected friends and neighbors. Daily programming on both radio and television gave examples of how God can change lives. Each Sunday night Mission Volgograd telecast a one-hour live television program — a first for Russia. Secular polling agencies estimated total viewership at 1 million. More than 100,000 “precision” one-on-one contacts were also established, and about 10,000 telephone calls were received. Thousands committed their lives to Christ. During one event Finnish evangelist Kalevi Lehtinen spoke to a full house of 800 at the Krasnoarmeysk Community Center, and more than 100 persons received the Lord. (Assist News Service)

* HCJB World Radio helped launch the first Christian Russian radio satellite network (operated by Christian Radio for Russia) in 2000, reaching across Euro-Asia. Downlinks have been installed with more than 26 partners in Russia alone, and many more are planned, including one for Volgograd. An audio production studio in the city is already in place. HCJB World Radio began sending gospel broadcasts across Russia via shortwave in 1941. In the early 1990s the ministry began working to “plant” local radio ministries in Russia and now works with partners in more than a dozen cities.

MAF EXECUTIVE NAMED PRESIDENT OF PARTNERS INTERNATIONAL A senior executive at Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) has been appointed president/chief executive officer of Partners International, an organization that strengthens the work and witness of the church in the least-evangelized regions of the world. Jon Lewis, 52, is vice president of research and Planning at MAF where he has served in various positions for 26 years, including being a missionary pilot in Africa. He begins his new assignment mid-August, replacing Rev. Paul-Gordon Chandler who announced in February that he would step down to become rector of the Church of St. John the Baptist in Cairo, Egypt. Chandler describes Lewis as a “seasoned executive of an international Christian organization who understands missions and has worked with indigenous leaders from around the world.” Partners International has asked Lewis to draft a new vision and purpose statement, design the evaluation system for field programs and initiate Operation Access, a global research project. Reared by missionaries in Portugal, Lewis became the first student at Bethel College in St. Paul, Minn., to complete a physics major. He earned a master’s degree at the University of Minnesota and began a Ph.D. to pursue a career with the NASA space program. But following a summer in Africa where he first witnessed missionary pilots in action, he decided to begin MAF flight training instead. (Religion Wire) James A. Ferrier HCJB World Radio Web: http://www.hcjb.org http://www.beyondthecall.org * * * * * * * * * * * * *