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Today’s News Headlines:

AGREEMENT SPARES VIETNAMESE CHURCH FROM BEING DESTROYED AGAIN 5 CHRISTIAN PRISONERS IN MYANMAR CLEARED OF ‘CHILD SELLING’ CHARGES NIGERIAN OFFICIALS THREATEN TO SEIZE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY’S PROPERTY BELIEVERS DIVIDED ABOUT NIGERIA’S RE-ELECTED CHRISTIAN PRESIDENT ROMANIAN BELIEVERS SET GOAL OF PLANTING 10,000 CHURCHES BIBLE TRANSLATION PROJECT HELPS PRESERVE KENYAN TRIBE, BEGIN CHURCH

Today’s News Stories:

AGREEMENT SPARES VIETNAMESE CHURCH FROM BEING DESTROYED AGAIN The Religious Department of Ho Chi Minh City gave temporary approval for the Thu Thiem Evangelical Church following a meeting on Thursday, July 10, saving the facility from being “completely dismantled” by local authorities. The agreement came after city government officials met with pastor Truong Van Nganh, two members of the house church committee and Rev. Tran Ba Thanh, a member of executive committee of the Vietnamese Evangelical Church (South Vietnam). The agreement allows the church to hold services while the government considers an application for a construction permit to build a permanent church. Meanwhile, Nganh agreed to take responsibility for security issues related to church meetings. Both sides acknowledged fault in the dispute that nearly resulted in the church being torn down. Nganh said the church made a mistake by erecting a facility on farmland before receiving government permission. Government representatives admitted that they were wrong in taking too long to consider the application to build the church. Nganh also agreed to withdraw the appeal letter that he had sent to the government office. Both sides signed the agreement with these conditions at 4 p.m. Thursday. Police originally destroyed the church building in July 2000. However, the congregation continued to meet on the concrete slab for four months until moving to a house church. At 4 a.m. June 9 the congregation quietly began rebuilding. Three hours later about 200 police officers descended upon the congregation, surrounded the site and attempted to stop the building project. (Voice of the Martyrs)

5 CHRISTIAN PRISONERS IN MYANMAR CLEARED OF ‘CHILD SELLING’ CHARGES Five Christian prisoners, including pastor Run Hesh Ling in Myanmar (formerly Burma), were released following their trial on Monday, July 7. The charges arose from a dispute with the government regarding the confiscation of orphanages for military use. The five were arrested in Kalemyo on June 14 on charges of “selling children.” They faced possible sentences of either life imprisonment or death if convicted. (Voice of the Martyrs)

NIGERIAN OFFICIALS THREATEN TO SEIZE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY’S PROPERTY Nigerian authorities are threatening to seize the property of a Nigerian Christian mission and make it available to Muslim developers if a building is not constructed on it soon. The mission purchased the land three years ago when it was forced out of its old headquarters by a Muslim landlord. While the mission leader says the location is the “best land any mission could think of,” funds are not yet available to put the building. Gifts have enabled the mission to drill a well and start molding blocks, but it has not yet been able to begin any kind of structure. Because the land is in a prime location in a Muslim area, authorities have told the ministry to put up a building within four months or the land will be confiscated and sold to others. Ministry leaders want to construct a building for its school of missions. The mission now operates the school in a rented facility with 16 students, but had to turn away 40 students last year for lack of space. Moreover, the Muslim landlord has tried to evict the ministry as tenants and has raised the rent. The first phase of the project, providing space for about 20 students, will cost $20,000. Plans are to build a separate dormitory, an auditorium and offices. However, the first phase would satisfy the authorities’ building requirements and secure the land. (Missions Insider)

BELIEVERS DIVIDED ABOUT NIGERIA’S RE-ELECTED CHRISTIAN PRESIDENT Nigeria’s Christian president was re-elected earlier this year instead of a Muslim, but believers in the West African nation are divided in their support of Olusegun Obasanjo, reported Charisma News Service. Some Christians say Obasanjo was just as corrupt as his Muslim opponent while others view Obasanjo as a military stooge. On his re-election, an outspoken pastor declared that the president would suffer God’s judgment. What irks many Christians is that Nigeria’s problems have not been addressed since Obasanjo came to power. In fact, they contend that poverty and corruption have worsened. Many think he failed during his first term by allowing states in northern Nigeria to adopt Islamic law, leading to widespread Christian persecution. Other leaders in Lagos take a more tempered view. An official with the Christian Association of Nigeria said the president’s recent conversion simply hasn’t affected all his political views yet. Nevertheless, the president does not hide his faith from public view in a nation where Muslims and Christians compete for dominance. Praying daily, he surrounds himself with Baptist and Pentecostal aides and seeks counsel from pastors of the nation. When he was elected to his first term, he immediately built a Protestant chapel at the presidential villa. Obasanjo attends services every Sunday and holds monthly meetings with local pastors. (Religion Today)

ROMANIAN BELIEVERS SET GOAL OF PLANTING 10,000 CHURCHES Romania is fast becoming a missions center as believers have set a goal to plant 10,000 new churches in the country. “Of Romania’s 5,000 evangelical churches, 3,000 have a great potential for leading people to Christ and themselves planting new churches in the nation’s unreached towns and villages,” says Gavi Moldovan of Misiunea Mondiala Unita (MMU), one of the nation’s strategic mission movements. The movement’s aim is to help leaders of the country’s three evangelical denominations — Baptist, Brethren and Pentecostal — develop appropriate mission plans. National research and strategic conferences have resulted in the first truly cross-denominational targets: plant 3,650 churches in the next four years and ultimately 10,000. More than 1,500 churches have been planted in recent years as a result of training and support of 150 Romanian church-planting teams. However, the country with the third-highest percentage of evangelical Christians in Europe thinks not only of itself. MMU, an alliance of more than 20 churches and missions organizations, also trains Romanian missionaries to work in other cultures. More than 25 missionaries supported by Romanian churches are being trained with some already serving in Turkey. (Friday Fax)

* HCJB World Radio broadcasts the gospel locally in seven Romanian cities via the partner ministry, Radio Voice of the Gospel. The network is a cooperative effort with the Evangelical Alliance of Romania and the Romanian Missionary Society.

BIBLE TRANSLATION PROJECT HELPS PRESERVE KENYAN TRIBE, BEGIN CHURCH It’s the story of preserving a cultural identity. For The Seed Company, work in southwestern Kenya among the Suba tribe is helping keep this society alive. Spokesman Parke Brown explains the mindset that posed a challenge to the team of Bible translators. “Many of the people groups around them looked down on them because they didn’t have the Scriptures, and they thought they were inferior in some way because God hadn’t spoken to them. The people themselves sort of picked this up over time, and they really felt ashamed of who they were just because of this lack of Scriptures,” he said. Since then, seven books of the Bible have been translated for the Suba. That has blossomed into a growing church with a holistic community ministry. “They’re now actually a partner in a school that primarily helps children who have been orphaned from AIDS, to go ahead and get a good education and to get good-quality meals and to really break from the cycle of some of these sicknesses and poverty,” says Brown. (Mission Network News)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * James A. Ferrier

HCJB World Radio

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