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Today’s Headlines:

GOVERNMENT SHAKE-UP TRIGGERS PERSECUTION IN SRI LANKA TRANSLATION MINISTRY TO DISTRIBUTE 20,000 NEW TESTAMENTS IN VIETNAM NEPALI BELIEVERS ENCOURAGED IN SPITE OF MAOIST TERRORISTS NIGERIAN MINISTRY MARKS 20 YEARS OF OUTREACH AMONG PRIMITIVE TRIBE NEW YORK CITY SCHOOLS OUTLAW CHRISTMAS NATIVITY SCENES BIBLE TRANSLATORS IN GHANA BECOME ‘CHICKEN LIBERATORS’

Today’s News Stories:

GOVERNMENT SHAKEUP TRIGGERS PERSECUTION IN SRI LANKA In Sri Lanka where a peace process is on hold following a tumultuous shake-up of the government, instability has prompted a bloody protest, creating a wave of displaced people. It also had another unexpected effect, says IN-Network’s Rody Rodeheaver. “When the government becomes focused on itself, and there’s a lot of infighting, which is going on right now, these groups see this as an opportunity . . . to accelerate their aggressive and anti-Christian behavior.” Rodeheaver says missionaries are feeling the impact. “There is less freedom to just go out and do evangelism,” he says. “It makes us a little more tentative. We have to be a little more careful on how we approach some things.” The reports of attacks on believers by Buddhist militants have spiked in the last few weeks. (Mission Network News)

TRANSLATION MINISTRY TO DISTRIBUTE 20,000 NEW TESTAMENTS IN VIETNAM The World Bible Translation Center (WBTC) is in the final stages of the printing and distributing 20,000 modern-language Vietnamese New Testaments to people across the nation. The predominantly Buddhist country has a population of 80 million, but is home to an estimated 1 million professing Christians. “This is a modern translation of the Bible that uses contemporary Vietnamese language,” says WBTC spokesman Richard Loh. “Word of the translation has gotten around the Christian community, and believers are eager to see it.” Government officials in Hanoi gave WBTC the nod to print and distribute the New Testaments. This marks the third time a communist regime has allowed the ministry to distribute copies of the Scriptures in Vietnam. There are nearly 800 registered churches in the country. (Mission Network News)

NEPALI BELIEVERS ENCOURAGED IN SPITE OF MAOIST TERRORISTS A ministry that sends Bible correspondence course materials across Nepal reports that thousands of believers were encouraged last month when their leader, a former Hindu priest, spoke to about 500 believers in the 113-year-old MacFarlane Church in Kalimpong. Two-day retreats were held in central and western portions of the country, and a missionary with the organization reported satisfactory progress from a church-planting mission. In some places, those taking the course have to walk all the way to the district postal headquarters to send and receive mail because many village post offices have been destroyed by Maoist terrorists. Christian workers have been forced from their villages by threats of death from the rebels, and in some cases the local believers must walk six hours to the next town for discipleship, fellowship and worship once a month. Although most of the country lives in fear of the Maoist rebels, students continue to send in their course work while local believers are being trained to lead local house churches. (Missions Insider)

NIGERIAN MINISTRY MARKS 20 YEARS OF OUTREACH AMONG PRIMITIVE TRIBE Missionary Crusaders Ministries, a Nigerian ministry that pioneered outreach to an African tribe that had gone undetected for 100 years, is celebrating 20 years of outreach. In the last half of the 19th century the Koma people of eastern Nigeria retreated to the top of the Atlantika Mountains, purportedly to escape taxes from the colonial Nigerian government. There they disappeared from the government’s notice. In 1980 a schoolteacher from India working for the government rediscovered the primitive Koma people. He reported his find to a local church that sent missionaries to the tribe. Today 20 churches have been planted among the Koma. Since there is no Scripture in their language, the missionaries taught them the Hausa, and Christian Aid Mission provided Hausa Bibles. A primary school developed into the Al-Omega Academy which led to the opening of a secondary school in 2001. The ministry also opened a Primary Health Care Center in 1994. As churches were planted, some Koma wanted to become pastors and missionaries, so a Discipleship Training Center and then a Missionary Training Center were opened. Today the ministry has more than 50 missionaries on the field who have planted 30 churches in the region. In addition to the 20 churches planted among the Koma tribe, churches and other outreaches have been established among the Vere, Minda, Kona, Dirim, Jibu and Fulani people groups. (Missions Insider)

* HCJB World Radio, together with partners In Touch Ministries, SIM and the Evangelical Church of West Africa, began airing weekly half-hour programs in the Igbo language in 2000. In 2003, weekly broadcasts were added in two additional languages: Yoruba and Hausa.

NEW YORK CITY SCHOOLS OUTLAW CHRISTMAS NATIVITY SCENES This holiday season New York City schools are barring Christian nativity scenes, alleging the depiction of the birth of Christ does not represent a historical event; but they are permitting Jewish menorahs and Islamic crescents. One public school principal issued a memo encouraging teachers to bring to school “religious symbols” that represent the Islamic and Jewish religions, but symbols of Christianity were not invited. Jewish menorahs adorn the halls as authorized displays, but students are not allowed to make and similarly display nativity scenes. “Christian educators are weary and outraged at this latest affront to freedom of expression,” says Finn Laursen, executive director of Christian Educators Association International, a national association of public and private school teachers founded in 1953. Jewish and Islamic symbols are allowed, the district says, “because they have a secular dimension, but the Christian symbols are purely religious.” The communications director for New York City’s law department added, “There is a separation of church and state that is part of the constitution. It’s a clear belief that people try to follow in schools and public office, and schools are saying they adhere to that belief.” (Christian Educators Association International)

BIBLE TRANSLATORS IN GHANA BECOME ‘CHICKEN LIBERATORS’ Missionaries with Wycliffe Bible Translators have brought many kinds of freedom to far-flung parts of the world where tribal groups speak languages that are often unwritten. When the constitution of Ghana was translated into 22 languages used in the north part of the country, an unanticipated liberation occurred. Wycliffe’s Dave Pearson explained that in one people group in northern Ghana it was obligatory for each person to give a chicken for sacrifice to the ancestral spirit. “Once the constitution had been translated into their language, the tribes people realized that freedom of religion is their constitutional right and that they weren’t obliged to sacrifice a chicken,” Pearson said. This means that chickens are “liberated” since fewer are being ritually slaughtered. “People from the Deg tribe in northern Ghana didn’t realize that they didn’t have to pay the police to have convicts released,” he said. “And they also didn’t know that it was illegal for them to be detained in the cells for more than 48 hours without being charged.” Bible translators have empowered the tribal people in Ghana to understand their own constitutional rights — liberating people as well as chickens. (Assist News Service)

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* * * * * * * * * * * * * 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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