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Today’s Headlines:

CHRISTIANS CONSIDER FLEEING IRAQ FOLLOWING CHURCH BOMBINGS COMPASSION INTERNATIONAL INCREASES HELP TO CHILDREN WITH AIDS INDONESIAN PRESIDENT PLAYS DOWN SERIOUSNESS OF RELIGIOUS STRIFE CHRISTIAN INMATE FROM INDIA GETS FIRST OFFICIAL VISITS IN SAUDI JAIL POOREST REFUGEES IN KOSOVO HELPED WITH AID, GOSPEL 2 MINISTRIES JOIN FORCES TO DISTRIBUTE BIBLES TO TEENS ACROSS U.S.

Today’s News Stories:

CHRISTIANS CONSIDER FLEEING IRAQ FOLLOWING CHURCH BOMBINGS Religious minorities in Iraq, including about 600,000 Christians, make up about 3 percent of the population. Now they’re feeling the heat of persecution with a marked increase in violent attacks since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Sunday’s bombings that targeted five Iraqi churches, leaving at least 11 persons dead and dozens injured, have prompted many of the country’s Christians to consider fleeing, says Jerry Dykstra of Open Doors. “The attacks just heightened the anxiety level of the Christians in the Baghdad area and all through Iraq,” he said. “They were living in fear previous to this, and now they’re questioning what’s in store for them and whether they should stay or leave.” Some Christians said they are afraid to attend Sunday services. “I’m now scared to go to church,” said the injured Louis Climis, a leader in the Syriac Catholic community. Due to the security problems in the area, Open Doors has postponed all Christian training seminars in Iraq, but literature ministry continues. Dykstra believes the recent overt persecution may be motivated by politics. “That’s really the goal of the terrorists — to drive out the Christian community so that when they form a new government in about six months, they won’t have any Christians to share the government with or give religious freedom.” (Mission Network News/BosNewsLife)

COMPASSION INTERNATIONAL INCREASES HELP TO CHILDREN WITH AIDS Compassion International has agreed to “significantly increase” its help to African children infected with HIV/AIDS. The ministry intends to triple the amount of money it spends in the next three years, making new drugs available to infected children and providing a wide range of services to support those who are severely affected by AIDS. All assistance will go through local churches to combat the worst pandemic of the century. The program, which has been in the pilot phase in Kenya and Uganda for the past year, will officially launch across all of Compassion’s programs in Africa in the next year, says Compassion President Wess Stafford. “HIV/AIDS intervention is an ongoing, natural extension of our mission to provide health-related benefits to all Compassion-assisted children,” he said. World health experts warn that the problem is only growing. There are nearly 11 million AIDS orphans in Africa, and in Sub-Saharan Africa, 42 million people are HIV-positive. An estimated 2.5 million Africans will die from the disease this year. While Compassion has always provided medical help to its 600,000 sponsored children, the expanded program calls for the use of antiretroviral drugs to extend the lives of those with AIDS and improve their quality of life. “The price on these drugs has now dropped to a level where it is conceivable that we could afford to provide them for all the children in our program who need them,” Stafford said. (Compassion International)

INDONESIAN PRESIDENT PLAYS DOWN SERIOUSNESS OF RELIGIOUS STRIFE Indonesian President Megawati Soukarnoputri has played down the extent of religious strife in the South East Asian country. There were no genuine “religious” tensions, she said in a meeting with a German church leader in Jakarta, Monday, Aug. 2. On the whole, violent clashes between Muslims and Christians were the result of social problems with religious overtones, she said. Rhenish Church President Nikolaus Schneider asked Soukarnoputri for greater support of churches that have been burned down by Muslim extremists, saying it was “nearly impossible” for the churches to obtain permits to rebuild their devastated buildings. The Indonesian president was reluctant to promise changes since most of the affected churches were in predominantly Muslim regions, and rebuilding could lead to further social tensions, she warned. Eighty percent of Indonesia’s 220 million inhabitants are Muslim, 16 percent are Christian, 2 percent are Hindu, and 1 percent are animists. Major Protestant churches are the fruit of the work of German missionaries in the 19th century. (IDEA)

* HCJB World Radio worked with local Indonesian partners to establish local Christian stations in Sumba Island and Kupang, West Timor, with help from the HCJB World Radio Engineering Center in Elkhart, Ind. Plans are also being made to establish a station on Roti Island later this year.

CHRISTIAN INMATE FROM INDIA GETS FIRST OFFICIAL VISITS IN SAUDI JAIL Four months after being tortured and jailed for “spreading Christianity” in Saudi Arabia, Brian O’Connor, a Christian from India, received his first official prison visits this week. O’Connor, 36, was lured out of his home in Riyadh on March 25 and arrested by a group of Saudi muttawa (religious police), who beat him severely, claiming he was dealing in drugs and alcohol and spreading Christianity. This week two representatives from the Indian embassy visited him in Riyadh’s Al-Hair Jail. The next day an official representing the office of the governor of Riyadh interviewed him. Following the interview, he told O’Connor that he would either get his job back or be deported to India within 10 to 15 days. “I am confident that the Lord will turn this mess into a message and my test into a testimony,” O’Connor said last week. Although Saudi government officials claim to exercise “practical tolerance” toward non-Muslims who worship privately in their homes, in legal terms freedom of religion does not exist within the country. (Religion Today/Compass Direct)

* “The Voice of the Great Southland,” the shortwave station operated by HCJB World Radio-Australia since January 2003, airs more than 59 hours of weekly Christian programming across South Asia. Programs go out in nine languages: English, Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi, Nepali, Tamil, Chattisgarhi, Hmar and Meeitei. Most of the programming in the Indian languages is produced at HCJB World Radio’s studio in New Delhi. Additional releases from Australia, primarily in English, reach the South Pacific, Southeast Asia and East Asia.

POOREST REFUGEES IN KOSOVO HELPED WITH AID, GOSPEL While conditions are much improved in Kosovo’s cities since the end of hostilities in 1999, people in rural areas are often on the brink of starvation. Eastern European Outreach (EEO) has been providing aid and the gospel to Kosovo since the refugees began returning to the area. “Unemployment outside the capital is very high,” says EEO Executive Director Jeff Thompson said. “Children drop out of school to do menial tasks to help their families get a little income, and as a result, illiteracy is very high. There is little hope of these children getting decent jobs without education.” Tahir Gegaj is one who has benefited from EEO aid. Gegaj had a fruit and vegetable business before the war, but his house was bombed, leaving him, his wife and his six children stranded as refugees. EEO helped Gegaj with a food subsidy, seeds and tools to start a family vegetable garden and materials for him to build a greenhouse. Now the family grows food year round and has enough surpluses to sell at the local market. Along with this, the family’s oldest son has become a Christian through the witness of EEO workers. “Feeding hungry people is just the starting point. We also need to provide opportunities for people to hear the gospel,” Thompson said. (Assist News Service)

2 MINISTRIES JOIN FORCES TO DISTRIBUTE BIBLES TO TEENS ACROSS U.S. This week American Family Radio (AFR) and Revival Fires International are hosting the fourth annual “Truth for Youth” week, a promotion with special programming that will air on 204 affiliate stations across the U.S. Sponsors of the project are handing out copies of The Truth For Youth New Testament to teens who will commit to give the special Bible to an unsaved friend at school. Revival Fires Publisher Tim Todd says the national Bible distribution campaign was launched to respond to the “ill effect that the liberal agenda being promoted aggressively in America’s public schools is having on young people.” This youth-targeted New Testament includes “The Student’s Legal Rights on Public School Campuses” printed on the back cover to inform youngsters and school administrators that students have the right to give away Bibles on campus during non-instructional time. In the last three years, Revival Fires’ partnership with AFR has resulted in the distribution of more than 150,000 Bibles in schools. (Religion Today/Agape 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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