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Today’s Headlines:

CHINESE POLICE RELEASE 95 CHRISTIANS AFTER INTERNATIONAL OUTCRY SRI LANKA’S HIGH COURT ALLOWS BILL TO PROHIBIT FORCED CONVERSIONS 600 CHILDREN COMMIT LIVES TO CHRIST DURING OUTREACH IN ZAMBIA IBS EXPANDS BIBLE DISTRIBUTION IN EUROPE, CENTRAL ASIA CAMBODIAN TEENS RESPOND TO COUNTRY’S FIRST ‘MISSIONS BOOT CAMP’ CHRISTIAN RELIEF AGENCIES EXPAND OUTREACH IN STORM-RAVAGED FLORIDA

Today’s News Stories:

CHINESE POLICE RELEASE 95 CHRISTIANS AFTER INTERNATIONAL OUTCRY All but five of the 100 Christians arrested July 12 in China’s Xinjiang autonomous region have been released by China’s police following an international outcry. Five Christians in the group, however, remain in detention and could face long prison sentences. The five are being held in the A Ke Su prefecture near the provincial capital of Urumqi. In a separate incident, 100 Christians who were arrested in Henan province at the beginning of a church workers’ retreat Aug. 6 continue to be held by police. Since then, authorities also have arrested some of the believers’ family members. In the province of Anhui, Luo Bing Yin, a major underground church leader, has been transferred from a local detention center to the Funan Prison. He is a leader in the Ying Shang house church movement that has about 5 million members. He has not had a court hearing, and the charges against him are unknown. He had been imprisoned twice before, first in 1978 and again in 2001. Police also raided Luo’s business, a DVD-duplication company, confiscating computers and other equipment. The computers reportedly contained information about other underground Christians in China. (Voice of the Martyrs)

SRI LANKA’S HIGH COURT ALLOWS BILL TO PROHIBIT FORCED CONVERSIONS Reports from The Asian Tribune in Sri Lanka indicate that the island nation’s Supreme Court has ruled that a bill proposing to outlaw “unethical conversions” is constitutionally valid and can proceed to a vote in the parliament. The bill was introduced in late July by a minority party of Buddhist monks, the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), who claim that evangelical Christian groups have been using unethical means to win converts. The bill would make it illegal to “convert or attempt to convert . . . any person from one religion to another by the use of force or by allurement or by any fraudulent means.” Converts would be required to register with a government official, as would those who brought about the conversions. Twenty-two parties challenged the constitutionality of the bill, saying it represented a direct contradiction of Article 10 of the Sri Lankan constitution which says, “Every person is entitled to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including the freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice.” Article 9, however, assures Buddhism the “foremost place” in Sri Lanka. (Jubilee Campaign)

600 CHILDREN COMMIT LIVES TO CHRIST DURING OUTREACH IN ZAMBIA An outreach team from Northgate Church in Chester, England, recently returned from a two-week mission to Zambia where 600 children responded to appeals to give their lives to Christ. The “Encounter Zambia” team of 20 was led by Peter Wooding, senior news editor of United Christian Broadcasters (UCB) Europe. He ran a leadership course, children’s ministry workshops, kids’ clubs and street meetings in some of the neediest neighborhoods in the capital city of Lusaka July 23-Aug. 4. During the first week of the mission, team members trained local Christians in children’s ministry through a series of workshops at the Kingsgate Centre in Lusaka. While the workshops were taking place, other team members were involved in street outreaches to hundreds of needy kids. “At the end of each session we would give them the opportunity to ask Jesus into their lives,” Wooding said. “At the conclusion of our three-day street outreach we saw 350 responses in total.” Another 250 children came to Christ in the second week of the mission as team members coordinated children’s clubs in three different churches in the Lusaka area. (Assist News Service)

* HCJB World Radio, in cooperation with In Touch Ministries and a local partner, added weekly Bemba programs in 2000. The programs air on Zambia’s Radio One Network, covering the country and much of Malawi, going out via shortwave, AM and FM. In 2003, weekly half-hour programs were added in the Nyanja language.

IBS EXPANDS BIBLE DISTRIBUTION IN EUROPE, CENTRAL ASIA God’s Word is being well received across Europe — especially in Eastern Europe, says Joe Parker, European director for the International Bible Society (IBS). “We have openness in the school systems in the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Romania, Russia, Bulgaria and even in Western Europe — in England and the Netherlands. This year we’ve started an outreach in schools in Kyrgyzstan — a predominately Muslim country in Central Asia. We have seen great openness there, and we can distribute all of the Scriptures that we want.” In Kyrgyzstan, IBS is distributing copies of My First Bible. “We have this in a three-language edition with Russian, Kyrgyz and English,” Parker says. “We have open distribution in the schools, and then they can also use these to learn English.” (Mission Network News)

CAMBODIAN TEENS RESPOND TO COUNTRY’S FIRST ‘MISSIONS BOOT CAMP’ Dozens of teens in the South East Asian country of Cambodia recently received evangelism training from 49 leaders with Words of Hope in the country’s first “missions boot camp.” Teen Missions International’s Steve Peterson calls the event a landmark occasion. “This is the first boot camp that we’ve organized and run for training Cambodian teens in their own country and how to reach their people and have a vision for sharing the Lord,” he said. American and Canadian youths set up the boot camp and helped train the national teen leaders. Peterson says the training could open doors for evangelism. “The youth are the future of any country, and these young people from the churches and orphanages in Cambodia have caught a vision to grow in their walk with the Lord and share Christ,” Peterson said. “They know the language. They know the culture. They are the most powerful missionaries for reaching Cambodia and the rest of South East Asia.” (Mission Network News)

* HCJB World Radio, in cooperation with Campus Crusade for Christ, worked with a local partner to plant Cambodia’s first Christian radio station in 1998. New Life Radio in the capital city of Phnom Penh broadcasts the gospel in Cambodian and English.

CHRISTIAN RELIEF AGENCIES EXPAND OUTREACH IN STORM-RAVAGED FLORIDA Churches and Christian relief organizations have stepped up efforts to prevent an outbreak of disease among more than 1 million Americans who were left without power and proper sanitation after Florida’s fiercest storm in 12 years. Hurricane Charley killed at least 16 people and caused an estimated $15 billion in damage when it smashed through Florida’s Gulf Coast on Friday, Aug. 13. Some people are still unaccounted for, including church music and youth ministers, their families and a pastor. Tens of thousands of people, especially those in coastal areas, remain homeless. People were seen sifting through the rubble where once their houses or mobile homes stood.

“I feel like I am losing part of my family,” said a woman close to tears in an interview on the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) which is raising funds to help hurricane victims. “I have been living here for 11 years, and there are a lot of memories there.”

Dozens of churches were heavily damaged or destroyed in the storm. The Presbyterian Church (USA), for example, reported that two churches in the Peace River Presbytery in North Port, Fla., were leveled while five others in the area sustained “minimal to moderate damage.” At least two other Presbyterian churches along the Gulf Coast also suffered heavy damage — First Presbyterian Church in Punta Gorda and the Chapel by the Sea on Sanibel Island near Fort Myers. The island remains inaccessible.

More than 70 Southern Baptist disaster relief units from 11 states have been activated to assist with cleanup and recovery efforts in southwestern Florida. Despite widespread destruction around them, churches such as Eastside Baptist Church in Punta Gorda held community services on Sunday, meeting in the parking lot.

Bill Horan, president and chief operating officer for Operation Blessing, said his ministry has teamed up with the Salvation Army and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to feed the hungry and give moral support. Trucks already have delivered more than 123,000 pounds of food. A fleet of refrigerated tractor trailers has been made available to FEMA and the Salvation Army, Horan said.

International Aid (IA) is also sending volunteers and relief supplies to Florida. “Our greatest response and greatest contribution is to provide volunteers who can help clean out homes, repair roofs, cut down trees that are blocking driveways, and so forth,” said IA President Myles Fish. “We’re also sending several truckloads of supplies down such as roofing material, baby food and water purification units.”

IA’s strategy is to work through local churches to reach out to the community. “As is often the case, people are dumbfounded at the willingness of volunteers to come from as far away as Michigan and spend three or four days working on their home,” Miles explains. “That close interaction always gives us the opportunity to explain why we’re doing it and in whom we believe.” (BosNewsLife/PCUSA News/Baptist Press/Mission Network News) * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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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