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Today’s Headlines:

CATHOLIC AID WORKER SHOT IN SUDAN’S IMPERILED DARFUR REGION BUDDHIST PARTY IN SRI LANKA LAUNCHES INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN MAF IN AUSTRALIA BUYS PLANE TO SERVE ISOLATED ABORIGINAL GROUPS BIBLE MARKET BOOMS IN BRAZIL AS ‘RELIGIOUS AWAKENING’ SPREADS MINISTRIES WORK TO RESCUE CHILD PROSTITUTES IN INDIA, NEPAL CHRISTIAN STUDENTS, MISSIONARIES AMONG HOSTAGES HELD IN RUSSIA

Today’s News Stories:

CATHOLIC AID WORKER SHOT IN SUDAN’S IMPERILED DARFUR REGION A Catholic aid worker from the Belgium charity Caritas was shot and seriously injured while delivering medical supplies to a refugee camp in western Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region, Catholic officials said Wednesday, Sept. 1. The man, whose nationality was not revealed, “came under fire as he was traveling in a vehicle carrying aid supplies to Mershing” in southern Darfur, the organization reported. This adds to concerns about Christian relief efforts to tackle what aid workers have called the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis,” said Chris Bain, director of the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) in an interview with Independent Catholic News. “This incident demonstrates the highly dangerous situation [aid agencies are operating in]. Our thoughts and prayers are with the driver and his family.” Bain added that “staff security is a priority” and that his organization is doing “everything” to protect its workers and partners. Meanwhile, the French Press Agency reported that two groups of Sudanese hostages — 22 health workers and eight workers from international agencies — were kidnapped in Darfur this week. Rebels denied any involvement in the kidnapping. The 18-month conflict between Sudan’s government (backed by Arab militia allies) and two rebel groups has forced an estimated 1.4 million people from their homes and left 30,000 to 50,000 dead. (BosNewsLife)

BUDDHIST PARTY IN SRI LANKA LAUNCHES INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN Sri Lanka’s JHU party, made up entirely of Buddhist monks, has apparently begun an international campaign to gain support from embassies and governments around the world for their anti-conversion bill. Local sources in Sri Lanka said that members of the party have met with numerous foreign embassies in the country. Some JHU members of parliament are now in Canada as part of the Sri Lankan delegation to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Summit in Ottawa, Ontario, Sept. 1-9. There is concern that they may use this summit to gain international sympathy for their proposed religiously discriminatory legislation. (Voice of the Martyrs)

MAF IN AUSTRALIA BUYS PLANE TO SERVE ISOLATED ABORIGINAL GROUPS Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) in Australia has taken delivery of a new eight-seat aircraft that will serve isolated aboriginal groups in Arnhem Land. In a special hand-over ceremony at Latrobe Regional Airport in Morwell, Victoria, Tuesday, Aug. 31, MAF took possession of a GA8 Airvan manufactured by Gippsland Aeronautics. This is the first new aircraft to be purchased by the ministry in Australia in 20 years. Jim Charlesworth, former chief executive officer of MAF, says most of the money used to buy the aircraft was raised by private donations. The GA8 is the first of two planes to be purchased by the ministry this year. It will be based at Gove in Australia’s Northern Territory and will transport passengers and essential supplies to aboriginal families living in remote parts of Arnhem Land. Among those present at a hand-over ceremony were senior personnel from MAF and Gippsland Aeronautics along with the Latrobe Mayor Darrell White. (Mission Aviation Fellowship/Gippsland Aeronautics)

BIBLE MARKET BOOMS IN BRAZIL AS ‘RELIGIOUS AWAKENING’ SPREADS The Bible Belt has moved south . . . all the way south to Brazil. A religious awakening in the country in the past decade along with the rapid advance of evangelical churches and smart business planning by publishers have made Brazil a leading international Bible publisher. “All 136 country chapters of the World Bible Society taken together published 21 million Bibles last year. Our share was 4.2 million,” says Erni Seibert, marketing director of the Brazilian Bible Society. Roy Lloyd, a spokesman for the society’s U.S. chapter, adds that “more Bibles are produced in Brazil than at any of the other Bible societies around the world.” Brazil’s other publishers printed an additional 1.5 million Bibles in 2003. Evangelical churches have multiplied rapidly in Brazil, rising to 15 percent of the population in 2000, up from just 9 percent a decade earlier. Economic factors have also contributed to the Bible boom as the cost of producing Bibles has dropped dramatically due to the society’s huge printing plant, Seibert said. “I can print a full-text Bible in imitation leather with a binding that will last through 20 years of daily readings for the equivalent of US$3,” he said. Since its founding in 1948, the Brazilian chapter has translated the Bible into 35 of the country’s 180 known Indian tongues. (WorldWide Religious News/Associated Press)

* HCJB World Radio broadcasts the gospel in Portuguese to Brazil via shortwave from Quito, Ecuador, and maintains a world office and radio studios in Curitiba. Portuguese programs, which have been on the air continuously since 1947, generate more listener letters than any language service at Radio Station HCJB in Ecuador. The ministry’s Portuguese programs also air on local radio stations across Brazil.

MINISTRIES WORK TO RESCUE CHILD PROSTITUTES IN INDIA, NEPAL An estimated 40 percent of the 100,000 girls working as prostitutes in the brothels of Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India, are under the age of 18. Thousands have been taken there from Nepal, virtually kidnapped by smooth-talking men who persuaded them to go to India where they are promised “good jobs.” Some of the girls have been sold for as little as $20 by poor parents who could not feed their families. Often the parents are promised that their daughters will send them money, but this never happens. Once in India, the girls are raped and beaten into submission. They have no opportunity to contact authorities because of strict surveillance by their kidnappers. Within a few years, the girls often die from sexually transmitted diseases. Indigenous Christian ministries in both India and Nepal have begun to rescue some of these girls from their miserable lives as sex slaves. Workers with one ministry in Nepal go door-to-door, showing the women a video about the flesh trade and warning families about the dangers of sending their daughters to unknown “employment” in India. Other ministries work to rehabilitate the girls who have been rescued from prostitution, giving them a safe place to live and providing vocational training. Many of the girls’ lives have been transformed by God’s grace and power. (Missions Insider)

CHRISTIAN STUDENTS, MISSIONARIES AMONG HOSTAGES HELD IN RUSSIA Explosions rocked a school in southern Russia today where hundreds of hostages are being held, including more than 50 Christian schoolchildren and two missionaries. Reporters said they saw “large plumes of black smoke rising over the building” but were unable to provide any explanation for the two blasts. Officials said militants fired rocket-propelled grenades at two cars that got too close to the school, but neither car was hit.

Shortly after the explosions, camouflaged security agents carried babies to safety as militants released 31 women and children. Officials expressed hope that negotiations would bring more progress in the standoff. The developments came after a night of telephone negotiations between Russian authorities and about 20 heavily armed militants who stormed the middle school early Wednesday, Sept. 1, on the first day of classes of the new school year. They rounded up more than 350 children and adults and began threatening to blow up the building if police launched an assault. All of the hostages are being held in the gymnasium with children placed in the windows as human shields. Reports vary, but at least seven people have already been killed, including a parent of one of the schoolchildren, a girl and two policemen.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said he hoped to avoid the use of force to end the hostage crisis in the town of Beslan in the Russian republic of North Ossetia, the Voice of America reported. The militants, who are believed to be from the troubled neighboring Russian republic of Chechnya, reportedly rejected an offer of safe passage out of the area and a request to exchange adults for about 100 of the children being held.

An official from Russian Ministries which is actively supporting the school, told Mission Network News (MNN) that two staff members and their Christian children were inside the complex. “One of them is the coordinator for the region there, and the other one is the pastor of the church there in Beslan,” said Sergey Rakhuba. “And it happens that they are brothers by blood and by faith and that all eight of their children are there.” Russian Ministries Director Genady Terkun, who was outside the school grounds, told reporters that “many of the children were very excited about the beginning of school and happy because they had just returned from summer camps . . . where they learned about Jesus.”

Meanwhile, violence by Chechen rebels is forcing many Russians to think about spiritual things. HCJB World Radio missionary Mark Irwin, who lives in Moscow, told MNN that he lives just two subway stations away from the location of a suicide bombing earlier this week. He said Russians are searching for answers. “When it comes down to things such as terrorism, I think people look for answers to life’s real questions that face us in life. That’s even more reason why we need to develop Christian radio in this country so that people will know the hope that’s only be found in Jesus.” The ministry continues to expand Christian radio in Russia. “We’re doing everything we can to develop the local Christian broadcasting infrastructure,” Irwin says. “That includes training people . . . and developing studios so that people will have the equipment with which to make their own radio programs.” (BosNewsLife/Mission Network News/Associated Press/Reuters/Assist News Service/Voice of America)

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