Thanks for choosing to receive e-mail from HCJB World Radio. Please add to your e-mail address book or safe sender list to ensure that you receive these e-mails.

Today’s Headlines:

GUNMEN KILL POPULAR CHRISTIAN RADIO PERSONALITY IN HAITI RELEASE OF 3 NATIVE CHRISTIANS IN INDIA CALLED ‘MIRACLE’ MAYOR OF INDONESIAN CITY ORDERS CLOSURE OF 12 HOUSE CHURCHES SERBIA’S ANTI-DARWIN EDUCATION MINISTER RESIGNS AFTER PROTESTS ISLAM BECOMES FASTEST-GROWING MINORITY RELIGION IN INDIA FINANCIAL WOES STOPS PULSE OF ONCE-INFLUENTIAL MISSIONS NEWSLETTER SERIES OF STORMS IN CARIBBEAN, U.S. PUT CRUNCH ON AID MINISTRIES

Today’s News Stories:

GUNMEN KILL POPULAR CHRISTIAN RADIO PERSONALITY IN HAITI Police in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, are continuing their investigations into the shooting death of popular radio personality Rev. Jean Moles Moleste Lovinsky Berthomieux, better known to listeners as “Pastor Moles,” who was killed while leaving his home for work the morning of Monday, Sept. 13. His wife, Verna, who is three months’ pregnant, climbed to the roof of her house to evade the gunmen. Reports indicate that the gunmen shot the Baptist minister three times in the head and back, but authorities say there is no indication that the shooting was politically motivated. Berthomieux hosted a daily religious program, “La Manne du Matin” (Morning Manna) at the independent station Radio Caraibes. His program was described as the most popular radio program in the country. Berthomieux, who was in his mid-40s, worked at the station for 20 years. (Caribbean Media Corporation/Reuters)

* Staff members from the HCJB World Radio Engineering Center in Elkhart, Ind., are working with OMS International to establish a satellite radio network based at 4VEH outside the city of Cap-Haitien that will deliver programs to FM stations nationwide. Downlinks have been installed in Tortue Island, Pignon and Beaumont, and at least two more are planned. HCJB World Radio also helped partner World Gospel Mission with a small station in Port-au-Prince.

RELEASE OF 3 NATIVE CHRISTIANS IN INDIA CALLED ‘MIRACLE’ Three native missionaries with Gospel for Asia (GFA) who were captured and threatened with death in India’s northeastern state of Bihar were released by anti-Christian militants “in a miraculous turn of events,” reported GFA Friday, Sept. 10. The hostage takers had threatened to kill Pastor Manrathan, his wife and a woman named Sarita within 48 hours for “desecrating a village with the gospel” unless a ransom of 25,000 Indian rupees (US$540) was paid. They were “severely beaten and tied to a sacred tree by an anti-Christian group,” said GFA President K.P. Yohannan in a message to his organization’s supporters. Yohannan said the believers’ release “answered the prayers of thousands of believers worldwide.” (Assist News Service)

MAYOR OF INDONESIAN CITY ORDERS CLOSURE OF 12 HOUSE CHURCHES The mayor of Bandung City in West Java, Indonesia, issued a letter Friday, Sept. 10, officially closing 12 house churches in the city. These include Pasundan Christian Church, Protestant Batak Church, Pentecost Church, Catholic Church, Indonesia Christian Church, Indonesia Gospel Camp Church, Indonesia Independent Baptist Church, Oikumene Christian Church, Tabernacle Pentecost Church, Indonesia Pentecost Church, Java Christian Church and Protestant Karo Batak Church. Local sources report that the congregations are “concerned and nervous” about not being allowed to continue holding services. (Voice of the Martyrs)

* 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.

SERBIA’S ANTI-DARWIN EDUCATION MINISTER RESIGNS AFTER PROTESTS Serbia was without an education minister Sunday, Sept. 19, after Ljiljana Colic resigned amid ongoing protests against her decision to ban the teaching of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution in Serbian schools. She had also proposed a 20-year plan to reform of the education system, and she replaced compulsory English language classes in primary schools with compulsory religious education, the Belgrade-based independent B92 radio network reported. Colic had said that schools could only resume teaching evolution if they shared equal time with creationism. “Darwinism is a theory as dogmatic as the one which says God created the first man,” said Colic in a recent interview. Her comments provoked outrage among teachers and parents who suggested that her policies were an attempt by the Serbian Orthodox Church to increase its influence after years of communism when authorities discouraged religion. Religion was only introduced to Serbia after Slobodan Milosevic was toppled in 2000. The government was expected to reintroduce evolution in schools. “I have come here to confirm that [Darwinism] is still alive,” Deputy Education Minister Milan Brdar told reporters. (BosNewsLife)

ISLAM BECOMES FASTEST-GROWING MINORITY RELIGION IN INDIA While Hinduism is the predominant religion in India, Islam is the country’s fastest-growing minority religion, says David DeGroot of Mission India, a ministry based in Grand Rapids, Mich. He points to the high birthrate among Muslim families. However, this segment of society is also the most open to the gospel, especially the women among whom literacy rates are low and abuse is high, and they are looking for help, DeGroot says. “We’ve seen Muslims filtering into our programs in a number of states [of India]. This is a tremendous statement of many things, including their acceptance of Christianity and their rejection of the old Islamic values that have kept them down for centuries.” DeGroot is excited about this opportunity. “I would call this a new development in the last few years. Reaching Muslims years ago was an extremely rare thing. Now in India they’re appearing in our programs all across the board — church planting, Bible content in adult literacy and a large number of Muslim children in children’s Bible clubs.” (Mission Network News)

FINANCIAL WOES STOPS PULSE OF ONCE-INFLUENTIAL MISSIONS NEWSLETTER Despite extensive efforts to make it viable, the premier newsletter covering the evangelical missions movement has ceased publication after nearly four decades. World Pulse mailed its last issue in August. Wheaton College’s Billy Graham Center (BGC) had published World Pulse since 1998. Numerous attempts to make the eight-page newsletter self-sustaining — including adding color and an online presence — failed to reverse a steep decline in subscriptions. “Last year we made the decision if it didn’t turn around pretty soon, we would have to discontinue it,” BGC associate director Ken Gill said. World Pulse was published in various forms from 1967 to 1998 as a joint project of the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association of North America and the Evangelical Fellowship of Mission Agencies. The newsletter always depended on subsidies because it accepted no ads and had a limited readership. By contrast, two other BGC publications, the Mission Handbook and Evangelical Missions Quarterly, with more readers and paid ads, are doing well financially. “We were trying to give our readers a bird’s-eye view of international ministries of individuals, churches and mission agencies,” said former editor Dawn Herzog Jewell. “World Pulse was seen as sort of the unofficial . . . voice of the majority of Protestant evangelical missionaries from North America.” (Action International Ministries)

SERIES OF STORMS IN CARIBBEAN, U.S. PUT CRUNCH ON AID MINISTRIES First it was Tropical Storm Bonnie. Then it was hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne that ravaged the Caribbean and the southern U.S. In Grenada, Hurricane Ivan left 60,000 people homeless, representing two-thirds of the country’s population. In Cuba alone, damage from hurricanes Charley and Ivan was estimated at $1 billion. Similar figures can only be expected from other countries as their infrastructures and buildings were destroyed or left compromised from relentless winds, rains, and flooding from the back-to-back hurricanes. Charley ripped through Cuba in mid-August, followed by Frances which arrived in the Bahamas the first weekend of September. Ivan, the worst hurricane to hit the Caribbean in more than a decade, made its way through Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic. More recently, the sixth hurricane of the season, Jeanne, crossed the Dominican Republic.

Salvation Army spokesman Maj. George Hood says the unprecedented series of storms in the southeastern U.S. has stretched the denomination’s resources and staff to near breakpoint. “We do not, historically, stockpile funds for these kinds of disasters. We just go out in faith and respond with ministry and service. Our expectation is that we are spending an excess of $40 million in response to these various disasters.” The Salvation Army is part of the Christian Emergency Network which helps meet people’s physical and spiritual needs after a disaster. “It’s very important that the body of Christ pray for these people,” Hood says. “Pray that resources will be made available for us to respond in the way that we believe we need to respond.”

Grace Ministries in Puerto Rice reported that its radio staff in Puerto Rico ministered when Tropical Storm Jeanne passed through. Without electricity, people were glued to their battery-operated radios. WCGB stayed on the air by using its standby generator, giving information and comfort to thousands on the nation’s south coast. Many callers thanked the station for supplying important information with the assurance of God being in control. Wind and rain buffeted the mission property, but damage was minimal.

The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) is airlifting nearly 150,000 pounds of emergency supplies to Kingston, Jamaica, for distribution to those affected by Ivan. Included are plastic sheeting, soap, powdered milk, baby cereal, tarpaulins and rope. Up to 15,680 hygiene kits will also be sent, depending on space availability. The airlift, departing from Miami, also contains 3,000 food boxes. To avoid duplication of services or materials provided, ADRA is coordinating its relief with other non-governmental organizations as well as local and government authorities to provide only specifically requested items.

Robin Mahfood, president and chief executive officer of Food for the Poor, reported that Ivan destroyed many lives and property in Jamaica. “Houses are flattened. Families in Portland Cottage helplessly watched their children swept away by raging floodwaters,” he said in an e-mail to ministry supporters. “We need to raise $3.5 million to help hurricane victims in the Caribbean who lost loved ones and homes.”

Ivan also caused “extensive damage” to approximately 10 Baptist churches in Jamaica, and hundreds of Baptists have sustained serious losses and damages. Karl Johnson, general secretary of the Jamaica Baptist Union (JBU), said the storm has knocked out its electricity and water supply, and the vast majority of Jamaicans need survival items. Already Jamaica Baptists have provided shelter and food for a number of the victims. “This is just the tip of the iceberg,” Johnson said. “It seems clear that we are going to need resources to assist several of our members and communities to get back some semblance of normality and we would welcome whatever assistance could be provided.” JBU is playing a “leading role in the national efforts to rebuild the country,” Johnson said. Some of the greatest needs include “drinking water, tarpaulins, mattresses, and such things to make life more livable until people can go back to their homes.” (Mission Network News/Adventist Press Service/Assist News Service/Baptist World Alliance Information Service)

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

Editor’s Note. Feel free to forward this to any interested friends. Our lists are distributed for information purposes and to encourage prayer. HCJB World Radio does not necessarily endorse or support the activities on which it reports. _______________________________________________ HCJBDaily mailing list

with subscribe in the subject line.

__________ NOD32 1.873 (20040920) Information __________

This message was checked by NOD32 antivirus system. http://www.nod32.com