Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin – No. 299 – Wed 24 Nov 2004

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HOPEFUL NEWS FROM UGANDA

23 November: The Ugandan army reports surrounding a remnant group of Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) fighters in Southern Sudan, and believes the spirit-medium leader of this blasphemous terror group, Joseph Kony, is amongst them. (The LRA has brought vast suffering to the mostly Christian people of Southern Sudan and Northern Uganda. WEA RLP is committed to praying for an end to LRA terror.)

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* NOVEMBER UPDATE

The IDOP SPECIAL (RLP 296, 3 Nov) updated the IDOP 2004 Critical Prayer Requests for Strategic Nations <http://www.idop.org>, with particular attention to the African religious fault-line, Sudan, China, Vietnam and North Korea. Further November updates follow –

* SUDAN: PRAYING FOR AN END TO 21 YEARS OF ISLAMIC JIHAD

At a special meeting of the UN Security Council held in Kenya on 19 November, representatives of the Government of Sudan (GoS) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) signed an agreement to finalise the peace deal before the end of 2004. This is the third deadline set since late 2003, but the first time it has been put in writing to the UN Security Council. This is a welcome move, as procrastination has been delaying progress. Most analysts believe a comprehensive peace deal for the south will lead to peace in Darfur as well. Talks between low-level delegates resume on 26 November. High-level talks between Sudan’s Vice President Ali Osman Taha and the main SPLM leader, John Garang, will start on 6 December. The UN is ready to deploy the first instalment 7000 peace-keepers to Southern Sudan within 30 days after the peace deal is signed. Please pray daily that God, in his great mercy and compassion, will enable the negotiations to progress unhindered to real and lasting peace, ending 21 years of Islamic jihad.

* VIETNAM: Rev. N H QUANG IMPRISONED FOR THREE YEARS

The IDOP SPECIAL RLP called for prayer for Rev. N H Quang, who features in the WEA RLC IDOP 2004 resource material <http://www.idop.org>. Pastor Quang, one of Vietnam’s most courageous Christian leaders and rights advocates, was arrested on 8 June. On 12 November, he and five other Mennonite believers were tried for ‘resisting officers of the law while doing their duty’. They had objected to undercover government operatives harassing and physically abusing church workers visiting the Mennonite office. In an act of gross injustice, all six Mennonite believers received jail terms, with Pastor Quang receiving a three-year sentence. Vietnamese officials would not permit any Western diplomats or journalists to monitor the trial. Some 200 Christians (including around 100 Mennonite Montagnard pastors and evangelists from the Central Highlands) came to the court to give moral support, but were kept outside by an estimated 300 police.

Local authorities are placing intense pressure on Mrs Quang. Following the trial she was ordered to a public denunciation ceremony but she refused to attend. She has been ordered to cease worship services, remove the church sign from the gate, and evict the students living in the church building. She has been threatened with eviction from her home if she fails to comply. The Quangs have three small children. Please lift this family before the Lord, and pray for religious freedom to come to Vietnam.

* DURING NOVEMBER WE ALSO PRAYED FOR:

IRAQ, where Christians are under severe threat of death and terrorism from Arab and Kurdish Islamists, and where a groundswell of anti-American sentiment is expressed in anti-Christian hostility and support for intolerant Islamic laws and customs.

IVORY COAST, where the future of a free nation is under threat. In sheer self-interest, Islamists, Muslim thug-rebels, and politicians (French, Burkinabe and Ivorian) would happily destabilise, impoverish and split a nation along religious lines, to oust a secular government and install an Islamist one.

MORE ISSUES DURING NOVEMBER – —————————–

* IRAN: PASTOR MOVED TO MILITARY PRISON

On 9 September, Iranian security police arrested Hamid Pourmand (47), a lay pastor in the Assemblies of God Church (AoG), and 85 fellow AoG pastors who were together at their annual meeting in Karaj, 20 miles west of Tehran. Seventy-six were released that evening while ten were kept for further interrogation. Three days later they too were released, except for Pourmand, who has been serving as the volunteer pastor of a congregation in Bandar-i Bushehr on the Persian gulf. Pourmand’s wife is an Assyrian Christian, and they have two young children. In mid November Iranian authorities moved Pourmand to a military prison. No known charges have been filed against him, and Christians in Iran fear for his life.

Compass Direct reports (16 Nov), ‘In recent months, prominent government officials have repeatedly denounced “foreign religions”, which they accuse of threatening Iran’s national security.’ Interestingly, Pourmand converted from Islam 25 years ago, is a colonel in the Iranian army, and is ministering in Bandar-i Bushehr, the home of Iran’s first nuclear reactor. This, at a time when Iran is in an intense stand off with the USA and the International Atomic Energy Agency over its nuclear ambitions and secrets. It is possible that Iranian authorities believe Pourmand could be or is a security threat. If so, Hamid Pourmand is doubtless being tortured and his life is seriously at risk.

* PAPUA: PRIEST KILLED, 22 CHURCHES CLOSE

There are fears that Kopassus, the Indonesian Special Forces, are fomenting unrest in Papua that would then appear to justify a massacre of the indigenous Papuans. Papuan human rights activist John Rumbiak says that Papua is a ‘time bomb waiting to go off’. He says there are now more than a million Indonesians (nearly all Javanese Muslims) in Papua, closing the demographic gap on the 1.5 million largely Christian national Papuans. Rumbiak also said that 25,000 Indonesian troops had entered Papua since 2000. Furthermore, peace is threatened by the Laskar Jihad and the militias set up by the infamous militia leader, Eurico Guterres, who created terror in East Timor.

The President of the Fellowship of Baptist Churches in Papua, Pastor Socrates Sofyan Yoman, told ABC Radio Australia (8 Nov), that on 14 September, Kopassus killed a clergyman, the Reverend Eleesa Tabuni, in Mulia. Then troops in a helicopter fired on Papuans who were gathering food in a garden, killing two of them. ‘Twenty-two churches empty now,’ says Yoman. ‘No people. People [estimated at 50,000 – Rumbiak] run to the mountains. Now they need food, yeah? Now, they need food.’

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We have many brothers and sisters suffering severely. Please bring them before the Lord, who mightily delivers and mercifully sustains.

The LORD thundered from heaven; the Most High gave a mighty shout. He shot his arrows and scattered his enemies; his lightning flashed, and they were confused. Then at the command of the LORD, at the blast of his breath, the bottom of the sea could be seen, and the foundations of the earth were laid bare. He reached down from heaven and rescued me; he drew me out of deep waters. He delivered me from my powerful enemies, from those who hated me and were too strong for me. They attacked me at a moment when I was weakest, but the LORD upheld me. 2 Samuel 22:14-19 (NLT)

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The WEA Religious Liberty Commission sponsors this RL Prayer List to help individuals and groups pray specifically and regularly for religious liberty issues, and in particular to uphold the Church where it is suffering persecution.

RL Prayer is moderated by Ron Clough, a commissioner of the WEA RLC and convenor of the Australian EA RLC. Elizabeth Kendal researched and authored this message.