8 U.S. PASTORS AMONG FOREIGN CHURCH LEADERS DEPORTED FROM CHINA

MISSIONARIES CREDIT PRAYER FOR STOPPING VISA CHANGES IN PHILIPPINES

RELIGIOUS MINORITIES FACE PRESSURE TO WORSHIP TURKMEN PRESIDENT

ACTIVISTS, ABUSED WOMEN CHALLENGE PAKISTAN’S RELIGIOUS LAWS

MINISTRY LAUNCHES PROGRAM FOR RUSSIA’S AT-RISK YOUTH

MICRO-CREDIT OUTREACH AIDS EVANGELISM EFFORTS IN PHILIPPINES

Today’s News Stories:

8 U.S. PASTORS AMONG FOREIGN CHURCH LEADERS DEPORTED FROM CHINA China deported more than 10 foreign church leaders, including eight Americans, and detained 140 Chinese house-church leaders in connection with a training event in the country. More than 100 security officers from five government agencies raided an office building where the Christians were meeting the morning of Thursday, Feb. 24, in a suburb of Harbin, a major city in northeastern China, China Aid Association (CAA) reported.

“To disrupt a normal Christian fellowship meeting and to detain and deport the participants of the same faith from other countries is certainly contrary to the government’s claim to guarantee religious freedom in China,” said CAA President Bob Fu. The Chinese leaders are part of the unregistered church movement to which the vast majority of Christians in the country belong. The communist government requires all Protestant church activity to be under control of the official Three-Self Patriotic Movement which restricts activities such as evangelism and certain teachings.

More than 100 Chinese security officers from five different government agencies raided an office building used as a temporary house church leadership training site. The foreigners were attending a service with about 140 Chinese house church leaders from a number of Chinese provinces when the raid occurred. The raid was reportedly orchestrated by the director of the Public Security Bureau in Heilongjiang province and carried out by a cooperative effort from a number of Chinese law enforcement agencies.

All of the foreigners were interrogated separately in the office building and at a nearby transportation police station with interpreters in their respective languages. After a 13-hour detention, the foreigners were ordered to leave the country within five days. Among those deported were American church leaders Rev. Brad Long, executive director of Presbyterian Reformed Ministries International in North Carolina; and Rev. John Chang, recently retired as president of the general assembly of Reformed Church and now senior pastor of Grace Christian Church in Flushing, N.Y. Well-known Taiwanese church leader Rev. Lin Yuyuan, along with two other Chinese-speaking Korean Americans, were also deported and returned to the U.S.

Separately, CAA has learned that interrogators recently used electric cattle prods to force imprisoned Beijing house church leader Zhuohua Cai, 34, into making a “confession.” His “crime” was “illegally managing a printing business” and making illegal profits. Zhuohua was arrested Sept. 11, 2004, in Beijing for printing “illegal religious literature.” (WorldWide Religious News/WND/Maranatha Christian Journal/Assist News Service)

MISSIONARIES CREDIT PRAYER FOR STOPPING VISA CHANGES IN PHILIPPINES Missionaries won’t be limited to one five-year term of service in the Philippines as they had feared. Last month missionaries learned about a plan that would do just that as part of the country’s immigration reform. However, Send International’s Phil Burns said that the commissioner of immigration suspended the implementation of the new ruling. It’s his understanding that the final policy will not restrict missionaries from applying for a new visa when they reach the end of whatever length of visa is established. Burns says the matter will be reviewed at a later date, but he doesn’t expect missionaries to be affected. Burns thanks believers for praying about this issue. “They helped make a difference,” he said. (Mission Network News)

RELIGIOUS MINORITIES FACE PRESSURE TO WORSHIP TURKMEN PRESIDENT Religious minorities in the Central Asian nation of Turkmenistan are facing mounting pressure to worship President Niyazov and follow his two-volume book, the Ruhnama (Book of the Soul). Russian Orthodox churches now must have a minimum of two copies of the book in parish libraries. One government minister claimed that the Ruhnama would make up for “shortcomings” in both the Bible and the Koran, neither of which he said are “fully adequate for the spiritual needs of Turkmens.” Registered religious minorities are being pressured to hang the country’s flag, emblem and portraits of President Niyazov at their places of worship. At the publication of the first volume of the Ruhnama in 2001, Niyazov described his work as a “holy book.” Officials later likened it to the Koran. Controversy was stirred among Muslims last year when the Kipchak mosque — named after the president — was decorated with quotations from the Ruhnama. At the main entrance, visitors walk through a gateway over which is written in Turkmen, “Ruhnama is a holy book; The Koran is Allah’s book.” One mosque was closed down by the State Security Ministry secret police for not putting the Ruhnama on the same reading stand as the Koran. (Forum 18 News Service)

* HCJB World Radio works in partnership with Back to the Bible to air Christian Turkmen programs. Twice-weekly broadcasts began airing from an undisclosed site outside of Turkmenistan in 2001 and moved to daily programming in 2003.

ACTIVISTS, ABUSED WOMEN CHALLENGE PAKISTAN’S RELIGIOUS LAWS Basira Jiskani, 19, felt a deep sense of relief the evening she ran away from her abusive husband almost a year ago. But since then, things only got worse. Now Jiskani faces charges of adultery — her husband alleges that she ran away to marry another man — and a possible death sentence by stoning. In addition, vigilantes may await her back home in southern Sindh province. “I want to go back to my village, but I know I cannot,” says the 19-year-old woman whose parents consented to her marriage to a man twice her age. Local police have produced a marriage document registering the marriage of Jiskani to a second man. But she denies getting remarried, and her lawyer notes the document does not bear her signature or thumb print. Jiskani is just one of thousands of women facing trial in Pakistan under the country’s infamous Hudood Ordinances, religious codes passed 26 years ago stemming from Islamic law that stipulate severe punishments for offenses ranging from adultery and premarital sex to alcohol consumption. Many Pakistani politicians, including President Pervez Musharraf, say the laws should be reviewed or repealed, but they seem to have become as unalterable as the Koran itself. Conservative Islamic activists and scholars say the Hudood Ordinances cannot be repealed. To do so would be a rejection of the Islamic system, they say, and an offense to Islam itself. Activists say the only way to bring equal justice to Pakistani society will be through a sustained campaign of pressure and resistance. (WorldWide Religious News/Christian Science Monitor)

MINISTRY LAUNCHES PROGRAM FOR RUSSIA’S AT-RISK YOUTH Russian Ministries of Wheaton, Ill., is launching the Time to Live! Fund, a ministry aimed at helping Russian children infected with HIV and youth who are at risk of contracting this deadly disease. “We are incorporating biblical values and the anti-drug message into our training programs,” says Russian Ministries President Anita Deyneka. “We are also working with partner ministries — teaching a ‘No Apologies’ sexual abstinence curriculum as well as translating and distributing Focus on the Family youth-oriented materials.” The Time to Live! Fund hopes to help 40,000 children and youth in its first 12 months. Vice President of Ministries Sergey Rakhuba says, “Our goal is to help teach young people God’s plan for sexual purity, ways to resist the allure of illegal drugs and strategies for how to cope with the many difficulties they are facing in the new Russia.” Local festivals are another aspect of the program. The festivals incorporate testimonials from reformed drug addicts and presentations that prompt young people to ask themselves about spirituality and moral behavior. There are also local counseling centers established to follow up the festivals. (Assist News Service)

* HCJB World Radio reaches across Russia with a variety of radio ministries. The mission has been sending gospel broadcasts across the country via shortwave since 1941, first from Quito, Ecuador, and in recent years from the U.K. In the early 1990s the ministry began “planting” local radio ministries in Russia and now works with partners nationwide. In 2000 HCJB World Radio helped launch New Life Radio, the first Christian Russian satellite radio network. Nearly 50 downlinks have been placed in more than 35 cities in Russia and neighboring countries.

MICRO-CREDIT OUTREACH AIDS EVANGELISM EFFORTS IN PHILIPPINES Struggle is a way of life in the Philippines. But FARMS International’s Joseph Richter says the ministry’s micro-credit project not only breaks the poverty cycle, but the program is growing. “The original program in the northern mountain province of Luzon was sort of a model that we established, and then the program for Mindanao grew out of that. Because of these two programs and their successes, a third program was started in the province of Pangasinan, and now a fourth one on the island of Leyte.” Richter explains that the program helps Christians break out of poverty through practical stewardship. When that happens, the door opens for community ministry. “What we see is when a church becomes self-supported by the tithes and offerings of project holders, it has a much more effective outreach to their neighbors and even beyond their immediate area with evangelism and outreach ministries.” (Mission Network News) * * * * * * * * * * * * *

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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.