MAF PLANE CRASHES WHILE DISTRIBUTING AID SUPPLIES IN TSUNAMI AREA

TRUCK BOMB CAUSES FURTHER DAMAGE TO CHURCH IN BAGHDAD

NORTH KOREA HAS WORLD’S MOST EVIL REGIME, SAYS CHRISTIAN ACTIVIST

NIGERIAN CHRISTIANS APPEAL FOR FREEDOM TO PRACTICE THEIR FAITH

INDIA VERSION OF ‘GODMAN’ FILM MAY REACH 1 BILLION VIEWERS

‘BROTHER ANDREW’ KEEPS DEFYING DOCTORS, SMUGGLING BIBLES

Today’s News Stories:

MAF PLANE CRASHES WHILE DISTRIBUTING AID SUPPLIES IN TSUNAMI AREA Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) is investigating its second accident in less than three weeks as a plane crashed while distributing relief supplies near the tsunami-affected city of Aceh, Indonesia, Wednesday, March 9. Both MAF staff members onboard are safe, but the plane suffered significant damage. Initial investigations indicate that the aircraft landed on an unprepared area of road, short of the landing area, and contacted some debris with the left wing during landing. The wingtip was sheared off, yawing the aircraft to the left and causing the right wing to touch the ground. The aircraft then slid to a stop, destroying the landing gear. The accident comes just weeks after an MAF plane crashed in a remote area of Papua New Guinea Feb. 22, killing pilots Chris Hansen and Richard West, both New Zealanders. The investigation of this accident continues. MAF is expected to resume air service in Papua New Guinea on Monday, March 14. (Mission Network News)

TRUCK BOMB CAUSES FURTHER DAMAGE TO CHURCH IN BAGHDAD A suicide truck bomb, which rocked downtown Baghdad the morning of Tuesday, March 8, broke the two remaining stained glass windows of the Baghdad Seventh-day Adventist Church. The concussion from the blast also shattered the floor-to-ceiling window which separates the parents’ room from the worship hall inside the building. The blast occurred close to the Ministry of Agriculture, just 300 feet from the church compound, at about 6:30 a.m. There were no church members inside the building at the time. The church building has been damaged three times in the last 17 months. In October 2003 a car bomb detonated at the nearby Red Cross building took out several windows and covered some of the church’s office workers with glass. Then in September 2004 a car packed with 330 pounds of explosives blew up directly outside the church entrance, causing $150,000 worth of damage. Nobody was injured. Church leaders — concerned for the members’ safety — canceled Sabbath services and advised members to meet in their homes. (Adventist Press Service)

NORTH KOREA HAS WORLD’S MOST EVIL REGIME, SAYS CHRISTIAN ACTIVIST A Christian human-rights activist who specializes in North Korea says there is no regime on earth that is more evil than that of Kim Jong Il. Suzanne Scholte is president of the Defense Forum Foundation which has published documents about North Korean political prisoner camps and was responsible for bringing five defectors from the northern nation to testify at hearings about the regime. Scholte says North Korea has systematically targeted Christians for elimination. “This is a regime that from the very start tried to wipe out, murder and kill Christians,” she said. “People don’t know this, but at one point the Christian faith was so strong in Pyongyang that its nickname was ‘the second Jerusalem.'” Scholte calls North Korea a “satanic regime” that has created its own twisted version of the Holy Trinity. (AgapePress)

NIGERIAN CHRISTIANS APPEAL FOR FREEDOM TO PRACTICE THEIR FAITH Christians in northern Nigeria have called for total freedom to practice their religion as guaranteed in the country’s constitution. John Achimugu, the north-central regional representative of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), said in an interview with The Daily Champion in Kaduna, that sharia (Islamic law), which operates in some states in northern Nigeria, should not infringe on the rights of non-Muslims. Achimugu, a legal practitioner, explained that Nigeria’s constitution gives every citizen the right to freedom of conscience, thought and religion, stressing that in actual practice, the freedom does not exist for Christians in the north. In some northern states, allocation for plots of land for church buildings is prohibited as a state policy and Christians are not given certain privileges. “Christians are not given official burial grounds, Christians cannot go out on the street to preach the gospel, and the teaching of Christian Religious Knowledge (CRK) in public schools is virtually prohibited in practice in those states,” Achimugu said. (WorldWide Religious News/Daily Champion)

* HCJB World Radio, together with partners In Touch Ministries, SIM and the Evangelical Church of West Africa, began airing weekly half-hour programs to Nigeria in the Igbo language in 2000. In 2003 weekly broadcasts were added in two additional languages, Yoruba and Hausa. HCJB World Radio also has helped with radio ministries in six cities with more in the planning stages.

INDIA VERSION OF ‘GODMAN’ FILM MAY REACH 1 BILLION VIEWERS An India version of Book of Hope’s film, “The Godman,” is expected to be viewed by up to 1 billion people in India at the end of this year when the production is complete, says ministry spokesman Chad Causey. The film, being produced in English and Hindi and dubbed in “six or seven languages,” will air on the country’s national television networks. “The India version will have a story line that is created in India with all Indian actors . . . and material [with] an Indian worldview that contextualizes the gospel presentation,” Causey said. This will help the Indian people understand the story better. “To 98 percent of the people who will be exposed to the movie, Jesus is foreign to them in so many ways,” he said. “The idea of who He is, His story — everything from His teaching to the worldview and the fundamental aspects of what He brings as being a single creator God — it’s all totally foreign.” (Mission Network News)

‘BROTHER ANDREW’ KEEPS DEFYING DOCTORS, SMUGGLING BIBLES Dutch evangelist Andrew van der Bijl, better known as “Brother Andrew,” was told by doctors 50 years ago that he was “too weak to travel” because he suffered from chronic back pain. Brother Andrew has done nothing but travel since his outreach to the persecuted church began in 1955. His courage has inspired millions since then. He has visited 125 countries and logged an estimated 1 million miles since his first missionary trip. In the 1950s and 1960s, he successfully transported thousands of Bibles into communist countries, and a 1967 book about his adventures, God’s Smuggler, gave his ministry the worldwide support he needed to expand. In 1981, during an ambitious effort called “Project Pearl,” Open Doors delivered a shipment of 1 million Bibles to China via a large sailing vessel. He is now 76, and the organization he founded, Open Doors with Brother Andrew, has 27 offices worldwide with 350 full-time employees and an army of volunteers. The ministry smuggles 1 million Bibles to China annually and distributes many more to 45 other countries. As long as his health is good and suffering believers need Bibles and face-to-face encouragement, Brother Andrew said he will continue to serve. (Religion Today/Charisma News Service) * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Web: http://www.hcjb.org http://www.beyondthecall.org * * * * * * * * * * * * *

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