KIDNAPPED KASHMIRI WOMAN ESCAPES AFTER FIVE WEEKS

VIETNAMESE PASTOR HELD CAPTIVE IN MENTAL HOSPITAL

STORY OF ESTHER ENGAGES AUDIENCES IN A POP OPERA

GERMANY’S IMMIGRANT CHURCH EXPERIENCES GROWTH

SOUTHERN BAPTIST LEADER OPPOSES REMOVING CHILDREN FROM PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Today’s Top Stories:

KIDNAPPED KASHMIRI WOMAN ESCAPES AFTER FIVE WEEKS A Christian Kashmiri woman, ______, who was kidnapped nearly five weeks ago, has escaped and made her way to safety. Upon the news of her disappearance, Asia Harvest sent out an urgent prayer alert on behalf of the __year-old, and when no news came for weeks her team feared she might have been killed. On June 8, however, their hope was renewed when _____ managed to escape briefly and called her co-workers. She gave her location, but when her family arrived she had already been moved by her kidnappers. On Friday, June 17, it was reported that she had escaped for a second time and is now safe. ______ says her abductors were trying to convert her back to Islam. She also said her captors had produced fake documents claiming that she was married to one of them. The kidnapping has not lessened the determination of _______ team to continue to share Christ with as many of the four million unreached Muslims in Kashmir as they can. (Mission Network News)

VIETNAMESE PASTOR HELD CAPTIVE IN MENTAL HOSPITAL News has emerged of a Protestant pastor being held captive in a mental hospital in Vietnam, despite being completely sane. According to a news release from Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), the saga began when Rev. Than Van Truong wrote some religious articles and sent a number of Bibles as gifts to Vietnam’s top officials. He was arrested for “crimes against the state,” and imprisoned without trial in May 2003. In Sept. 2004, CSW reported the public prosecutor of Dong Nai Province diagnosed Truong as “mentally ill and delusional,” and he was committed to the Bien Hoa Mental Hospital in Dong Nai Province, there they began injecting him with drugs. A CSW source on Vietnam remarked, “Even though authorities themselves have confirmed that Pastor Truong is neither criminal nor crazy, they still incarcerate him in a mental hospital.” Truong’s case was initially presented to the European Union, Canada and the United States, after which some countries engaged in quiet diplomacy on his behalf. A lawyer also agreed to help him. According to CSW, the lawyer obtained an admission from authorities that the criminal investigation had found nothing negative on Truong. He got an agreement from the hospital to stop giving the pastor unidentified psychotic medications and to issue an independent medical examination on his mental status. The “examination,” CSW reported, was an interview with about eight people, some of whom were doctors. They reportedly questioned Truong, mostly about his religious beliefs and his credentials as a pastor, which his interviewers refused to acknowledge. The director of the hospital, Dr. Tho, led the interview. CSW commented, “In what was apparently sometimes a bizarre argument between several Marxists and a lone Christian that had nothing to do with mental health, the doctors’ perspectives dominated the discussion. They decided his firm Christian beliefs and his evangelistic attitude toward them qualified him as being delusional.” (Assist News)

STORY OF ESTHER ENGAGES AUDIENCES IN A POP OPERA The British Foreign Bible Society in partnership with various local organizations in Bristol, UK are hosting a “pop opera” based on the life of Esther. The aim is to bring the story of Esther to life for many thousands of theatre-goers who would not ordinarily open a Bible. Luv Esther, directed by Murray Watts, is described as a “Cinderella-like story, where Esther marries her Prince Charming and becomes queen.” It challenges audiences to consider whether, like Esther, who saved a race from destruction, they, too, have a purpose “for such a time as this.” One of its aims is to raise awareness and financial support for AIDS in Africa. The show may later tour Europe, the U.S. and South Africa. Luv Esther is just one of numerous events in a program called Kaleidoscope designed to expose people to Christian spirituality through the arts and pop culture. (Bible Network News)

GERMANY’S IMMIGRANT CHURCH EXPERIENCES GROWTH Germany is beginning to see Christians from traditional African and Asian mission fields evangelizing a secularized Europe. There are at least 1,100 foreign language Protestant churches with 80,000 members in Germany, according to Rev Claudia Waehrisch-Oblau of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland. Writing in the Zeitschrift fuer Mission (Mission Journal) she outlines some of the causes for the growth of the immigrant Christian community. In the eighties and nineties large numbers of refugees came to Germany from Sri Lanka and West and Central Africa – among the refugees were Christians, who established mostly Charismatic and Pentecostal churches. The established German churches are slow to recognize the potential of the immigrant churches, says to Waehrisch-Oblau. Their missionary attitude challenges the German churches. Only four-percent of Protestant church members and 12-percent of Catholics worship regularly in Germany. (Assist News)

SOUTHERN BAPTIST LEADER OPPOSES REMOVING CHILDREN FROM PUBLIC SCHOOLS Reverend Bobby Welch, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, doubts that resolutions urging members to remove their children from public schools will be debated at the denominations’ national meeting in Nashville, Tenn., this week. Proposed resolutions must first be approved by a committee, which will decide whether to present them to the whole convention. Welch says that many Southern Baptists can’t afford to homeschool their children or send them to Christian schools. He adds “public schools offer the greatest mission field” and are “a great place to make a difference.” Those calling for an exodus from public schools say the schools undermine Baptist children’s faith and morals. (WorldWide Religious News)

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.