Today’s Headlines:

200 MUSLIM PROTESTERS IN PAKISTAN RANSACK 16+ CHRISTIAN HOMES

BIBLE MINISTRY CONTINUES IN THAILAND DESPITE MASSIVE FLOODING

TAJIKISTAN AUTHORITIES STOP INTERFERING WITH CHURCH’S ACTIVITIES

MINISTRY DISTRIBUTES 5,000 BIBLES AT SITE OF RUSSIAN TRAGEDY

CHRISTIANS WORLDWIDE JOIN WEEK OF PRAYER FOR NORTH KOREA

Today’s Top Stories:

200 MUSLIM PROTESTERS IN PAKISTAN RANSACK 16+ CHRISTIAN HOMES

A mob of 200 Muslim protesters ransacked at least 16 homes of Christians in Lahore, Pakistan, Saturday, Sept. 10, after a heroin addict disrupted an Islamic service. Younis Masih, 35, was accused of insulting the prophet Mohammed. He faces several years in jail without bail while a lower Punjab court deliberates his case. If convicted, Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy laws require that he be executed. As Masih is a member of Pakistan’s historical Christian community, angry demonstrators armed with sticks and bricks damaged Christian homes and stoned a church, where they threw Bibles onto the floor. Police did nothing to stop the attacks. (Compass)

BIBLE MINISTRY CONTINUES IN THAILAND DESPITE MASSIVE FLOODING

While Hurricane Katrina has been the focus of world news, another natural disaster has delayed ministry in Thailand. Last month flooding in the northern part of the country forced the evacuation of 100,000 people and caused $50,000 in damage to a Talking Bibles International facility, said spokesman Paul Hoekstra. “One of the studios that we work with to produce New Testament recordings was damaged. The water level came up to about window height and caused a lot of damage to equipment and also to valuable master recordings in the studio.” However, because the masters were archived in the U.S., the program has been salvaged. Hoekstra says, however, that the flooding did hinder the outreach. “It’s delayed the process of distribution to the people,” he said. “We’re looking at three languages that have been affected, the Karen language, the Lahu language and the Thaileu language. Basically they’re hill tribes people that live in the northern part of Thailand.” (Mission Network News)

TAJIKISTAN AUTHORITIES STOP INTERFERING WITH CHURCH’S ACTIVITIES

A Korean-led Pentecostal church in the northern town of Khujand in the Central Asian country of Tajikistan that was closed down by the government’s Religious Affairs Committee last April has been able to resume its activities unimpeded. “I don’t know whether or not our work was closed down officially,” said Larisa Kagai, pastor of the Sonmin Sunbogim (Grace)

Church. “But now, thank God, the authorities are not interfering in our activities.” Sanobar Nurova, chief specialist on non-Islamic faiths, admitted that the Religious Affairs Committee had stopped the work of the church. However, she maintained that Tajiks are “tolerant and well-disposed towards Christians, including relatives who had converted to Christianity. The only thing that arouses the wrath of Muslims is when representatives of other religions start actively preaching their beliefs in their midst.” (Forum 18 News Service)

* HCJB World Radio has been airing weekly Christian programs in the Tajik language via shortwave since 1999. More than 4 million people speak this language.

MINISTRY DISTRIBUTES 5,000 BIBLES AT SITE OF RUSSIAN TRAGEDY

Mairebk, 9, still cries for his mother who died last September in the three-day siege of Middle School No. 1 in Beslan, Russia. But when he cries, he has the loving support of caring Christian workers and the comfort of knowing Jesus through the Bible that was provided to him by the Bible League. Partnering with a local Christian mission near Beslan during the past year, the ministry provided 5,000 Bibles, many of which were presented to children participating in a Bible study. “When I see the difference we are making on the face of even one child, I get even more excited about this ministry,” said Waldemar Kurz, the Bible League’s vice president of Eurasia Ministries. Mairebk is one of the survivors of the Sept. 1-3, 2004, hostage crisis in Beslan near the war zones and areas of unrest in Chechnya. In a public display of Christian unity, the citizens of Beslan filled the churches on Sunday, Sept. 5. Christians visited the wounded in hospitals and distributed aid to hostages’ families. The ruins of the besieged school haven’t changed much during the past year, but the situation is not hopeless. “Although the recovery process is slow, there is hope because of the help and Christian counseling that have already been provided,” Kurz said. (Bible League)

* HCJB World Radio reaches across Russia with a variety of radio ministries. The mission began sending gospel broadcasts across the country via shortwave in 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. More than 63 downlinks have been placed in more than 42 cities across Russia and neighboring countries.

CHRISTIANS WORLDWIDE JOIN WEEK OF PRAYER FOR NORTH KOREA

Churches and Christians around the world have joined in a week of prayer for suffering people of North Korea Monday-Sunday, Sept. 19-25. “The immensity of the need and the deep spiritual darkness in North Korea requires urgent and intense prayer by the body of Christ,” said Christian Solidarity Worldwide Chief Executive Mervyn Thomas. “We know of no country in which the state repression of Christianity is so thorough and violent. For decades the desperate need of the North Korean people has remained hidden and forgotten due to the isolation and severe repression against those who might speak out. However, now there is a chink in that wall and we are able to see something of the horrors that are taking place in the country, especially against Christians, and the wholesale repression of the freedom to hear the gospel.” North Korea is one of the most closed societies in the world today. Harsh penalties are meted out against those found to have adopted or shared the Christian faith. (Christian Solidarity Worldwide)