2 November 2005 Update From HCJB World Radio

Today’s Headlines:

HAITIAN POLICE RESCUE MISSIONARIES’ 2 ABDUCTED CHILDREN, FOSTER CHILD

MUSLIM ATTACKS INCITE RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE IN NIGERIAN STATE

OPERATION BLESSING HELPS IN SENEGAL AFTER WORST FLOODING IN 20 YEARS

RELIEF AGENCY SAYS KASHMIR EARTHQUAKE VICTIMS ‘LACK SUPPORT’

RADIO JOURNALIST USES INNOVATIVE METHODS TO SPREAD GOSPEL

Today’s Top Stories:

HAITIAN POLICE RESCUE MISSIONARIES’ 2 ABDUCTED CHILDREN, FOSTER CHILD

Police in Haiti say they rescued, unharmed, two kidnapped children and a foster child of a U.S. missionary couple during a raid on an apartment in Port-au-Prince. Police said 3-year-old Hannah Lloyd, her 5-year-old brother, David, and their 7-year-old foster sister, Miriam, are the children of Pentecostal minister David Lloyd and his wife, Alicia, of Claremore, Okla. The children were abducted at gunpoint by uniformed men on Friday, Oct. 28. Police traced the men to an apartment building in the volatile Delmas neighborhood and raided the property on Saturday, freeing the three children and arresting seven suspects, including a former police officer. Lloyd and his wife run Missions in Haiti, helping to raise 21 Haitian foster children. “It’s been a pretty rough year, but we feel this is where God wants us to be, and we will stay with our mission,” Lloyd said. (AgapePress/Associated Press)

MUSLIM ATTACKS INCITE RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE IN NIGERIAN STATE

Religious violence sparked by a Muslim cutting off a Christian’s hand last Wednesday, Oct. 26, in Tungan Rogo in Nigeria’s Niger state left three Christians dead and at least 13 others injured. The violence also destroyed 18 houses. Religious nerves in Niger state were already on edge following a Sept. 21 attack by Muslims at the Bosso campus of the Federal University of Technology at Minna. A group of Muslims, including at least one extremist brandishing a knife, broke into lecture halls at the school in an effort to enforce sharia (Islamic law). Joshua Ochoge, president of the Fellowship of Christian Students at the university, said students were in class “when suddenly the fanatical Muslim students stormed the halls and began attacking Christian students. The situation later resulted in a fight between the fanatics and the Christian students.” (Compass)

OPERATION BLESSING HELPS IN SENEGAL AFTER WORST FLOODING IN 20 YEARS

Operation Blessing International (OBI) is focusing its efforts on helping in the West African country of Senegal which has seen its heaviest rainy season in two decades. Floods have caused 50,000 people to abandon their homes and 180,000 others are “adversely affected.” So far OBI has supplied nearly 65 percent of the disaster relief coming from faith-based organizations. Medical teams of OBI-funded doctors have arrived at several camps, dispensing medicine to evacuees and treating the sick. Makeshift shelters and food sites are not adequately meeting needs which means overflow and unofficial campsites scrambling to find food, water and medical treatment. In many of these areas, refuse is dumped into open pits providing a breeding ground for disease. The country has also had to confront a long-term cholera epidemic that hit more than 25,000 people countrywide. Food, supplies and medical care has become critical in this region. State help has dried up in many areas still struggling with whole communities underwater. (Mission Network News)

* HCJB World Radio works in partnership with Brethren Assemblies and SIM in Dakar, Senegal, to make weekly Wolof Christian broadcasts available across the country on an FM network. More than 3 million people speak Wolof.

RELIEF AGENCY SAYS KASHMIR EARTHQUAKE VICTIMS ‘LACK SUPPORT’

The Christian aid agency Shelter Now says victims of the devastating earthquake that hit Pakistan and northern India Saturday, Oct. 8, are lacking the support they need to survive. After a visit to the area, Director Udo Stolte said that although the disaster reaches the proportions as those of the tsunami, the response is “lagging far behind.” Stolte estimates that the quake’s death toll could rise to 100,000, partly because help isn’t reaching remote areas fast enough. The number of people without shelter, 4 million, is more than double the 1.7 million after the tsunami, yet the media coverage and level of donations is significantly lower. The independent Central Institute for Social Issues in Berlin recently published figures indicating that in the first two weeks after the tsunami, Germans donated more than $360 million — eventually reaching a total of more than $800 million. In comparison, German donations for the Pakistan quake has reached just $24 million. The most urgent need in the disaster zone is tents, said Stolte. Shelter Now will provide 5,000 tents by December and plans to rebuild houses, schools and clinics. (Assist News Service)

* HCJB World Radio recently sent a medical team from Ecuador to Pakistan to help SIM International in relief efforts in some of the worst-hit earthquake areas.

RADIO JOURNALIST USES INNOVATIVE METHODS TO SPREAD GOSPEL

Rachel Phillips, a radio reporter with London’s Premier Christian Radio, recently returned from a notoriously difficult 10-day hike through the rainforests of Brazil, gaining worldwide attention through her online diary and radio reports. She has been working to raise money for homeless children. Phillips kept in touch with staff and listeners through her blog — an online diary with regular audio clips — and satellite phone calls. Christians around the world have been responding to her daily Web and radio updates, including Premier Radio listeners who live in Brazil and are keen to meet the Christian journalist. “I’ve been able to read messages posted on the Premier website from Christians listening in only miles away from where I’ve been staying in Rio,” Phillips says. “It’s amazing to see how the gospel can be transmitted through the power of technology.” (Assist News Service)