AUSTRALIAN PRAYER NETWORK NEWSLETTER
PASTOR’S DEATH SENTENCE HIGHLIGHTS CHRISTIANS PLIGHT IN IRAN
Thirty-two years ago this month Americans were taken hostage when Iranian militants seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. That was the start of an Islamic revolution that not only brought Sharia law to the country, but also one of the fastest growing house church movements in the world today. Disillusioned with Islam, more Iranians are now embracing Christianity than perhaps at any other time since the Muslim invasion of Persia in the 7th century. A massive government crackdown against Christians has led to the imprisonment of many believers and the threatened execution of a pastor.
At least 285 Christians in 35 cities were arrested in Iran during the second half of 2010. Many have spent weeks, and even months in prison, often serving long stretches in solitary confinement. They also have endured interrogations and psychological abuse. Iranian Pastor Hormoz Shariat of Iran Alive Ministries, hosts a satellite television show that is broadcast into Iran. Shariat said most often the Iranian Revolutionary Guards arrest and don’t even tell their family. “They can’t have a lawyer, not even a formal charge,” Shariat said. “Sometimes they get killed without even a formal charge.”
When President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took office in 2005, he pledged to halt the spread of Christianity in Iran. The threatened execution of 34-year old Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani is a part of the crackdown. Nadarkhani had challenged a government requirement that Christian students be forced to recite the Koran and learn Islam in the public schools. Pastor Youcef leads one of the country’s fastest growing house churches, which is now 400 members. He was arrested in October 2009 and was eventually charged with leaving the Islamic faith, even though he claims that he was never a Muslim.
After he was sentenced to death, Christians and others in the international community demanded the pastor’s release. The Iranian government responded saying the world had it wrong, that Nadarkhani was charged with rape and extortion, not apostasy. His case is now in the hands of the Ayatollah. Open Doors President Carl Moeller said even if the Ayatollah frees Nadarkhani and the pastor returns home, he will not be out of danger. Moeller explained, “In fact what we have seen in numerous cases over the last 30 years in Iran is that someone may be judicially acquitted or released on a technicality, but then their lives remain deeply under threat.
As was the case with Mehdi Dibaj in the 90s, the reality is he was killed after being released from prison. “That’s a reality that can happen any day, to any Christian in Iran,” Moeller continued. “They can simply disappear, or they can be tortured or arrested without any judicial process.” “So, by no means is Pastor Youcef’s situation free and clear if he is acquitted of these charges,” he said. The government– for the first time–is admitting that Iranians are leaving the Islamic faith and becoming Christians. “The government is intentionally going after the house churches. The Supreme leader, he came and said the house churches in Iran are a threat to our national security,” Shariat said.
Iranian Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi has also warned against the strong attraction of Christianity among Iranian youth. He recently admitted the government crackdown has failed to stop the spread of Christianity in Iran. Middle East analyst Joel Rosenberg said people like Pastor Youcef are putting their lives on the line for the Gospel every day. “More Muslims are coming to faith than ever before but it is not enough. We need to pray that the Gospel is spread throughout all of Iran,” Rosenberg said. “I think Iran is going to become a sending country for evangelical Christian missionaries coming from a Shia Muslim background.”
“The church in Iran is begging us to stand one with them through their persecution in Iran,” Moeller said. Iran’s Islamic government is likely to continue the crackdown. As revolutions and uprisings spread throughout the Middle East, Shariat said his Iranian viewers are warning Arabs to learn from what happened in Iran in 1979 when Iranians protested against the shah and got Ayatollah Khomeini instead. “They are telling their brothers and sisters, watch out, watch out, this is what we did,” he explained. “We wanted freedom, we wanted democracy, and we allowed the religious fanatics to take over. Please don’t let that happen to you.”
Source: CBNnews.com
[ Top ]
DAM SUSPENDED YET WAR CONTINUES
Whilst the Burmese regime has stopped the controversial Myitsone Dam Project, its war on the Christian Kachin, triggered in part by the dam project, continues unabated. The Dam is a joint effort between the previous Burmese junta and the China Power Investment Corporation. The Myitsone Dam project has been opposed by many Burmese. Not only would 90% of the output and 70% of the profits go to China, but the impact on the Irrawaddy River, Burma’s life source, would be catastrophic. With the US working to bring Burma out of China’s embrace into its own so as to secure strategic gains in the Bay of Bengal, it is quite likely that the US might ignore the genocide.
Some 30,000 Kachin are now displaced, yet UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has downplayed the ethnic cleansing in Kachin. Rapporteur Tomas Ojea Quintana, said the UN informed the Burmese authorities that it was willing to help those displaced but the government declined the offer. Burma expert Zin Linn reports that China is blocking the delivery of food, emergency shelter and medicines, leaving some wondering if Kachin State is being ethnically cleansed at China’s behest. Zin Linn said “The full-scale offensives are becoming greater than ever in Kachin State as Burmese soldiers commit various crimes such as looting, killing, raping and burning down the civilians ¢â‚¬â„¢ villages.
In frontline areas, Burmese soldiers are committing crimes freely as there are no effective or appropriate penalties set by senior authorities. “There is evidence that the Burmese Army has used a mysterious chemical weapon in the recent offensive against Kachin rebels. Burma Army troops fired two mortar rounds of chemical weapons on the People ¢â‚¬â„¢s Army fighters at Prayer Hill.. ¢â‚¬Å“There were seven of us present. Dark smoke billowed from the areas where the mortar shells landed,’ La Gun, a civilian fighter and a victim of the chemical weapon told Kachin News Group. ¢â‚¬Å“The same chemical weapon was used during the fighting in Lung Zep Kawng ¢â‚¬ La Gun said.
With the Kachin people being over 90% devout Christian, the Church is being hit hard. Churches in Kachin State have been attacked, seized, used as prisons and burned. The Christian Kachin are being raped, brutalised, enslaved, and slaughtered. In Phakant Township, the town administration is now requiring Christians to seek official permission to read the Bible, pray and fast. Requests must be submitted 15 days in advance. With war and repression escalating behind a smokescreen of token reforms from a Burman-Buddhist-supremacist regime the Christian Kachin need our prayers now more than ever.
Source: Intercessors Network
[ Top ]
PAPUAN CHURCH NO LONGER A SAFE HAVEN
After breaking up a Christian Congress, armed police officers and TNI soldiers stormed nearby religious institutions in search of fleeing Congress participants. Father John Jehuru, Rector of the Inter-diocesan Seminary, was watching the events unfold from in his study room in Fajar Timur School of Theology when a bullet flew through his window, only narrowly missing him. Eye witnesses report that armed soldiers went room to room, ransacking the facilities and screaming at the priests. Several priests, including Father Gonsa Saur and Father Yan You, displayed immense courage and spiritual integrity in the face of serious intimidation and threats to their life.
Likewise, many students risked their lives to protect others. One student was violently attacked as he was trying to help another student who had been shot. Soldiers struck him with the butt of a rifle, fracturing his arm, as well as hitting him in the face with a rubber batten. He was then dragged off to prison and held in detention overnight. Only after being released the next day was the student able to seek medical attention for his injuries. This was not about putting down a coup or defending the integrity of Indonesia. It was nothing other than pure racial and religious hatred by armed Javanese Muslim soldiers against unarmed Melanesian Christian civilians.
On 8 November, Aljazeera ran a feature on Papua. Author, William Lloyd George, cut straight to the chase with his opening line: “While the international community is fixated on events taking place in the Middle East, they turn a blind eye to the desperate cries for help by the Papuan people.” After providing an overview of contemporary Papuan history and suffering, William Lloyd George concluded “Why can Indonesia get away with shooting unarmed people, but other governments cannot?” “The difference between us and the Middle East,” one local Papuan told George, “is that we’re not fighting a dictator. ¢â‚¬
¢â‚¬Å“We ¢â‚¬â„¢re fighting invading neo-colonialists who have stolen our land. If the international community doesn ¢â‚¬â„¢t help us, West Papuan people will slowly perish while fighting for the independence we deserve.” But as Religious Liberty Monitoring has noted — it really is not that simple. It is not that neo-colonialists can get away with murder but dictators can’t. The sad reality is this: as much as we hate to admit it, foreign policy is dictated by economic and strategic interests, not human rights. Unfortunately for the Papuans it is not in the interests of the “international community” (and by that they mean the West) to help them.
Whilst Papua is a resource-rich land and Indonesia is a highly strategic nation in a world where international politics has nothing to do with advancing what is right and just but everything to do with pursuing wealth and power. In such a depraved system, human beings are an inconvenience to be dealt with, while human rights are an obstacle to be navigated. Consequently, it is imperative that men and women of conscience lift their voices and their prayers for, and be prepared to stand in costly solidarity with, such “inconvenient peoples”. For the powers of this world — even powers we have long trusted — will only betray them, at least until it is in their political interests not to!
Source: Engage Media
[ Top ]
CHRISTIANS KILLED AND CHURCHES BOMBED IN NIGERIA
Two worshippers were killed and at least 12 injured in an armed raid on a church, and at least six other churches were bombed during a spate of widespread attacks by Islamist militants in Northern Nigeria that has left around 150 people dead. A church in Tabak village, Kaduna State, was targeted during a prayer meeting on 3 November. As the meeting was drawing to a close, gunmen burst into the building and fired at the congregation, which consisted mainly of women and children. Two women died at the scene, while at least twelve other people were wounded; some were said to be in a critical condition.
The Rev Yunusa Nmadu, secretary of the Kaduna State Chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria, condemned the armed attack ¢â‚¬Å“on innocent Christian worshippers in the church ¢â‚¬ and expressed concern that the incident had happened ¢â‚¬Å“in spite of the heavy presence of soldiers in the area ¢â‚¬ . The following day, two other Northern states were rocked by a series of deadly bomb and gun attacks for which the militant Islamist group Boko Haram has claimed responsibility. A rescue agency official said that the death toll stood at 150. They mainly targeted the security forces, hitting police stations and an army base in Yobe and Borno states.
Churches were also attacked; six were bombed in a mainly Christian neighbourhood of Damaturu, called Jerusalem in Yobe state. One minister whose church was burnt down said gangs of young men were roaming the streets throwing improvised bombs into church buildings. Boko Haram, which is fighting to establish an Islamic state in the North, has carried out a number of major strikes this year; more than 240 people have died in the group ¢â‚¬â„¢s violent campaign. Their spiritual leader, Abubakar Shekau, has urged followers to carry out more assassinations and bombings, saying: Whomever we kill, we kill because Allah says we should kill and we kill for a reason.
Tensions have been particularly high in Northern Nigeria since April when Muslims went on the rampage in protest against the re-election of Christian President Goodluck Jonathan. They unleashed their rage against Christian targets among others; scores of churches were destroyed, hundreds of people killed and tens of thousands displaced during the violence. Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, International Director of Barnabas Fund, said: Islamists have once again wreaked havoc in Nigeria, leaving a trail of devastation and destroyed lives. Amid this ongoing carnage, our brothers and sisters continue to suffer. We must pray earnestly for peace in that troubled land.
Please Pray
* That there will be peace in Nigeria, and that the authorities will be able to restrain Boko Haram ¢â‚¬â„¢s terrorist activities.
* For all those people who have lost loved ones or been injured in the latest attacks.
* That the Lord will give Nigerian Christians the strength to stand firm in their faith amid unrelenting attacks.
Source: Barnabus Fund
[ Top ]
HINDU HEALED OF LEPROSY NOW MINISTERS FOR CHRIST
Missionary Garud Badal touches people with leprosy every day in West Bengal, India. He isn ¢â‚¬â„¢t afraid. He used to be one of them. Carefully dressing a leprosy patient ¢â‚¬â„¢s wounds, Garud remembers back to a time when he suffered greatly and needed someone to help him. He found out he had the disease when he was just nine years old. Garud ¢â‚¬â„¢s family lived in poverty and had no means to pay for treatment. With his condition quickly deteriorating, Garud met a local church pastor who told him about the power of Jesus. But he only sneered at the pastor. His family worshipped the traditional gods of their village, and he didn ¢â‚¬â„¢t believe Jesus could make a difference in his life.
Several years passed, and Garud was on his death bed. The leprosy had become so bad, it was about to take his life. And it was when he was at his weakest that Garud remembered the words of the pastor who told him how Jesus healed many people with leprosy during His time on earth. “Jesus can heal my sickness,” Garud repeated to himself. A new faith developed in his heart. With tears in his eyes, he prayed and asked the Lord for forgiveness. Soon, Garud was singing songs of praise to Jesus from his bed. Miraculously, the Lord completely healed Garud of his leprosy in only two weeks. Garud dedicated his life to serving Jesus, and soon, he entered Bible college.
After graduation Garud has served as a missionary, reaching out to leprosy patients with whom he can relate most. Today, Garud goes around his village cleaning and dressing the wounds of those with leprosy. Their eyes light up as he cares for them and touches their disease-stricken bodies. Deeply moved by his acts of kindness, they desire to know the Source of his incredible love. And Garud shares with them his amazing testimony about the power of Christ. Many of the leprosy patients have received Jesus as their Saviour, and as a result, Garud now leads a Christian fellowship. And more than 80 children are attending Sunday School classes he has started in a leprosy colony.
Source: Gospel for Asia
[ Top ]
Have you visited our Web site? Australian Prayer Network
Discussion
No comments for “Pray for the World November 21 2011”