The Kumbh Mela (pronounced KHOOM MAY-lah) draws the largest gathering in the world. During the 2010 Kumbh Mela, officials expect 50 million people to visit Haridwar, India. Pray for the salvation of Hindus celebrating the Kumbh Mela now through April.
UJJAIN, India (BP)–Dawn came almost unnoticed to the sacred river Shipra. Even the waking sun seemed overwhelmed by the scene unfolding at the water’s edge:
Hours before, drum-led processions of Hindu monks and mystics had arrived in the sweltering darkness, zealously guarding their right to lead throngs of pilgrims to the river for a “holy dip” during Kumbh Mela — Hinduism’s biggest, grandest festival. Continue reading
April 11 : English Classes Open Doors. “How can I take English classes if I’m working all day and have no extra money?” Many South Asian immigrants from India and Pakistan have this problem in Canada. A new English as a Second Language (ESL) class has begun on Thursday evenings in a suburb. Already five South Asians have noticed the advertisements written in three languages and have come for the free-of-charge classes. R considers religion unimportant to well-educated people. Mr. S is quite friendly, but his wife is tired and hardly speaks. E is shy and has been here only four months. Mr. B likes conversation and comes for friendship. Please pray that as they learn English, the Holy Spirit will draw them to the person of Jesus, opening their eyes to see Him not as the “white person’s God,” but as the Savior of the world who brings people of all cultures to the one true God. Please pray that new believers can be gathered soon into “Following Jesus” groups for worship and Bible study and ask the Holy Spirit to appoint leaders for these groups.
April 12 : Sikhs Celebrate New Year’s Day. Tomorrow, April 13, Hindus and Sikhs across South Asia will celebrate New Year’s Day. Known by different names in different areas, the day for Sikhs is called Baisakhi (by-SAH-kee). In addition to marking the new year, it also commemorates the establishment of Khalsa, an elite brotherhood of Sikhs who were willing to sacrifice their lives to fight oppression. On April 13, 1699, the tenth Guru invited his followers to offer themselves as a sacrifice. When the first volunteer stepped forward, the Guru led him into a tent. The Guru then emerged from the tent alone, holding a bloody sword. He asked for more volunteers. Altogether, five men entered the tent, ready to give their all for their Guru. Later it was revealed that the men had not been killed, but their willingness to die became the foundation of the Khalsa’s devout adherence to the strictest forms of Sikhism. As Sikhs celebrate Baisakhi this year, pray that they will hear about the Man who really did give His life so they could escape the oppression of sin. Pray that they will accept Jesus’ sacrifice on Calvary and follow Him as their Savior. http://southasianpeoples.imb.org/
April 13 : Effective Radio Programs. “I have been listening to your program for two Sundays and like it very much.” Thank you for praying for the Urdu-language Christian broadcasts. South Asian immigrants continue to call in weekly with their responses. Sometimes they ask for prayer, hoping that “the Christians’ God” can also help them with their problems, but not yet understanding their need to be reconciled to the one true God. Every month, the listeners are invited to a South Asian Fellowship and potluck supper. In February, approximately 30 adults plus children attended and heard a message from God’s Word. Please continue praying that the Holy Spirit will draw many of these to Jesus, giving them grace to turn from false gods.
April 14 : Gateway City. The city of Karachi is a gateway city; many come here for work from all the other areas and people groups of Pakistan. There is much opportunity for people to meet God here and take His truth back to their peoples, villages and families. However, because so many different kinds of people live in the city, there are often problems between different groups. Many have said that they are dissatisfied with their lives and live in fear of the unrest that is so prevalent. But we have hope that the fear and violence Satan would use for evil, our Mighty God can work for good. Please pray and claim Haggai 2:7 and 9 for this city and this nation, which says, “And I will shake the nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts…. The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former says the Lord of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts.” http://southasianpeoples.imb.org/
April 15 : Reaching out to Sindhis. Praise God for bringing together likeminded believers from around the world to partner together to see the Gospel spread among Sindhis! Pray that God will raise up more laborers and provide open doors to the Sindhi people who live in darkness. Thank God for Sindhi people who have made a decision to follow Jesus as Lord. Pray that they will grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ and that they will have a heart for their people to know Jesus. May God deliver Sindhis from the domain of darkness and transfer them to the kingdom of His beloved Son. (Please pray Colossians 1:13.) http://southasianpeoples.imb.org/
April 16 : Four in the Furnace. A national family is planning to move to a northern village in May. They will be operating a student dormitory there. They have grown much in their walk with the Father and are ready, yet they are concerned about persecution. Pray that they will trust in Him who will never leave them nor forsake them and that they will not fear what mere man can do to them. Last week during a study of “the three (and then four) in the fiery furnace,” a member of the family said that when she goes to this northern place, it might be like that for her. These verses are for them: Psalm 56:8-11 (ESV) says: “You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book? Then my enemies will turn back in the day when I call. This I know, that God is for me. In God, whose word I praise, in the LORD, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me?” http://www.prayforpak.com/
April 17 : My Best Friend is Jesus. A national pastor has been conducting house church meetings at a guesthouse owned by believers in one Sri Lankan village. Because Sri Lanka is a Buddhist nation, people in the village have not been too happy about this. In December there were threats made against the national pastor and against his area worker, E, saying that if she comes to the village, they will remove her clothes and parade her on the road. Why? Because they recognize the impact Christ is having on people’s lives. It started when a young boy who attends Sunday school at the house church sat for an end-of-term exam. It was during that exam that he had to write about the subject: “Who is your best friend and describe your relationship.” Thank God that this young boy wrote about his best friend, Jesus, and his relationship with His Savior. Please pray for this young boy, asking that he will continue to grow in his faith and that he will unashamedly and without fear tell all those around him about the way to salvation through Christ. Pray for the owners of the guesthouse to be strong in their faith and not waver under threats. Pray for other believers in Sri Lanka who are being persecuted because they have chosen to live for the One who died for them. http://southasianpeoples.imb.org/
Baptist Press, March 11, 2010: http://www.bpnews.net/BPFirstPerson.asp?ID=32479
By Erich Bridges
EDITOR’S NOTE: Visit “WorldView Conversation,” the blog related to this column, at http://worldviewconversation.blogspot.com/. Listen to an audio version of this column at http://media1.imbresources.org/files/107/10745/10745-57495.mp3.
RICHMOND, Va. (BP)–Love your enemies, Jesus said.
We nod in easy agreement with the theory. It’s the application that gets sticky. Which enemies, exactly, are you prepared to love? The guy who tailgates you on the road? The “friend” who spreads lies about you?
What about Osama bin Laden?
The latest issue of Mission Frontiers magazine poses that question in a cover article titled “Loving Bin Laden: What does Jesus expect us to do?” (http://www.missionfrontiers.org/). Christian peacemaker Carl Medearis recounts the evolution of his friendship with one of the top operatives in Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based (and Iran-backed) Islamic militant movement that fought Israel during the cross-border war of 2006. Medearis and co-author Ted Dekker tell the same story at greater length in their new book, “Tea with Hezbollah: Sitting at the Enemies’ Table” (Doubleday, 2010).
“By most definitions he was the enemy of my people, Americans. Maybe even the enemy of Christians. And for sure the enemy of the Israelis. But how could I follow the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth to love my enemies if I never met any?” Medearis writes of his first nervous encounter with the Hezbollah leader.
“That day a friendship began. It was a cautious friendship — on both sides. We were equally skeptical of the other’s agenda. But over the years we have become friends. He’s still a Muslim, still the leader of the Hezbollah in all of south Lebanon, still at war with Israel. But he has now received prayer a thousand times, often by the laying on of hands by my Christian pastor friends I take to see him. He has now read the New Testament. We talk often and deeply about the Gospel, about big international issues, about the small hidden things of our hearts.”
Medearis challenges his friend to make peace with a loving God — and with Israel, Hezbollah’s bitter enemy. He knows some people consider him foolish, naïve, a “useful idiot” being manipulated by terrorists for political or public relations purposes. Yet Christ’s words about loving enemies remain. Could the steady application of love and God’s Word to his friend’s war-hardened heart change the course of history in the Middle East?
When Medearis talks about loving enemies as a method of transmitting the love of Jesus across boundaries, the most common response he gets from Christians goes something like this: “Yeah, I know that Jesus said to love our enemies, but … I mean, you’re not suggesting that, well, you know, we should, like, love Osama bin Laden, are you?”
What Medearis (or anyone else) suggests is irrelevant. What matters is the command of Christ, who committed the ultimate act of love on behalf of those who opposed, rejected, betrayed, hated and killed Him. That act, that supernatural life, transcends politics, cultures, nations — and all past, present and future animosities. Forgive as you have been forgiven, He says. No exceptions.
The command doesn’t apply just to individual relationships. The global progress of the Gospel depends on loving and blessing enemies. Every day, hundreds of mission workers and thousands of local believers are forming the kinds of friendships Medearis describes. As often as not, the families, clans or tribes awaiting the Gospel in the next village or across the border are enemies. You fear them; they fear you. How to bridge the gap? Unconditional mercy.
And we must go first, if we claim to follow Christ. We can’t ask new disciples across the world to share the Good News with enemies if we aren’t willing to model the practice.
If all this sounds hyper-spiritual, here’s a real-world model: Steve Hyde.
Steve’s no otherworldly mystic. He’s a big ol’ guy with a big smile and a huge heart — just like his dad, Southern Baptist missionary Bill Hyde. Bill was killed in a 2003 terror bombing carried out by an Islamic rebel group in the Philippines. It was an abrupt end to a life lived passionately for Christ. During 25 years in the Philippines, Bill planted (and trained Filipino Christians to plant) hundreds of churches.
Steve was already doing full-time mission work elsewhere in Southeast Asia when his father was killed. He’s still there, spreading the Good News and equipping believers to multiply churches — just like his dad. On the seventh anniversary of Bill’s death March 4, Steve recalled the words he spoke at his father’s funeral:
“I will avenge my father’s death, but not like the plans of the evil one. To kill and destroy is easy, but to love your enemy is God’s command. The plans of Jesus are peace and love through the forgiveness of sins. I will go and bring Jesus throughout this evil world and take the light of Jesus into the darkness.
“Please, all of you whose lives were touched by my father, who were motivated and encouraged by him in church planting, evangelism and the Kingdom of God, join me in avenging my father’s death. Let us together go into every dark area, those hard-to-go places, those places that bring fear just by mention of their name. Go, as my father went. My dad will not be the last martyr, but in the end the Lord Jesus Christ will have the victory. Take the Light into the darkness with me.”
If loving enemies into heaven is good enough for Steve Hyde, it’s good enough for you and me.
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Erich Bridges is global correspondent for the International Mission Board (imb.org).
Baptist Press, March 22, 2010: http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=32547
By Vishal Arora/Compass Direct News
NEW DELHI (BP)–Minority Christians in India’s southern state of Karnataka are under an unprecedented wave of persecution, having faced more than 1,000 attacks in 500 days, according to an independent investigation by a former senior judge on the Karnataka High Court.
The spate began on Sept. 14, 2008, when at least 12 churches were attacked in one day in the city of Mangalore, said Justice Michael Saldanha, who formerly served on the Karnataka court.
“On Jan. 26 — the day we celebrated India’s Republic Day — Karnataka’s 1,000th attack took place in Mysore city,” Saldanha told Compass Direct News, saying the figure is based on reports from faith-based organizations.
Saldanha conducted a People’s Tribunal inquiry into the attacks on Christians in Karnataka on behalf of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties chapter in Karnataka’s Dakshina Kannada district and the Karnataka chapter of Transparency International. There are just over 1 million Christians among Karnataka’s 52 million people.
“Attacks are taking place every day,” said Saldanha, chairperson of the local Transparency International chapter.
The latest attack took place on Wednesday, March 17, when a mob of around 150 people led by the Hindu extremist Vishwa Hindu Parishad organization (World Hindu Council or VHP) and its youth wing, Bajrang Dal, stormed the funeral of a 50-year-old Christian identified only as Isaac, as reported by the Karnataka-based Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC).
According to GCIC, as pastor Sunder Raj of St. Thomas Church in Gijahalli in Karnataka’s Hassan district was about to begin the funeral service, the mob pulled the coffin apart and desecrated the cross the relatives of the deceased were carrying. They dumped the body outside, claiming that his burial would contaminate Indian soil and his body should be buried in Rome or the United States, GCIC reported.
With police intervention, the funeral took place later the same day.
Saldanha, blaming the state government for the attacks, said the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Karnataka had “outdone Orissa,” referring to another region where Christians in India have faced intense persecution.
Karnataka Home Minister V.S. Acharya denied the results of the inquiry led by Saldanha.
“The allegation of Karnataka having faced 1,000 attacks is absolutely false,” Acharya told Compass. “There is liberty in the state. Sections of the media are trying to hype it, and such claims are politically motivated. Karnataka is the most peaceful state in India, and the people are law-abiding.”
The wave of persecution in Karnataka began as fallout from the anti-Christian mayhem in eastern Orissa state, where Maoists killed a VHP leader in August 2008, with Hindu extremists wrongly accusing Christians. The attacks in Orissa’s Kandhamal district, the epicenter of the bloodbath, resulted in the death of some 100 people; 4,640 houses were burned along with 252 churches and 13 educational institutions.
Violent attacks have stopped in Orissa, but Karnataka continues to be volatile. In addition to the attacks, numerous Christians also have faced false charges of fraudulent or forced conversions throughout Karnataka.
“I have been to many police stations where complaints of [forced] conversions have been lodged against Christians,” Saldanha said, “and when I asked the police why they were acting on frivolous complaints, most of them told me that they had orders from above.”
Saldanha, in his report, which has not been publicly released, recounts that Christians “are dragged to the police station under false allegations, immediately locked up, beaten up and denied bail by the lower judiciary, which functions as the loyal partner of the police department and refuses bail on the grounds that ‘the police have objected.’”
The report states that 468 Christian workers in rural areas had been targeted with such actions since September 2008.
“Numerous others have been threatened and beaten up,” the report notes. “The police are totally out of control, with the lower judiciary having abdicated its constitutional obligation of safeguarding the citizens’ rights particularly from a tyrannical state machinery, while the state government proclaims that everything is peaceful.”
Chief Minister Bookanakere Siddalingappa Yeddyurappa and Home Minister Acharya are from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (Hindu nationalist conglomerate or the RSS), believed to be the parent organization of the BJP, Saldanha pointed out.
Saldanha also said that although the attacks on Christians had turned public sentiment against the BJP in Karnataka, the party seemed to care little as both opposition parties, the Congress Party and the regional Janata Dal- Secular (JD-S) party, were “in shambles” in the state.
In May 2009 the BJP lost India’s general elections, and since then sections of the party are in desperation, he said, adding, “Perhaps this is one of the reasons why attacks continue to happen in Karnataka.”
Saldanha said the state government was controlling media coverage of the attacks by “monetary appeasement.” As noted in his report, “The citizens are told that the situation is happy and under control, principally because the greater part of the media is being fed or appeased with massive publicity advertisements which have cost the state exchequer over 400 million rupees [US$8.8 million], most of the money clandestinely billed to the various Government Corporations and Public bodie.”
The BJP came to sole power in Karnataka in May 2008. Previously, it had ruled in alliance with the JD-S party for 20 months.
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Vishal Arora is based in New Delhi. Compass Direct News (www.compassdirect.org), based in Santa Ana, Calif., provides reports on Christians worldwide who are persecuted for their faith. Used by permission.
http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=32475
Posted on Mar 11, 2010 | by Staff
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)–The persecution of Christians continues to intensify in Pakistan, where six employees of the Christian humanitarian organization World Vision have been murdered by militants and the country’s blasphemy laws are being used to fine and imprison Christians.
The attack on World Vision’s office in northwestern Pakistan’s Mansehra region was carried out by more than a dozen gunmen who stormed the facility March 10, spraying the room with gunfire, herded surviving employees into another room, then taking them out one at a time and executing them, according to news reports. At least five employees were injured, in addition to the six who were killed.
Elsewhere in the country, in the past two weeks a Christian couple was sentenced to 25 years in prison and a man was given a life sentence for allegedly violating Pakistan’s “blasphemy” laws — both reportedly without any basis to the charges.
In eastern Pakistan’s Kasur region, Ruqqiya Bibi and her husband Munir Masih were sentenced March 3 to 25 years in prison, according to the Compass Direct news service. The pair had been arrested in December 2008 on charges of touching the Quran, Islam’s sacred book, without ritually washing, after an incident that began as a quarrel between Muslim and Christian children and escalated into a clash of their parents.
In Karachi, the largest city in southern Pakistan, a court on Feb. 25 sentenced Qamar David to 25 years in prison and a fine equivalent to $1,170 after he was convicted of sending blasphemous text messages in May 2006 -– even though all 16 witnesses at the trial said it was the Muslim owner of the cell phone who sent the messages. The owner, Munawar Ahmad, was absolved of all charges, Compass Direct reported.
Pakistan’s blasphemy laws are commonly used by Muslims to settle grudges against Christians.
The World Vision office in Mansehra region had been opened to help victims of a 2005 earthquake that killed more than 70,000 people and left 3.5 million homeless. World Vision suspended its operations in Pakistan after the attack. Militants in Pakistan consider humanitarian groups to be outside intruders that spread Western values among residents.
“It was a brutal and senseless attack,” World Vision spokesman Dean Owen told the Associated Press. “It was completely unexpected, unannounced and unprovoked.”
A police spokesman blamed the attack on “the same people who are destroying our schools” — a reference to Taliban militants who have blown up hundreds of schools across the northwest in the past three years because they oppose the education of girls, Compass Direct reported.
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Compiled by Baptist Press assistant editor Mark Kelly.