SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Church officials say 274 Mormon missionaries are being transferred out of Sierra Leone and Liberia due to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa…report by Cache Valley daily
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said Friday the missionaries are being reassigned to other countries.
So far, there are no reports of missionaries being sick with Ebola. The transfers are precautionary. The church says missionaries have been asked to remain in their apartments in recent weeks to prevent getting sick.
The church is the latest organization to move people out of the region. More than 300 Peace Corps volunteers have been evacuated from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.
Hamas claimed responsibility on Saturday for a deadly Gaza Strip ambush in which an Israeli army officer may have been captured, but said the incident likely preceded and therefore had not violated a U.S.- and U.N.-sponsored truce…report by CP
Palestinian officials say 1,653 Gazans, mostly civilians, have been killed. Sixty-three Israeli soldiers have been killed, and Palestinian shelling has killed three civilians in Israel. Israel launched a Gaza air and naval offensive on July 8 following a surge of cross-border rocket salvoes by Hamas and other Palestinian guerrillas, later escalating into ground incursions centred along the tunnel-riddled eastern frontier of the enclave but often pushing into residential areas.
A 23-year-old Israeli soldier, who was allegedly taken prisoner by the Hamas in Gaza Friday, has been declared dead by Israel’s military, and the White House has strongly condemned Gaza militants for violating a ceasefire as “barbaric and outrageous.”
“This is an outrageous action and we look to the rest of the world to join us in condemning it,” White House Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken told MSNBC.
“The Israelis, of course, are reporting this morning that that ceasefire was broken,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told CNN. “Apparently, Hamas individuals used the cover of a humanitarian ceasefire to attack Israeli soldiers and even to take one hostage. That would be a rather barbaric violation of the cease-fire.”
Two Israeli soldiers were killed and another soldier, identified as 23-year-old Second Lieutenant Hadar Goldin, was allegedly abducted after Hamas militants emerged from a tunnel in Gaza on Friday. Israel then launched fresh attacks on Gaza, killing at least 47 people.
Goldin died in combat, Israel’s military has said.
“A special committee led by the Israel Defence Forces Chief Rabbi, announced the death of the IDF infantry officer of the Givati Brigade, Lieutenant Hadar Goldin, who was killed in battle in the Gaza Strip on Friday, August 1, 2014,” the Israeli army said in a statement.
A three-day ceasefire, which was announced by the U.S. and the UN and began late Thursday, wasn’t honored, and both sides blamed each other for it.
The Palestinian death toll stands at more than 1,660 and about 440,000 people in Gaza have been displaced, according to Sky News. Israel says 63 soldiers and three civilians have been killed in the fighting.
The White House says Hamas must be brought to the terms of a truce.
“We would encourage the international community to respond to this and condemn it in the strongest possible terms, and we would encourage those who have influence with Hamas to get them back on to the terms of a cease-fire and to get them to abide by the agreements that they struck,” Earnest said.
The U.S. Senate as well as the House approved a $225-million support for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system on Friday.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has traveled to Egypt and France to help forge an agreement between Israel and Palestinian militants to end the fighting, which began on July 8 after Israel started its attack in Gaza in response to an increase in cross-border rocket strikes by Hamas militants.
Blinken brushed aside criticism that the United States has caused confusion by involving Egypt, Turkey and Qatar.
“The reason for going through Turkey, going through Qatar, is they have a relationship with Hamas. They need to use their influence with Hamas,” he said. “The Egyptians had an initiative. The Israelis signed up to it repeatedly and that was a good basis for trying to move forward.”
Israel has said it is targeting terror tunnels and other targets that pose a direct threat to its people. It has also blamed Hamas for the civilian casualties, saying that the militants are using people as human shields.
The Arabic “nun” symbol, or N, which stands for Nazarene and refers to Christians, ominously began appearing, stamped in red, on Christian homes in Mosul, Iraq, two weeks ago…report by CP
By mid-July, it was accompanied by another statement, painted in black, “Property of the Islamic State.” And with that, the Christians found their worst fears confirmed.
On July 19, ISIS, the Sunni Muslim insurgent group declaring itself the Islamic State, carried out unabated and unabashed religious cleansing against Christians and the non-Sunni Muslim communities. Today, in this place of Nineveh of the Bible, the ancient heart of Iraqi Christianity, there’s not a single Christian left. All have been stripped of their possessions and deported.
In recent years, Iraq’s Christians have experienced relentless persecution by various extremist groups, and, along with a civil conflict in which the Christians remain neutral, it has taken a hard toll on their numbers. In 2003, Iraq’s Christians, at 1.4 million, were among the region’s most robust Christian communities. Since then, more than a million of them have fled. Their banishment from Mosul is irreversible.
Whether these newly displaced people, among the last Christians to speak Aramaic, Jesus’ own language, will be able to remain in the region at all is likely to depend on America’s response.
Remarkably, after their mass deportation, the Iraqi government did nothing to help Mosul’s Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants, even while the Iraqi Army failed to protect them, allowing ISIS to handily capture Iraq’s second largest city on June 10. Baghdad, however, did manage to send planes and bus convoys to evacuate the Shiites among the exiled minorities. Iraq’s government facilitated the resettlement of Mosul’s Turkmen and Shabak Shiite communities in Najaf and elsewhere in the south, reported Archdeacon Emanuel Youkhana with the Christian Aid Program. (ISIS did not target Turkmen and Shabak Sunnis.)
Left to fend for themselves were the Christians and a few remaining Yezidis (a dozen Yezidis recently in their home province of Sinjar had their eyes gouged out and were then killed by ISIS for refusing to convert to Islam).
ISIS has set out to erase every Christian trace.
Following these events, Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Sako registered the “shock and pain” of all Iraq’s church leaders, emphasizing their sense of raw “injustice.”
“How much the Christians have shared here in our East specifically from the beginnings of Islam. They shared every sweet and bitter circumstance of life … .Together they built a civilization, cities and a heritage. It is truly unjust now to treat Christians by rejecting them and throwing them away, considering them as nothing,” the patriarch effectively eulogized.
The eradication of the 2,000-year-old Christian presence from Mosul is indeed shocking. The recent release of several kidnapped Orthodox nuns and orphans had given some hope that, influenced by local Sunnis, ISIS would eschew the barbarism that is its stock and trade in Syria.
One Mosul Muslim, law professor Mahmoud al Asali, did speak up for moderation, but was then murdered. A Baghdad gathering of Muslims wearing “I am a Christian” signs in solidarity was ignored. No such mercy was to be had.
Unless they converted to Islam or paid protection money, the Christians were told, they would get “nothing but the sword.” It was now clear, the 30,000 to 50,000 Christians who fled Mosul over the last decade wouldn’t be able to return, and the several hundred still remaining there this month needed to get out fast. (Iraqi Christian parliamentarian Younadam Kannan said at least five Christian families too sick to leave renounced their faith for Islam “to stay alive,” though one of their daughters did flee.)
Before casting out the Christians, Shiites and Yezidis, Caliph Ibrahim, as ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi now is called, made certain to take all the possessions of the “unbelievers.”
Cars, cellphones, money, wedding rings, even one man’s chicken sandwich, were all solemnly declared “property of the Islamic State” and confiscated. A woman who gave over tens of thousands of dollars was also stripped of bus fare to Erbil.
With temperatures in the area reaching 120 degrees, the last of the exiles left on foot, carrying only the small children and pushing the grandparents in wheelchairs. Those who glanced back could see armed groups looting their homes and loading the booty onto trucks.
ISIS has set out to erase every Christian trace. All 30 churches were seized and their crosses stripped away. Some have been permanently turned into mosques. One is the Mar (Saint) Ephraim Syriac Orthodox Cathedral, newly outfitted with loudspeakers that now call Muslims to prayer. The 4th century Mar Behnam, a Syriac Catholic monastery outside Mosul, was captured and its monks expelled, leaving behind a library of early Christian manuscripts and wall inscriptions by 13th-century Mongol pilgrims.
Christian and Shiite gravesites, deemed idolatrous by ISIS, are being deliberately blown up and destroyed, including on July 24, the tomb of the 8th-century B.C. Old Testament Prophet Jonah, and the Muslim shrine that enclosed it.
Before fleeing, the Vatican reports, the Orthodox Christian community did successfully spirit away the relics of Thomas the Apostle who, it is said, introduced Christianity to Nineveh.
The last of Mosul’s Christians, those some 5,000 professors, doctors, lawyers, mechanics and their families that left between June 10 and July 19, find themselves suddenly destitute and homeless because of their faith. Some went to the nearest Nineveh Christian villages, temporarily sheltering in schools and churches. These villages would be vulnerable to ISIS attacks, too, but for their protection by the Kurds, who are, themselves, Sunni Muslim. Water and electricity have been cut off for some by ISIS, who told one Christian town official, “You don’t deserve to drink water,” reported Archdeacon Youkhana. The residents are desperately digging wells.
Many more have fled to Kurdistan, where there are ancestral Christian villages and big cities.
On July 19, the Kurdish Regional Government issued a statement welcoming the Christian exiles. It pledged the KRG to continue its “efforts and abilities to help those displaced” and called on the Kurdish people “to give all they can to aid the displaced Christian families.” It notes the Iraqi government “did not assume its responsibilities toward the displaced persons living in Kurdistan.”
ISIS control over Iraq’s territory presents an enormous threat to the region.
The religious cleansing of Mosul’s minorities is only part of the problem, but it is a grave crime against humanity, as well as a humanitarian catastrophe, that should no longer go overlooked in U.S. policy.
Over 6,000 Assyrian Christians gathered in Belmore Park in Australia to raise awareness of the inhumane treatment Christians receive by the Islamic State (IS), formerly known as ISIS, in Syria and Iraq…report by breitbart
The terrorist group is raging a war against Christians and Muslims in order to establish a worldwide caliphate ruled under extreme Sharia law.
The community leaders explained to the crowd exactly what their fellow Christians endure at the hands of the terrorists. IS told Christians in Mosul to convert to Islam, pay a protection tax, or die. The group marked Christian homes with the letter N for Nazarene. IS destroyed shrines held dear by Muslims and Christians. Mosul housed one of the largest Christian communities in the world, where they lived peacefully with Muslims. For the first time in over 2,000 years, there are no Christians in the city.
IS tortured or murdered people in front of their families. For example, one man was forced to witness the brutal rape of his wife and daughter because he could not pay the protection tax. The man committed suicide. IS robbed those on the way out of Iraq, including jewelry a woman wore.
The people waved “stop genocide against our Christians” and “Stop crimes against humanity” signs. Others wore #WeAreN shirts. All of them begged the international community to help the Christians. The United Nations is just now considering adding IS to their Syrian war crimes list. Kirsten Powers wrote in USA Today the Christians are asking the world for help, but no one is answering them. Catholic and Christian websites remind people what happened in 1939 to 1945. From Catholic.org:
Decades ago, the world watched as the Jews, and many others, including a large number of Catholics, were rounded up, persecuted by Nazis. Nobody outside of the European continent believed these people were being systematically killed on an industrial scale.
The world once solemnly promised to never allow another holocaust to happen again. Yet, we have witnessed episodes of ethnic cleansing and genocide repeatedly throughout history. Time and again, the world has stood silent as whole populations and tribes were exterminated, relocated, and forced into destitution.
Today, nobody is running toward the Christians to help them. These people are on their own and they have nothing. Over 400 families have checked into refugee camps in Kurdish controlled districts in northern Iraq. Hundreds more wander in the desert and the diaspora continues.
Andrew White, a vicar in Iraq’s only Anglican church, said the end of Christianity in Iraq is “very near.” He also claimed that while the world concentrated on Israel and Gaza, IS will take advantage of the silence and “kill at will.”
(Israel)—The New York Times reports that Israel has the unspoken support of Arab states led by Egypt in its war against Hamas, indicating Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have joined Cairo in backing Israel’s anti-terrorist campaign…report by Breaking Christian News
(Photo: Egypt’s President el-Sisi/via Wikipedia)
As reported in Newsmax, the Times pointed to Egypt’s “Arab Spring” as the impetus that began threatening conservative Arab leaders in the Mideast.
Martin Kramer, president of Shalem College in Jerusalem and an expert on the subject, was quoted by the Times as saying the Cairo-led Arab coalition doesn’t want to see Hamas emerge from the conflict as “the most powerful Palestinian player.”
“There is clearly a convergence of interests of these various regimes with Israel,” noted Kramer.
Another Mideast expert, David Miller, agrees. “The Arab states’ loathing and fear of political Islam is so strong that it outweighs their allergy to Benjamin Netanyahu,” he said.
According to the Newsmax report, it is one of the reasons Secretary of State John Kerry has been forced to turn to Qatar and Turkey to seek intermediaries with Hamas, rather than Egypt.
Rescue workers in China are digging through rubble looking for survivors after a 6.1 earthquake killed nearly 400 people Sunday…report by CBN News
According to the country’s official news agency, Xinhua News, the quake brought down about 12,000 homes and injured more than 1,800 people living in the impoverished Ludian County.
Rescuers were forced to travel on foot after the quake caused roads to cave in. Rain and thunderstorms were forecast for the area on Monday afternoon, further complicating efforts to deliver tents, water, food and other relief supplies to survivors.
Almost 30,000 people have been evacuated and the death toll is expected to rise.
Dr. Kent Brantly, who contracted the deadly Ebola virus in Liberia while working as a Samaritan’s Purse missionary, has arrived in Georgia and is being treated at a hospital, where his condition is said to be improving. His family says he is in good spirits and thankful for prayers…report by CP
“I was able to see Kent today. He is in good spirits,” the missionary doctor’s wife, Amber Brantly, said Sunday, the day after Kent arrived in a specially outfitted jet at the Emory University Hospital in Atlanta at about 12:30 p.m. Saturday.
“We praise God for the news that Kent’s condition is improving. We can confirm that Kent was able to receive a dose of the experimental serum prior to leaving Liberia,” international Christian relief organization Samaritan’s Purse added.
“Our family is rejoicing over Kent’s safe arrival, and we are confident that he is receiving the very best care. We are very grateful to the staff at Emory University Hospital, who have been so nice and welcoming to us,” Amber said in a statement.
Dr. Kent, who contracted the Ebola virus while treating patients in Liberia, thanked everyone for their prayers and asked for continued prayer for Nancy Writebol’s safe return and full recovery, she added.
Writebol, who works with the Christian aid group SIM, is due to arrive in Atlanta this week. She was part of the joint SIM/Samaritan’s Purse team treating Ebola patients at the Case Management Center in Monrovia.
“We thank God that they are alive and now have access to the best care in the world,” Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan’s Purse, said in a statement Sunday. “We are extremely thankful for the help we have received from the State Department, the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), the National Institute of Health, WHO and, of course, Emory Hospital.”
Brantly landed at Dobbins Air Reserve Base outside Atlanta at about 11:30 a.m.
He had initially turned down the offer of a dose of an experimental serum while still in Liberia Wednesday. “An experimental serum arrived in the country, but there was only enough for one person. Dr. Brantly asked that it be given to Nancy Writebol,” Graham said. Later, Brantly was able to receive a dose of the serum.
Brantly also received a unit of blood from a 14-year-old boy who had survived Ebola under his care. “The young boy and his family wanted to be able to help the doctor that saved his life,” Graham added.
Dr. Bruce Ribner, an infectious disease specialist at Emory’s isolation ward, was quoted as saying that all precautions are being taken to ensure there is no secondary infections from Ebola in the United States. “The bottom line is, we have an inordinate amount of safety associated with this patient,” Ribner said, of Brantly’s arrival.
Doctors at Emory say they are “cautiously optimistic” about the two Americans’ recovery.
At the Atlanta hospital’s isolation ward, patients can see visitors through a glass window and speak to them through an intercom.
“Emory University Hospital has a specially built isolation unit set up in collaboration with the CDC to treat patients who are exposed to certain serious infectious diseases,” the hospital’s officials earlier told ABC News. “It is physically separate from other patient areas and has unique equipment and infrastructure that provide an extraordinarily high level of clinical isolation. It is one of only four such facilities in the country.”
Over 700 people have died of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, as there is no cure or vaccine for the virus, which has a mortality rate of at least 60 percent.
The Ebola virus is expected to be on President Barack Obama’s agenda when he meets with 50 African leaders on Monday…report by CBN news
Topics at the unprecedented summit will also include regional security, building democracies, and business investment in Africa.
“The importance of this for America needs to be understood,” Obama said Friday. “Africa is growing, and you’ve got thriving markets and you’ve got entrepreneurs and extraordinary talent among the people there.”
“Africa also happens to be one of the continents where America is most popular, and people feel a real affinity for our way of life,” he added.
The summit is seen as an attempt to build up the president’s legacy on the African continent.
White House officials say they won’t be distracted by various crises shaking the globe, including the Middle East, Russia and Ukraine, and Iraq.
“It’s the nature of the world we live in today where there are multiple crises at any time,” said Witney Schneidman, the former deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs. “But that should not paralyze us from moving forward on key areas to advance our interests.”
TACOMA, Wash. – The Pierce County Council chambers will soon display the national motto “In God We Trust.”…report by breaking Christian News
The controversial resolution to make the Pierce County Council chambers the first public place in Washington to display “In God We Trust” was approved by the council Tuesday night.
Supported by Councilman Jim McCune, the resolution asks to place the “inspiring slogan” with words that are “a profound source of strength and guidance” prominently in the chambers.
“‘In God We Trust’ is universal,” McCune said after the 4-3 vote, “It’s a statement used all over the world. It’s not alienating anybody out.”
Tuesday’s council meeting featured a lively debate over the place of the motto in a government setting, given it’s reference to God.
Council members Connie Ladenburg and Rick Talbert introduced several late amendments they admitted were designed to showcase the “absurdity” of the discussion. They failed.
One late change that would include “E Pluribus Unum” (out of many, one) in the display was approved.
But Talbert took McCune to task for proposing this resolution in the first place.
“I believe this is a calculated effort on (McCune’s) part to impose his religious beliefs on the people on Pierce County,” said Talbert.
“It’s not going to be religious at all,” responded McCune after the hearing, “I think it was a good debate.”
When installed, Pierce County will become the first municipality in Washington to display the national motto.
EAST ASIA (BP) – Alexander and Maggie Kirkpatrick* moved to East Asia in 1989 — the same year as the Tiananmen Square massacre. Their wedding anniversary shares the same date…report by Baptist Press
During their 25 years of service, the Kirkpatricks watched China change and the church boom. The Christian workers say the number of believers in the country is “staggering.”
“The day where we arrive in a city and we go for months and months and never find a Christian are really gone,” Maggie said. “That is a major, major God-thing.
“[We] would pray that the Gospel would take root in the far reaches,” Maggie, recalling their first years on the field, said.
“We would be disappointed, if after 25 years, we couldn’t find any trace of the Gospel in any of the places we’ve been,” she said. “But God hasn’t disappointed. We can find the results of evangelism and discipleship, even in some of the most far-flung places.”
The Kirkpatricks moved to Asia to work in an unengaged and unreached city in western China. In the late 80s and early 90s, western China was the “wild west” — uncharted territory for many Westerners.
“Twenty five years ago, we came here to be the Christians in those cities and to be a presence of Christ in some of those unreached places,” Maggie said.
As the nation and church were still recovering from Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, “it was very difficult to even find anyone who believed,” she added.
“[Believers] were there; they were the remnants of the church prior to the Cultural Revolution. It took time and relationships to find some of those people.
“In the meantime, we set about breaking new ground and winning the lost,” Maggie recalled. “It is many of those people who believed in the early days who are now taking the Gospel forward in China.”
Stories and historical tapestries began to unfold as Christian workers in China led people to Christ.
“Interestingly, as we’ve won new people, we began to discover more and more about the church that was left here after the Communist takeover,” Maggie said. “A number of those networks from prior to 1950 are still alive and well and spreading the Gospel not just in China but all over the world.”
Believers from 20-30 years ago began new house church streams, sharing the Gospel domestically and internationally.
“It is all a God thing; it wasn’t our doing that caused a wave of change,” Alexander said. “We were just there on the front row, or second row, participating in the joy.”
The change of a nation
Politician and reformer Deng Xiao Ping’s economic reforms ushered in a new era for the nation, the couple noted. China’s economy went from being state-run, to foreign companies being encouraged to joint venture with Chinese companies.
“The younger generation is quickly forgetting what their grandparents’ generation went through during the Cultural Revolution,” Maggie said. “That era in China, to them, is long ago and far away. Their China is connected to the world.”
The Kirkpatricks at first had to travel in and out of China from neighboring countries. “It’s gone from us not even knowing if we could live in country for long periods, to being here long-term,” she said, recalling they even had to use special currency.
The city where they first served is now a major hub for expatriates. Western amenities are abundant such as Starbucks, Dolce and Gabbana, Mexican food and Walmart.
The couple remembers when Chinese people lived in work units called a “danwei.” People of the same profession would live in the same building.
Under the old socialist system, food, housing and health care were all provided. Now, people are free to live wherever they choose and provide for themselves.
The Kirkpatricks remember big Russian trucks and no private cars. Bicycles were the main form of transportation in the late 80s and early 90s.
Now, Lamborghinis, Maseratis and Ferraris tear through the empty night streets, revving their high-dollar engines. “China has so many millionaires — that was unheard of back then,” Maggie said.
However, a recent World Bank listed China among the five nations housing the world’s poorest people.
Freedom of travel has also been a major change. The couple recalled when only the Communist Party could get a passport and visa.
“From Paris, to Munich to Rio de Janeiro, to Mogadishu; pick a city, [Chinese people] are there,” Maggie pointed out.
If there is a sizable population of Chinese people in a city, virtually in every nation in the world, the Gospel is as well, she added.
“If they take the Good News with them,” Alexander said, “it will be a way to get the Good News out faster.”
As the Chinese moved into various cities to find work, cities became a prime place for seeing the Gospel spread.
“[Apostle] Paul was relating to people in the cities,” he said. “Cities are still strategic because of … migrants coming to the city to find work.”
Migrant workers move frequently. And many of them who are new believers often return to their hometowns and begin spreading the Good News. “[The Gospel] travels back with them to their homes and families,” Alexander said.
Alexander said he’s partnering with a seminary in the U.S. to provide theological education for believers.
The role of the Western Christian worker in China has changed, he added. Now, their role is “primarily to come alongside [local] workers, provide training, equipping, encouragement … and eventually finish the task, the Great Commission.”
Growth of a nation
Alexander said he sees parallels between the growth of his own son and daughter and the growth of the church in China.
“At first, you need a lot of information on what to do and how to do… As you grow in your walk, you need someone to come along and encourage and work alongside … not as much directive but more supportive,” Alexander said.
In addition to training, Alexander counsels pastors and leaders on small group dynamics, investing time into building up the church and helping believers learn how to cast vision. He challenges Chinese believers to take the Gospel to unreached areas.
Maggie said, “The local brothers and sisters are doing the work. Some of the things they need to accomplish what God is asking them to do are things we can provide.”
The Chinese church sends its own workers to countries Westerners cannot enter. Chinese believers also founded the Back to Jerusalem movement — a commitment to take the Gospel to unreached areas.
“In 25 years, we’ve gone from seeing people come to faith, to training them, to seeing them do it themselves,” Maggie said.
Even with the rapid changes and developments in China, the Kirkpatricks said there are many places in China that are the “old China.”
“There are places where the future and past coincide,” Alexander said.
The next 25 years are an open book for China, The Kirkpatricks say. They pray it will be 25 years saturated with the Bible.
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