Hundreds of millions of people around the world can’t take the most basic precaution against the coronavirus or other diseases — because they don’t have clean water or soap to wash their hands, mission agency warned Gospel for Asia (GFA, www.gfa.org).

According to a GFA press release, experts say one of the most effective ways to halt the deadly virus — which has killed almost 8,000 people worldwide so far — is to wash hands regularly with soap for at least 20 seconds.

“Many people are terrified and living in fear right now,” said GFA founder Dr. K.P. Yohannan, ahead of World Water Day, March 22, an annual awareness event. “But with more than 2,000 people—mostly kids—who die every day from diarrhea alone, simply because they don’t have access to clean water to drink or wash their hands, that helps put things in perspective.

“For hundreds of millions of people, the coronavirus, though dangerous, is the least of their problems.”

The coronavirus — known as COVID-19 and declared a global pandemic — has spread to more than 160 countries and every U.S. state, with numbers climbing daily.

Stepping up its campaign to promote handwashing as the “frontline defense” against the coronavirus, the Global Handwashing Partnership, a coalition of health agencies, said handwashing with soap could reduce acute respiratory infections like the coronavirus by nearly 25 percent.

“Handwashing with soap is easy and saves lives,” the coalition said.

But for more than half the world’s population, “handwashing with soap and clean water is not easy at all,” said Yohannan. “It’s a problem we as a ministry have been actively helping to combat for years.”

According to the United Nations, 4.2 billion people around the world lack basic sanitation, including handwashing facilities that many in developed nations take for granted.

SOURCE: Assist News, Peter Wooding

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The war against the COVID-19 pandemic is being fought on two major fronts. Both are presenting major challenges to the United States.
    
The number of confirmed cases continues to rise as the stock market keeps falling as the outbreak is still punishing markets around the world.

Investors signaled optimism before the opening bell Monday morning. But despite the Fed’s best efforts it was downhill shortly after trading began.  

At the closing bell the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 746 points, or 3.9% to 18,427. The Nasdaq was down 1.3% after earlier being up 1.5%. 

Stocks continued to fall Monday despite the Federal Reserve announcing it would buy bonds and mortgage-backed securities “in the amounts needed” to keep markets working smoothly.  The central bank said its next move will likely be to establish a lending program for small and medium sized businesses.  

“And you will see our economy skyrocket. Once this is over, iI think it’s going to skyrocket,” President Trump said. 

Meanwhile, the commander in chief ordered the National Guard to the hardest hit states of New York, California and Washington.  The administration promised that increased testing and equipment is on the way and urging health officials to be smart about how it’s used.

“We want people that have been checked into a hospital that are being treated for what they suspect to be coronavirus, to receive those tests more quickly,” said Vice President Mike Pence. 

There’s was one bright spot. In Wuhan, China, the original epicenter of the outbreak, is beginning to see some return to normalcy. After two months of extreme efforts to defeat COVID-19, no new cases have been reported there.

In contrast the streets of locked-down Italy are virtually empty while hospitals are vastly overcrowded. The country now has more confirmed cases than China with Spain gaining daily. The United Kingdom is also now considering increased mitigation measures.

“Anyone. If anyone is thinking (of) taking any chances, just take a look at me. iIm in the intensive care unit,” said Tara Jane Langston, COVID-19 patient.  “I can’t breathe without this.”

The US Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams warns America should take heed and practice social distancing and other precautions as this week could be a difficult one.

“Our numbers are where Italy’s were two to three weeks ago. So we really have a choice to make right now as a nation, do we want to go the way of Italy and see our numbers increase rapidly or do we want to go the way of South Korea and China who aggressively leaned in the mitigation measures?,” Dr. Adams asked. 

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) is calling on hospitals in his state to increase capacity and is calling on the federal government for even more help.  Right now, New York has the highest number of confirmed cases in the country by far.

And also on Monday, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam ordered all public schools to remain closed for the rest of the school year. 

FOR CBN NEWS CONTINUING COVERAGE ON COVID-19, CLICK HERE. 

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Dan Wooding, the former British tabloid writer who became a groundbreaking missionary journalist and advocate for the suffering church, has passed to his reward on March 18^th. He was 79.

The founder of ASSIST News Service graduated to Heaven following a two-year battle with cancer. A back injury in the last several months left him bedridden and in a state of decline that hastened his homecoming with the Lord.

Once a correspondent for the National Enquirer and a staffer on two of Britain’s sensational tabloids, a powerful encounter with God caused him to devote his writing skills to reporting about the plight of persecuted Christians in restricted countries.

Dan gave me a start as a Christian journalist in 1999 and I will always be grateful for his encouragements. We also recorded a radio program together for many years, “Window on the World,” broadcast over Calvary Chapel’s radio network and through Dan’s personal network of broadcasters in countries around the world.

We met for the first time at his modest office in Garden Grove, California, which he shared with his devoted and saintly wife, Norma, who handled their books. I could immediately tell there was nothing improper going on financially with their ministry because of their humble lifestyles. Dan probably found the least expensive office in the county and Norma counted every penny to make sure it was handled properly.

I also visited their home in Lake Forest, a doublewide trailer that was furnished unassumingly — with Norma’s delicate and refined touch.

Born to missionary parents in Plateau State, Nigeria, in 1940, Dan liked to joke that he was African-American. His bubbly personality and ever-present, infectious humor was endearing to so many who were privileged to call him a friend. Also a gifted raconteur, he could regale his listeners with stories behind the headlines, which often could not be shared publicly.

His parents, Alfred and Anne, met at the Sudan Interior Mission (SIM) language school, fell in love, and were married at the SIM church in the walled city of Kano.

They began to serve as missionaries in a small mud-hut village called Izom.

SOURCE: Assist News, Mark Ellis

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The Rev. Merle Dry, a beloved grounds manager at Oral Roberts University and Pentecostal minister, became the first casualty of the deadly coronavirus in Oklahoma last Wednesday. He was 55.

Dry’s death was announced Wednesday night by Metro Pentecostal Church, led by Don Martin, in Tulsa where he served.

“It is with great sadness that I have to announce our dear Bro Merle Dry made his journey from earth to glory at 8:01pm. Sis Dry and family are under quarantine and cannot receive guests. Please text her instead of calling. Thanks to everyone for your prayers. We need the hand of God to guide us. He was so loved by the Metro Pentecostal Church. Details of his funeral will be forthcoming,” a statement on the church’s Facebook page said.

The statement also sought to clarify what it termed “misinformation” regarding Dry’s health explaining that as far as the church knew, Dry had no underlying illness prior to his death from the coronavirus.

“Merle Dry was in good health as far as we all knew. He was fighting a cold and then he contracted the coronavirus. He was diagnosed on Tuesday and passed away on Wednesday. He was unable to breathe,” the church continued, noting that the pastor was a member of the Cherokee Nation.

Because of his cold, Dry had not been attending church and leaders are “taking all precautions to allow the virus to die out in the area he would have been in,” the church added.

Dry was described as an “authentic” person who “loved people.”

SOURCE: Christian Post, Leonardo Blair

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Christian parents in China are paying close attention to a lawsuit filed by China’s communist government against a Christian mother who chose to homeschool her child instead of sending him to a public school.

The mother, identified as Fan Ruzhen, appeared in the Yintai District Court in Beihai on China’s southwest coast last week, according to the U.S.-based group China Aid.

After summoning her several times and threatening to revoke her government-provided subsistence paycheck to punish her for homeschooling or providing a Christian education to her child, the Chinese government filed a lawsuit against her last September.

In the first court session last December, Fan recited her rights and defended her competence to educate her child, the group said.

In a December hearing, the judge suggested the two parties reach a settlement, but the government wasn’t willing.

Her lawyer said the government violated the Compulsory Education Law of China by accusing her. And five teachers came out to support Christian education as a “solid alternative to public school,” but the government has refused to budge from its opposition.

Under Chinese law, all children must attend nine years of compulsory education from elementary school to the end of middle school. But homeschooling is now popularly seen as an alternative among parents opposed to the government curriculum or the country’s exam-oriented education system, according to the online magazine Sixth Tone.

SOURCE: Christian Post, Anugrah Kumar

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If you’ve been on social media lately and you run in any sort of Christian circles, you’ve likely come across these words that C.S. Lewis wrote in 1948:

“This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things — praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts — not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.”

First, let me say that I dare not speak a word against C.S. Lewis. It is impossible to imagine how much good he has done illuminating and clarifying Christian concepts to millions of people — myself included. And these words, like nearly everything he ever wrote, are stirring. They move us and call us to action.

But they have nothing to do with the coronavirus.

More than that, because of the differences between World War II England and coronavirus planet Earth, this quotation actually works against the incredibly important work of social distancing and self-quarantine. Let’s quickly consider three ways this message — as beautiful and motivating as it is! — misses the mark:

1. The absence of an enemy
Look at the final sentence of Lewis’s quote: “They may break our bodies… but they need not dominate our minds.” One reason it was important for his audience to go on living normal life is that it represented a triumph over an enemy. It amounted to a refusal to allow terrorists to rob them of their quality of life. But this weaponization of playfulness and normalcy has no place when we battle a contagious disease. This is a minor point, but it sets the stage for our most important observation next.

SOURCE: Christian Post, Jon Mathieu

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Talk about a perverse response. Talk about the exact opposite of what we need to be doing during a pandemic. Talk about feeding the flesh when we should be nurturing our spirits. Talk about giving ourselves to carnality when we should crying out for mercy.

As things stand today, normal life has been totally upended. Families are suffering. Companies are going out of business. Health care systems are being stretched beyond the limit. Italy cannot bury its dead. Yet it is a pornography website that comes to the rescue. I kid you not.

As the headline on PC Mag announced, “Pornhub Premium to the Rescue: France, Spain to Get Free Access, Too.”

Yes, “Italy won’t be the only country to get free access to Pornhub’s premium service in the wake of the coronavirus.

“The adult website is now expanding the same offer to users in France and Spain, which have also been experiencing a surge in coronavirus cases. Residents in both countries are now facing lockdowns, forcing them to stay at home.  In response, Pornhub will give the country’s users free access to the premium service for the next month.”

Thanks, but no thanks, Pornhub.

The last thing we need is more porn.

Of course, we can readily question the altruism of Pornhub. This is just another cynical attempt to get more people hooked on porn, leading to more subscriptions.

Yet even without this ploy, more people are accessing porn. As reported by Adweek on March 13, “Pornhub Reports an Increase in Traffic as More People Self-Quarantine. The adult site believes this spike is from users working from home.”

Such is the way of the human race.

SOURCE: Christian Post, Michael Brown

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