Captain Icoze Mafella, a Christian airline pilot, told a Jakarta church that he was moved by the Holy Spirit to depart from the Palu airport early on September 28, the day Indonesia was struck by an earthquake and tsunami. 

Mafella recalled feeling uneasy that day, so he decided to sing worship songs in the cockpit to calm his nerves. He said, “Usually I only hummed, but that day I wanted to praise the Lord as best I could.”

He recalled that his Muslim co-pilot joked with him saying, “I think you should make a CD of worship songs.”

As the pilots began to descend their incoming flight from Ujung Pandang to Palu they noticed that the wind was abnormally strong. This was when Mafella said he “heard a voice in his heart” telling him to circle one more time before landing the plane.

Mafella recalled that he needed to be extra careful with the landing amid the heavy wind and he decided to recite Psalm 23 for encouragement. 

Mafella and his co-pilot safely landed the plane, but Mafella still felt uneasy. He said he felt God told him that he needed to be speedy while on the ground, even encouraging him to take off earlier than scheduled. The pilot asked the crew to make their break short before the plane took off for Jakarta. 

“I didn’t even leave the cockpit and requested permission from the control tower to depart three minutes ahead of…

A Presbyterian Church (USA) congregation based in Arkansas has clarified that a message they put on their marquee sign about a stolen air conditioning unit that went viral online was just a joke.

First Presbyterian Church of Benton recently posted a message on their sign that read “Whoever stole our AC units, keep one, because it is hot where you’re going.”

A local photographed the sign and posted it to Facebook on Tuesday, with the image getting more than 1,500 shares on the social media site by Thursday.

“Meanwhile in downtown Benton,” the local stated, with the photo also getting as of Thursday morning dozens of comments, over 130 likes, and more than 100 laughs.

The church has since distanced themselves from the sign’s message, taking down the text in response to criticism and explaining in…

A federal judge in Wisconsin has ruled that Wisconsin’s Group Insurance Board and the University of Wisconsin system must provide coverage for operations related to “sex change[s]” for state workers.

Judge William Conley wrote in the decision that refusing to cover hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery for transgender employees is unconstitutional and discrimination.

The ruling comes after two male University of Wisconsin employees decided to identify as female. One of the employees, Shannon Andrews, who works as a cancer research assistant paid for the 2015 operation out of pocket after the Wisconsin Physicians Service Insurance Corporation denied coverage. 

The second employee, Alina Boyden, a teaching assistant, could not afford surgery because of also being denied coverage.

They both filed a discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission claiming of violation of Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits sex discrimination in employment.

“As a result of [state policies], plaintiffs’ health insurance plans single out transgender employees for unequal treatment by categorically depriving them of all medical care for gender dysphoria, a serious medical condition codified in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and International Classification of Diseases,” the…

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Democrats cannot afford to be civil towards Republicans until they are back in power. The former Secretary of State made the comments in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.

Amanpour asked Clinton about the calls for civility to return to our political process. She responded that she would “love to see us return to civility,” but that it is not possible with “the Republican Party that exists today.”

Clinton listed a litany of offenses that she believes the GOP has committed which make civility difficult. She referred to their treatment of Merrick Garland, replying “I think they did” when asked if the GOP “stole a Supreme Court justice from the Democratic Party.” She claimed that “Republican operatives” shut down voting early in Florida in 2000, referred to the “swift-boating” of John Kerry in 2004, stated that the GOP mistreated John McCain in 2000, and referenced the way Republicans have treated her “for 25 years.”

Clinton told Amanpour that civility cannot return until the Democrats have more political power. She said, “You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for,” adding, “If we are fortunate enough to win back the house and/or the Senate, that’s when civility can start again.” She claimed this is true because “the only thing the…

During a one-day sweep by law enforcement agencies in Michigan, 123 missing children were recovered. 

The U.S. Marshals Service, Detroit Missing Child Recovery Unit (DMCRU), U.S. Marshals Service Sex Offender Investigation Branch, Michigan State Police, Detroit Police and Wayne County Police collaborated on September 26, to conduct a series of sweeps in order to locate as many of the 301 missing children in the area. The team was able to recover 123 children, leaving 178 children still missing. 

When officers recovered the children, they interviewed them, as protocol dictates, to further understand why they were taken and to try to isolate whether they were taken to be trafficked. 

According to the report that was released last week, police were able to identify three cases were children were possibly sex trafficked. 

Additionally, authorities were able to locate one homeless teen who appeared to not have eaten in three days. Police transported the teen back to the command post and then turned him over to Child Protective Services for aftercare. 

Police were also able to obtain new information about two children that went missing in Texas and Minnesota. The DMCRU has been asked to assist the Marshal Service and other authorities on the recoveries of these two children and is actively investigating their cases at this time. 

Authorities have confirmed that this coordinated sting is…