For US Christians, It’s Time to Help South Sudan

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For US Christians, It’s Time to Help South Sudan
  • Richard Stearns, President of World Vision US.
    (Photo: World Vision US via The Christian Post)
    Richard Stearns, President of World Vision US.

Christian Post Report – Today, South Sudan is celebrating its fourth Independence Day, but almost no one there is celebrating. Instead they are trying to avert a famine.

Last month I was at a nutrition center in the city of Kuajok in South Sudan where I measured the circumference of the upper arm of Riing Ayii, a 15-month-old boy, in order to determine his level of malnutrition. With skin hanging off his bones the little boy easily fit the U.N. definition of severely malnourished. Riing’s upper arm measured no more than the circle you could make with your thumb and index finger. I couldn’t help but think of my own healthy 15-month-old grandson toddling around the backyard at twice Riing’s size.

We shouldn’t need a fast and easy way to determine degrees of starvation, but in South Sudan—a country struggling with what the United Nations calls acute hunger—there are so many children in desperate need. Right now 3.5 million people in the country are in need of emergency food assistance. The only redeeming aspect of wrapping the measuring tape around a starving child is knowing that here in this camp, where the measurement takes place, he will finally receive some food.

American Christians are in part responsible for the creation of South Sudan. During the ’90s, advocacy on behalf of southern Sudan resulted in the 1998 passage of the International Religious Freedom Act and ultimately pushed George W. Bush’s administration to take an active role in the Sudan conflict. A peace deal was reached, and in 2011, a new country was born.

Yet today, we are failing our moral responsibility to sustain this infant country as it struggles to walk on its own. We have moved on to other concerns before the job was done here in South Sudan. Christians need to stay the course on this issue that once galvanized churches, because lives are at stake as South Sudan struggles toward real independence. 18 months ago, conflict broke out in the capital, and it hasn’t stopped. Nearly a fifth of the population, 2 million people, have been displaced, Roughly 13,000 children have been recruited into armed groups; a 40 percent increase since last year.

The conflict is now leading to food shortages. With so many people fleeing, bad harvests last year, and limited planting this year, people are running out of food. The World Food Program says that “unrelenting conflict and the onset of the lean season are intensifying alarming levels of hunger” across the country. As much as 40 percent of the country will face “acute hunger” requiring lifesaving food intervention. In June, World Vision staff were running out of essential packets of peanut paste. These packets are lifesaving to malnourished children. For now, these courageous staff are still saving lives but the future is uncertain.

Riing’s family returned to South Sudan in 2011 in hopes of the promise offered by the country’s referendum on independence.

“I am happy that I am now back to my country,” his mother said. But she continues, “I hardly get food for my six children.”

For now, Riing is recovering and gaining weight with his peanut paste. But this little child, nearly the same age as the fragile country he lives in, faces a hard future. Riing and the rest of South Sudan are in urgent need of aid.

Now more than ever, American Christians—who helped midwife this country’s birth—need to finish the job, nurturing South Sudan into a fully developed country. We owe it to the thousands of children like Riing to finish what was started.

Richard Stearns is president of World Vision U.S. and author of The Hole in Our Gospel and Unfinished.

See how you can advocate for the children of South Sudan.

Source : Christian Post

The Eighth Commandment

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The Eighth Commandment

Christian Post Report – “You shall not steal.”
— Exodus 20:15

  • Greg Laurie
    (Photo: rever Hoehne for Harvest Ministries)
    Greg Laurie, senior pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside, California and Harvest Orange County in Irvine, California, shares the Gospel with a sold-out crowd of 19,000 for Harvest America at the American Airlines Center and Victory Park in Dallas, Texas, Oct. 5, 2014.

There is so much stealing in our culture today that we have almost become accustomed to it. In fact, I read about a study that was done on stealing in which people were asked why they didn’t steal. The number one reason given by those polled was the fear of getting caught. The next most common reason was concern that the other person might try to get even. The third most-cited reason was that the item might not be needed. What apparently didn’t occur to anyone was the fact that stealing is a sin.

Here is what God says about stealing: “Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need” (Ephesians 4:28).

In the above verse we find three simple principles about how to live our lives as Christians.

First, if you have stolen, steal no longer. Don’t take something that doesn’t belong to you. Don’t illegally download stuff. Don’t take things that are not yours. If you have taken something, give it back or make restitution.

Second, be useful. Get out and work. Get a job. The apostle Paul said in 2 Thessalonians 3:10, “For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat.” The government doesn’t owe you anything. Don’t leech off people. Go out and be responsible and look for a job.

Third, be useful. Find work wherever you can find it. Do something. Make an effort. Sometimes people who are out of work will say, “I am praying the Lord will provide.” That’s good to pray. But have they submitted your resume anywhere? Have they applied for any jobs? Keep praying. But start looking too.

Copyright © 2015 by Harvest Ministries. All rights reserved.

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Bible text from the New King James Version is not to be reproduced in copies or otherwise by any means except as permitted in writing by Thomas Nelson, Inc., Attn: Bible Rights and Permissions, P.O. Box 141000, Nashville, TN 37214-1000

Used with Permission

Source : Christian Post

Yazidi Women Describe Repeated Rapes, Beatings and Horrific Torment at the Hands of ISIS Fighters

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Yazidi Women Describe Repeated Rapes, Beatings and Horrific Torment at the Hands of ISIS Fighters

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  • Iraq(Photo: Reuters/Ako Rasheed)
Members of the minority Yazidi sect who were newly released hug each other on the outskirts of Kirkuk, April 8, 20Christian Post Report – 15. More than 200 elderly and infirm Yazidis were freed on Wednesday by Islamic State militants who had been holding them captive since overrunning their villages in northwestern Iraq last summer.
  • Yazidi Sex Slave(Screengrab: New.com.au)
    • An escaped Yazidi sex slave tells of her experience in ISIS captivity.
  • A refugee woman from the minority Yazidi sect(Photo: Reuters/Rodi Said)
    • A refugee woman from the minority Yazidi sect, who fled the violence in the Iraqi town of Sinjar, sits with a child inside a tent at Nowruz refugee camp in Qamishli, northeastern Syria Aug. Christian Post Report – 17, 20Christian Post Report – 14. Proclaiming a caliphate straddling parts of Iraq and Syria, Islamic State militants have swept across northern Iraq, pushing back Kurdish regional forces and driving tens of thousands of Christians and members of the Yazidi religious minority from their homes.

    Two young Yazidi women have described the unimaginable cruelty and horrific rapes they endured while under the control of their ISIS captors, one of whom reportedly beat a woman’s Christian Post Report – 1-year-old child in front of her until all of his sexual demands were met.

    Reehan, Christian Post Report – 19, and Barfo, 25, last names not included to protect their identities, told their stories to the British MailOnline.  Raheen, married with a young son, was abducted from her home in Northwestern Iraq. She was auctioned off to a 50-year-old fighter whom she was able to fend off at first until the man started beating her Christian Post Report – 1-year-old son. She then said she was forced to give in to all of his demands to save the life of her son.

    “I agreed to everything that this man wanted for the sake of my son,” she declared. Reehan was subsequently locked up in the man’s home for the next Christian Post Report – 10 months. She further explained that she tried to stop the repeated rapes by appealing to her captor’s Islamic beliefs, but he said the sex trade among Yazidi women is permitted “according to Islam.”

    Reehan was sold into sexual slavery multiple times, all while being raped and beaten, but refused to commit suicide in fear of what might happen to her young son. She said she had to risk her life to flee her final captive once she saw a mother and daughter being raped together. She fled to another house in Syria, sought help, and a $Christian Post Report – 15,000 ransom was paid by her mother with the help of charities that raised some of the funds demanded by the Syrian man who offered to help her escape for a fee.

    The Christian Post previously reported on the torture of Yazidi girls and women at the hands of ISIS militants who bragged about releasing those who were raped after they converted to Islam. Raheen says her husband, father, and two sisters are still being held captive by ISIS and she fears they might already be dead.

    “I want to leave Iraq. But I have nothing, no husband. I have no hope in [this country],” she said.

    Raheen now lives in the Khanke refugee camp in Iraq.

    Barfo, too, was raped and tortured. She was sold at a slave auction to a 35-year-old ISIS fighter who injected her with morphine while he repeatedly raped her. “I tried to fight him, but I could not because he was too strong [and] he tied me to the bed and he injected me with morphine to make me silent,” she said.

    Barfo tried to commit suicide with a gun but was stopped by her captor. She explained that she was beaten so severely that she could not walk for two months. She was subsequently sold to four different ISIS fighters who all raped her; then she was thrown into a pitch dark cell for Christian Post Report – 10 days and was only able to escape when a Syrian neighbor of an ISIS militant took pity on her.

    Reehan and Barfo do not know how much they were sold for, virgins and what ISIS deems to be “the prettiest of girls” fetch the highest prices at auction. Barfow said her mother and brother are now with her in a refugee camp but the rest of her family has been captured by ISIS.

    The torture and rapes are so cruel that there are frequent reports from Amnesty International of Yazidi women and girls committing suicide. Yazidis are a Kurdish monotheistic community who primarily come from Northern Iraq, and have long been a favorite target of persecution by Muslims in the region.

    ISIS (Photo: Reuters/Asmaa Waguih)

    Ilham, a Yazidi woman, folds the curtain of the tent where she lives in a refugee camp near Duhok, February 26, 20Christian Post Report – 15. Reuters photographer Asmaa Waguih: Ilham was kidnapped by Islamic State in August last year and was transported to Tal Afar along with other girls and women. She was raped several times by one of the militants. When Ilham tried to escape, some people she asked for help handed her back to the militants. She managed to get away a few weeks later. At refugee camps in northern Iraq I met and photographed Yazidi women who had survived being kidnapped by Islamic State. I needed government approval to visit some of the camps. The camp officials wanted to protect the women and were wary of the fact that I had a camera. It took a while for the women to get used to me. But when they did, they were happy to share their stories, to tell me what had happened to them. It is very difficult for women living in a quiet, conservative area to admit they have faced sexual violence. In some cases, I heard from camp officials that a woman had been raped, but when I met her she would speak of the brutality of the militants and then mention knowing that some women had even been raped. In general, escapees would try to find a time when the militants were busy working and then seek help. Sometimes people would agree to hide them and then find cars to take them to other areas. At other times they would return the women to Islamic State. Some had managed to escape in groups. Others had family members still being held by the insurgents. It’s a disastrous situation for these families’ and it’s not over yet.

    Source : Christian Post