Church Mourns Children Killed in House Fire

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Church Mourns Children Killed in House Fire

An Ohio community is grieving the loss of three children killed in a house fire last week.

Yesenia, 12, Siclali, and Alex Flores-Ortiz, 7, died when their Franklin St. home in Hamilton caught fire on Friday. Both parents and two other children survived.

The children’s father, Ismael Flores, suffered severe burns when he tried to save the children. He was hospitalized in critical condition, and remains in the University of Cincinnati Medical Center.

His brother, Raphael, said he is improving.

“He’s going to be OK,” Raphael told the Associated Press. “He’s got bad burns around his neck, but we think he’s going to be OK.”

Flores’ wife, Crystal, was treated and released along with the other children. Their Freedom Chapel church family is rallying around them.

“They stole our hearts,” Pastor Walt Philpot told the Journal-News. “We have loved those children, immensely we have loved those children.”

Pastor Philpot had especially fond memories of the youngest child who perished in the fire.

“Alex, nobody would understand him, they were just rowdy children,” the pastor explained. “But over the last six or seven months they have changed. But Alex changed the most, he went from being everything to the proper gentleman.”

Only the children came to church, but Freedom Chapel members said the services had an immense effect on them.

“I tell you what, the two that passed on, the girl and boy, we seen such great changes in their lives,” one woman insisted. “We know, we don’t have to prove God, all we have to do is see these little children and how they changed in their lives. All they wanted to do was the right thing.”

Flores’ family members from Mexico have traveled to Ohio to support the family, and the 50-member church intends to raise $5,000 to help with funeral expenses. Investigators have not yet determined the cause of the fire.

Source and Original Content by CT

Recent Al-Shabaab Attacks lead to Church Closing its Doors

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Recent Al-Shabaab Attacks lead to Church Closing its Doors

The St Andrew’s Anglican Church in Mandera, Nigeria has made the decision to close its doors following the death of 11 members who were killed in attacks against non-Muslims by al-Shabaab.

In a phone interview with Open Doors, Elijah Kinyua said nine of his church members died in the quarry massacre on December 2, while two were lost in the Makkah Travelers bus attack on November 23.

Gunmen belonging to al-Shabaab, the Somali extremist Islamist group, stole into a labourer’s camp at a Kormey stone quarry, 15 kilometers from Mandera, in the early hours of December 2, shooting 36 non-Muslim workers at point-blank. Witnesses said that at least two of the victims were beheaded.

Just a little over a week before the attack, the Islamist rebels hijacked a bus travelling to Nairobi. They left a total of 28 people killed, at least 19 of which were Christians. Most were teachers returning to the capital for the Christmas holidays.

According to the Guardian, Kenyan police said the al-Shabaab extremists singled out the 28 passengers who could not recite the Shahada, an Islamic creed declaring oneness with God. Those who failed to recite the creed were ordered to lie down in a line.

Douglas Ochwodho, the only survivor of those who were selected for execution, said two rebels then began shooting those on the ground. One gunman started from the right and one from the left. Ochwodho only survived apparently because each gunman thought the other had already shot him.

The al-Shabaab group said the killings were in retaliation for the raids carried out on four mosques in Kenya.

With the unrest and violence plaguing the neighbourhood, St Andrew’s future remains uncertain.

Kinyua reported, “We have closed the church. We (the church leadership) will decide later on whether or not to reopen. But for now things are not good on the ground.”

Source and Original Content by CT

Number of Attacks on Pakistan Christian Girls Increases

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Number of Attacks on Pakistan Christian Girls Increases

The assault on Christian girls in Pakistan continues, and the number of cases has risen to an alarming rate.

One of the most recent incidents targeting the country’s Christian minority is the alleged rape of two teenage girls at gunpoint in Pakistan’s Punjab province.

Release International reports that the girls, aged 14 and 16, were attacked on their way to the toilet in a village in Jaranwala district on November 28.

According to the Deccan Herald, the victims’ father filed a complaint with the local police when his daughters did not return.

The girls were found unconscious on a road several kilometers from the village. They were rushed to the district headquarters hospital and declared out of danger.

Station house officer Lundianwala Muhammad Nasir said that a First Information Report (FIR) has been filed against the suspects and that Muhammad Shabaz, one of the four suspects, has been arrested.

The girls’ family said however that they have been threatened not to press charges and that the police have impeded efforts to gather medical evidence.

There have been similar stories in the press in recent months. Shoebat.com published a story of one attack on a 16-year-old Christian girl, Saba Bibi, in which she was tied up and raped in turn by six Muslim men.

Agenzia Fides reported the rape of a 12-year-old Christian girl named Muqadas in August. Muqadas, who served as a maid for a Muslim family, was on her way home from work when she was “kidnapped by two Muslim men and three women. They took her inside a school (which was closed) and the two men, identified as Ashraf Alias Achi and Ghaffor Alias Paida, raped her repeatedly in turn. The girl was later abandoned.”

The victim’s family also received threats of violence when they filed a complaint.

According to the Assyrian International News Agency, the family’s lawyer Sardar Mushtaq Gill said, “In Pakistan, rape is used as an instrument of arbitrary power over Christian girls, who come from poor and marginalised families. It is a form of violence that wants to reiterate the submission to Muslims.”

Gill added, “The rest of society is not outraged because the victims mostly belong to religious minorities, who are the most vulnerable.”

Sadly, Christian girls face more than rape in Pakistan. According to South Asia Partnership Pakistan provincial coordinator Shahnaz Sheedi, the “statistics on constantly increasing forced marriages and conversions are quite worrying.”

Sheedi said that in 2014 alone, 260 cases were reported from Punjab, 69 in Sindh, 39 in K-P, and six in Balochistan.

Release partners say Christians who are forcibly converted to Islam are at “high risk” of extremist attack if they are seen not to adhere to Islamic codes.

Source and Original Content by CT

Church Installs Phone Jamming Device for Services

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Church Installs Phone Jamming Device for Services

A device to stop mobile phones receiving a signal has been installed at a church by a priest furious at constant interruptions to his services.

Mass at Santa Maria di Montesanto in Naples, Italy, was constantly blighted by mobile phones ringing and beeping according to the parish priest.

Father Michele Madonna’s requested permission from local police to fix the £40 device on the wall of the church.

According to the Daily Mail he said: “I had put signs up asking people to switch off their phones after having services disrupted.

“Phones were always going off during Mass and at other events like funerals which just wasn’t on.

“What really annoyed me is that when it first started people would switch off their phones in embarrassment now they are cupping their hands over the receiver and carrying on talking.

“I bought the jammer from a local electrical store and asked the police if it was OK and they said it was – it’s great as it has stopped the problem but some of the local shops aren’t happy.”

The priest is now facing criticism from local business owners who say it is causing them problems with credit card readers.

Source and Original Content by Premier Christian Radio

Christian Teen Commits Suicide Over Sexuality

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Christian Teen Commits Suicide Over Sexuality

An inquest has heard how a 14-year-old girl committed suicide, because she was afraid to tell her Christian parents she was gay.

Elisabeth Lowe, known as Lizzie, killed herself in the Didsbury area of Manchester in September.

Lizzie was not found to have alcohol or drugs in her system, and had no diagnosable mental illnesses.

One friend told the inquest she was “finding it hard to connect with God as she thought she was lying to him”.

Her father, Kevin Lowe, told the inquest: “She was just normal and seemed happy.

“There was nothing to suggest she was distressed or had any issues.

“It wouldn’t have come as much surprise. She was very much a tomboy.

“In fact, she was more of a boy than some of the boys were, so it would have been no surprise at all.

“We would have been very supportive.”

Mr Lowe and his wife Hilary said in a joint statement after the hearing: “Lizzie was a wonderful exuberant and loved member of her church, school and community.

“She was a gifted student, sportswoman and musician who was outgoing, fun-loving and enjoyed the love and respect of many friends.

“We are utterly devastated at losing her.

“Lizzie did not make known her struggle with depression and the challenges she tried to face alone as a young adult.

“We wish she had confided because she would have found a wealth of love and acceptance and support.

“The loss our precious daughter has left us heart broken-hearted.”

Senior coroner Nigel Meadows recorded a verdict that Lizzie had killed herself.

He said: “I have absolutely no doubt they [Lizzie’s parents] would have been supportive in their reaction.”

Source and Original Content by Premier Christian Radio

Facebook leaked to have Offered Over $3 Billion to Buy Snapchat

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Facebook leaked to have Offered Over $3 Billion to Buy Snapchat

The complete story behind the reported Facebook $3 billion offer rejection by Snapchat appears to have been let out of the bag, thanks to the Sony email hack.
If the leaked emails (via BusinessInsider) between Snapchat and Sony Entertainment are to be believed, it seems that the Facebook offer was a lot more than $3 billion.

According to BuisnessInsider report, “Malcolm Gladwell sent an email to Snapchat board member (and Sony Entertainment CEO) Michael Lynton asking if the company was crazy to turn down $3 billion.”

To which Lynton replied saying that, “if you [Gladwell] knew the real number you would book us all a suite at Bellvue.”

The report further noted, citing an email from Mitch Lasky (a Snapchat board member), that Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel would have received $1 billion if the Facebook deal had gone through.

“Evan proposed a new deal today to Tencent and DST that includes $40MM in secondary for him and Bobby. Never told me … in fact told me the exact opposite. When I confronted him about it, he said, ‘well I just turned down a billion from Zuck'” noted the report.

The Sony email hack also reveals that Snapchat is interested in launching a music label.

According to a leaked email (via BuisnessInsider) allegedly written by Sony’s President of Global Digital Business, Dennis Kooker to Michael Lynton, Spiegel met with Kooker, on June 5, where he had shown interest in launching a music label for Snapchat, which could also work well with existing features in the app.

“He thinks every music service in the market is shit and he wants to be a curator, […] He doesn’t want to build a music service but he would like to have a record label so he could focus on the artists that he wants to use the platform to promote. He also wants to participate in the upside that he will create by promoting them on the platform,” Kooker allegedly wrote in that mail.

Source and Original Content by Ndtv

Supreme Court Rejects Glasgow Midwives Case

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Supreme Court Rejects Glasgow Midwives Case

The Supreme Court has rejected the case of two midwives who refused to be involved with abortion procedures.

Last year, at the Court of Session, Concepta Wood and Mary Doogan won the right to refuse to assist with abortions on conscientious grounds at any point in the procedure.

But NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (GGC) appealed the case and the Supreme Court ruled this morning in favour of the trust.

Mary Doogan and Connie Wood, the midwives in the case, commented on the judgment: “We are both saddened and extremely disappointed with today’s verdict from the Supreme Court and can only imagine the subsequent detrimental consequences that will result from today’s decision on staff of conscience throughout the UK.

“Despite it having been recognised that the number of abortions on the labour ward at our hospital is in fact a tiny percentage of the workload, which in turn could allow the accommodation of conscientious objection with minimal effort, this judgment, with its constraints and narrow interpretation, has resulted in the provision of a conscience clause which now in practice is meaningless for senior midwives on a labour ward.”

The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) which paid the midwives’ legal expenses throughout the case has said that senior midwives who refuse to participate in abortions could be forced to leave the profession.

Paul Tully, general secretary of SPUC, said: “The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children acknowledges the great debt that the whole pro-life community owes to Mary Doogan and Connie Wood for fighting this battle over the past seven years. They have fought not only for their own careers, but for all current and future members of the profession who uphold the right to life of everyone, from the time of conception, without discrimination. We are bitterly disappointed for them.

“Today’s decision sadly makes it likely that senior midwives who refuse to kill babies will be forced to leave the profession. Junior midwives might still be able to work in labour wards where abortions are performed but they will be restricted to ‘staff midwife’ status at best. They could easily be placed in an impossible situation by pro-abortion superiors, and would be unable to receive promotion to a more senior role without fear of being required to violate their consciences. This will affect anyone who objects to abortion, of any religion or none. It will create a second-class status in midwifery for those who only deliver babies and don’t kill them.

“Furthermore, the court has used the opportunity of this case to decide that the conscience clause in the Abortion Act does not apply to general practitioners and that hospital doctors asked to prescribe abortion drugs will not be covered by the conscience clause. We anticipate that this will lead to renewed efforts by health officials to force doctors who have a conscientious objection to abortion either to compromise their respect for human life or to leave the profession. SPUC will support and encourage doctors to resist any such bullying approach.

“The pro-abortion lobby has long argued that conscientious objectors should be required to refer women seeking legal abortion to other practitioners. Bodies such as the Department of Health have qualified this by saying that this only applies when the statutory grounds for a legal abortion apply, but the Supreme Court has said that any medical professional who refuses to provide an abortion should arrange for a referral to someone else who will do so. This seems to go far beyond the scope of the Abortion Act, and furthermore is not even an issue there was any need for the Court to decide in this case.

“The Court has nevertheless said that midwives and doctors with conscientious objections are obliged to refer abortion patients to colleagues who don’t object to abortion. This goes further than the General Medical Council, for instance, whose current guidance Personal Belief and Medical Practice says that doctors should refer patients to another doctor, but does not require them to check their colleague’s pro-abortion credentials.”

Mrs Wood, from Clarkston in East Renfrewshire and Ms Doogan, from Garrowhill in Glasgow, were employed as labour ward co-ordinators at the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow.

Source and Original Content by Catholic Herald

Thousands Dance the Tango to Celebrate Pope Francis Birthday

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Thousands Dance the Tango to Celebrate Pope Francis Birthday

More than 2,000 people turned up in St Peter’s Square today to dance a tango for Pope Francis on his birthday.

The Pope, who is 78 today, was greeted with happy birthday songs as he drove through St Peter’s Square and stopped to blow out the candles on a birthday cake that Argentine priests presented to him.

At the rear edge of the square thousands of people celebrated the Pope’s birthday by dancing the tango, the Pontiff’s favourite dance.

A Vatican spokesman also told the Catholic News Service that volunteers will be giving out gifts to the homeless in Rome today in honour of the Pope’s birthday.

Source and Original Content by Catholic Herald

‘Jesus is all We Have Left’, Vicar of Baghdad

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‘Jesus is all We Have Left’, Vicar of Baghdad

All Christians in Iraq have left is the love of the ‘refugee child’ – Jesus, according to the Vicar of Baghdad.

In his Christmas message from Bethlehem, where he is based after being forced to leave Baghdad for his own safety, Canon Andrew White refers to the refugee camp in the north of Baghdad where members of his staff have “fed and clothed, provided mattresses and cradles for the thousands and thousands of internally displaced people” who have fled the ravages of Islamic State forces.

A ‘refugee tent for Jesus’ has also been put up as a symbol of the presence of Christ among those who are suffering.

White writes movingly: “I will never forget the day in Baghdad when we had some visitors. They had come to see what it was really like for Christians in Iraq. They were so surprised by how happy the thousands of people were in our congregation. ‘How can you be so happy when you are surrounded by suicide bombs, mortar rockets and such violence?’ One of our young people answered the statement. ‘You see when you have lost everything, Jesus is all you have got left.’

“All you have got left is the love of that refugee child. That to us in the Middle East is all that matters this Christmas.”

He concludes: “Christmas is a time when we should never lose the meaning of this Christ Child who came to us so that by simply trusting in him we will have a life filled with hope and purpose and love. He is still with us 2000 years after he first came. This Christmas let us not forget that he so loves us that we must love him and in response our life will be changed forever.”

Source and Original Content by CT

Rev Libby Lane; First Woman Bishop for Church of England

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Rev Libby Lane; First Woman Bishop for Church of England

A saxophone-playing Oxford graduate who lives a “Christ-centred life” has been appointed the first woman bishop in the Church of England.

Downing Street this morning announced that the new Bishop of Stockport will be Rev Libby Lane, currently vicar of St Peter’s, Hale, and St Elizabeth’s, Ashley in the Chester diocese. She will be consecrated at the end of January.

Because she will not be a diocesan bishop, she will not be among the women bishops that will be fast-tracked into the House of Lords. Bishop of Stockport is a suffragan or assistant bishop post in her current diocese. Southwell and Nottingham is understood to have women on its shortlist for a new diocesan bishop and Oxford is also likely to consider women when the appointments process begins next year.

Libby Lane, who is married to a male priest, George, making them one of the Church’s first clerical couples, was among the first women to be ordained as a priest, in 1994. Her pastoral life has been concentrated in the north, in the dioceses of Blackburn, York and Chester. The couple have two adult children.

Although not a “name” outside the Church, she is highly rated within it and came to the attention of senior bishops as one of eight clergy women elected as observers to the House of Bishops.

Speaking at Stockport town hall this morning, she said: “I am grateful for, though somewhat daunted by, the confidence placed in me by the Diocese of Chester. This is unexpected and very exciting. On this historic day as the Church of England announces the first woman nominated to be Bishop, I am very conscious of all those who have gone before me, women and men, who for decades have looked forward to this moment. But most of all I am thankful to God.

“The church faces wonderful opportunities, to proclaim afresh, in this generation, the Good News of Jesus and to build His Kingdom. The Church of England is called to serve all the people of this country, and being present in every community, we communicate our faith best when our lives build up the lives of others, especially the most vulnerable. I am excited by the possibilities and challenges ahead…Read More

Source and Original Content by CT

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