Until recently, protests in Lebanon caused a pause in mission work. While protests were mainly peaceful, local mission organizations saw many teams cancel their trips.

Pierre Houssney from Horizons International says several visiting mission teams were in Beirut when protests broke out last October. “A lot of them just got locked down in their hotels, or in their guest houses,” Houssney says.

“As soon as they got out of Lebanon, other teams started canceling.”

The outbreak of protests in mid-October painted an uneasy picture and set mission teams on-edge. The U.S. State Department raised Lebanon to Level 3 of 4 and issued an advisory urging citizens to reconsider travel due to increased risk.

“It’s difficult when people come from abroad and there’s that uncertainty… or they’ve got the family concerned back home. [If] they’re afraid, they’re just going to cancel,” Houssney observes.

“Usually the ones that are asking us [questions], they’re actually kind of… willing to step out.”

Trip cancellations in 2019 set Horizons’ guesthouse program back financially at the start of 2020. “We actually lost a lot of revenue, which has been difficult because that money is also needed to be supporting refugees, to be supporting the ministries,” Houssney explains.

SOURCE: Mission Network News, Katey Hearth

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Deaf Bible Society’s new online tool, Deaf Church Where, maps where people can find Deaf accessible churches. Ryan Sims, Deaf Church Where Project Coordinator with Deaf Bible Society, says Deaf Church Where is helpful for many reasons.

Besides the obvious benefit of connecting Deaf believers to the Body of Christ, it can also be an invaluable connecting resource to pastors of Deaf churches.

“You have to understand in the Deaf community, it’s very spread out so finding pastors can be very scarce.” Sims says. “I, being a pastor myself, can reach out to another church and I can talk about the frustrations that I have and some of the stress that I have and see if that person has any wisdom and advice that they can give me. We can come together and pray. Vice versa, they can share their frustrations and problems.”

Pastors of Deaf churches can feel alone in ministry, especially in rural areas where Deaf resources may be spread out and disconnected.

“Out of a big city, you’ll have a variety of [Deaf] churches, but just outside that, those pastors might feel isolated.” With the help of tools like Deaf Church Where, “They’ll be able to reach out for help [and] be able to build relationships and have accountability.

“If you’re looking in Acts 1:8, it talks about spreading out God’s Word in essentially the local area and then to the greater area and then to the world. So it’s the same concept with the big city and then the cities surrounding that large city of little towns and then the world. We don’t want to miss that in between.”

Sims says before the advent of Deaf Church Where, a major connection point for Deaf Christians were conferences. But conferences for the Deaf are few and far between, and when searching for a church, Deaf people can find themselves in embarrassing or uncomfortable situations.

SOURCE: Mission Network News, Lyndsey Koh

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Sarah Robinson, blogger at BeautifulBetween.com, says she experienced a very strong stigma surrounding mental illness in her church—in fact, people even called her “demon-possessed.” She didn’t feel like church was a safe place to open up about her feelings, and it wasn’t until later that the leaders gained more knowledge about mental illness and changed their approach.

“It would not be terribly uncommon to hear things from the pulpit like, ‘God is healing people with depression, and you won’t have to take your medication anymore,’” Robinson says. “And I had one leader who I dearly love once tell me … ‘If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all, even about yourself.’ We’re taught that as kids, which means don’t say mean things about your friends and your siblings. But in that context, the message I heard was, ‘You can’t open up about your pain, and the church is not a safe place to bring your mess.’ And so there were a lot of things like that. … I had people tell me that I was demon-possessed because of the things I struggled with, and all sorts of stuff. …

“But I’ve also learned that people change, people grow and people learn things they didn’t know before. And now some of those same leaders who said some of those things are the people who I can tell anything to. They’re completely trustworthy; they understand mental health issues because their lives went on, and they have some different experiences and they were exposed to some more training. And so it’s been a really healing thing for me to kind of circle back around with some of those people who maybe early on in my faith journey said some things that were harmful, but now are some of my greatest cheerleaders and support. …

“I think for those of us who have been hurt by the church, I just want to say there’s so much hope, and things are getting better. And sometimes you have to keep trying to find the support you need.”

SOURCE: Charisma News

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Despite decades of efforts to educate and warn, and despite the constant refrain of “Never forget,” much of Europe no longer remembers the Holocaust. Worse still, in some parts of Europe, it is dangerous for Jews to live as Jews.

A headline today (Jan. 27) on Fox News reads, “Holocaust survivors mark Auschwitz liberation’s 75th anniversary as their stories grow in relevance.”

The article cites these sobering words from Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress: “Shame on us,” he said. “These survivors rebuilt lives. These survivors came out … and they never believed that their children and grandchildren would suffer from anti-Semitism the way they did.”

Sadly, “We have allowed the world again to have anti-Semitism.” Then, with reference to Elie Wiesel, “He told me ‘the opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.’ What we have today in the world is indifference.”

Last week, it was reported that, “A new survey claims the Holocaust is receding in collective memory, as few Americans know the death toll of Jews.”

According to the Pew Research Center report, “What Americans Know About the Holocaust,” only “45 percent of almost 11,000 Americans surveyed didn’t know the Nazis killed 6 million Jews during World War II.”

But it gets worse.

A 2019 survey indicated that, “Most Austrian adults do not know 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust.”

SOURCE: Charisma News

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Queen Latifah, Mary J. Blige, and Missy Elliott have teamed up to executive produce Lifetime’s TV movie “The Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel,” based on the lives of the legendary singing siblings.

The movie will be broadcast April 11 on Lifetime.

At a news conference for the film, Blige, an award-winning singer, spoke of the impact the sisters (Jacky Cullum Chisholm, Denise “Niecy” Clark Bradford, Elbernita “Twinkie” Clark, Dorinda Clark-Cole, and Karen Clark Sheard) had on her life.

“I’ve learned so much from them. They just have the anointing,” Blige gushed.

“Seeing their story was like seeing what do our angels go through? They’ve been my Earth angels. So we all want to see what their life was like. What did they sacrifice? What did they give up to save our lives? That’s why we’re telling the story,” she said.

According to the synopsis, the film tells the “musical tale of the incomparable gospel singers, The Clark Sisters. ‘The Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel’ recounts the story of the highest selling female gospel group in history and of their trailblazing mother, Mattie Moss Clark (Aunjanue Ellis).

SOURCE: Christian Post, Jeannie Law

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The owner of a Chick-fil-A restaurant in Georgia that became the target of a protest this week after a breast-feeding mother complained about being asked to cover up while she dined there Monday has formally apologized.

Anger over the incident at the Mullins Crossing Chick-fil-A in Evans erupted after Samantha McIntosh posted her experience on Facebook stemming from her decision to breast-feed her 7-month-old daughter in the restaurant’s dining area. McIntosh insists she was appropriately covered for the feeding but complaints from some customers triggered a warning from the restaurants manager which subsequently led to her leaving in a huff.

“I’ve never made a huge deal about it but I feel as though I have a right to feed my baby however I want just as ANY OTHER MOTHER has that right (as long as it’s not harmful in any way *duh*)! So imagine my shock and surprise when I am sitting at Chick-fil-a yesterday with my 9 year old niece and my daughter (breast-feeding) and the manager walks up out of nowhere and tries to hand me her jacket saying someone has complained and would prefer if I cover up because of the other children in the restaurant,” McIntosh wrote.

“…please keep in mind that I am wearing a nursing tank top under a large long sleeve shirt. My shirt was pulled up and resting on my daughter’s cheek and my tank top was pulled down just enough for my daughter to latch so I happen to know that absolutely no skin was showing and we sat in a booth in the back of the restaurant,” she explained.

McIntosh said she stopped breast-feeding after the request was made by the manager but got angry when her young niece began asking questions such as why would a baby eating offend someone to the point where they would get a manager involved.

SOURCE: Christian Post, Leonardo Blair

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