According to a senior commander for a US-backed force, clearing operations were under way to remove land mines left behind and search for the extremist group’s sleeper cells.
Brigadier General Talal Sillo said there are no longer clashes in the city, which had served as the extremist group’s headquarters and self-proclaimed capital of their so-called “caliphate” for more than three years.
However, Al-Hadaf, which is a charity that works with Iraqi refugees in Jordan, said IS survivors still need a lot of therapy and prayer.
Maran Maayah AbuJaber is the founder and CEO of the charity, which began when IS invaded Iraq in 2014.
She said three years on, children are still traumatised.
She told Premier: “The pain is still there, the loss is still there, and many families are still waiting for a second home.
“In Jordan they cannot work because they are asylum seekers. They are waiting to be relocated.”
The Al-Hadaf uses art therapy to help traumatised refugees begin to heal from their experiences.
The charity said when they first began working with some of the traumatised children, they would be given crayons and colours and they would only draw darkness with black and brown.
AbuJaber added: “I thought, ‘This is not like my kids – they love green and blue. There’s something wrong here.'”
On top of providing therapy and medical care, the charity is the first organisation in Jordan to begin registering Iraqi refugee children in schools. It also teaches English to Iraqi asylum seekers.
AbuJaber asked for continued prayers for those who wish to get back to how life was before the IS invasion.
She told Premier: “Pray that the peace of God that’s surpasses all understanding can cover the hearts of these families.
“That mum who’s taking care of the kid, who’s in a new country that has to smile all the time, that she will have the patience to wait for the new home she’s waiting for.
“Pray that the leaders will have wise decisions, and to think of the families who lost so much.
Listen to Maran Maayah AbuJaber speaking with Premier’s Tola Mbakwe here:
Throughout human history, those in the ruling class have found various ways to force those under them to work for their economic benefit. But in our day and age, we are willingly enslaving ourselves. The borrower is the servant of the lender, and there has never been more debt in our world than there is right now. According to the Institute of International Finance, global debt has hit the $217-trillion mark, although other estimates would put this number far higher. Of course everyone knows that our planet is drowning in debt, but most people never stop to consider who owns all of this debt. This unprecedented debt bubble represents that greatest transfer of wealth in human history, and those that are being enriched are the extremely wealthy elitists at the very, very top of the food chain.
Did you know that eight men now have as much wealth as the poorest 3.6 billion people living on the planet combined?
Every year, the gap between the planet’s ultra-wealthy and the poor just becomes greater and greater. This is something that I have written about frequently, and the “financialization” of the global economy is playing a major role in this trend.
The entire global financial system is based on debt, and this debt-based system endlessly funnels the wealth of the world to the very, very top of the pyramid.
It has been said that Albert Einstein once made the following statement:
“Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it … he who doesn’t … pays it.”
Whether he actually made that statement or not, the reality of the matter is that it is quite true. By getting all of the rest of us deep into debt, the elite can just sit back and slowly but surely become even wealthier over time. Meanwhile, as the rest of us work endless hours to “pay our bills”, the truth is that we are spending our best years working to enrich someone else.
Much has been written about the men and women that control the world. Whether you wish to call them “the elite”, “the establishment” or “the globalists”, the truth is that most of us understand who they are. And how they control all of us is not some sort of giant conspiracy. Ultimately, it is actually very simple. Money is a form of social control, and by getting the rest of us into as much debt as possible they are able to get all of us to work for their economic benefit.
It starts at a very early age. We greatly encourage our young people to go to college, and we tell them to not even worry about what it will cost. We assure them that there will be great jobs available for them once they finish school and that they will have no problem paying off the student loans that they will accumulate.
Well, over the past 10 years, student loan debt in the United States “has grown 250 percent” and is now sitting at an absolutely staggering grand total of $1.4 trillion. Millions of our young people are already entering the “real world” financially crippled, and many of them will literally spend decades paying off those debts.
But that is just the beginning.
In order to get around in our society, virtually all of us need at least one vehicle, and auto loans are very easy to get these days. I remember when auto loans were only made for four or five years at the most, but in 2017 it is quite common to find loans on new vehicles that stretch out for six or seven years.
The total amount of auto loan debt in the United States has now surpassed $1 trillion, and this very dangerous bubble just continues to grow.
If you want to own a home, that is going to mean even more debt. In the old days, mortgages were commonly 10 years in length, but now 30 years is the standard.
By the way, do you know where the term “mortgage” originally comes from?
If you go all the way back to the Latin, it actually means “death pledge.”
And now that most mortgages are for 30 years, many will continue making payments until they literally drop dead.
Sadly, most Americans don’t even realize how much they are enriching those that are holding their mortgages. For example, if you have a 30-year mortgage on a $300,000 home at 3.92 percent, you will end up making total payments of $510,640.
Credit card debt is even more insidious. Interest rates on credit card debt are often in the high double digits, and some consumers actually end up paying back several times as much as they originally borrowed.
According to the Federal Reserve, total credit card debt in the United States has also now surpassed the trillion-dollar mark, and we are about to enter the time of year when Americans use their credit cards the most frequently.
Overall, U.S. consumers are now nearly $13 trillion in debt.
As borrowers, we are servants of the lenders, and most of us don’t even consciously understand what has been done to us.
In Part I, I have focused on individual debt obligations, but tomorrow in Part II I am going to talk about how the elite use government debt to corporately enslave us. All over the planet, national governments are drowning in debt, and this didn’t happen by accident. The elite love to get governments into debt because it is a way to systematically transfer tremendous amounts of wealth from our pockets to their pockets. This year alone, the U.S. government will pay somewhere around a half-trillion dollars just in interest on the national debt. That represents a whole lot of tax dollars that we aren’t getting any benefit from, and those on the receiving end are just becoming wealthier and wealthier.
In Part II we will also talk about how our debt-based system is literally designed to create a government debt spiral. Once you understand this, the way that you view potential solutions completely changes. If we ever want to get government debt “under control,” we have got to do away with this current system that was intended to enslave us by those that created it.
We spend so much time on the symptoms, but if we ever want permanent solutions, we need to start addressing the root causes of our problems. Debt is a tool of enslavement, and the fact that humanity is now more than $200 trillion in debt should deeply alarm all of us.
Michael Snyderis a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.
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The terrorists drove into the city centre of el-Arish in the morning and split into two groups, throwing grenades and exchanging gunfire with guards at an unused Coptic church, to distract officials from their fellow members robbing a bank across the street.
Officials have reported that about $1 million was stolen.
The assault follows a wave of attacks in recent months on Egypt’s Christian minority – which account for ten per cent of the country’s population.
The Islamic State group attacked military checkpoints in a nearby town, killing nine soldiers on Sunday and Fr Samaan Shehata died in hospital on Friday after being attacked with a cleaver in a poor district of Cairo.
Speaking at the time, General Bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the UK Bishop Angaelos, told Premier that life has become so dangerous for priests in the country that some have told their family not to walk with them as they don’t want them to become targets as well.
He also expressed concern about how the attacks on Christians are being treated by officials and said: “As we’ve seen in Europe and around the world, there are initial attacks and then there are lots of copy-cats. When crimes go unchallenged, unprosecuted, people feel they can replicate them.
“My concern is that if this isn’t taken seriously- and the track-record regrettably is not very good of taking these attacks seriously in terms of investigations, prosecutions and convictions. If it’s not taken seriously, I’m concerned it will almost be a greenlight and a template to be now followed.
“We have thousands of priests in Egypt and they go about their business, they walk about in the street, they’re very imbedded in the community. They are very visible and this just means they are infinitely more vulnerable and easily targeted.”
He had been collecting humanitarian aid for his parish in Beni Suef on 12th October when a man started chasing him with a large knife.
His attacker, who fled the scene before being arrested later, was known to police as an “extremist” with a previous criminal record, according to the International Business Times.
The latest church attack left three civilians, three guards and one soldier dead and wounded another 15 people, including women and children, officials have said.
The two groups of attackers were caught on camera fleeing the site of the clashes in a stolen pickup and three motorcycles, AP reports.
A spate of suicide bombings claimed by the extremist Islamic State group has killed more than 100 people since December last year.
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence is joined by his wife, Karen. (REUTERS/Las Vegas Sun/Steve Marcus)
In light of the flood of allegations against Harvey Weinstein, the left’s extreme reaction to Vice President Pence’s personal morality guidelines now seems even more absurd. Mothers and fathers of America, who would you rather have your daughters work for: Weinstein or Pence? Young ladies of America, for whom would you rather work and with whom would you feel safer, Weinstein or Pence?
According to a Washington Postarticle, “In 2002, Mike Pence told the Hill that he never eats alone with a woman other than his wife and that he won’t attend events featuring alcohol without her by his side, either.”
Sounds reasonable and wise to me. Nothing extreme or unusual from my point of view or in the circles in which I travel, especially if you are a powerful leader or a person of influence.
But that’s not how many on the left saw it. As I noted in April, “The left’s bizarre and almost hysterical reaction to Vice President Pence’s personal marital guidelines is not only totally off point. It actually misses the most essential point of all, namely, that it is Pence’s high esteem for women—specifically, the most important woman in his life, his own wife—that fuels his moral choices. At the same time, the leftist response reveals a glaring blind spot when it comes to self-awareness.”
Yes, the response from the left was an outright denial of human nature. The fact is that we humans can do all kinds of creepy, ugly things, things that are despicable and shameful. It’s embarrassing, but it’s true.
Vice President Pence, being aware of his humanity, knows all too well how easy it is to fall. That’s why he made it his habit to take certain precautions—in the best interests of his marriage, his own life, and the women he worked with. Again, it makes perfect sense to me.
Now, with more and more women saying, “Me too! I’ve been sexually abused,” we realize just how epidemic this problem is in our culture. In other words, it’s not just the Harvey Weinsteins who are allegedly guilty. There are many other abusers out there, from rapists who prey on strangers to adults who abuse children to bosses who abuse their employees.
And this is nothing new. It’s as old as the human race, which is why the Bible addresses sexual sin from Genesis to Revelation, exposing even some of Israel’s most famous leaders (including Samson and David and Solomon).
That’s why Paul also puts sexual sin at the top of his lists of sins of the flesh (see, for example, 1 Cor. 6:9-10), and that’s why the book of Proverbs (the book of wisdom par excellence) contains so many lengthy warnings about the dangers of sexual sin (see especially Prov. 5 and 7). That’s also why Jesus warned against it so strongly (see Matt. 5:27-30).
As Paul so wisely wrote, “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed, lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12).
When our daughters were growing up, I would explain to them how teenaged boys would try to check them out and how lust-filled they could be. Our girls first reacted with shock and protest, thinking this was gross and impossible. “No way, Dad!” But it wasn’t long before they realized I was telling them the truth. Boys will be boys! (And all too often, in the bad sense of the word, men will be men—including dirty old men.)
It’s true that most men are not sexual predators. But I’m pretty sure that if the secret thoughts of most men could be revealed, they wouldn’t be all that wholesome. And in a sexually charged culture like ours today, where women are expected to wear suggestive and skimpy attire (and some love to do so), where seductive images greet you on countless websites, where your junk folder is filled with invitations to chat rooms, where prostitution and stripping are glorified, where 8-year-olds access porn on their cell phones, we need to be all the more vigilant.
Let us, then, encourage sexual purity and marital fidelity. And rather than mock the Mike Pences of this world, we should commend them.
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St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Official WebsiteSt. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
Young patients who were being treated for acute leukemia at the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital were vaccinated against the influenza virus but failed to respond to treatment. The hospital released the results of the study earlier this week through the Journal of Pediatrics, confirming that patients who received flu shots and those who did not have almost identical rates of developing flu.
“This is preliminary data. The annual flu shot, whose side effects are generally mild and short-lived, is still recommended for patients with acute leukemia who are being treated for their disease,” said lead author Dr. Elisabeth Adderson of the St. Jude Department of Infectious Diseases. She said, however, that the results of the recent study highlight the need for more research in the area.
The researchers particularly examined the medical records of acute leukemia patients of St. Jude Hospital during the 2011-2012, 2012-2013, and 2013-2014 flu seasons. After a thorough review of their cases, it was found that there was actually no significant difference in the rates of confirmed flu illnesses among patients who were vaccinated and those who were not. In short, the booster vaccine dose received by the patients did not have any direct relationship with the reduction of flu, neither did it delay the onset of the illness.
The findings reinforce how important hand washing is in protecting vulnerable patients from influenza infections. The study also recommended that at-risk patients like cancer patients avoid crowds during the flu season. It also recommended the process of “cocooning,” where family members and health care providers who regularly come in close contact with cancer patients get vaccinated against the influenza virus.
In other cancer news, the annual “Race for the Cure” against breast cancer was held in Little Rock, Arkansas over the weekend, drawing around 15,000 people. On its first year, the annual fund-raising event was able to raise more than half a million dollars with 4,000 participants.
(Photo: Passion 2013 Conferences)Popular speaker and author Beth Moore gives a Bible study to 60,000 students about the significance and symbolism in the Lord’s Supper at Passion 2013 in Atlanta, Georgia on Wednesday, January 9, 2013.
Notable women in Christian leadership positions, such as Beth Moore and Kay Warren, have joined the chorus of thousands of people revealing their stories of sexual assault and harassment under the #MeToo hashtag.
The online movement has been flooded with accounts of abusive pastors and church members.
Actress Alyssa Milano shared on Twitter on Sunday a suggestion from a friend: “If all the women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote ‘Me too.’ as a status, we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem.”
The suggestion comes in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal in Hollywood, exposing decades of harassment and multiple allegations of rape aimed at the big-name producer.
Thousands of people, many women but also men, celebrities and people from all walks of life, have since shared their stories or simply used the #MeToo hashtag to indicate they have experienced sexually abusive behavior.
“A well meaning mentor told me at 25 that people couldn’t handle hearing about sexual abuse and it would sink my ministry. It didn’t. #MeToo,” popular evangelist and Christian author Beth Moore tweeted on Sunday.
Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, wrote in response to her tweet: “Thankful that it didn’t, and that you still speak out about sexual assault and abuse, no matter what.”
Kay Warren, co-founder of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, and wife of megachurch pastor Rick Warren, revealed: “A pedophile molested me when I was a little girl. It’s taken decades to heal. #MeToo.”
Among the thousands of other stories shared online, many were within a church context.
“The co-pastor of my dad’s church and my father, they both molested me. One around 6 the other one around 16, I will probably never heal,” wrote one woman.
“Memory that stands out — youth worker (20s/30s?), church sleepover, determined to sleep next to me and share my pillow. I was 13,” another woman shared.
Men also shared their experiences, with a user by the name of oddmanout revealing on Monday: “#MeToo. I’m a male raped and sexually assaulted for four years between the ages of 12 and 16 by a school pastor and an older student. I get it.”
Beth Moore, who founded Living Proof Ministries, decided to expand on the hashtag by suggesting how victims can get help.
“#WeToo have a voice. For all the times we were bullied into silence, we get to speak up and call wrong WRONG. #WeToo for fewer future,” she wrote.
“#WeToo get to stand on solid ground and be counted. We too get to help other girls stand. We too get to say, ‘I understand. I believe you,'” the evangelist’s message continued.
“#WeToo have dignity. We too have courage. We too can heal. We too have community. We too can be unashamed. We too can see to change,” she affirmed.
“#WeToo are loved by God/defended by Christ/upending the darkness/bringing to light/devoted to love.”
On Sunday, around 70 people gathered in St Margaret’s church hall for a new afternoon service.
The congregation moved out of St Margaret’s building in 2015 as it would have cost £1m to fix structural problems.
The new service is a plant by St Jude’s church nearby and welcomes a mixture of the original St Margaret’s congregation, those who’ve moved from St Jude’s and those who have never tried church before.
The relaunch included lively songs, prayers and testimonies and a sermon on Isaiah chapter 61.
The vicar of St Jude’s, the Rev Mike Duff, who is overseeing the new congregation, opened the service by mentioning the faithful worship at St Margaret’s over more than 100 years.
“It was so sad when worship had to stop here in December 2015, and we want to acknowledge the real grief that people felt at that point,” he said.
He added: “Some of those former congregation members found new homes in nearby churches, but have turned up today to wish us well, and we’re grateful for that.
“It was exciting when St Jude’s was asked to plant a new congregation here, and we’re really looking forward to seeing what God does.”
In his St Jude’s sermon on Sunday, Rev Mike Duff spoke about the importance of church planting in the Bible from the book of Acts saying: “It still works!”
Jill Chalmers, who was the only previous member of St Margaret’s to join the 15-member core team, said: “I really enjoyed it. It’s very lively, and there was a good atmosphere, and it was good to see it so full.”
Aileen Kellam, who was part of St Jude’s Church, said: “There’s always been something in my heart for St Margaret’s.
“I kept in touch and I remember when the church closed down. So it’s lovely to come along and I think we’ll come regularly.”
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Topic: Hope In These Last Days — Wednesday 18, October 2017.
Memorise:I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. – John 14:18
Read: Joel 2:28-32 (KJV)
8 And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: 29 And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.
31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.
32 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the LORD hath said, and in the remnant whom the LORD shall call. Bible in One Year: Ephesians 2-4, Daniel 9:3-15, Hymn: Sing Hymn 1 – My Faith Looks Up To Thee MESSAGE:
You can live above the storms of life in these last days through the power of God’s word. The Lord has promised us in His word that He will not leave us comfortless (John 14:18). You therefore have His assurance that no matter how bad your situation may appear to be, there is hope for you. Let these words of Job 14:7 bring hope to your heart: “For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease.”
Coming up next: Open Heavens 19 October 2017: Thursday daily devotional by Pastor Adeboye – All Things Work For Good
While Jesus and His disciples were on a missionary journey, the disciples desperately called his attention to a raging storm. He calmly woke up and rebuked the storm, and right away, there was great calm (Mark 4:36-41). The disciples first struggled to survive the storm on their own, but the more they tried, the more they were in danger of perishing at sea, until Jesus intervened. I pray that the Almighty God will intervene in your situation today in Jesus’ Name. From the words of the Lord, we know that the last days will be a time of turmoil with several raging storms (Luke 21:25-26). We are indeed in the last days. Are you experiencing a storm? The Lord has different strategies to bring comfort to you. He can simply calm the storm by the awesome power of His presence, or by directly commanding the storm to become still. He can also provide a cover for you from the storm. This is why you need to stay in God’s presence where your destiny can remain secure.
The Lord has promised the outpouring of His Spirit upon all flesh in the last days. Acts 2:17 says, “And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:”
We are living in times when the Spirit of the Lord is empowering the saints for the fulfilment of prophecies and the actualisation of visions. The Body of Christ therefore has no excuse not to do exploits for God in times as these, because the promise of the Spirit’s outpouring has already been fulfilled by the Father. God is set to do great things, not because of our own abilities but because of His sovereignty. Not one of God’s children will be left out of His great move in these last days. Sons, daughters, old men, young men, menservants and maidservants are all relevant to God in His agenda for this time. He has reserved better things for His people in the midst of the turmoil unfolding in the world, and He will begin to give us divine revelation of how we will transmit from where we are to where we ought to be by His spirit. The Spirit will also release the strength and vigour needed for the actualisation of these dreams.
Prayer Point: Father, let there be an outpouring of Your Spirit upon my life.
Open Heavens Daily Devotional guide was written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye, the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, one of the largest evangelical church in the world and also the President of Christ the Redeemer’s Ministries. iOpenHeavens is the electronic version of the Hard Copy. The Open Heavens devotional application is available across all mobile platforms and operating systems: iOS, Android, Blackberry, Nokia, Windows Mobile and PC.
If they received the national living wage, the estimated value of their work would total £30 million annually, the Independent Food Aid Network (Ifan) found.
The Trussell Trust, a Christian charity and the largest operator of food banks in the nation, paid tribute to the “tireless” people of its unpaid workers but said they cannot replace the welfare system.
Samantha Stapley from the organisation said: “Issues with benefit payments remain the main reason why people need a food bank parcel, and with issues caused by Universal Credit increasingly reported by food banks as a concern, we urge the Government to take steps to make sure people don’t face going hungry.”
More than 700 food banks now operate independently across the country, in addition to the 1,235 Trussell Trust-managed centres.
Ifan accused the Government of “relying” on food banks and it urged ministers to accept their “responsibilities” for Britain’s “hunger crisis”.
Professor Jon May from Ifan said: “Even as the Government plans £12 billion in cuts to social security benefits by 2019/20, some of our largest companies continue to avoid paying their fair share in tax.
“Though we already pay £11 billion a year to subsidise a low-wage economy because employers are not paying people enough to live on, volunteers up and down the country are providing a further £30 million a year in ‘free’ labour to ensure that our fellow citizens in low paid work, on zero hour contracts, or relying on a broken benefits system have enough to eat.
“Whilst we must continue to support those in need, we must also advocate for fundamental change.”
The Government said it was “misleading” to link food bank reliance to any one cause, arguing it’s a “complex” issue.
A Department for Work and Pensions spokesman said: “We continue to spend around £90 billion a year supporting people, including those who are out of work or on a low income.
“Work is the best means of providing people with financial security, and with our welfare reforms people are moving into employment faster and staying there longer than under the old system.”
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