A man who fled the Rwandan genocide as a boy and who saw his life change when he received an Operation Christmas Child shoebox is now traveling the U.S. and encouraging others to fill shoeboxes this holiday season. 

Alex Nsengimana’s family was killed during the 1994 genocide that saw as many as 800,000 people murdered. He was bitter and was blaming God, he said. 

But during that tragedy, a small box – filled with gifts from Christians – gave him hope. He was 7 at the time.  

“Both my grandmother and my uncle, the people who were taking care of me were killed during that war, and I would run from family to family,” he said at Calvary Baptist Church in Longview, Texas, according to KLTV. “By the end of the genocide I was put in an orphanage. And while I was in this orphanage, that’s when Samaritan’s Purse, the mother organization of Operation Christmas Child brought shoeboxes to us.”

Operation Christmas Child is an annual event in which volunteers pack shoeboxes with gifts – with everything from toiletries to toys – for children around the world. Samaritan’s Purse distributes the boxes. 

Since the project’s first year in 1993, more than 150 million shoeboxes have been distributed around the world. 

“Just having something that we could call our own – that we could play with and that could take our minds off of what…

A magnitude 5.9 earthquake rocked Iran early Friday morning leaving at least six people dead and more than 300 injured.

According to U.S. and World Report News, some 250 miles northwest of the nation’s capital of Tehran, the seismic activity began at 2:17 am. 

Reportedly, as residents in Eastern Azerbaijan began to feel the ground below them shaking, many ran in fear. There were over 40 aftershocks felt rural Alborz Mountains region.

According to the Associated Press, so far, six people have been killed as a result of the quake, and around 312 have reported being injured. Iranian state television reports that many of the injuries were not, however, directly caused by the earthquake, but by the rush of frantic people attempting to flee to safety. Of the 312 injured, so far, only 13 had injuries substantial enough to be transported to a hospital.

Additionally, 30 homes were completely destroyed by the quake.

On average, Iran experiences one earthquake per day as it is located on “major seismic faults” the AP reports. In 2017 Iran experienced a significant earthquake that left more than 600 people dead and 9,000 injured. That earthquake was a magnitude 7. In 2003, the Middle Eastern country experienced a devastating quake that killed 26,000 people. The magnitude 6.6 earthquake leveled the city of Bam. Even worse, in 1990, the country was struck…

The National Abortion Federation just named an Episcopal priest as its new head.

In a press release from the NAF last week, it was announced that the Very Reverend Katherine Hancock Ragsdale has been named the pro-abortion organization’s new President and CEO.

Ragsdale was first appointed as the Interim President and CEO of the NAF in September of 2018 and after just over a year in that role, the organization decided to make her a permanent fixture.

According to the press release, Ragsdale – who is openly gay and married to a fellow Episcopal priest named Mally Lloyd – “has been outspoken about abortion rights, LGBTQ equality, and public policy issues affecting women and families throughout her career. She has testified before the U.S. Congress as well as numerous state legislatures about the importance of abortion access and was a featured speaker at the 2004 March for Women’s Lives in Washington, DC.”

Before becoming the organization’s head, Ragsdale spent 17 years on the national board of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice where she preached that abortion was a “blessing.”

“It has been a great privilege to lead this organization for the last year and work alongside the incredible and dedicated NAF Board, staff, and membership,” Ragsdale said, according to the press release. “Abortion providers are some of my personal…

(RNS) — There are seven more months before the next annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention. 

But the race for SBC president may already be over, following news that R. Albert Mohler Jr. will likely be nominated to run as the denomination’s next president.

H.B. Charles, pastor of Shiloh Metropolitan Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, a predominantly African American congregation, announced last week that he planned to nominate Mohler. 

“We need the zeal to mobilize our resources to spread the gospel,” Charles said in making his announcement on Twitter. “We must do so together. I believe @albertmohler is the man to lead us forward in that unity.”

Mohler, the president of the denomination’s flagship seminary, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, is widely regarded as one of the denomination’s most prominent public intellectuals. He writes widely, has a podcast and appears regularly on TV.

In a statement about his willingness to serve as SBC president, Mohler said he hopes to “unite Southern Baptists,” a group that has long had political and theological divisions within its fold even as it has seen a declining membership as the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

“We are facing a new era in the world and in the United States, and cultural challenges that will test our conviction,”…

(RNS) — A rare medieval Pentateuch manuscript that had been in private collections for years will go on display Friday (Nov. 8) at the Museum of the Bible.

The volume, which dates to around the year 1000, was acquired two years ago by the Green Collection, headed by billionaire Steve Green of the Hobby Lobby arts and crafts chain.

The Pentateuch, consisting of the five biblical books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, forms the first part of the 24-volume Hebrew Bible. It was written by scholars of the Masoretic tradition who codified the Hebrew Bible and added diacritical marks above and below the Hebrew letters to enable correct pronunciation.

Before the appearance of books, Jews read the Pentateuch from the Torah, a scroll made of parchment or animal skins. Torah scrolls are still read in synagogues, but because they do not contain vowels, readers sometimes consult Pentateuch collections such as the one on display at the Museum of the Bible for the authoritative pronunciation.

There are several other extant volumes of the Pentateuch from the 11th century or earlier in Russia and Israel, said Herschel A. Hepler, associate curator at the museum. The Museum of the Bible named this one the Washington Pentateuch.

The 15-by-24-inch volume, bound in leather with metal bosses, contains two sections. The main section (nearly 500 pages) was written around the year…