Please read this and see this boy's heart. In places where there is no persecution, do we have this kind of heart for God? Many of us will be surprised when we get to heaven to discover that many from persecuted areas of the world made it more than many who live in ease in persecution free areas. From here.
North Korea: A Visiting Missionary
When the boy in the hotel finally spotted the visiting “businessman,” he ran to him and grabbed his hand. The startled visitor tried to pull away but soon realized that the boy was making the sign of the cross on his palm silently with his finger. The man, a missionary who had prayed to make contact with the church, looked down into the face of the rail-thin boy and immediately understood the message: “The church is alive in North Korea!”
The next day, the missionary met secretly with the boy. He learned that his father was a Christian who had been imprisoned years before. The boy’s family had greatly suffered under the brutal government and had to beg for food just to survive. Now because of drought, people everywhere were dying from severe malnutrition.
When the missionary asked what he could do, he thought surely the boy would request food for his family. But the boy asked him for only four things: to take his tithe that he had saved over many years, to baptize him, to give him Holy Communion, and to give him a better Bible.
The man was moved to tears as he realized the boy’s wisdom. Physical help would only serve him for a day or two, and then he would be back in the same predicament. Spiritual help would prepare him for eternity.
Read it all here for other comments.
Sunday 15 January 2012
Pray for the persecuted Nigerian Church!
My plea with us this first month of the year is that we remember the persecuted brethren in Northern Nigeria in our Church, group, family and personal prayers.
In the Nigerian Church, there is an evolving culture of using January for Fasting and Prayer in preparation for the year. There is nothing wrong with having Fasting and Prayer but what we do within period determines whether we are eternally minded or not. What we do within the programme determines whether we are concerned with what burdens the heart of God or not.
Mark Ojunta
Photo: Compass Direct News
On the 28th of August, 2011, our brother Mark Ojunta was murdered while serving among the Kotoko people group in North Eastern Nigeria.
In Christian Post, it was reported that “ 36-year-old evangelist Mark Ojunta, from southern Nigeria, was ministering amid the Kotoko people of Nigeria's northeastern state with Calvary Ministries (CAPRO) when he was shot in Maiduguri. Boko Haram reportedly killed at least 23 Christians during August alone; beginning on Aug. 11 through Aug. 15 where attacks in Rasta Foron village resulted in six dead, and on Aug. 15, in Heipang village, where nine members of one Christian family were killed.
These deaths were followed by the murder of six Christians on Aug. 21 in Kwi, lotion, and Jwol villages, and, on Aug. 14, in the community of Chwelnyap, where two more were killed at the hands of militants”.
In January 2012, they carried out series of attacks on Christians and their places of worship. One was on Deeper Life Bible Church in Gombe. According to Sahara Reporters, "The attackers started shooting sporadically. They shot through the window of the church, and many people were killed including my wife," Mr Jauro told Reuters news agency.
From Reuters, On the 6th of January, “Gunmen opened fire in a hall in Mubi on Friday where a group of Christians had gathered to mourn the deaths of those killed in an attack the previous day.
"Unknown gunmen in Mubi attacked and killed 3 people on Thursday night and on Friday as people gathered to mourn the deaths, the gunmen believed to be the same attackers killed 18 people, totalling 21," a Red Cross official told Reuters.
A lot of indigenous Churches have been burnt down, pastors killed and members scattered. Brethren are living in fear. Those who are non indigenes may run back South to their villages but what of the brethren who are Northern Nigerian indigenes?
Now, is it time for Churches to gather in their Fasting and Prayer programmes concentrating on claiming one earthly possession or another? Is it time to focus on making frivolous promises to members just because you want to raise their hope? Is it a time to lead the people into ‘covenants’ that we cannot prove from the Scriptures which we have discussed here? Or is it not time to lead the Church in repentance and cry to Him for the National Church? These are perilous times.
The other day, I saw a reverend gentleman speaking passionately in the ranks of the protesters against the removal of petrol subsidy over the past few days. My heart was stirred up. I thank God for him. However, God is looking for men and women who will equally be on fire for the matters of the voiceless believers who are suffering and living in fear.
Brethren, please whatever you do this month of January, remember the persecuted Church. Pray that God will encourage these believers and uphold them. Pray that God will give the Nigerian Church the Christian heart to forgive their persecutors and raise several ‘Sauls of Tarsus’. Pray that God will deliver the Nigerian Church from materialism and human worship. Pray that people and Churches will be touched to contribute to the welfare of the persecuted brethren. The work is indeed great and the harvest ripe but the labourers are few. Please be among the few.
God bless!
In the Nigerian Church, there is an evolving culture of using January for Fasting and Prayer in preparation for the year. There is nothing wrong with having Fasting and Prayer but what we do within period determines whether we are eternally minded or not. What we do within the programme determines whether we are concerned with what burdens the heart of God or not.
Mark Ojunta
Photo: Compass Direct News
On the 28th of August, 2011, our brother Mark Ojunta was murdered while serving among the Kotoko people group in North Eastern Nigeria.
In Christian Post, it was reported that “ 36-year-old evangelist Mark Ojunta, from southern Nigeria, was ministering amid the Kotoko people of Nigeria's northeastern state with Calvary Ministries (CAPRO) when he was shot in Maiduguri. Boko Haram reportedly killed at least 23 Christians during August alone; beginning on Aug. 11 through Aug. 15 where attacks in Rasta Foron village resulted in six dead, and on Aug. 15, in Heipang village, where nine members of one Christian family were killed.
These deaths were followed by the murder of six Christians on Aug. 21 in Kwi, lotion, and Jwol villages, and, on Aug. 14, in the community of Chwelnyap, where two more were killed at the hands of militants”.
In January 2012, they carried out series of attacks on Christians and their places of worship. One was on Deeper Life Bible Church in Gombe. According to Sahara Reporters, "The attackers started shooting sporadically. They shot through the window of the church, and many people were killed including my wife," Mr Jauro told Reuters news agency.
From Reuters, On the 6th of January, “Gunmen opened fire in a hall in Mubi on Friday where a group of Christians had gathered to mourn the deaths of those killed in an attack the previous day.
"Unknown gunmen in Mubi attacked and killed 3 people on Thursday night and on Friday as people gathered to mourn the deaths, the gunmen believed to be the same attackers killed 18 people, totalling 21," a Red Cross official told Reuters.
A lot of indigenous Churches have been burnt down, pastors killed and members scattered. Brethren are living in fear. Those who are non indigenes may run back South to their villages but what of the brethren who are Northern Nigerian indigenes?
Now, is it time for Churches to gather in their Fasting and Prayer programmes concentrating on claiming one earthly possession or another? Is it time to focus on making frivolous promises to members just because you want to raise their hope? Is it a time to lead the people into ‘covenants’ that we cannot prove from the Scriptures which we have discussed here? Or is it not time to lead the Church in repentance and cry to Him for the National Church? These are perilous times.
The other day, I saw a reverend gentleman speaking passionately in the ranks of the protesters against the removal of petrol subsidy over the past few days. My heart was stirred up. I thank God for him. However, God is looking for men and women who will equally be on fire for the matters of the voiceless believers who are suffering and living in fear.
Brethren, please whatever you do this month of January, remember the persecuted Church. Pray that God will encourage these believers and uphold them. Pray that God will give the Nigerian Church the Christian heart to forgive their persecutors and raise several ‘Sauls of Tarsus’. Pray that God will deliver the Nigerian Church from materialism and human worship. Pray that people and Churches will be touched to contribute to the welfare of the persecuted brethren. The work is indeed great and the harvest ripe but the labourers are few. Please be among the few.
God bless!
Monday 2 January 2012
Muslim Extremists in Uganda Throw Acid on Bishop
KAMPALA, Uganda, December 28 (Compass Direct News) – Islamic extremists threw acid on a church leader on Christmas Eve shortly after a seven-day revival at his church, leaving him with severe burns that have blinded one eye and threaten sight in the other.
Bishop Umar Mulinde, 37, a sheikh (Islamic teacher) before his conversion to Christianity, was attacked on Saturday night (Dec. 24) outside his Gospel Life Church International building in Namasuba, about 10 kilometers (six miles) outside of Kampala. From his hospital bed in Kampala, he told Compass that he was on his way back to the site for a party with the entire congregation and hundreds of new converts to Christianity when a man who claimed to be a Christian approached him.
“I heard him say in a loud voice, ‘Pastor, pastor,’ and as I made a turn and looked at him, he poured the liquid onto my face as others poured more liquid on my back and then fled away shouting, ‘Allahu akbar [Allah is greater],’” Mulinde said, still visibly traumatized two days after the assault.
A neighbor and church members rushed him to a hospital in the Mengo area of Kampala, and he was then transferred to International Hospital Kampala...........
When Mulinde converted from Islam to Christianity, his family drove him away with clubs and machetes. Since then, he has suffered numerous life-threatening attacks. In 1995 at Mbiji, he was attacked with clubs but managed to escape. In 1998 he was attacked at Kangulomila near Jinja town. In 2000 in Masaka, Muslims bribed the area district commissioner to declare Mulinde’s meetings illegal; Muslims stormed into one of the meetings and dragged him out, beating him till he lost consciousness. Police saved him.
In 2001 in Busia, while addressing another meeting, a Muslim extremist narrowly missed killing him with a sword. In 1994, he survived a gun attack at Natete, near Kampala, when a bullet narrowly missed him. He said that as he fell into muddy waters, his Muslim attackers, thinking they had killed him, said, “Allah akbar.”
Because of the threats against him – in October Muslim extremists sent him text messages threatening to assassinate him – Mulinde had relocated to another area in Uganda.
He has vowed to continue fighting for the rights of the former Muslims haunted by radical Islamists.
Please read it all here!
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