Hatred for Christians for Christ's name sake is not localised to Jos. It is a global phenomenon. In October 2008, Armed Terrorists in Mosul known in the Bible days as Nineveh located in Iraq displayed their madness and hatred for Christ. They walked the street asking people of their identification card. The religion of the owner is written on every ID card, either Muslim or Christian. When "Christian" is read by the terrorists, the owner of the card is sometimes murdered on the spot with a bullet through the head. No fewer than 40 persons were murdered.
A source said: "There used to be 200,000 Christians in Mosul , but now, there's about 90,000 left." They could be leaving soon, too, unless something changes. Some claim this is genocide. Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has vowed to protect Christians in Mosul and sent 1,000 police to the region. Iraqi believers are text messaging, requesting urgent prayer. One person wrote, 'We left with only our souls.' It's really terrible.
Another source revealed that some of the extremists that were in other parts of the country have moved north and come to Mosul where there has been a vibrant Christian community. One of the prayer requests received was for the terrorists, for the extremists, that they would have a 'Pauline experience'--that instead of being persecutors, they would become lovers of Jesus through what's happened.
Earlier, a group of men fired rockets on the Chaldeans Church of the Holy Spirit and detonated an explosive device outside the church door. Other regions of Iraq are not spared. It was reported that several car bombs have killed more than 100 people and it was especially dangerous for Christians who are minority. Before the Mosul madness, there were estimated 600,000 to 800,000 Christians in Iraq but more than 250,000 Christians have fled to Syria since the Gulf war.
More than 100,000 Christians have fled from Iraq to countries like Syria, Jordan and Turkey since the start of the war in March of 2003. More than 250,000 Iraqi Christians have fled to Syria since the first Gulf War. Pray for Christians facing caught in the dilemma of whether to stay and risk the lives of their families or flee to another country away from their churches and friends. Pray for those who have experienced trauma and fled because of the violence, for those who want to leave but can't, and for those who have chosen to stay and be a light in the midst of the darkness.
The Orissa Challenge
At Orissa, India between September through November, no fewer than 60 Christians killed, more than 200 churches, 40 religious institutions were damaged in an attack against the Christians and 10,000 Christians were forced to flee their homes as violence spread. It all started when a mob of raging, machete-wielding Hindu zealots appeared above the hills and swarmed over a hamlet in Orissa. By dawn, Christian homes in the village were smoking heaps of burnt mud and concrete shells. Churches were razed, their wooden doors and windows stripped off.
"We could hear them come shouting 'Jai Shri Ram'," one of the victim simply known as Digal said, referring to the rallying cry of Hindus hailing their warrior-god. The mob poured kerosene on the thatched rooftops of the village homes, then threw matches. Church spires were hacked down.
The Hindu part of the village was untouched. For four days Digal and his stricken Christian neighbours hid in the teak forests, before being herded to a government-run relief camp. The violence replicated itself in village after village, as the rural Kandhamal district of Orissa convulsed from some of the worst anti-Christian attacks in India.
Christians responded with some -- not proportionate -- violence. Almost all the villages bore evidence of attacks on Christians. Relief shelters were packed with Christian refugees, most of them women and children as their men folk were too scared to emerge from forest hideouts. At one temporary camp in Raikia village, some 8,000 people crammed into two floors of a government office, sleeping on the bare floor and surviving on rice and lentils given twice a day.
"It was the hate campaigns of the Sangh Parivar which led to untold misery for Christians," said Sam Paul of the All-India Christian Council, referring to an apex body of Hindu radicals. There has not been a long tradition of rivalry between Hindus and Christians, who form less than three percent of officially secular India's 1.1-billion population.
On the contrary, the missionaries have a reputation of running some of the finest schools in India. Intolerance has risen, though, in the last two decades with a revival in Hindu nationalism in India, and a new agenda to fight "foreign faiths" said to be undermining Hinduism. With political power, Hindu nationalists in several states have made religious conversion either unlawful or extremely difficult. Orissa has seen some of the worst violence against Christians.
"There is an atmosphere of fear," said Krishan Kumar, the chief administrator of Kandhamal, a land dominated by "Adivasis" or traditionally animist forest-dwellers where Christian proselytisers arrived on horseback more than a century ago. The missionaries built schools and hospitals, and their work persuaded many Adivasis and ethnic Panas, who belong to a Hindu lower caste, to convert to Christianity.
The region turned into a hotbed of communal strife after hardline Hindu groups, who accuse Christian missionaries of converting people under duress or through inducements, arrived half a century ago to counter an expansionist evangelist drive.
The violence was largely a backlash against the murder of a Hindu proselytiser who ran a local campaign against Christian conversion. Maoist rebels said they had carried out the murder, but Hindus blamed Christians.
Pope Benedict has condemned the latest violence and the Italian government has told India it was "very worried and sensitive to" the attacks on Christians. The United Nations has warned India could face more religious violence as delays to bring justice and prosecute perpetrators of attacks on minorities were encouraging an atmosphere of impunity in the country.
In Orissa, international and local human rights groups say the state government was a "silent spectator" to the violence, and Christian villagers say police often failed to protect them.
"When the mob arrived it asked police to drop its guns to the ground," said Phillomina Digal, who lives by a police station. "The policemen were outnumbered and went into the police station. The mob set my house on fire, burnt our tractor and also another government vehicle. Then they all celebrated and left." Orissa's police say they swung into action as soon as the riots broke out, but could not reach many affected villages because rioters had blocked roads with tree trunks and boulders.
Experience of a GFA Missionary
I"On November 24 at 11 a.m., while I was going for outreach ministry in a village 20 kilometers (12 miles) from my home, a group of young people belonging to an extremist group stopped me. They asked me several questions, such as what was I doing and where was I going. Then they opened my bag and found Gospel literature and teaching CDs.
"The extremists started to beat me. They took my bicycle, mobile phone and two thousand rupees (US$40). They forcefully took me on their bike to a remote village, where around 200 people had gathered, and they made me sit in the middle of the crowd. They asked me several questions and told me to read Hindu literature, leave the Christian faith and worship one of their gods. I said "No," so they started to beat me again.
"Then the crowd called for their leader. They took me to a small hut and locked me inside. They kept me locked up from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. "During that time, I was praying to the living God. I remembered the verse where Jesus said, 'In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.' Through this Bible verse, I got courage to face any problem.
"When they took me out of the room at 8:00 p.m., I was very hungry and cold. They took me to a road to meet the extremist leader. But I was thinking and looking for some way to escape. So I told them I needed to use the bathroom, and they let me walk into the forest. I walked a little ways and then started to run. Some started to chase me and loudly told the others that I was running away, and so many people ran after me.
"I don't know from where I got such power to run. The mob even took their jeep and bike to catch me, but as I was running through paddy fields, they couldn't catch me. I even fell in a small well, but God helped me to get out. And again I started to run through the forest. "Up until midnight, I was sitting in the forest. My whole body was in severe pain, but God gave me strength to walk 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) through the forest without fear. I found a village where I know a Christian family.
"Around 3 a.m., I reached their house and told them what had happened to me. They gave me a place to sleep and kept me there for two days, until I went to another village and got some medicine. On November 27, I safely reached a GFA district office. Now I am in the office resting, but I still have pain in my chest and legs. “I thank God that He has saved my life. I also want to give thanks to all those who sincerely prayed for me. Kindly keep remembering me in your prayers."
Missionary Couple Captured In Gambia
Also in Gambia, A British missionary couple is in custody after being charged with sedition. The Gambian government claims 60-year-old David Fulton and has 46-year-old wife, Fiona, are accused of sending letters criticizing Gambia's government to individuals and groups.
The Fulton's had lived in Gambia for 12 years, serving as chaplain with the Gambian army. Both of them were very active in spreading the Good News among the Muslims in the country. 90-percent of the people in the Gambia are Muslims."
Gambia is a tiny West African nation of 1.7 million people and is among the world's poorest nations. The couple's two-year-old adopted daughter has also been affected. She was also originally imprisoned with her mom. But after a few days, authorities decided to remove the two-year-old from the mother. She's not being taken care of by family friends.
Sources said the Muslim-led government arrested the couple because they feel threatened by the Christians in that country so they want to stop them from spreading the Good News. Another source said: "Currently he is in a very serious condition. He is been put in a very high-security prison, and he's very sick. He's unable to eat." Pray that the couple will be released and be reunited with their daughter.
Restrictive religion law passes parliament in Nagorno-Karabakh
A restrictive religion law passed its final parliamentary reading in the unrecognized Azerbaijani breakaway republic of Nagorno-Karabakh on November 26, according to a December 4 report from Forum 18. President Sahakyan has one month to either approve or reject the law that imposes ambiguous restrictions on religious groups. The law includes an apparent ban on unregistered religious activity, even though a minimum of 100 adult citizens would be necessary in order to register. Further restrictions include the censorship of religious literature by the state and the ban on some religious groups from spreading their faith.
Pray that the President will reject this law. Ask God to grant boldness to the Christians who suffer hardships in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Church Demolished in Somalia
Recently, Muslim militants demolished a church in Kismayo, a town in southern Somalia that has been in the control of a militant Islamic organization affiliated with Al-Qaeda since August. The militants have vowed to launch similar attacks on all other local non-Muslim places of worship. They plan to replace the destroyed church with a mosque. Islamists have reportedly imposed Sharia law in another southern town, Celwaq, elevating concern for Christians in the region.
Pray that the believers in Somalia will be steadfast in their service for the Lord. Pray that they will rejoice in the opportunity to grow in Christlikeness through their tribulations (James 1:2-4).
Children are not Left out of the Attack in Egypt
A Christian mother discovered that her twin thirteen-year-old sons, Mario and Andrew, had been placed in Islamic education classes to reflect their father's religion, despite the fact that their father moved out when he converted to Islam and remarried in 2002. Upon his conversion he used his legal right to change his sons' religion to Islam on their birth certificates; in Egypt a child's religion is dictated by the religion of their parent.
On September 3, the court hearing to decide whether or not the twins can "re-convert" to Christianity was adjourned indefinitely, according to a September 5 report from Compass Direct. The adjournment was due to the boys' attorney not attending the hearing because he believed that the outcome of another case involving converts to Islam seeking "re-conversion" could affect their case. The court will also decide whether or not the twins will remain in their mother's care. According to many interpretations of Islamic law, which is enshrined in Egypt's constitution, custody of children must be granted to whichever parent is Muslim. A law that grants the mother custody of her children until they are 15 only applies to Muslim women.
Pray that the Christian faith of these two boys will be legally recognized. Pray that their faithfulness will be a light that draws their father and other nonbelievers to Christ. Pray for all Egyptian Christians that are serving the Lord in an environment of opposition.
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