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The “lost boys” are orphaned refugees from Sudan living in Kakuma Refugee Camp in northwest Kenya. Kakuma is a United Nations camp for 65,000 refugees from Sudan, Somalia and other war-torn countries. Ten voluntary agencies, including Mennonite Central Committee, are sponsoring about 4,000 “lost boys” and girls, mostly aged 14-25, for permanent resettlement in the US. Typical is John Manyok, 18, who lived eight years in Kakuma. When he was five, his parents were killed by soldiers; at nine, he fled through jungles infested with crocodiles and landmines to Ethiopia, was forced back to Sudan at gunpoint and after two years finally reached Kakuma. Only 5,000 of the 17,000 boys with Manyok made it to the camp. – Mennonite Central Committee
Sudan has been ravaged by civil war for 17 years. The complex conflict pits the Khartoum-based government of the predominantly Muslim north against rebels in the Christian south. Two million people have died in the war, four million are internally displaced, and nearly 400,000 are refugees in other countries. Mennonite Central Committee began work in Sudan in 1972. MCC currently has volunteers in both northern and southern Sudan. In 1993, MCC donated 350 tonnes of millet to Kakuma Refugee Camp in northwest Kenya near the southern Sudan border. In recent years, MCC has provided the following material resources to Sudan: In 1999, over $64,600 for locally purchased food and livestock; in 1998, over $660,000 worth of food, seeds, tools, plus 17 tonnes of clothing, 35 tonnes of soap and 30.5 tonnes of MCC canned beef; in 1997, $62,070 for locally purchased sorghum and beans; and in 1995, soap, clothing and blankets worth $507,700. – MCC
In Princeville, North Carolina, Mennonite Disaster Service and Habitat for Humanity combined efforts in January to frame 12 houses for residents. The community is recovering from flooding after Hurricane Floyd hit the area in September 1999. MDS sent 31 volunteers to Princeville between Christmas and New Year’s Day to jump-start the Habitat building blitz, scheduled for the first two weeks of January. In addition to working on the Habitat homes, MDS volunteers are beginning construction and repair on a number of MDS homes in the community. Princeville is the fourth MDS project location in the state. Hundreds of families who live in towns like Princeville are still without safe, sanitary housing. It is estimated that it will take another four years for North Carolina residents to recover from this flood. – MCC
US President George W. Bush began his first full day as president in prayer. He joined worshippers at a Jan. 21 inaugural prayer service held at Washington (D.C.) National Cathedral. Evangelist Billy Graham, 82, had planned to deliver the invocation at the inauguration ceremony, but health concerns prevented it. His son Franklin took his place. Franklin Graham prayed for the Bushes and spoke at the service, saying, “This prayer service demonstrates our recognition and need for help from the Almighty. We affirm that we are indeed a free and independent people but in a far more profound sense, we are a people that are dependent on almighty God.” Bush, 54, was sworn in as the nation’s 43rd president Jan. 20 in Washington. – Evangelical Press News Service
US President George W. Bush issued an executive order Jan. 22 banning the use of federal funds to promote or perform abortions overseas. Announcement of the order came as pro-life activists across the US rallied to commemorate the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the US Supreme Court decision which legalized abortion-on-demand in the US. The ban will affect $425 million in federal money given to family planning organizations throughout the world. In a message, Bush said, “We share a great goal: to work toward a day when every child is welcomed in life and protected by law. We know this will not come easily, or all at once. But the goal leads us onward: to build a culture of life, affirming that every person, at every stage and season of life, is created equally in God’s image.” – EPNS
New Hope Community Church’s new address, effective March 3, is 4611 Ramsay Road, North Vancouver, B.C. V7K 2N6. The church’s phone number is the same, (604) 986-7400. The new pastor couple is Albert and Leona Baerg. – New Hope Community Church
“Celebrating the Church” is the theme for the 2001 Canadian Prayer Assembly scheduled for Saturday, May 19, 2001 in Winnipeg. The event will begin with a youth celebration at 1 p.m., with the general celebration beginning at 6:30 p.m. The first Canadian Prayer Assembly was held in May 2000 in Ottawa. The event is sponsored by the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada. – Evangelical Fellowship Of Canada
Of the approximate two million pregnancies among unmarried women each year in the US, 1% choose adoption, 49% choose abortion, and 50% choose to keep the child. – Focus on the Family
The Evangelical Church of Vietnam (ECVN) held a general conference Feb. 7-9 at Saigon Church in Ho Chi Minh City. It was the first general conference of the ECVN since 1976, shortly after the communist takeover of South Vietnam in 1975. A secret document called “Document 184A”, which was leaked in June 2000, revealed that the Vietnamese government’s Bureau of Religious Affairs (BRA) hoped to turn the ECVN into a pro-communist institution through the election of pro-government church leaders and the drafting of a new “patriotic” church constitution. The conference was attended by 482 church pastors and delegates and 278 guests, including high-ranking officials of the BRA. However, the BRA did not get everything it wanted. Convention delegates elected Pham Xuan Thieu president of the ECVN. Thieu, who received some of his education in Canada before 1975, is a trusted, respected leader whose activities were at one time restricted by the government. Two vice-presidents were also elected: Duong Thanh, pastor of the historic first evangelical church in Vietnam in Danang, and Tanh Van Hi, pastor of the Ben Tre congregation in the Mekong Delta. Hi and his congregation suffered intense persecution in the first decade after the communist takeover. The BRA was also disappointed that the new ECVN constitution allows the planting of new churches, while church leaders were disappointed that the constitution places some restrictions on church plants. Christians from tribal minorities were not allowed to take part in the convention, even though they make up 75% of the ECVN’s 600,000 members. Nevertheless, two ethnic minority Christians were elected to the ECVN’s 22-member executive board. At the conference, the ECVN made ambitious plans to restore normal activity to many churches, provide new church buildings and chapels for congregations who live too far from existing church buildings, find ways of supporting retired pastors and their widows and research ways to promote church growth. Leaders of Vietnam’s many illegal house church organizations, whose followers total about 200,000, were concerned that the attempts by the BRA to “normalize” the ECVN would result in harassment and persecution for them. Several hundred Protestant churches of ethnic minority peoples were confiscated or destroyed immediately following the communist takeover in 1975. Denied church buildings in most places, they are forced to worship “illegally”. Yet, in recent years, thousands have become Christians, particularly among the Mnong, Ede, Jarai, and Bahnar peoples. Among the Ede, the number of Protestants has grown from 15,000 in 1975 to over 150,000 today. Vietnam’s government fears the rise of Christianity could bring an end to communism in Vietnam as it did in eastern Europe. – Compass Direct
Building Effective Lay Leadership Teams is a new book by researcher George Barna describing why team leadership in a church is better than leadership given by a single pastor. The book also explains common barriers to using lay leadership teams and a process for moving from a single pastor model to a team leadership model. Research has found that 75% of senior pastors do not believe they are called, gifted or skilled as leaders. Only one out of every 10 churches uses some form of leadership teams. Most churches rely on individuals working in isolation to make things happen. Yet churches using lay leadership teams experience dramatically better results in terms of life transformation than do churches without team leadership. – Barna Research
Roberto de la Cruz Mallqui, an evangelical Christian who served over 10 years in a Peruvian prison for terrorism crimes, was released Jan. 23 following a pardon by President Valentin Paniagua. Mallqui was one of 5000 Peruvians convicted of terrorism by anonymous “faceless” judges, as part of former President Alberto Fujimori’s clampdown against the Shining Path terrorist group in the early 1990s. Human rights organizations estimate a quarter of them were innocent. Many were freed by an Ad Hoc commission in the late 1990s in the last years of Fujimori’s rule. More are being freed by a new Human Rights Commission. Mallqui taught 8- to 11-year-old Quechua children in a village school near Ayacucho. He became a Christian at 17 and attended an Assemblies of God church. He had just received a commendation from the school superintendent and was set for a promotion when police arrested him Aug. 29, 1990. A boy who didn’t like Mallqui had been arrested for robbery two days prior to Mallqui’s arrest and implicated him. Police accused Mallqui of possessing pamplets of the Shining Path terrorist movement, painting pro-Shining Path graffiti and of taking part in several murders. Mallqui denied the charges, but confessed to murder after police tortured him, the only evidence against him. – CD
A Turkish Christian went on trial Jan. 30 for allegedly insulting Islam and the prophet Mohammed in May 2000 while distributing New Testaments in front of an industrial arts high school in Diyarbakir. Kemal Timur, 32, who converted from Islam to Christianity four years ago, was accused by three men of saying “My religion is the true religion, not yours. Mohammed is a sorcerer.” He denied saying this, declaring that it was contrary to his beliefs and the teachings of Jesus to show disrespect for someone else’s beliefs. He also said it was his policy while distributing New Testaments to never discuss his Christian faith with passersby, but to make an appointment to meet later. On May 1, 2000, police detained Timur along with two other Turkish converts for 24 hours, but Timur was not informed that he had violated Turkish law until December. Timur was picked up and questioned by police at least eight times in 2000. He was actively involved from January to May in a distribution project, which gave out 5,500 New Testaments. Timur is scheduled to appear before a judge again March 27. He is married with two children. In a similar case in March 2000, two Turkish Christians from Izmir were jailed for a month and prosecuted on charges of insulting Islam and forcing people to take Christian materials. Both were later acquitted when the complainants admitted in court they were pressured by local officials to press false charges. – CD
A Pakistani high court acquitted three Christians of blasphemy Jan. 26, calling for an investigation of whether their Muslim accuser had fabricated the case against them. Hussain Masih, his son Isaac Masih and Iqbal Sahar Ghouri were cleared of the charges, which carried a potential death penalty when prosecutors admitted there was no evidence to support the charges. Ahmad, a Muslim living next door to the Masihs, lodged a formal accusation against the three Christians Nov. 25, 1998 in Alipur Chatta, Punjab province. Ahmed said he had found partially burned pages of the Koran and two letters containing derogatory remarks against the prophet of Islam in his yard. Apparently, Ahmed had a running dispute with his Christian neighbours. Ahmed had reportedly ordered Masih to stop playing hymns over a loudspeaker near a wall between their houses, complaining that his children were learning the words to Christian songs and prayers. Masih’s close friend Ghouri was active with him in prayer meetings and other religious activities held in the Masih home. Ahmed gathered Muslim religious leaders and threatened to set the police station on fire unless officials agreed to register a blasphemy case against the three Christians. Since 1987, over 50 Pakistani Christians have been falsely accused of insulting Islam, the Koran or the prophet Mohammed. At least seven Christians are currently imprisoned without bail on such charges. Over the past year, radical Islamic sects have begun to use the controversial law as a way to deal with rival Muslim groups. According to a report by the United Nations Human Rights Commission for Extra Judicial Killings, 38 blasphemy cases were filed in the first 10 months of 2000 against six Christians, 26 Muslims and 40 members of the minority Ahmadi sect. – CD
Of the 226,837 immigrants coming to Canada in 2000, the top 10 countries of origin were China (36,664), India (26,004), Pakistan (14,163), the Philippines (10,063), South Korea (7602), Sri Lanka (5832), the US (5806), Iran (5598), Yugoslavia (4699) and Great Britain (4644). – Citizenship and Immigration Canada
The first Canada-wide Mennonite Brethren 55+ retreat has been scheduled for Oct. 11-14 at the Radisson Hotel and Conference Centre in Canmore, Alta. Keynote speaker will be Pierre Gilbert, associate professor of biblical studies and theology at Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg and MB Biblical Seminary in Fresno, Calif. The topic will be “There is life after retirement”. Registration information will be coming in the near future.
A work team of five, sponsored by Africa Inter-Mennonite Mission, helped raise the roof for Tshiangu Mennonite Church in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. Though events surrounding the assassination of Congolese President Kabila necessitated some shifting of plans for the team and prompted some curfews, basic calm was maintained in the city, and the work crew completed the roof in time for the planned dedication on Jan. 28. Congolese and North Americans worked together to raise eight 600-pound trusses on to the walls of the church. The congregation is one of about 22 congregations in Kinshasa, a city of six million, affiliated with the Mennonite Church of Congo. About 400 people praised God for their new church roof. The five-member team consisted of Arnold Harder, a former AIMM missionary to Congo; Willard Dick; Leslie and Gladys Harder; and Wilmer Sprunger, a former AIMM missionary to Congo. Sprunger extended his stay in Congo an additional four weeks for a teaching ministry in the Mennonite churches.
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Last modified July 5, 2001.
© 2001 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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