People & events

Richard Roberts cancelled a “healing rally” scheduled for April 25 in Toronto. The cancellation was due to concerns over the SARS virus.

—ChristianWeek

British Columbia high school teacher Chris Kempling has decided to quit teaching and move out of the province. The B.C. College of Teachers had suspended Kempling from teaching for the month of May because of letters he wrote to a local newspaper saying that schools should not give a positive picture of the gay lifestyle. The College found Kempling guilty of failing “to uphold values that are fundamental to the educational system” – even though there had been no complaints about Kempling from students, parents, teachers or the gay community. Kempling has appealed the case to the B.C. Supreme Court and plans to continue that appeal even though he has left teaching. Because of the appeal, he did not actually serve the one-month suspension. A Victoria Times-Colonist columnist noted that the one-month suspension seems unduly harsh, especially since some teachers who have had improper relationships with students, and one teacher who “flashed” students, received no suspensions, but only reprimands.

—ChristianWeek

All Mennonite Central Committee workers have decided to remain in China despite the SARS crisis. MCC has 25 workers (plus 12 dependent children) in the country; 22 of them teach English under China Educational Exchange in technical, medical and teachers’ colleges.

—Mennonite Central Committee

Prairie Bible Institute in Three Hills, Alta. has decided to close Prairie Graduate School, which it opened in Calgary 15 years ago. New PBI president Jon Ohlhauser explained that PBI could no longer afford to operate the graduate school, particularly because PBI would be required to add two more faculty and upgrade the library in order to obtain accreditation for the graduate school. Instead of the graduate school, PBI will develop a Centre for Intercultural Missions at its Three Hills campus.

—ChristianWeek

An estimated 300,000 children under age 18 are currently participating in armed conflicts around the world. Many were “recruited”, some at age 10 or younger, through techniques ranging from abduction to promises of an escape from poverty. The children are used as spies, front-line infantry (since weapons are now light enough for children to carry), servants and sex slaves. Many are used to lay and clear landmines.

—Evangelical Press News Service

Anabaptist Disablities Network (ADNet) is a new organization designed to “provide encouragement and resources to congregations, families and persons with disabilities”. It serves people with physical, developmental and cognitive disabilities and people suffering from mental illness. It was created after Mennonite Mutual Aid decided to phase out its disabilities ministry. ADNet can be contacted at 10065 CR 24, Middlebury, IN 46540, USA; phone 877-214-9838; e-mail; or visit their website.

—ADNet

The International Journal of STD & AIDS, in its March 2003 issue, reports that more than half of the cases of AIDS in Africa are not due to unsafe sex but due to unsafe injections and other medical practices. Researchers note that AIDS has spread in places where other sexually transmitted diseases have declined, that children who were vaccinated are more likely to have AIDS and that some young children have the disease even though their mothers do not.

—ChristianWeek

The Guardian Council of Iran voted April 30 against revising the blood-price system. Under Iranian law, which is based on sharia, the Islamic code of conduct, the family of a murder victim can demand that the murderer pay “diyeh” instead of suffering the death penalty. Diyeh is a certain number of livestock set annually by the judicial branch of the Iranian government. In Iran, the diyeh for a Muslim man is twice that for a Muslim woman and 12 times that for a non-Muslim. A proposal was presented to the Guardian Council in January that would have equalized diyeh payments for Muslims, Jews, Christians and other religious minorities.

—Evangelical Press News Service

The Graham Staines Centre for the Sick, Old, Crippled and Orphans in Satpur, India has announced that it is planning to make a $3 million movie depicting the life of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his work among lepers, the poor and lower caste people. Staines and his two young sons were burned to death by radical Hindus in 1999.

—Evangelical Press News Service

415 out of 417 Christian churches in the central highlands of Vietnam have been closed due to government persecution, according to Washington-based International Christian Concern.

—Evangelical Press News Service

American missionary Gracia Burnham was held captive by the Abu Sayyaf, a separatist Islamic group in the Philippines with links to the Al Qaeda terrorist organization, from May 27, 2001 to June 7, 2002. In a book called In the Presence of My Enemies, released May 4, she says that, even though Filipino soldiers fought to rescue her in 2002, the Armed Forces of the Philippines had earlier given food and weapons to the terrorist group because the local AFP commander and the Abu Sayyaf leader were plotting to split the ransom money for hostages held by Abu Sayyaf. She also suggests that she was wounded and her husband Martin was killed by bullets fired by the AFP during the rescue on June 7, 2002.

—Evangelical Press News Service

Abed Abdul Razak Kamel, who murdered three Christian medical missionaries and wounded another at Jibla Baptist Hospital in Jibla, Yemen on Dec. 30, 2002, was given a death sentence May 10 by a Yemeni court. Kamel said he had killed the missionaries as part of his religious duty as a Muslim. Four days after the sentence was handed down, the courthouse where the trial took place was bombed, injuring four people. One suspect has been arrested in the bombing.

—Evangelical Press News Service

Donna Santa Marie and four other women have asked the New Jersey Supreme Court for the right to sue abortion doctors, saying they were forced or misled into having abortions. Two others involved in the case are Norma McCovey (the “Roe” in “Roe v. Wade”) and Sandra Cano (the “Doe” in “Doe v. Bolton”), whose cases created abortion rights decades ago. Almost 700 other women have filed “friends of the court” briefs supporting the case.

—Evangelical Press News Service