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Missionaries Risk Danger and Chaos of Mardi Gras To Share Gospel In Haiti |
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Missions News: Outreach
(Haiti) -- Thousands of people clogged the streets --men wearing chains holding condoms, women wearing hardly anything at all, and nearly everyone dressed in exotic clothes and make-up, singing, dancing, and fighting. (In fact, several people were shot and killed that night.) Welcome to Mardi Gras in Haiti.
Despite this chaos and danger, Mike Johnson and his fellow missionaries took the opportunity to boldly share the gospel.
Mike reports, "It was one of the scariest times of my life...but definitely one of the best." The missionary team performed dramas and dances on one of the floats, and when their float stopped in front of a television station film crew, their performances were shown live throughout Haiti.
The next day, they were recognized by complete strangers: "Hey, you are that guy who was dancing" on the float, one girl remarked.
The scariest moment came on their way back to their missionary base. "There was a bunch of guys following our float dancing and lifting up their shirts, punching and kicking each other, swearing and cursing, but they never touched any of us," Mike recalls.
At one point, one of the Youth With A Mission (YWAM) students sitting on the float lost her shoe in the crowd. Mike Johnson jumped off the float and dived into the crowd to retrieve it. "I felt like I was in the Lion King at that part where Simba was trapped in all of those antelopes," he recalls.
Just as he was about to grab the shoe, someone else in the crowd grabbed it. "I started to follow him and was going to get that shoe back but he ended up giving it back" to the YWAM student. "What a relief...."
Despite this scare, and the real dangers the team faced that night, they returned safely to their base, and report that the outreach was a great success. "This was a place that needed our light to shine through," Mike reports, "and it is God who protected us that night."
Read More: Links
Mike Johnson: Mardi Gras
The Haitian Blogger: Mardi Gras In Haiti
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The International Faith Telegraph
http://www.faithtelegraph.com
The latest and most unique Christian news stories from around the world. Bizarre, groundbreaking, worldchanging. Exclusive stories from a wide variety of sources. Missions news directly from missionaries and numerous denominations and organizations. |
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YWAM Dedicates Plaza Of The Nations |
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Christian News: Various
Kona, Hawaii -- International missions organization Youth With A Mission (YWAM) officially dedicated its new "Plaza of the Nations" on Friday. The redesigned plaza now features three 20 foot fountains, thousands of glass mosaic tiles, and three seven-foot bronze statues depicting founder Loren Cunningham's vision of waves of young people spreading out around the globe to share the Gospel.
The dedication featured worship, dance, and a reading from "Is That Really You, God?" -- Loren's book discussing the vision for YWAM. Kids circled the plaza with flags, YWAM students carried torches and flowers, and thirty-five staff proclaimed praise in their own native languages. At the end of the ceremony, four generations of Loren's family led the campus in a reading of Psalms and Romans 10.
The night before the ceremony, Loren was reportedly standing quiety by himself at the fountain -- the culmination of 25 years of work and vision, and a symbol of an organization that has now sent out over 4 million short term missionaries, and currently has over 16,000 full-time volunteer workers in nearly 1,100 operating locations in 171 nations.
Links -- Read More:
YWAM Plaza of Nations
YWAM
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The International Faith Telegraph
http://www.faithtelegraph.com
The latest and most unique Christian news stories from around the world. Bizarre, groundbreaking, worldchanging. Exclusive stories from a wide variety of sources. Missions news directly from missionaries and numerous denominations and organizations. |
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Looking For A Starbucks In Cambodia? |
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Missions News: Various
It is definitely not your neighborhood Starbucks -- but when Janine Rembas needed a cool escape from the blazing heat of Camboda, it fit the bill. Her drink order? "Some kind of natural orange icee," is the best way she could describe it. No word yet on whether it was a Venti.
Janine is working in Cambodia promoting Spotlight Listeners' Clubs, a ministry that spreads the gospel by teaching English. The ministry's website explains that millions are so hungry for English that they make great sacrifices to learn it. Those that visit Spotlight Listeners' Clubs practice English and meet and speak with Christians in a non-threatening environment. They listen to and discuss Spotlight, a radio program that communicates the love of Christ while helping people learn English. Spotlight radio programs use a slower speaking rate that is easier for people to understand.
English is especially valuable in Cambodia because education is so limited and the people have so few text books in the Khmer language. Learning English is one way Cambodians can further their education and become open to new ideas and thinking -- a daunting task after the years of the Khmer Rouge, when the educated were executed and books were burned.
Cambodians still have much to recover from, and thus will have much to discuss, if Spotlight Listeners' Clubs take off. Indeed, right now a high-profile trial of one of the Khmer Rouge executioners is taking place: During the Khmer Rouge reign of terror in the 1970s, Comrade Duch, now on trial, ordered the executions of 12,000 to 15,000 people.
Despite this horrific past, God is at work in Cambodia. While the the Khmer Rouge tried to eradicate religion in its 1970's revolution to establish "utopia," many of the same fighters (Comrade Duch included) now profess faith in Jesus Christ.
In a similar trial 10 years ago of Ta Mok (“The Butcher”) in Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge leader’s defense attorney was Benson Samay -- whose own wife and 12-year-old daughter were killed by the Khmer Rouge. It is not clear what his motivation was, but if he could defend an executioner, imagine what God can do in the lives of perpetrators and victims who have embraced Christ! Where sin abounds, grace much more abounds.
Pray for the people of Cambodia -- that they will move past the horrors of the past and find peace and salvation in Christ.
Pray also for Janine Rembas and the other missionaries of HCJB -- that God would open doors and use Spotlight Listener's Clubs to spread the Gospel in Cambodia and around the world.
Portions of this story were taken and/or adapted from blog entries on A Box of Curtains, by Ralph Kurtenbach, and The Journeys of Janine, by Janine Rembas.
Read More: Links
His Work In Cambodia Amid Great Challenges
Coffee and Optimism
Spotlight Listeners' Club (Video)
Phnom Penh Journal; Intrepid Lawyer Rises for First Khmer Rouge Trial
Khmer Rouge Embraces Jesus
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The International Faith Telegraph
http://www.faithtelegraph.com
The latest and most unique Christian news stories from around the world. Bizarre, groundbreaking, worldchanging. Exclusive stories from a wide variety of sources. Missions news directly from missionaries and numerous denominations and organizations.
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Churches Unite To Reach Every Home In Corrientes |
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Missions News: Outreach
While the Pope calls for Christian unity, and Korean Christians declare 2009 the Year of Unity, Christians in Argentina are actually putting these words into practice.
Evangelical churches in the Argentine province of Corrientes are uniting for an event called "Outreach To Every Home In Corrientes." Their goal? To jointly participate in evangelism outreaches and hand out literature to every single home in the province of Corrientes, population 929,236 (2001).
Last month they met together to discuss logistics and plans, this month will be spent fasting and praying, and next month their outreach begins. They believe that the most effective way to share the Gospel is to do so in "unity" as the Bible commands.
Pray for the Corrientes outreach: For the salvation of the people of Corrientes, for strength and wisdom to the churches, and that this outreach may be a shining example of just how powerful it can be for the Church to join together in unity to share the Gospel with the lost.
Read More: Links
Corrientes Outreach
Pope Calls For Unity
Korean Christian Leaders Declare 2009 Year Of Unity
Wikipedia: Corrientes
Bibles Verses About Unity
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The International Faith Telegraph
http://www.faithtelegraph.com
The latest and most unique Christian news stories from around the world. Bizarre, groundbreaking, worldchanging. Exclusive stories from a wide variety of sources. Missions news directly from missionaries and numerous denominations and organizations. |
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Christians In China Increasingly Desperate For Bibles |
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Missions News: Persecution
A funny thing happened when China started printing Bibles: The Chinese Christian Church's need for Bibles increased.
According to Missions Network News ("MNN"), less people are carrying Bibles into China because they are aware that Bibles are being printed inside China.
However, many of these printed Bibles are designed to be exported to other countries, are not in the Chinese langauge, and are not made available to the Chinese church.
As a result, China -- which is now one of the biggest Bible producing countries in the world, producing nearly 1 in 4 of the World's Bibles -- is home to a Christian church that is increasingly desparate for Bibles of its own. MNN reports that Chinese pastors are particularly desperate for Bibles -- over one million pastors in China are currently waiting for a study Bible.
Ironic, isn't it? The Bible you are reading may have been manufactured by someone who will never have the privilege of owning or reading a Bible himself.
Vision Beyond Borders, a ministry of the Voice of the Martyrs, is asking for help. If you are a businessman traveling to China, they want you to consider bringing a suitcase of Bibles into the country. They say there is little risk: If you get caught, you will simply lose the Bibles and pay a "small" fine.
If you are not planning to travel to China, or a little queasy about "smuggling" Bibles, check out Bibles Unbound, which lets you sponsor Bibles being sent to China. For more information, click here.
Read More: Links
Bible Deliverers Are Needed In China
Chinese Factory To Suppply One In Four Bibles
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The International Faith Telegraph
http://www.faithtelegraph.com
The latest and most unique Christian news stories from around the world. Bizarre, groundbreaking, worldchanging. Exclusive stories from a wide variety of sources. Missions news directly from missionaries and numerous denominations and organizations.
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