In Response to ISIS' Killing of 30 Ethiopian Christians, Franklin Graham Says 'Gates of Hell Will Not Prevail against Church'

(Photo : Samaritan's Purse)

Franklin Graham is the President of Samaritan's Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association

 Leah Marieann Klett,  The Gospel Herald

Rev. Franklin Graham has said that ISIS' brutal massacre of 30 Ethiopian Christians will only strengthen the faith of those living in the country and has encouraged believers to remember Jesus' promise that the gates of hell would not prevail against His church, in reference to Matthew 16:18.
In a Facebook post on Monday, Graham, who is the President of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, wrote, "We learned yesterday that Ethiopian Christians were beheaded by ISIS in Libya. Once again we are reminded of the brutality that emanates from Islam. Our deepest sympathy goes out to the Ethiopian families who have lost their sons, their fathers, their husbands, their brothers-we are praying for you. I was just In Ethiopia a few weeks ago and met with some of the wonderful Christians there. This will only strengthen their faith. Jesus said that the gates of hell would not prevail against His church."

Earth Day: Pope Francis Calls on Mankind to 'See the World Through Eyes of God the Creator;' Not Exploit, Manipulate the Planet, but to Safeguard the Environment

• Thursday 22, April, 2015

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By Stoyan Zaimov , Christian Post Reporter

(Photo: Reuters)

Pope Francis frees a dove in Madhu, Sri Lanka, on Jan. 14. The Catholic leader told reporters Thursday that he believes humans are mostly to blame for climate change.

Pope Francis has marked Earth Day by urging mankind not to exploit or manipulate the planet, but instead to safeguard the environment in accordance to God's call.
"I exhort everyone to see the world through the eyes of God the Creator: the Earth is an environment to be safeguarded, a garden to be cultivated," Francis said at the General Audience in St. Peter's Square on Wednesday, Vatican Radio reported.

Paris Extremist's Misfire Thwarts Imminent Attack on Church

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve

 

PARIS (AP) — An Islamic extremist with an arsenal of loaded guns was only prevented from opening fire on Sunday morning churchgoers because he accidentally shot himself, French officials said.

Xenophobia: army, cops fire first big salvo

Johannesburg - There was no warning. Many were asleep, others preparing to sleep. Then, suddenly, a contingent of more than 200 soldiers and police officers were there, the police banging on doors and bursting into packed rooms.
On Tuesday night, just after 10pm, the SAPS and the SANDF conducted a joint raid at the Wolhuter men’s hostel in Jeppestown which saw them turning the tables on hostel dwellers in a bid to restore law and order to the troubled area.
The hostel was raided room by room. Residents were marched out of their rooms while they were still in their underwear. Although the heavily armed policemen were firm, they were not abusive towards the men, who in turn were not volatile during the raid.
The operation was carried out in the presence of high-ranking officials, including national police commissioner Riah Phiyega.
The police arrested 11 people.
Gauteng police spokesman Lieutenant Kay Makhubela told The Star on Wednesday morning that several bags of dagga and an assortment of stolen property had been found.
He could not say exactly what was confiscated.
“The property appears to have been stolen from supermarkets and hardware shops,” he said. “The raids will be conducted from time to time when hotspots are identified.”
Some of the hostel dwellers are thought to have participated in xenophobic attacks that have swept through parts of Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.
Seven people, including a teenager, have died in the violence and more than 300 people arrested.
The police directed the well-organised raid while the soldiers supervised from a distance and maintained order outside the building.
However, the men in surrounding hostels were displeased with the disturbances and shouted at the media trying to take pictures of them.
Earlier on Tuesday night, hostel dwellers threatened a Star photographer and vowed to take on journalists, blaming them for the arrest of Mozambican street hawker Emmanuel Sithole’s killers in Alexandra at the weekend.
Phiyega said: “We will be going from province to province. We will have incessant operations such as this one. We will cordon off and search.”
But the SANDF would not say where else in the country the army would be deployed.
SANDF spokesman General Xolani Mabanga said on Wednesday morning: “I am not in a position to tell you where they will be deployed from now.”
Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, accompanied by State Security Minister David Mahlobo, on Tuesday announced the deployment of the army during a visit to Alexandra.
Sithole and a Zimbabwean couple are believed to be the latest victims of xenophobic violence. The 33-year-old man and his 22-year-old girlfriend were shot and wounded at their house on 19th Avenue on Monday night.
But the hustle and bustle of Alexandra life continued as normal on Wednesday morning. Although there were fears among foreigners, a number of foreign-owned shops opened for business.
David* an Ethiopian spaza shop owner said he felt safe knowing the army was coming.
Local resident Elizabeth*, who owns the building where David has his shop, said: “I am protective of foreigners here. They do nothing wrong. They help us.
“I told all the foreigners who work in this street that if the hostel men come, they must phone me; I’ll call the police.”
Another local resident, Thembi* said she has a close relationship with Zimbabweans, Malawians and Ethiopians living in the area. “We are like mother and son,” she said pointing towards David.
Elizabeth told The Star it was the foreign-owned spaza shops that were willing to give them food and bread on credit.
“He (David) always says I can take and I’ll pay when I can,” she said.
* Not their real names.
The Star

EXCLUSIVE: 'They cut off your head or shoot you': Christian migrants reveal how they fled Libya and made perilous journey across Med to escape ISIS

Christian migrants speak of making the journey across Med to escape ISIS

Eritrean refugee Haben, 19, made the perilous trip with brother Samuel, 14

Haben said gunmen patrol Libyan towns and beaches looking for 'infidels'

Made journey days before 900 died as they travelled from Libya to Sicily

By Nick Fagge In Catania For Mailonline

 

Christian migrants from Africa have spoken of making the perilous journey across the Mediterranean to escape beheading from Islamic State fanatics in Libya. 

A group of Eritrean refugees told how they were forced to deny their faith or face death at the hands of Islamist gunmen who patrol the towns and beaches of the North African state searching for 'infidels'.

Haben, 19, told MailOnline: 'We are Christians but we had to deny our faith otherwise the gunmen would kill us, slit our throats and cut off our heads.'

He and his brother Samuel, 14, arrived in Sicily a week ago, just days before around 900 people died when their boat capsized during the same dangerous journey from Libya - one of the worst maritime disasters since the end of World War Two.

 

Migrants: Eritrean refugees Haben (left) and his younger brother Samuel made the perilous journey across the Mediterranean to escape beheading from Islamic State fanatics

Menaced By War, An Ancient Christian Village In Iraq Returns To Life

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Three men water newly planted trees on March 18 in al-Qosh, an ancient Christian village in northern Iraq. The village emptied out last August as Islamic State fighters approached. But the extremists never entered al-Qosh and the village and residents have returned. The men are watering outside a monastery that dates to the 7th century. 

Alex Potter for NPR

The ancient Rabban Hermizd Monestary, on a hill overlooking the northern village of al-Qosh, is a testament to the long history of Christians in Iraq. Stone walls leading up the hill are decorated with iconography, and the 7th-century monastery is covered with the ancient Syriac language, still spoken today by the people of al-Qosh.
"Christians have been here in the Ninevah plains for thousands of years. It would be a tragedy if we just disappeared," said Athra Kado, a local Syriac language teacher.
But on Aug. 6 of last year, the people of al-Qosh did disappear, in a manner of speaking.
The self-declared Islamic State, or ISIS, was within about six miles and had been advancing rapidly in northern Iraq, overrunning Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, as well as other towns and villages in the area.
Kurdish forces that opposed ISIS, known as the Peshmerga, came to al-Qosh on the night of Aug. 6 to warn the residents they were in imminent danger.
The Peshmerga "threw a barricade across the road just outside al-Qosh, but we knew that wouldn't stop" ISIS, said Kado.

Ancient Assyrian, a language dating to biblical times, decorates the Rabban Hermzid Monastery that was built in the 7th century.

Alex Potter for NPR

The residents fled, leaving al-Qosh a ghost town. But something curious happened. For reasons unknown, ISIS stopped stopped short of al-Qosh and never tried to enter the village.
After a while, the residents felt secure enough to return and it has been buzzing with activity this spring. The markets are open, the schools are running, and families are picnicking on the hills overlooking al-Qosh.
While all appears well for the moment, the future of Christians in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East is not particularly bright.
Christians in Iraq numbered about 1.5 million, or about 8 percent of the population, before the U.S. invasion that ousted dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003.

More than a decade of war and upheaval has prompted many Christians to leave. Today the Christian population in Iraq is estimated to have dropped below 400,000.
The Christian exodus from Iraq is one part of a larger trend that has been playing out for decades throughout the wider Middle East. In the mid-20th century, Christians were estimated to be about 20 percent of the Middle East's population. Today, it's 5 percent at most.
In 2008 and 2010, al-Qosh became a safe haven for civilians fleeing turbulence in the Mosul area, about 30 miles to the south. The same thing happened again before and after the ISIS threat last August.
Elderly women from the countryside have stayed in an empty local school. The women said they were comfortable and well provided for, though they hoped to return to their homes.
The residents of al-Qosh have now set up their own militia in hopes of protecting the village should it again be threatened.
Kado and a number of his friends serve rotating days on militia duty, patrolling the town and the surrounding area. As they climbed the flower-covered hill behind the monastery to water newly planted trees, they reflected on the situation.

An Assyrian Christian couple walks through the market area of al-Qosh, where most residents have returned after fleeing last August in the face of an advance of the Islamic State. The ancient village is about 30 miles north of Mosul, Iraq's second biggest city, which is still held by the Islamic State.

"We come up here to picnic, to be with our friends. This is our town, we don't want to give it up," said Riven Nafe, an engineer.
A priest in a local church, Gabriel Gorgis, said it is the world's duty to help protect dwindling Christian communities in place like al-Qosh.
"Look around at our history," said Gorgis. "We have been here for thousands of years. Wouldn't it be a shame to the world and future generations to lose us?"

Taxes: It's Only Money, But It's God's Money In Your Care

 

 

  

By Susan Stamper Brown , CP Guest Contributor

It is tax week 2015. If you completed your tax return on time and wrote that check you'd much rather leave in your account, why not pour yourself a cup of coffee (or maybe a bottle of antacid relief) and plop yourself down in your favorite easy chair and sit a spell. You deserve it. While relaxing, why not take a minute to entertain yourself and learn how your hard-earned money was spent.
Now-retired Sen. Tom Coburn's (R-Okla.) "Wastebook 2014" reports the government spent $856,000 to teach mountain lions how to run on a treadmill, $171,000 to teach monkeys how to gamble and $387,000 to give rabbits massages. It spent $331,000 to see if spouses are more likely to stab "significant other" voodoo dolls when hungry, $15,000 to attract Colorado young people to the symphony by funding the creation of "Classically Cannabis: The High Note Series." While we're on that high note, the IRS paid $4.2 billion in tax refunds to identity thieves and the Defense Department paid $1 billion to destroy $16 billion in unneeded military-grade ammunition.
"Waste Watch," a publication released by Rep. Steve Russell (R-Okla.) discovered things like $456,669 million was spent on a firing range in Afghanistan that "melted" away after it rained. Another expenditure you probably missed in 2014, was a $100 million "bailout" the State Department discretely transferred to the Afghanistan government without much explanation. An example of how cracked the system is, in 2013, the State Department paid $207,297 to Humpty Dumpty Institute to fly young Iraqi filmmakers to Los Angeles to show them how filmmaking is done, resulting in the production of an anti-American film.
A little searching on my own found the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) paid $98,670 in 2013 for a single-hole waterless outhouse up here in Alaska. According to CNSNews.com the unit cost was "as low as $9,999" plus shipping from Oregon and set up. You do the math.
Playing God via population control was a high priority, given the International Development agency stated its plan to invest $10.4 million empowering young Malawi girls to use birth control. In 2014, the Health and Human Service Department planned to spend $450,000 in grants to provide birth control "including long acting contraceptives and sterilization" to the Navajo Nation although its population declined by almost 4 percent between 2000 and 2010. And then it gets wacky. The National Institute of Health funded a four-year, $2.2 million study on the risks to contract HIV for married male migrant laborers from Tajikistan who had sex with female Russian prostitutes in Moscow. Like we should really care? Seriously.
Well-intentioned waste is still waste. Of the $360 million spent to build 11 Ebola treatment facilities in Liberia, nine failed to treat "a single Ebola patient." The other two only treated 28 patients, reports The New York Times. More concerning is the claim by the Washington Post that "the Pentagon is unable to account for more than $500 million" given to Yemen by way of "weaponry, aircraft and equipment" that officials fear is "at risk of being seized" by terrorists. Personally cited as one of President Obama's foreign policy successes last fall, seven months and $500 million later, terror abounds, the U.S. evacuates the embassy and UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon states Yemen is "collapsing before our eyes."
The national debt spirals out of control. President Obama desperately wants conservatives to approve his budget he claims will erase the national debt over time. Quite a feat, given it was $10.5 trillion when he took office and exceeds $18 trillion today. Can't blame that on Bush. Jesus told us to "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's," and I happy-dance over the fact that here in America we get a say in who will be our new Caesar! Get it right this time, America.
Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution gives the federal government permission to spend money on just a few things like post offices, roads and items related to national defense. Not monkey gambling and the wide assortment of other oddities wholeheartedly approved by those who control the purse. After all, it's only money. God's money and your money.

Susan Stamper Brown Susan Stamper Brown is an Alaskan resident and recovering political pundit who does her best to make sense of current day events using her faith. She tries to read every email sent to her at writestamper@gmail.com or join her Facebook page