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Christians Pray for End to Global Poverty

Lets join in prayer to end Global poverty.

from http://christianpost.com

LONDON – Christians in the United Kingdom will unite this week with fellow believers around the world in praying for an end to global poverty.

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  (Photo: AP Images / David Longstreath)
  A Cambodian bathes near his slum home Thursday, Feb. 19, 2009, on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. According to government sources an estimated 35 percent of Cambodians live under the poverty line.
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  (Photo: AP Images / David Longstreath)
  Cambodian women gather near their slum homes Thursday, Feb. 19, 2009, on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. According to government figures less than four percent of Cambodia's 14 million people are over the age of 65. Many blame the low figure on the massacres committed by the Khmer Rouge which left more that 1.5 million Cambodians dead during their reign from 1975 to 1979. Today trials of the former leaders have officially begun.

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• Christian Right, Left Find Common Ground in Poverty Reduction

As part of Tearfund’s Global Poverty Prayer Week, Feb. 23-March 1, churches are calling out with one voice for God’s intervention in areas affected by poor sanitation and lack of clean water, climate change, and high rates of HIV among other challenges.

Christians will also pray for disaster relief and the impact of the local church in places of need.

“Is it his world in our hands, or is it our world in his hands?" said Tearfund Chief Executive Matthew Frost.

"Whichever way you look at it, God has invited us to be part of restoring this fallen, broken, beautiful world. He has given us the privilege of partnership. And we know that he answers prayer."

Prayer requests have been received from Cambodia, Uganda, Haiti, Myanmar and Darfur, among other countries.

"The impact of the world recession is a thread that links many of them," according to a recent Tearfund statement.

Frost pointed to a recent prayer effort which saw thousands of Tearfund supporters joining with others around the world in prayer for people living in the Democratic Republic of Congo under the regime of rebel leader General Nkunda.

"We prayed that God would move in his heart after his army had defeated the country’s army in vast areas around the eastern city of Goma," said Frost. "We were concerned for the 250,000 people who had been made homeless as a result of his rebel uprising. We took it to God in prayer, alongside those who were suffering and oppressed, and cried out for justice.

"Soon afterwards, the rebel group unexpectedly split, lessening Nkunda’s power, and then last week Nkunda himself was arrested by Rwandan troops."

Supporters of the Global Poverty Prayer Week include Lynne Hybels, co-founder of Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill., and worship leader Tim Hughes who share their prayer ideas in a DVD.

Young Christians are also getting behind the initiative by holding 24/7 prayer chains and setting up creative prayer spaces. Jo Herbert, Tearfund’s National Youth Work Assistance, said the response from young people had been “overwhelming.”

“For me the excitement is in getting hundreds of young people up and down the country in prayer rooms for a week talking to God about justice. They can’t not be changed as a result,” she said.

“I don’t think you can come before God and ask him how he feels about the injustices of this world and not be changed because it is something that burns so passionately in his heart and we see throughout the Bible that God is for the poor the oppressed and the marginalized.”

Frost added, "We know that praying about global poverty issues and world events does have an impact, both on our own lives as well as to others. God is at work in this world, and it’s exciting to be part of it!"

Tearfund is part of a broad coalition of aid agencies telling G20 leaders that only just, fair and sustainable policies will be able to see the world through the recession.

The message comes ahead of the G20 summit where top advanced and emerging economies will discuss the global economic crisis on April 2.

The coalition, which also includes World Vision and Christian Aid, is organizing a major demonstration in central London on March 28. The "Put People First" march will head through Westminster and culminate in a rally at Hyde Park.

In a joint statement, the coalition said that the only sustainable way to rebuild the economy is to create a fair distribution of wealth that would provide decent jobs and public services for all, end global inequality and build a low carbon future.

“Recession must not be an excuse for putting off action for global justice or to stop climate chaos,” they said.

Tearfund Advocacy Director Paul Cook said the Church was being mobilized locally and globally to respond to the needs of people losing their livelihoods in the downturn and those living in poor communities where the impact of climate change is already being felt.

“World leaders must now work to ensure that failed systems are re-structured to fairly accommodate the poor in society. In a biting recession developing countries are hit even harder,” he said.

Tearfund and other church groups will hold an ecumenical church service at Central Hall, Westminster, on March 28. The congregation will then join the main march as it moves through Westminster and heads to Hyde Park.

Egyptian Christian's recognition struggle

from bbc.com

Maher al-Gohary has converted from Islam to Christianity. In spite of facing death threats, he's engaged in a legal battle to have his changed religion recognised on his official Egyptian documents.

We drive through the chaotic streets of Cairo to meet Mr Gohary's lawyer at a petrol station.

His client lives in hiding, and doesn't disclose his address.

He faces threats to his life - as a result of abandoning Islam for Christianity.

When we meet, in a small first floor office on an anonymous Cairo street, Maher al-Gohary is matter-of-fact about the dangers he faces.

The problem is that some judges rule according to their beliefs, not according to law Nabil Ghobreyal, lawyer

"I am afraid. Many, many people can kill me and my daughter anytime," he says.

I asked him whether he felt these threats to his life were serious.

"Yes," he replied. "Anyone may kill us in the street."

His teenage daughter, also a Christian, sits at her father's side.

She, too, has been warned about the consequences of religious conversion.

"While I was going to school, someone stopped me and told me if my father does not go back to Islam, they will kill him and kill me," she tells me.

Legal recognition

Her father's legal challenge is a simple one.

He wants his state identification documents amended, so that his religious status is described as Christian.

Such a change would also mean his daughter could receive Christian religious education.

His lawyer, Nabil Ghobreyal, has already represented his client at several legal hearings - but no judge has yet issued a final verdict.

At the most recent, on 7 February, Mr Ghobreya believes he made a convincing case that Egyptian civil law offers no obstacles to religious conversion.

He believes the real problem is that the law is being ignored.

Who are Egypts' Christians? Egypt has the oldest and largest Christian community in the Middle East About 10% of Egypt's 80 million people are Christians Egyptian Christians are known as Copts, a word derived from the Greek word Aigyptos, meaning Egypt The Christian community is divided into: Coptic Orthodox, Coptic Catholics, Coptic Evangelicans (Protestants) and other minorities They have their own pope, Pope Shenouda III, and give allegiance to him rather than to Rome

"The court should have ruled in the first session of this case to allow Mr Gohary to change his religion from Muslim to Christian," he explains.

"But the problem is that some judges rule according to their beliefs, not according to law."

Those beliefs lead some Muslims to support harsh penalties for those who abandon the Muslim faith.

Some believe that to renounce Islam - known as apostasy - should be punished by death.

But human rights lawyers in Egypt are convinced that the country's law allows for the freedom to change religion.

At the Arabic Human Rights Information Network, I met Gamal Eid, a lawyer fighting a similar case on behalf of another religious convert.

He believes that if Mr Gohary's case is successful, it could have far-reaching consequences.

"Many people in their ID are Muslim, or Christian, or Jewish - but they believe different things," he says.

"Many of them are afraid to convert officially. If that door opens - huge numbers of people will try to convert from Muslim to Christian. The law gives them this right."

Existing in secret

Egypt's Christian communities have deep roots - with many churches pre-dating Islam.

But some feel as though they have to exist in secret, or at the very least to be discreet about their activities.

At morning prayer at a Catholic church in Cairo, I come across Father Rafiq Greish.

He tells me that while his church is free to hold services when it wants, he is prevented from sharing his Christian faith as widely as he would like.

All my hope: peace, and peace. Only peace. We didn't find it in Egypt now Maher El Gohary

And he says that some women in his congregation, who have converted to Christianity, go to great lengths to hide their changed religious status from friends and family.

"When they go out from the church, they put their veil on again, and they go home with their veil as if a Muslim woman," he explains.

"Because she's afraid from her brothers, her father, in her work, she cannot say she was converted - and this is part of our problems."

Mr Gohary's legal challenge is being watched closely by supporters of religious freedom who believe it is under threat in many Middle Eastern countries.

Any change in the law would not necessarily improve his personal safety, but it would mean recognition for the faith he holds dear.

He told me that what he really wants is to be able to live a normal life, without fearing for his safety. And that several other countries have now offered him asylum on religious grounds.

But all he wants is to be able to stay in the place of his birth - and freely practise the religion he's chosen.

"All my hope: peace, and peace. Only peace. We don't find it in Egypt now."


Http://www.bbc.com

Archaeologists unearth relics from eras of First and Second Temples

from haaretz.com

Archaeologists unearth relics from eras of First and Second Temples
By Haaretz Service

The Israel Antiquities Authority on Monday announced the discovery of a large building dating to the time of the First and Second Temples during an excavation in the village of Umm Tuba in southern Jerusalem.

The excavation was conducted by Zubair Adawi on behalf of the antiquities authority, prior to the start of construction there by a private contractor.

The archaeological remains include several rooms arranged around a courtyard, in which researchers found a potter's kiln and pottery vessels. The pottery remains seem to date from the eighth century B.C.E. (First Temple period).
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According to the antiquities authority, the site was destroyed along with Jerusalem and all of Judah during the Babylonian conquest. Jews reoccupied it during the Hasmonean period (second century B.C.E.) and it existed for another two hundred years until the destruction of the Second Temple.

During the Byzantine period, the place was re-inhabited during the settlement of monasteries and farmsteads in the region between Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

The excavators also found royal seal impressions on some of the pottery fragments that date to the era of Hezekiah, King of Judah (end of the eighth century B.C.E.).

Four "LMLK" impressions (which indicate the items belonged to the king) were discovered on handles of large jars used to store wine and oil. Seals of two high-ranking officials named Ahimelekh ben Amadyahu and Yehokhil ben Shahar, who served in the government, were also found.

The Yehokhil seal was stamped on one of the LMLK impressions before the jar was fired in a kiln and this is a rare example of two such impressions appearing together on a single handle.

Excavators also discovered a Hebrew inscription - dating 600 years later than the Kingdom of Judah seals - on a fragment of a jar neck. An alphabetic sequence was engraved below the vessel's rim in Hebrew script that is characteristic of the beginning of the Hasmonean period (end of the second century B.C.E.).

Three years ago, the remains of a monastery from this period were also excavated. Together with the current findings, they confirm the identification of the place as "Metofa," which is mentioned in the writings of the church fathers in the Byzantine period.


http://www.haaretz.com

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