A young Saudi had a dream about Jesus, began to read the Scriptures and trusted Christ. He then married, but his wife did not accept his faith. They later had a child who became very ill. The husband told his wife that they were going to pray to Jesus and that only He could heal the child . The child was then healed and the wife and also her mother came to faith.
Source OM global (Arab world series) Sept 14 issue 3
Beginning on September 15th for 4 weeks .Monday to Friday 10-am to 12 noon Ty-Isaf will open its doors for people to sit inside, pray , have a look inside, ask questions about God.. There is a welcome for people just to drop in for an informal chat & have a cup of coffee. (Ty-Isaf is the Risca Street pastors base on a Saturday night)
For Christian prisoners of faith, ‘taking up their cross and following Christ’ is no easy road. Their testimony of enduring faith is both a challenge and an encouragement to their brothers and sisters in Christ here in he UK and Ireland and around the world.
North Korean, Eritrean, Iranian and other Christians who seek to share and live out their faith in theses countries often pay a high personal price- yet it is a price they accept as ‘normal’ Christian discipleship.
Their prison experience is not viewed with surprise outrage: on the contrary, they often regard the prison cell as their mission field, imprisonment as training and the whole experience as part of God’s purpose & plan.
The reality is that today in detention centres and prison camps across the world, God is doing exactly what he promised to do: building His church.
Just as He did with the early church, God is there in those cells watching over His children, pouring out His love into their hearts and reaching out in love to others, prisoners and persecutors alike. Still He calls us to ‘remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison’. (Hebrews13V3
11 September 2014
Today it is 150 days since 275 girls were abducted from the Chibok Government Secondary School by Boko Haram, on the night of 14 April. Although 47 of these girls have managed to escape, the others remain captive.
One of the girls was able to hide a mobile phone in her clothes and called her parents after she escaped with some others. The girls had no idea where they were. Their parents told them to continue walking west every evening, in the direction of the setting sun, and eventually they made it to the Cameroon border and were reunited with their families.
The escaped girls said that they were raped almost every day. Girls who do not cooperate face severe punishment.
Dr Stephen Davis, an Australian cleric, was appointed as presidential envoy in the negotiations with Boko Haram. Dr Davis was able to persuade Boko Haram to release some of the girls: “They told me they’d be prepared to release some as a goodwill gesture towards a peace deal with the government.”
The rebels brought 60 girls to a location in Cameroon as promised, but the release was sabotaged: “We travelled for four-and-a-half hours to reach them, but 15 minutes before we arrived they were kidnapped again by another group who wanted to cash in on a reward… I understand, from the Boko Haram commanders I spoke to, the girls eventually ended up back with them.”
Dr Davis has had contact with four girls who were able to escape the camp, with the help of a young man who was kidnapped by Boko Haram and forced to work as driver. However, when Dr Davis tried to make contact via text message with the young man, he got a chilling response: “The person you are trying to contact has gone on a journey from which there is no return. He was an infidel.”
After spending four months in Nigeria, Dr Davis returned to Australia. He says the kidnappings will not end. “It became very clear that if I was able to get 50 girls released then another group would kidnap 70 or 80 more.”
He told Open Doors that in April they were dealing with three separate factions of Boko Haram that had agreed to work together. However, Boko Haram has now unified and changed. The involvement of other groups such as Al-Qaeda, IS and Al Shabaab is further radicalising the group.
There are also allegations that high ranking politicians and international sponsors are in collusion with Boko Haram, further complicating any settlement.
