Did you hear about this? Three believers were tortured and martyred (killed for their faith) in Turkey last week. Here are some articles about it (got them from a missionary in Turkey):
[April 25 edit: wow, I just realized that this happened while I was in Pakistan.] We had a tremendous weekend in Toronto and I'm going to put a post up about it soon, but I just got the following in an email and immediately thought that I should post it here - especially as we've been focusing on Pakistan recently. Lord have mercy.The following can be found on the Barnabas Fund website. This happened two weeks ago.
"Pakistani Christian girl gang raped:
A young Christian girl in Pakistan was kidnapped on Easter Sunday and gang raped over three days.
On the morning of 8th April twelve-year-old Cheena Masih went to the local shops near her home in Lahore. On her way she was attacked by four men who knocked her unconscious. Her abductors took Cheena to a factory warehouse, where they raped her, keeping her there for two days and then moving her to a private home.When Cheena’s family realised she was missing they went to the local police station, but received no help from the police. The family searched for the missing girl themselves, and on 10th April managed to discover the name of one of the kidnappers. Cheena’s father and brother found the man at the factory where he worked; the man admitted that he was holding Cheena, and promised to return her. At 9pm that night Cheena was delivered back to her home, and was taken to hospital in a critical condition.
The following day the police arrested four men at the factory. However, the police continued to obstruct the case, refusing to lodge a report until they had a medical report for Cheena, and not exerting themselves to help the family get the medical examination done. Eventually, after the intervention of a Pakistani Christian advocacy organisation, the examination was done on 13th April and the police promised that they would register the case.
The shameful act of rape is often used by Muslims as a weapon for harming and punishing Christians, and cases like Cheena’s are sadly frequent in countries like Pakistan and Egypt. Her family’s experience of finding the authorities reluctant to help them at their time of need is also a common experience for poor Christian families in such contexts.
Please join with us in prayer... 1. Pray for Cheena as she recovers from her terrifying ordeal. Pray both for physical healing, and for healing for the hidden, emotional scars. Pray that she will not feel shame for what was done to her, but the love of her Heavenly Father will bring her peace.
2. Pray that Pakistani police will seek true justice, and that they will pursue the case rigorously. Pray that those responsible will repent of what they have done."
I wrote three reports about my time in Pakistan below. Here are some pictures (click for full size) and videos to compliment them.
North Pakistan. I landed in Lahore but, after preaching in a local church, was whisked off to North Pakistan for three days.
The gentleman in the middle runs a Christian school right smack in the middle of where the Pakistan earthquake zone. This is the only Christian school in the area, and God chose to protect all of the children from harm when the earthquake struck. Given the thousands who died, hundreds of them children, this was a powerful testimony.
Spent a lot of time on the road. Crazy driving and almost no seatbelts.
Preaching by translation in Abbottabad.
Quite the road...
We almost crashed into these goats.
The house-church where eight were saved.
The congregation. ... Christ said "I will build my church." He's doing it. Also, watch this house-church worship the Lord in this Quicktime video clip.
Afterwards. The woman to my left was one of the one who professed faith.
--
After North Pakistan it was on to Lahore. I spent most of this time with Mike Wakely (and three others) looking at Starfish schools. Here is a 53-second YouTube video of the time. It opens with a presentation from the children. Then there is footage of the children singing in presentation to the guest (me again!) in the classrooms, and ends with a clip of unschooled brick kiln children. Maybe some of these children will be in a Starfish school soon.
Miracle Brick Kiln School: giving brick kiln children hope through Christ-centered education.
Two of the cutest kids on earth. See them sing in the video. :)
The schedule.
Happy students.
A young student in prayer.
This is a picture of a very proud father and his child - a girl who did so well in school that she won this prize. The thing is that this little girl is adopted - as are her four sisters. By adopting these girls, this man and his wife (by no means rich themselves) saved these girls from desperate situations. They intend to adopt five more girls - maybe more. It is one of the happiest homes I have ever seen.
At a small school for handicapped children, this little boy who can't walk is overjoyed with our visit. Like the others, he has rose petals to shower on us in welcome.
This is a tragic story. (Read my update below for more background.) Because children work on the brick kilns in order for the families to make enough to survive (at the extortionate rates the brick kiln owners pay the people for their work), this little girl was engulfed in flames when something went wrong. She wouldn't even have gone to school (where I took this picture) if it hadn't been for Starfish. .. Safety is not a priority at the brick kiln, and the brick kiln owners who run the show more often than not let sick and injured children die. .. Someone like you could bring Christ to 1,000 children like this. Challenging.
Bonded labourers making bricks. After the bricks are hand-made in little moulds, they are brought here, stacked high, and fired - turning them from brown to red.
A brick kiln child who has probably never entered a classroom.
The brick kiln manager lives in the house in the middle of this photograph. I saw him lounging on a charpai (bed). There is a nice white car in his driveway. His is a house of luxury by local standards, with fruit trees in the garden. Nothing wrong with any of this, except that he (and much more significantly the brick kiln owner, who does not live around here) are wealthy through the extortion of their brick kiln bonded-labour slaves.
Nothing special here... until you discover that those bricks--there are several hundred - many of them stacked--have been ruined by the rain. Something happened--maybe people got sick--where the family that made these bricks left them. With not even a tree to protect these half-finished bricks (let alone for shade) in this sun-burnt plain (not to mention temperatures that reach 50 degree Celsius), the hours of back-breaking work that went into these were wasted. And the brick kiln owner doesn't care; he only pays for finished bricks.
On a happier note, one of the things I got to do in Lahore was visit the home our family had lived in 16 years ago (now renovated and much nicer!). After taking this picture, the host (to whom I was a complete stranger) invited me in for a full tour, a cold Coke, and a bowl of ice cream. :)
Finally, here is a picture of the Jala*l family. (Read about them in "Worlds Converge" below.) What an absolutely wonderful way to spend my last day in Pakistan - fellowshipping with the Jal*als, and Matt & Ruth Cook in Karachi. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of Matt & Ruth, but visit Matt's blog at matthewcook.blogspot.com (and read about our time together from his perspective), pray for the J*alals, praise God for Starfish, consider giving to all three; and press on in Jesus' name.
I'm writing this from the airport in Karachi, Pakistan after 10 days in this country. (Continued writing in transit in Qatar, and in the sky; and posted to my blog upon landing in London.) Wow, I didn't realize what a tremendous trip it would be.
My last update here on the blog was written near the beginning of my trip. Here are some highlights since then:
-Visited Murree Christian School, which I attended from grades 1-4. Was near the earthquake zone, so it was convenient to get to. Arrived after dark and without an appointment Sunday night--and security at the school is *very* tight--but the director (ie, top guy) kindly gave me a fantastic 'private tour'. Lots of memories (eg, playing marbles in the gutter, 'prisoner's base' at 'the court', etc.). -Spoke to 15 or so cricket players Monday night. Felt the message was weak, but two nominal Christians got born again. Believe it was genuine. -Visited many Starfish Asia schools. There are quite a lot of nominal Christians in Pakistan, but many of them are *very* poor and are often exploited by the other-faith rich. So a good strategy is to give them free or very-low-cost education. .. If you're looking for a ministry to give to, this is 'big bang for your buck': no Western salaries, all money goes to the field. In these schools it costs no more than $50 to educate a child for a year. www.starfishasia.com -Also with Starfish, visited a nominal Christian brick kiln community. Those who make the bricks are extremely poor bonded labourers. That is, the wealthy barons (who hire heartless men to manage things) ensure that their workers are paid just enough to survive (ie, not enough to get educated), and are quick to give them loans when they need money (like in the rainy season when they can't make bricks). The cycle of debt never ends, and the people are essentially slaves. Whole families will work in shadeless 45-degree weather (no exaggeration) to make 1,000 bricks for which they will be paid 300 rupees ($6). This may take a week or longer. The owners will sell the same lot of bricks for 5,000 rupees ($100). In order to make enough to survive, the children in the family will work as well. The 10 year-olds will dig the dirt, the 12 year-olds will do fill the moulds, and the 4 year-olds will turn the bricks over so both sides of the bricks get sun-dried. -16 years ago our (Barham) family left Pakistan after my parents' had completed 4 years of service there. My father left behind a new ministry: a Christian bookvan run by a zealous man whom I consider one of my heroes. Let us call him "John" here (for security purposes). It was a sad day for our family and John's family when we left, but we knew God would take care of John and his family (He did), and we've kept in touch all these years. .. Two years ago John died. (I put up a blog post about it which I have since removed for security reasons.) He had had a severe case of diabetes and had been operated on 14 times. His health was so poor for the last 15 years of his life that one wonders if it was prayer and God's grace that sustained him. .. Anyway, yesterday it was my great joy to visit John's family (his wife, and the five of eight kids that remain at home); it was the first time in these 16 years that anyone in my family could visit John's family. We had a wonderful time. More below, but first: -Matt Cook and Ruth attended Kawartha Lakes Bible College with my sister Chrissie, and I got to know them when visiting Chrissie there a few times. Three or four years ago, Matt and Ruth married and returned to Ruth's far-flung desert hometown in Pakistan. (Ruth is a Pakistani.) They have since had a child (two-year old Joseph) and teach English in the town in which they live. They each get paid $40/month to do so, and this comprises a large percentage of their support. Amazing how little they live on but, although they didn't say so, they could certainly use more; so I'd like to put a plug in for them here and let you know that you can give to them through MSC (www.msc.on.ca). .. Anyway, I called Matt and Ruth up when I was in Karachi to ask if they could come and see me (eight hours away, and I just had one day left). Very sadly, at first they didn't think they could due to some evangelistic meetings in their town that they were connected to; but after a few minutes they called back to say, darnit, they were coming; they'd take a taxi ($80 for a high-speed return six-hour drive). They had so little fellowship where they were, so this was a rare opportunity. -Little did I realize what dynamic fellowship would result from seeing these worlds converge - for Matt and Ruth and little Joseph spent most of my day with John family. They really hit it off. The John family found Matt highly entertaining and funny (he is!), Ruth friendly and fluent in Urdu, and little Joseph very cute. Likewise, Matt and Ruth were so encouraged by the John family's committed lives, and very grateful when, right from the start, were invited by the Johns to stay with them any time they came to Karachi. And just an hour or so later the Johns gave them gifts of clothes and Pakistani jewelry. (I got a shalwar-kamiz, a traditional suit of clothes, as well!) For me, it was a deep pleasure to see both families; in fact, with delicious food, much prayer, reading the Word, meeting the Johns' Paul-like pastor (who gets "200-300" cell phone calls a day requesting prayer), it was one of the richest days of fellowship I have ever had. And imagine how humbled I was when, after (sadly but hopefully and thankfully) saying goodbye to Matt and Ruth earlier that evening, the whole John family, insisting they take me to the airport for my 625am flight, got up at 330am to do so. More goodbyes, but with a deep hope that only Christ can bring.
And so ended 10 dynamic days in Pakistan. I left with a greater love for this ultra-needy land, new and deeper relationships, and the joy of having seen first-hand the unfolding fulfillment of Christ's promise that He would build His church.
(You can give to both "Matt and Ruth Cook" and "The J*a*l*a*l family in Pakistan" (minus the stars) through MSC (www.msc.on.ca) and CMML (www.cmmlusa.org). Also to Starfish Asia at www.starfishasia.com.)
Sunday evening; Easter. Wow, this mtg was amazing. A little house church in one of the most fundamental parts of the country. Also devastated by the earthquake. Preached the gospel (fourth msg: about one hour) and eight people accepted the Lord for the first time when my translator gave an altar call. Praise God. Pls pray for these eight, and this church of about 30. Prayed for various ones afterwards. We gave them books and Bibles, and five men who came with us committed, if resources allow, to visit this church monthly from now. Got pictures to help us pray. Driving away now. Angels are rejoicing. God is good. - Nigel ------------------- Sent from my mobile phone.
I am writing this from "snake road" in Northern Pakistan, in the region most affected by the massive October 2005 earthquake. Ali (pseudonym) is driving - very skillfully, I might add. These are dangerous roads; we just passed an all-too-common accident scene (big truck, small car). I don't think anyone died this time.
This is a vibrant land. There is life everywhere. So often we think of the poverty, but there is a deeper beauty here in the kite-flying children, ornately decorated tractors, and friendship-building chai drinking.
Just arrived in Kashmir - past two checkposts. Wonderful to be among a handful of believers here. They said, "See those big white sections of the mountains? Thos parts fell away in the earthquake. Many, many people died."
About to preach for the second time. Keep praying. - Nigel
Followup: Sermon went well, and I have since spoken again. Now on the way to yet another meeting. They are putting me to work!
P.S. Saw the boarding school (Murree Christian School) I went to for grades 1-4 for the first time in 16 years yesterday! Surreal.
P.P.S. Happy Easter!
-------------------
Sent from my mobile phone.
I arrived in Lahore, Pakistan on a red-eye flight from Qatar (and London) early this morning. When I stepped out of the airport I was in a whole new world - a world I hadn't seen since leaving Pakistan as a child with my family 16 years ago. Noisy rickshaws, brightly-coloured trucks, seatbeltless Suzuki vans, donkey carts and people (almost all men) competed for space on the dusty road.
Although I had only slept three hours the night before--it was 8:00 am now--I was told upon arrival that I would be delivering a short sermon in a few hours' time. The topic: the thief on the cross (Luke 23). Addtionally, I am to speak three or four more times in the next two days - in the more northern part of the country. (Going to Murree tomorrow.) Of course, this was news to me, but as George says (and he is not with me on this trip), the gopher program is "anywhere, anytime, whatever it takes." Furthermore, I have been praying for the Pakistani church all these years, so it is an honour to encourage believers here through God's Word.
I am writing this from inside the little church where I will be getting up to speak in a few minutes. Eastern-flavoured, drum-beating music fills the air as the Lord receives praise in song.
Please pray. Pray that God would use me in the less than two weeks that I am here to accomplish His purposes. Pray for Pakistan. There are great spiritual walls here--centuries old--that need to keep crumbling and fall down. May we see this happen in our generation. Lord, we pray for an outpouring of your Spirit. Amen.
Update: I wrote this on my Blackberrry mobile phone, but the email function isn't working so far, so I am sending from my laptop (through a dialup connection). PTL, the sermonette went well.
2009
Schedule/itinerary archive. Past activity in gray.
SEPTEMBER 3 Thu (1) 1pm mtg - Yonge/Bloor (Faith Connections) 4 Fri 12noon mtg - Finch stn (TW) 5 Sat 10am - Rainforest cafe (W/SR) 6 Tentative: Sun evening (SV+) 9 Wed 12:30pm mtg (MH) 11 Fri (1) 10am-4pm mtg (Hoffman+), (2) 7pm dinner w W-Bynoe fam 12 Sat b'fast (Hoffman) 13 Sun (1) b'day party 4pm Georgetown, (2) baptism, 6:30pm Toronto (Eg & Bayview) 14 Mon C Town visit 16 Wed (1) inner-city pr mtg, (2) mtg (DO), (3) pr mtg in D'wood Park 17 Thu (1) P@W b'fast,(2) lunch (Weeks+) at Madison, (3) 2pm C. Bear concert, (4) possible: Lausanne event (Knox; Sep 17, 7:30-8:45), (5) mtg (RS) 18-19 Fri (1) mtg (JB), (2) G'ma bday in Pickering, (3) pr mtg 20-21 Hamilton (DW,P,GR,WH,JN/H,M/KB,M) 22 Tue mtg (AB) 23 Wed 12:30pm lunch (MF) 24 Thu (1) lunch 1pm Ajax GO (JT), (2) evening NTs pickup 25 Fri mtg (MG) 25 Fri (1) LBC 10:30-1pm 26 Sat 11am funeral (PW) 27 Sun Hamilton 4pm mtg (K/AD,DW+) 29 Tue 12:30pm "warehouse" mtg (R.Farr) - Johnny G's, Parliament, just N of Carleton 30 (1) Wed 2:30pm mtg (Rick T.), (2) 5:30pm phone appt (MA)
OCTOBER 1 Thu Nathan D coming for wknd 2 Dinner (N/J w JS/ND) 3 (1) Sat Wedding reception (MB/DM) - 11am-4pm, LBC, (2) RS possibly coming 4 Sun Tentative: K church launch, 4pm; Nathan D leaves 5 B. Baehr coming 6 Tue lunch (SW,BB) 12:30pm Yonge/Shepphard 7 Wed (1) lunch (W/HS,JS,BB) 11:30am Fairview Mall 8 Thu mtg - Montreal (drive there/back same day) 9 Fri - Housewarming for neighbours 11 Sun - late evening: Tksgiving w family 13 Tue - 8:30 b'fast (M/RG), (2) lunch (VV) 14 Wed (1) ph appt (MA) 5:30pm, (3) ph appt 7:30-8:30pm 15 Thu (1) P@W, (2) Lunch (RH) 16 Fri lunch 1pm (DS,NL) 17 Sat possible mtg (NL) 18 Sun Speaking at Wellspring Church w MG 19 Mon (1) 3:30pm mtg (Gregg B), (2) 6pm move (JW) 20 Tue (1) 9:00am mtg (Geo. B), (2) 1pm lunch (Paul O.) 21 Wed (1) pr mtg (DO), (2) 2:00pm mtg (JC) - Tim's in Mississauga 22 Thu (1) 8:30 b'fast (TW), (2) 12:12 mtg 10-2 26 Mon M.B. K arrives: 9:18 27 Tue am - BOCE mtg 28 Wed (1) M.B. K departs: 11:03am, (2) 12noon lunch (CP) Yonge/Shepphard, (3) sharing briefly at the Point at Peoples Church 29 Thu (1) 12noon mtg (ZF), (2) 5:30 ph appt (MA)
NOVEMBER 31 Sat 2pm lunch (NL) 1 Sun 2pm+ pr mtg (TCP w AS/EK) 3 Tue Hamilton b'fast mtg (w/ CP), (2) 2:30 mtg (SC/TW/GM) 5 Thu noon lunch (SC) 9 Mon ~4:30pm book pickup (E.Poon) 12 Thu mtg (TW,EU) 14-17 Sat evening to Mon morning: Edmonton 14 Sat (1) speaking at MAP lunch, (2) Leaving for Edmonton w/ MG: Air Canada, 6pm flight (arrive 8:05pm), Term 1 16 Mon evening - sharing w/ Wycliffe staff - Calgary 17-20 Renov8 conference (specific: Wed evening: MB dinner) - Calgary 17 Tue (during conf): 5pm VMC dinner 17 Wed (during conf): MB dinner 19 Thu (during conf): ON MB dinner 20 (1) Flight: Air Canada, Calgary to TO, 11:15am flight (arrive 4:55pm), (2) 247 event - Toronto (DB coming) 21 247 event 22 Sun evening mtg (w CP) 28 Possible: VMC conf at Forestbrook
DECEMBER 1 Tue 11am (VG) ~19-26 Indonesia (sisters off Dec 18-Jan 10) 27-31 Urbana! missions conference - www.urbana09.org - St. Louis, Missouri (consider going!)
2010
Jan 19-20 (Tue am & pm; Wed am) 3 seminars - Peoples Church conference
Possible: February: South Asia (India+)
Tentative: April 16-18: Missionsfest Toronto
Possible: Jan 24-25 mobilization conference
Possible: Mar 5-6 Winnipeg conf
Did you hear about this? Three believers were tortured and martyred (killed for their faith) in Turkey last week. Here are some articles about it (got them from a missionary in Turkey):
[April 25 edit: wow, I just realized that this happened while I was in Pakistan.] We had a tremendous weekend in Toronto and I'm going to put a post up about it soon, but I just got the following in an email and immediately thought that I should post it here - especially as we've been focusing on Pakistan recently. Lord have mercy.
Music playlist (play now: bottom of this blog)
