Iran: Reporting impact of sanctions
Iran has warned the media against the publication of reports concerning the impact of Western sanctions, urging it to cooperate so that ‘the country is not hurt,’ Mohammad Hosseini, the Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance said. ‘Our country is not in a position to allow the media to publish any news or analysis which is not compatible with the regime's and national interests.’ The media are closely watched in Iran and authorities regularly warn against the publication of ‘negative’ information in the economic and social fields. Meanwhile Britain’s Daily Telegraph reported, ‘Iranians are abandoning traditional eating habits and giving up chicken, red meat, fruit and sugar, being thrown out of work at alarming rates because factories are unable to import goods and equipment and the country faces running short of medicines. Sanctions have become a humanitarian issue. Undercover researchers discovered 10 basic foods had risen in price by 70% since March while the average family's food basket shrunk by half. See:
Pray: that the sanctions would have the desired effect on the government and may the people of Iran experience a better quality of life physically, emotionally and spiritually. (Tit.3:1-2)
China: Illegal ordination of bishops
The Chinese government and the Catholic Church have long been at odds over the ordination of new bishops. The state administered Catholic Church in China often ignores Vatican authority and ordains new bishops without permission. Priests who speak out against the government instigated ordinations are arrested or forced to attend training classes until their views more closely reflect the government’s official stance. Last Friday bishops defied a warning from the Vatican and attended the ordination by Chinese officials of a new bishop for the Harbin diocese without approval from the Holy See. Bishop Joseph Yue Fusheng, a vice president of government backed Patriotic Association, was ordained. Five Vatican approved bishops attended. Shortly after the service police released three priests who had been arrested just before the illicit ordination because they opposed the ordination, as had many of the faithful in Harbin.
Pray: for protection over Gods chosen leaders, and may they recognise all the authority given to them by the Lord and be empowered as they serve Him and the nation. (Mat.28:18,19a)
More: http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=14847
Vietnam: Officials destroy two new Church buildings
Vietnamese officials in Muong Cha district, Dien Bien Province, destroyed two new church buildings of ethnic minority Hmong Christians this month and threatened to tear down a third. The Ho He Church, erected in April by the unregistered Vietnam Good News Mission was demolished on June 17th .The Phan Ho Church of the registered Evangelical Church of Vietnam (North) was destroyed on June 13th 2012. The church threatened with demolition, The Cong Church, also belongs to the Vietnam Good News Mission. These congregations of 500 to 600 people which began as house churches had long outgrown even the largest home so the Hmong had sacrificed and worked to erect wooden worship buildings. As local police, paramilitary forces and other authorities descended on the church buildings by the dozens, the Christians could only watch with deep sadness and frustration as the houses of worship were reduced to rubble and government promises about freedom of religion were again broken, area sources said.
Pray: that the Vietnamese Church would not be deterred from teaching God's word, and discipling new believers. (Mat.28:19,20)
More: http://www.opendoorsuk.org/news/stories/index.php?newsitem=3&date=27jun2012&country=vietnam
Egypt: Court overrules president over parliament
Egypt's Islamist-led parliament reconvened Tuesday - challenging the generals who dissolved it last month. The Supreme Court ruled the newly elected, Islamist president illegally summoned the assembly, heightening a confrontation between the head of state and an establishment that had served Hosni Mubarak. Muslim Brotherhood officials questioned the court's right to rule against the president's decree and vowed to fight on. Egypt's troubled transition to democracy is increasingly being fought in the courts, but that masks a much deeper conflict with an establishment rooted in six decades of military rule. In a war of attrition that may play out over years, Islamists are seeking to push generals out of politics and reform a wider establishment still filled with Mubarak-era officials. More battles lie ahead, such as a debate over the writing of a new constitution.
Pray: for any legal struggles around the constitution and the law to be peaceful and result in an open and fair society for all Egypt’s citizens. (Ps.19:7)
More: http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-parliament-set-meet-defying-army-044341899.html
India: Monsoon floods in Assam State
Towns and roads are underwater throughout most of the state of Assam, where the Brahmaputra river runs. Churches and Christian charities have joined the massive relief effort to an area which recently experienced a devastating flood that claimed over 125 lives and left nearly three million people homeless when torrential monsoon rains inundated thousands of villages in 23 of the 27 districts of Assam. At least 18 churches and several schools have been washed away or damaged. Reaching targeted areas is a major problem, as roads have been damaged and even washed away. 58 Gospel for Asia-supported churches have been affected. Water level is still rising. A local newspaper reported that 900,000 people are affected with at least 80,000 losing their homes. Livestock kept for food have been washed away. Food and drinking water are in short supply and many have lost their personal belongings. One pastor said the Christians are ‘tired, wet and weak’. See:
Pray: for co-ordinated work through the many agencies to swiftly bring relief to the victims. (2Sa.22:17,18)
Sudan: Refugee camp death rates soaring
Conditions in South Sudan's refugee camps continue to worsen this week with large refugee inflows and flooding from torrential rains. Health issues are a priority concern. In Unity state new arrivals have doubled to close to 60,000 - many arriving in a weak state. There is overcrowding in this limited strip of land that is already cut-off by rains. To address a sharp increase of bloody diarrhoea cases more wells are being drilled to secure clean drinking water, also jerry cans and buckets are being distributed to families with children under five. Efforts to increase awareness among the mostly young refugee population about hygiene, health and nutrition risks are also being implemented. Elsewhere in the Upper Nile State over 110,000 refugees constitute another critical challenge. Also most of the 40,000+ refugee population from Jammam are being located to other sites due to the Jammam camp being located on the edge of a malaria swamp.
Pray: for God’s mercy to provide the many aid agencies with all they need to alleviate suffering and prevent death. (2Sa.22:7
More: http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/unhcr-alarm-on-health-risks-for-refugees-in-south-sudan
Hungary: ‘Thousands’ embracing Christ at Graham festival
Over 2,700 people have come forward to ‘make decisions for Christ’ at the recent three-day 'Festival of Hope' in Hungary's capital Budapest led by American evangelist Franklin Graham, his organization confirmed in comments monitored by BosNewsLife. Graham returned to the city where 23 years ago his now elderly, and frail, preaching father Billy Graham held the first open-air arena evangelism event in the then Communist-ruled Eastern Europe. Recalling the visit to Hungary in the 1980s with his father, Franklin Graham noted that Hungary and the world have changed. ‘We have great problems - economic problems, political problems - and no one seems to have the answer. And that’s because our problem is a spiritual problem,’ he told reporters. Some 312 churches from various denominations were involved in last month's evangelistic outreach at Papp László Budapest Sports Arena, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Organization (BGEA) said.
Praise: God for the way He has blessed this Festival of Hope. (Ps.33:12)
More: http://www.bosnewslife.com/22393-thousands-embracing-christ-in-hungary-at-graham-festival
Hungary: ‘Thousands’ embracing Christ at Graham festival
Over 2,700 people have come forward to ‘make decisions for Christ’ at the recent three-day 'Festival of Hope' in Hungary's capital Budapest led by American evangelist Franklin Graham, his organization confirmed in comments monitored by BosNewsLife. Graham returned to the city where 23 years ago his now elderly, and frail, preaching father Billy Graham held the first open-air arena evangelism event in the then Communist-ruled Eastern Europe. Recalling the visit to Hungary in the 1980s with his father, Franklin Graham noted that Hungary and the world have changed. ‘We have great problems - economic problems, political problems - and no one seems to have the answer. And that’s because our problem is a spiritual problem,’ he told reporters. Some 312 churches from various denominations were involved in last month's evangelistic outreach at Papp László Budapest Sports Arena, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Organization (BGEA) said.
Praise: God for the way He has blessed this Festival of Hope. (Ps.33:12)
More: http://www.bosnewslife.com/22393-thousands-embracing-christ-in-hungary-at-graham-festival
The Borderland Prayer Initiative of June 16-17 brought together about thirty local participants – Czech and Slovak leaders from four “houses of prayer” in the Czech Republic and Slovakia and their family members – along with Brian Mills (Interprayer and IPC), Sam Hofmann (YWAM and Hernnhut) and myself in the border town of MIkulov on the Czech border with Austria. It was held in a Methodist church that is pastored by a Jewish believer who was from the original Jewish population that was uprooted and destroyed during the Holocaust.
We focused some strong prayer especially on the issue of “redigging the wells of revival”. It was from that same region of Moravia that the Moravians of the 18th century under the influence of brave reformer Jan Hus developed a vital movement for Christ involving prayer and Bible study that brought a time of deep revival and renewal and later resulted in the 100-year prayer chain in Hernnhut, Germany, from which hundreds of the first Protestant missionaries went out to far reaches of the world. The Moravians also deeply inspired and impacted both England and the USA through the lives and ministries of John and Charles Wesley and George Whitfield, who were mightily used of the Lord in the mighty revival that was know as the Great Awakening and led to the birth of the Methodist Church.
The local prayer leaders also took us over the border into Austria where we prayed at the battlefield where centuries before the Hapsburg emperor defeated the Bohemian ruler and stained the ground with the blood of many thousands of the ancestors of the Czechs and Slovaks. To this day, there remains a sense of spiritual and psychological hindrance affecting the relationship of nations in the region that either ruled or were under the thumb of the Austro-Hungarian empire’s hegemony. It was an encouraging, and I think potent, time of reconciliation and repentance praying, entering into His heart for these nations together. May the Lord use it to affect them positively!
Please continue to pray with us for any attitudinal barrier between these national groups to be broken and that Hungarians, Austrians, and other nationalities in the region will be drawn together for future initiatives. Pray that the fire of the Holy Spirit falls upon His Church and that we will see His healing and transformation in this region where the wounds of history can still permeate the atmosphere.
About 400 Turkish, Korean and other ministry and prayer people took part in this prayer/mission event that turned out to be quite powerful, and I think consequential, for the nation. Without mentioning the unwelcome word “genocide”, I taught on transformational prayer breakthroughs and remitting bloodguilt on the land. Afterwards, a Turkish pastor and I facilitated a time of reconciliation and repentance between the Turks and representatives from other peoples. Many came up afterwards expressing their deep appreciation and saying it was just what Turkey needs. People have not wanted to deal with the terrible past of mass killings of the Armenians and other ethnic minorities. Pray they will take the session's teaching and the reconciliation to heart and take it back to their own cities and regions and begin to practice these things.
There needs to be a breakthrough here - only 4600 known believers among 74 million people. They complain of a pervasive spirit of fear, lying, division and oppression upon the small churches that do not yet pray together very often. Please pray with us that this kind of reconciliation and repentance will spread across Turkey, that these spiritual forces will be bound, and that a new day of liberation for the nation and church will begin.