Lebanon: Syrians and Lebanese ‘together for peace’
Since the beginning of the Syrian Civil War, millions of displaced people have crossed the border with neighbouring Lebanon. Many refugees were initially welcomed by locals and given shelter, food, and renewed hope. However, tensions between the two groups are now common. Misunderstandings and lack of communication are a constant challenge to social unity and safe spaces for socialisation are needed. Please pray for the various agencies working towards conflict transformation and bringing together Syrians and Lebanese to talk about issues affecting their communities. Also Lebanon’s infrastructure cannot cope with the influx of 1,000,000+ refugees. This week new restrictions were placed on Syrians wanting to enter the country. They now need a clear purpose for their visit and must be sponsored by a Lebanese individual or company wanting to employ them for a certain duration. See
Middle East: Hardship in the midst of snow storms
causing power cuts and closing highways. Police and army units are on standby for rescue operations in Israel. In Lebanon heavy snow in the central Bekaa Valley closed gas stations, banks, schools and most shops; disrupting life for everyone but devastating for the hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees living in tents and makeshift shelters. Men were seen using brooms and sticks to try to clear heavy snow from tents, fearing the weight would cause them to collapse. Inside the tents families huddled around wood burning stoves, trying to keep warm. Palestinian authorities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip declared a state of emergency over the storm. (Nearly one in three of Gaza’s population is living in temporary accommodation or homeless.)
Saudi Arabia: Is the Saudi succession near?
Saudis are speculating about the royal succession after King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz’s health deterioration. Despite mechanisms to ensure a smooth succession of Crown Prince Salman after Abdullah’s death, Saudis are watching a royal drama played by several ageing contenders to the throne. The succession situation is complex, with questions of legitimacy. Abdullah has given the kingdom 20 years of stability Salman is likely to provide continuity. The House of Saud values family harmony. The two previous Saudi kingdoms were wracked by internal family squabbles that their foreign enemies exploited. The Arab world is facing its worst crisis in decades and the royals want to present a stable and strong image in the midst of undercurrents of conflict. (Saudi Arabia and Iran are rivals for Middle East influence - Saudi Arabia as the leader of the Sunni Muslim world, and Iran as the leader of the Shia Muslim world)
Egypt: Criticism of government's response to epidemics
Egyptian families in some Egyptian territories are not sending their children to school because of the simultaneous spread of four contagious viral diseases. - mumps, measles, chickenpox and bird flu. The Ministry of Health was faced with anger at its dealing with the diseases, especially after some patients died. A citizen even filed a complaint against the Minister of Health at the police station. Between September and December 1,823 cases of mumps, 1,115 cases of chickenpox, 1,356 cases of measles, and 15 cases of bird flu were reported. The Minister of Health said the government does not intend to carry out a mass slaughter of farm birds or domestic birds (unlike what happened earlier to deter the spread of bird flu). He said, ‘a committee has been formed to study the epidemiological evolution of measles’ and blamed parents for the spread of measles in schools accusing them of slacking in vaccinating their children.
I was recently in Nairobi, Kenya as one of speakers invited by the Prophetic and Intercessory group that wants to see Kenya reclaim its destiny as a nation. One of the strongholds that we are contending with in Kenya and Africa is the insurgence of extreme Islamic terrorist groups and the "oppression of women". You may be aware that recently, Kenya has been at the center of bloody attacks by the Al-shabaab, a terrorist group from Somalia which is linked to Al-qaeda and other international terrorism groups.
At this conference, I represented Southern Africa. There were other leaders from East and West Africa as well. We were all invited to speak on behalf of our continent and to help birth a new move of God in Kenya and East Africa. I was the only woman amongst the speakers, except for the local Host. I was also the youngest amongst them all. It was clear that God wanted me there for a very specific assignment so I prayed and trusted Him for a message to share with the believers in Nairobi, Kenya.
Africa is predominantly a patriarchal society. Women are usually found in subservient roles and in most cases, very oppressed. Any culture or nation that oppresses its women and children are "agreeing" or "subscribing" to the very stronghold that rules in some of these wicked terrorist organizations.
I had a sense God wanted to speak into this area, but I was also aware that it is usually a very touchy subject that may create tension if not handled well. So, I waited for the right time and for the right instruction from God on how to speak.
During one of the sessions, the Lord impressed on my heart that it was time to speak into this area of the nation. I spoke briefly about how God used the Patriarchs and Matriarchs of our faith to birth a new nation in the book of Genesis, and that if the nation of Kenya was to enter its divine destiny, men and women have to be released into their God-given destinies first. God then led me to do a prophetic act. I invited all the men to come forward, and face the women who were sitting down in the congregation. I asked the men to raise their hands towards the women and release the blessings of God upon them, and to call forth their destiny as mothers of the nation of Kenya. After the men prayed collectively, I asked if one of the men in front would pray out blessings over the women. A certain Pastor took the microphone and started to pray and asked for forgiveness on behalf of men for how women have been treated in the history of their nation. He cited rape cases, maltreatment of the older women and many more. It was so powerful. The women started weeping.
After that, I asked the women to rise where they were and raise their hands and voices towards the men and also pray for the men of Kenya to take their rightful place in God's plan. There was a senior and well-respected spiritual mother in the meeting, so I asked her to pray over for the men. She took off her shoes, fell on her knees and prayed a very potent prayer over the men.
After this, I felt God teaching me that what we did was a process of re-alignment and re-positioning. If He was going to move in a nation and birth new things, He needs the men and women working together side by side.
Here were some of the lessons I learnt through this process:
- Staying sensitive to the Holy Spirit - We need to learn to wait for the right time to release the word that God gives us during times of prayer and intercession. Sometimes we have the right message to share but the timing that we choose to deliver the message may not be appropriate.
- Sometimes we need to do things in the natural to help us shift in the spirit. This could be either a physical posture or doing prophetic acts like corporate prayer of identification and blessing.
- Boldness to share the word even if it doesn't make sense. It may make sense to someone else. This is where trusting the Lord is crucial. In order for us to be used of God on prayer assignments, we need to lay down our thoughts, imaginations and ideas for how things would or should work.
- Obedience to God - An example for me was when my husband and I felt strongly that we must travel together for this event, and initially we didn't understand why. When we got there and God started giving me the direction for what I needed to share, it was very clear that it was a picture that He wanted to portray to the nation. Without even saying much, so many people came up and told us that our marriage and standing together was a great witness. Let's trust and obey God as He guides us in small or big ways when going on prayer assignments.
We have prayed that these two nations can become united in their battle against the Taliban terrorists. Unfortunately, it took the tragic attack on the Pakistani school and the slaughter of many children to bring this cooperation about. Let's continue to agree in prayer that Pakistan and Afghanistan will work together closely and will subdue the Taliban in both countries effectively and totally this year.
25 December 2014 BBC News
[The military chiefs of Afghanistan and Pakistan have agreed to co-ordinate military operations along their border.The move comes a week after Taliban fighters attacked a school in Peshawar, killing more than 150 people.
Afghan army chief Gen Sher Mohammad Karimi and his counterpart Gen Raheel Sharif met in Islamabad on Tuesday and announced their plans to co-operate.
In the past the two countries have accused each other of allowing cross-border attacks by militants.
The two generals met in the presence of US General John Campbell, who heads Nato coalition forces in Afghanistan.
Gen Karimi and Gen Sharif agreed their subordinates would meet immediately to discuss operations targeting Pakistani Taliban (TTP) bases along the border.
Last week Gen Sharif met Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani in Kabul. The two countries agreed to "jointly take effective actions against terrorism and extremism".
Separately, Afghan officials said more than 150 Taliban militants had been killed in military operations in the border province of Kunar.
Turning point?
Taliban militants burst into Army Public School in Peshawar on 16 December, shooting children and staff members.
Security sources now say a total of 152 people were killed. Media reports suggest the attack could have been co-ordinated from Afghanistan.
Following the attack Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif vowed to rid his country of terrorism, and said there would be no distinction between "good and bad" Taliban.
Pakistan has previously been accused by the Afghans and Nato of allowing al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban to seek refuge and garner logistical support in Pakistan.
The city of Peshawar is close to the Afghan border, in a region that has seen some of the worst of the violence during years of Taliban insurgency.
HK New Wave Citywide United Monthly Prayer Gathering -2nd anniversary review
Kingdom Harvest Ministries
NWHOP
The Foursqure church in Sri Lanka struggled to grow this year unlike in the past years. This was due to open persecution and lack of freedom to express our faith openly. Below are a few statistics of our growth patterns this year:
- We had 7,186 people receiving Jesus for the first time
- 457 obeyed in water baptism
- 748 became new members
- 3151 were baptized in the holy spirit
- 13,651 were healed
- 40 new churches were planted around the island
We now have 1,864 churches and meeting places, 520 credentialed Pastors and Church Planters and over 1,000 young people being trained in programs for evangelism and Church planting.
Our 4 children's homes, 2 vocational training schools, 2 widow centers and the school for children with special needs are doing well despite the financial support we face to sustain them.
We thank you for your prayers and partnership in the work God is doing in Sri Lanka and appreciate your renewed commitment for prayer and financial support these coming years.
Please uphold us in the following prayer request:
- Our nation for a fair and free election as we face our Presidential election on the 8th of January 2015.
- The ongoing floods all over the Island have affected many thousands; we need material and prayer support to minister to the needs of those in refugee camps.
- Persecution continues unabated against the churches in Sri Lanka, many churches and Pastors are constantly threatened of physical attacks,
- Christian parents find it almost impossible to enroll their children to schools they are not admitted into most institutions run by the government.
Please see this video with others in your church or prayer group. Let your heart be broken for the plight of those suffering under the brutal, genocidal regime of Kim Jong Un, one of the most wickeddictators of history in the ranks of Hitler and Stalin along with his father and grandfather. Let's continue to pray with persistence and hope for the liberation of North Korea and especially the protection and release of those whose lives hang in the balance in the death camps where many tens of thousands are languishing, suffering torture, deprivation and death.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkOsxGgSDUE
Let's pray for the following:
1 That the UN and international community will ramp up the pressure on the North Korean regime to release its citizens from the death camps. Pray that the regime will be afraid to harm or kill them.
2 Pray that the regime will implode and be removed so that North and South Korea can be reunified, even this year.
3 Pray for those who are translating and publishing a book about the genocide happening that they can overcome the spiritual warfare they are facing and that it will be published and distributed widely in the USA and internationally. May it have a strong impact in mobilizing the international community to take united action against the North Korean government.
4 Pray for the organization of a second Prayer Initiative for North Korea (PINK) in April.
Here are some articles by Robert Park, the Korean-American activist who has been trying to alert the international community about the atrocities happening in North Korea. A few years ago, he spent months experiencing torture in a prison there because of his deep burden for the deliverance of the people there.
Please read, pray and act as God leads you. Anything you can do will make a difference for North Korea's liberation.
"The forgotten genocide in North Korea" (April 20, 2011): http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/when-will-we-stop-the-genocide-in-north-korea/2011/03/29/AFqXaMEE_story.html
"North Korea and the Genocide Convention" (September 9, 2011): http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/MI09Dg01.html
"North Korea and the Genocide Movement" (September 27, 2011): http://hir.harvard.edu/north-korea-and-the-genocide-movement
"Responsibility to Protect in North Korea" (November 9, 2011): http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/192623-responsibility-to-protect-in-north-korea
"Responsibility to Protect in North Korea" (December 7, 2011): http://hir.harvard.edu/responsibility-to-protect-in-north-korea
"Battling a system of starvation" (December 9, 2011): http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/battling-a-system-of-starvation-1.400446
"South Korea must act to save the lives of refugees from the North" (December 27, 2011): http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/12/27/robert-park-south-korea-must-act-to-save-the-lives-of-refugees-from-the-north/9/
"Time to End North Korea Genocide" (February 2, 2012): http://thediplomat.com/2012/02/02/time-to-end-north-korea-genocide/
"North Korea: The World's Principal Violator of the Responsibility to Protect" (February 6, 2012):
http://jia.sipa.columbia.edu/north-korea-world's-principal-violator-"responsibility-protect"
"Genocide in North Korea (February 6, 2012): http://www.worldpolicy.org/blog/2012/02/06/genocide-north-korea
"The case for genocide in North Korea" (February 8, 2012): http://view.koreaherald.com/kh/view.php?ud=20120208000741&cpv=0
"Robert Park: North Korean refugees face slaughter when China repatriates them" (February 28, 2012): http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/refdaily?pass=463ef21123&id=4f4f1b425
"The Ongoing Human Rights Tragedy Occurring In North Korea" (June 14, 2012): http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/06/14/the-ongoing-human-rights-tragedy-occurring-in-north-korea/
"US silence on North Korea" (November 14, 2012): http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2012/11/197_124692.html
"President Obama's Broken Promise to the North Korean People" (November 26, 2012)
http://www.christianpost.com/news/president-obamas-broken-promise-to-the-north-korean-people-85544/
"Shining a Light on North Korea's Human Rights Crisis" (December 12, 2012): http://thediplomat.com/the-editor/2012/12/12/shinning-a-light-on-north-koreas-human-rights-crisis/
"Memo to UN Security Council: The human rights emergency in N. Korea can no longer be ignored" (December 12, 2012): http://www.worldtribune.com/2012/12/12/memo-to-un-security-council-the-human-rights-emergency-in-n-korea-can-no-longer-be-ignored/
"North Korea's Rocket Launch Highlights the Deliberate Nature of the Famine" (December 14, 2012): http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/12/14/robert-park-north-korea-uses-hunger-as-crowd-control/
"North Korea's Overlooked Atrocities" (January 28, 2012): http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/north-korea's-overlooked-atrocities
"Policy on North Korea needs to give a higher priority to human rights abuses" (March 22, 2013): http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/commentary/north-korea-policy-human-rights-abuse-political-risk-conflict-zones-diplomacy
"North Korea's Legacy of Terrorism" (June 7, 2013): http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/north-korea's-legacy-terrorism
"The Forgotten Genocide: North Korea's Prison State" (July/August 2013 Issue): http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/forgotten-genocide-north-korea's-prison-state
"A Srebrenica-esque Massacre Has Recently Taken Place In North Korea's Killing Fields" (October 11, 2013): http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/10/11/a-srebenica-esque-massacre-has-recently-taken-place-in-north-koreas-killing-fields/
"A Srebrenica-esque Massacre Has Recently Taken Place In North Korea's Killing Fields" (October 11, 2013): http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-nsc-a-srebenica-esque-massacre-has-recently-taken-20131011,0,1827534.story
"It's Time to Aid North Korea Dissidents" (December 20, 2013): http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/it's-time-aid-north-korea's-dissidents
Since October 2014, in the Beni territory there has been a recurrence of attacks against the civilian population by rebels who enter the villages with knives and similar weapons to massacre the population, men, women and children. To datemore than 250 have died, creating more than a hundred widows and more than
a thousand orphans in the streets in addition to the already considerable number of orphans. Because of these attacks, at least 80,000 families have fled their villages, leaving their property and homes. This amplifies an already precarious humanitarian situation in the area Beni is a city located at about 450 km North of Goma in North Kivu province. Currently, civilians are living there in the psychosis and fear of the continuation of the massacres according to the climate of general insecurity in the Area of Beni.
North Kivu civil society have called for social dialogue, all politicians and religious leaders from the area to reflect for three days to find a solution to this crisis affecting innocent civilian populations.
Prayer requests:
1 Pray that those who are responsible for the safety of people in the Beni will make all efforts to relieve suffering and ensure the protection of civilians.
2 Pray that God gives wisdom and intelligence to all who participate in social dialogue in Beni, so that the ideas that come out to give the solution that civilians living in peace and recover their dignity.
3 Pray that God gives the necessary for humanitarian actors to help the distressed population so that the population can have good assistance.
Children's Ministry
In Christmas day, we have organised activities with children and Youth in the objective to let them grow in God. We have gathered 500 children and Youth, with 25 Churches leaders and 10 children teachers.
Please pray for us, for 2015 we get some support to lead children and Youth activities. For now in Goma we have more than 15 churches who agree with the vision and they try to accompany our activities. As you know, we have accomplished more than four activities in 2014 with our small grant in 2014 but we have not been able to accomplish all our plan. Please, keep as in your prayer for 2015, then God can open door for us to help Children and Youth grow in God is Ministry.
Thanks and still united in prayer.
Desire Kajabika
+243 99422 3575
Skype desire.kajabika
Goma-DR Congo