Muslims threaten Christians: Convert or die

According to a report out by Voice of the Martyrs, Christians in neighborhoods in Pakistan are being told by Muslims to leave Christianity and join Islam, or they will die.

There have been numerous threats sent to Peshawar's Kohati area," sources for VOM reported this week. "The letters say if we don't become Muslim we will be killed."

The unsigned threats began several weeks ago, when residents of Peshawar, the capital of the North-West Frontier Province, reported receiving the letters threatening suicide bombings if they did not convert.

Christian residents of the Tailgodom, Sandagodom and Goalgodom neighborhoods received the threatening letters. Each of the districts house about 2,000 residents. They were told they would be wiped out on August 10, if they did not convert. Although the date has come and gone, they do not know what may happen to them at any time. Now, they live in fear and uncertainty, not knowing what might come.

George said the threats were prompted by the suggestion from U.S. presidential candidate Tom Tancredo that the U.S. threaten to bomb Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina in retaliation if there would be a terrorist nuclear attack on the United States.

The letter states there is death to those that follow Americans' religion of Christianity. They are intent on killing all the infidels of the world.

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Technorati Tags: Muslims, Christians, Infidels, Pakistan

Bible distributors' throats slit

Three men who distribute bibles in Turkey were killed by 5 extremists. The men worked at Zirve Publishing House in the central city of Malatya. There was one German and two Turks.

Police detained four men, ages 19 to 20, and a fifth suspect was hospitalized with serious injuries after jumping out of a window to try to escape arrest, authorities said. All five were carrying a letter that read: “We five are brothers. We are going to our deaths,” according to the state-run Anatolia news agency.

Turkey is mainly a Muslim, but secular country. These men had been accused of proselytizing. The general manager of Zirve's says the employees were recently threatened.

Read the Daily Herald for the entire article.

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Technorati Tags: Bible Distributors, Bibles, Turkey, Malatya, German, Turks, Zirve, Muslim

Muslim Militants in Nigeria kidnap Christian Children

The Voice of Martyrs Australia had asked for prayer for Christians in Nigeria due to the report that there has been a rise in the kidnapping of Christian boys and girls.

13-year-old Victor Udo Usen was abducted in November. A young Christian girl gave Victor's mother a tip on where he was being held in February. But, her rescue attempt failed to free her son. She had managed to get her son and drag him towards their house, but the militants overtook her and took her son away. Members of the mob told her that her son was now a Muslim. She could not understand how those militants could force her 13 year old son into a religion.

Victor’s father, Udo Usen, reportedly said he was unable to react to a distress call from his wife in time to safe his son. "I thought, if I force myself into the house of that Muslim to get my son, I will not only be placing the lives of my family at risk but also creating room for them to attack other Christians in Sokoto," Usen was quoted as saying.

Christian leaders believer the abductions are on the increase and the Nigerian government knows about it but is doing nothing to stop it. Local officials have sometimes answered the complaints, but this doesn't seem to be the norm. Nigeria has over 130 million people, over half of which is Muslim, and 40% being Christians and 10% following other beliefs.

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Technorati Tags: Nigeria, Sokoto, Christians, Muslim, Kidnapping, Religion

Christian Ministry saves teen from forced Islam conversion

A young teenager, Azra Bibi, from Pakistan was a Christian about to be forced to convert to Islam by her employee and then married off to a Muslim. Her Mother had been tortured and brutally murdered on the same job, where both had worked in order to feed the family.

Pakistan is a Muslim country. And, Azra and her Mother were often persecuted simply for being Christians. Now, Azra is being assisted by a local pastor and donations from US Christians, and soon will have her own place to stay, and the debts she was going to have to pay of her Mother's are now paid.

"The brick kiln owner had plans to force Azra to convert to Islam with the intention of marrying her off. But God had other plans," the VOM report said. "With the help of a courageous local pastor and support from Christians in the U.S., Azra was miraculously rescued with her debts paid."

VOM said plans now are under way to provide training and a place to live "for this courageous young Christian girl who stood firm in her faith through such difficult trials."

Linked at Conservative Cat

Technorati Tags: Pakistan, Christian, Muslim

With God, all things are possible

Too many times, we think that something is not possible. And, that is cutting God out of the process, because scripture says 'with God all things are possible' (Matthew 19:26). And, to say anything else is not true.

As Christians, we understand that God is

• Omnipotent - has unlimited power or authority;
  
• Omnipresent - present every where simultaneously;
  
• Omniscient - He is all knowing.

But, if you aren't taught these things, you have no understanding of what our God is like. And, that's the way of the Muslims. But, God has a way of showing just how powerful He really is, showing His presence when He isn't seen, and how much He really knows, when others think they know it all. More and more Muslims are beginning to respond to the gospel.

Throughout the nearly 1,400 year history of Islam, Muslims have resisted the Christian gospel. Many Christians tried to reach them with the good news with little success.

But according to many reports from the Middle East and around the world, that history is changing.

"I see many, many Arabic-speaking people turning to Christ, accepting Him as Lord and Savior,” said Nizar Shaheen, host of Light for the Nations, a Christian program seen throughout the Muslim world. "It's happening all over the Arab world. It's happening in North Africa. It's happening in the Middle East. It's happening in the Gulf countries. It's happening in Europe and Canada and the United States-in the Arabic-speaking world. Everywhere, people are accepting Jesus."

"What's happening nowadays in the Muslim world has never happened before," said Father Zakaria Henein, an Egyptian Coptic priest is one of the foremost evangelists to the Muslim world. He says a cross-section of Muslims are accepting Jesus Christ. "Young and old, educated and not educated, males and females, even those who are fanatic."

We often put God in a box, and think He will only do what we want Him to do, or what we 'think' He can or will do. But, often, we are proven wrong. God is able to do 'exceedingly, abundantly, above anything we ask or think' (Ephesians 3:20).

"There is an end-time phenomenon that is happening through dreams and visions," said Christine Darg, author of The Jesus Visions: Signs and Wonders in the Muslim World. “He is going into the Muslim world and revealing, particularly, the last 24 hours of His life-how He died on the cross, which Islam does not teach-how He was raised from the dead, which Islam also does not teach –and how He is the Son of God, risen in power."

"We receive lots of letters about people who have had dreams about the Lord, visions, even miracles,” Shaheen said. “When they watch the program, they say yes, we had a dream or a vision, and they accept Jesus as Lord."

God will have His church ready when He comes. When we see those that do not believe in our God coming to Him, and facing persecution and often death, one realizes that He is indeed a powerful God, and there is nothing He can't do.

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Technorati Tags: God, Muslims, Jesus Christ, Gospel,
Visions, Dreams

Memorizing the Koran Verse by Verse

A small school in Flushing, Queens, New York, run by Muslims, is teaching the Koran.The students go from 8AM until 5PM, in the prayer room of a Mosque, to memorize the Koran verse by verse. The students take time off from their regular school studies, possibly 2 to 3 years, in order to accomplish this task.

What is wrong with this picture? While other religious-run schools in New York are to give 'substantially equivalent instruction to that of public schools, this Muslim-run school is not. According to city and state officials, they probably are going against the laws of New York.

“This is very much influenced by traditions back home,” said Imam Shamsi Ali, director of the Jamaica Muslim Center in Queens, which started its own memorization school several years ago. He envisions the children in the school becoming not just religious leaders but doctors, lawyers and engineers, helping to bridge the gap between the Muslim world and American society. “We want them to be leaders in all different kinds of roles.

”But this level of devotion to Islam has a way of causing suspicion these days. While parents whose children are in the schools said they were proud of them, they also worry about how they will be perceived.

Dr. Fauzia Syed-Khan, an endocrinologist in Astoria, Queens, and a Pakistani immigrant whose sons, Tariq and Bilal, both studied at the Muslim Center’s memorization school, said she did not talk about the program with co-workers.

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HT: Betsy's Page

Technorati Tags: School, Mosque, Koran