Exloring Life Eternal

WEST BANK CENTER DESTROYED
Armed militants firebombed the Living Stones Christian student centre on the West Bank community of Bir Beit on February 28, leaving the spray-painted warning to "Get out of here." No one was injured. The Palestinian Bible Society bookshop in Gaza also suffered damage from small pipe bombs and was temporarily closed after death threats to staff. Christians continue to have a positive attitude but ask others to pray. Bible Society Director Labib Mandanat says the tiny Christian community associated with the Bible Society in Gaza has impacted Muslims with the love of Christ. "Out of this chaos, God has brought good."
[CHRISTIAN POST 12 March '06]


LITERATURE MINISTRY CONTINUES IN IRAQ DESPITE VIOLENCE
As violence in Iraq continues to escalate, Open Doors remains committed to
carrying out its ministry in the country. Last year staff distributed 20,000 Arabic children's Bibles, set up 12 libraries for adults and children in churches nationwide, translated six children's booklets and produced a special music cassette. This year copies of the handbook, "Counseling Youth," as well as a newly published daily devotional called "One Year Through the Bible" and the "Chronicles of Narnia" series will be distributed throughout the country. Open Doors will also produce and print 40 brochures and leaflets concerning medical issues, opening opportunities to build bridges between Muslims and Christians. [HCJB/OPEN DOORS 27 Feb.'06]


CHRISTIAN SITES A 'HIT' IN MIDDLE EAST
A boom in Christian websites is occurring in the Middle East. According to the Strategic Resource Group (SRG), these websites are receiving nearly 9 million hits per month and more than 2,000 Arabic Bibles are downloaded from the internet each month. One Christian organisation that hosts chat rooms for Arabic-speaking visitors estimates that more than 42,000 people visit these Christian sites every day. More than half of the population in the Middle East is 25-years-old or under and most have easy access to computers, either in their homes or in public venues such as internet cafes and schools. [ASSIST 9 Feb.'06]
Go to: http://www.srginc.org
Go to: http://www.assistnews.org

PERSECUTION LIST
Open Doors' annual "World Watch" list of 50 countries where Christians are subjected to the most persecution puts North Korea in first place, followed by Saudia Arabia, Iran, Somalia, Maldives, Bhutan, Vietnam, Yemen, Laos and China. Open Doors President Carl Moeller contends that the communist government of North Korea has detained more political and religious prisoners than any country in the world. In addition to North Korea, countries with communist governments include Vietnam, Laos and China. Islamic-dominated countries are Saudi Arabia, Iran, Somalia, Maldives and Yemen. 70 expatriate Christians in Saudi Arabia were arrested in 2005 during worship in private homes, in what has been called this country's largest crackdown on Christians in a decade. Iran moved from number 5 to number 3 after the election of a hard-line conservative president. [OPEN DOORS]
http://www.opendoorsusa.org


BACKPACKER'S MAGAZINE (HEBREW)
A 12 page, full colour, glossy magazine is filling a unique gap in reaching out to Israeli young people. 7,000 copies of the 4th edition of "Lo B Mikre," which means Not By Chance, has hit the streets this March. The magazine bears the subheading 'The alternative magazine for different life,' and includes personal testimonies, comics and articles about current topics like the DaVinci Code and Santo Daime cult that is gaining popularity in Israel.
Go To: http://www.lo-bemikre.co.il/]


RESOURCES:
A helpful website for news and prayer about ISRAEL, or for those who want to explore the Jewish roots of Christianity: www.saltshakers.com

FREE STUFF: http://www.freecycle.com

World Relief is offering Christian congregations a free, 5-part DVD video
curriculum titled "Fighting AIDS through Church Mobilization." Call
toll-free in USA 1-800-535-5433 or e-mail worldrelief@wr.org

CHINA RESOURCE PACK AVAILABLE FROM OMF
OMF International has recently published a resource that covers "all things China." The China Resource Pack includes a book, four videos, a 30-day prayer guide written by China expert Tony Lambert (author of China's Christian Millions), brochures, PowerPoint presentations and a web site: http://www.chinasmillions.org Cost: $30. See http://www.omfbooks.com

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NEWS BYTES is compiled monthly by Debbie Meroff of OM News & Information
[OMNI] in London, England. Material may be freely copied and circulated.
Items do not necessarily reflect OM position and questions should be
directed to the original news source. Html version can be found on
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I think I understand a little about the contextual model of worshipping
Jesus and I have prayed with tears about this sheikh and others you have
mentioned. ...

[name withheld]

The good Lord of heaven is your strength, receive more grace to function.

In Jesus in name,
PEACE
J.A.

=====

Thank God for the testimony.
I promise to pray more in all things thanks. Good-bye.
F.I.

[editted for grammar]

A harmony of the Gospels in English:

http://www.lifeofchrist.com/life/harmony.html

(Thx to Bob H., the webmanager of http://www.agape-biblia.org )

A 21 year old Ph.D. student here @ U.Mich mentioned to me an odd statistic that he discovered while in High School:

1. There is a statistically significant correlation threshhold among male suicide committers/victims: US$18,000. This is roughly a little more than twice the USA poverty threshold. Today this would probably be more like US$20,000-21,000 in the USA.
http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/05poverty.shtml

Biblical Application ==> To me this indicates that Jesus was 100% right when he told the rich young ruler to "Go, sell all that you have & give to the poor." The rich young guy would have relieved himself of much unneeded stress by reducing overhead & by sharing with others ... not to mention the treasures that would wait in years to come!!

2. He also noted that that countries which share the same currency (U.S. & Panama) or those which have a fixed exchange rate (As the U.S. & China did historically.) are more likely to trade than those which have high fluctuation in their exchange rates.

Missiological application: ==> Intra-European Missionaries may be more able to deal with things there than US-European missionaries due to the ups and downs of the dollar-Euro.

Peace,
Mert

--
In response to:
Book Notes by David Mays
http://www.davidmays.org
THE WORLD IS FLAT: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century
Thomas L. Friedman, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005, 488 pp.
ISBN 0-374-29288-4

While it covers a surprisingly broad range of topics, it is an economic perspective and the world is bigger than economics.

Some of my memories of Grandpa and Grandma Hibbard (Mert and Doris):

10. I recall Grandpa telling many fantastic stories about bears & hunting bears. While some might have been terrified, I was glad to hear them since Grandpa seemed bear-sized & figured if we ever trapsed through the woods, he could wrestle the bear. When Uncle Mike shot a bear with an arrow & tracked it down, which we later had in some enchiladas, I was even more impressed.

9. In addition to the Zane Gray novels, there was a rug that hung in the cabin: some elk out on a prairie with a mountain in the background. He has it in his room now. The colors in the warp & woof & how they made an overall pattern were a curiousity sparker in me then & still.

8. Grandma (Doris) seemed to have an endless supply of bacon & eggs (more than one way), toast & cereal in the cabin & elsewhere.
a. Take the bacon from package.
b. Put as many strips of bacon as you want in the pan.
c. Fry until they have reached the desired point on the chewy crunchy scale.

7. Camping in the garage & the attic when we had reunions at the cabin or in a trailer out west: family gathering to renew the bonds of kinship & watch C.H.I.P.s on TV.

6. Mark & I dug up a dog skeleton from along a fencerow near the cabin after we trapsed through a cow pasture or two. Though we attempted to re-assemble the skeleton & persuade family members to let us take the box of bones with us or ship them to us (for scientific research, of course), all our persausive words were ignored. We seem not to have suffered excessively from either touching the carcass or from the incomplete science lesson. Grandma was polite about it though.

5. After I graduated, while most of the family went to New York for Grandma's funeral I went to camp & prepared for a trip to the Ukraine. It seemed the right thing to do. It had been sad to see her lose weight during her battle with cancer, but I was glad for the glory that she had prepared for.

4. Often when Grandpa & Grandma visited, they would bring along some Indian crafts (Navajo jewelry, baskets, blankets, etc.). It seemed like a taste of olden days to me: relatives traveling long distances & purchasing goods for trade.

3. Can't forget the time a silver cup (banged up) from when grandpa was a child was discovered that had Grandpa's name on it ... i inheritted it (since i have the same name) & still have it in my office. [Though I didn't chose my name, I am glad that folks call
me "Mert" rather than "Tony." Mert rhymes with cert, shirt, and dirt, etc. Tony reminds me of frozen pizza.

2. The summer that we visited Grandpa after his accident that took him out of driving. He had talked a few times about moving to Arkansas to drive truck there. Mark was in Haiti, & we went to pick him up not long afterwards. But seeing Grandpa survive & overcome the temporary paralysis accident somewhat was regarded by me as a miracle. {One
teacher at school seemed to sneer at the idea that there was anything miraculous about the healing. It was a common thing to her.}

1. The Pursuit of "Place"
In June 2004, while Grandpa was still up in the cabin, we visited him & stayed with Aunt Erma. One day while driving around with him, he pointed out lots of old family property. While the sale to a lumber company had been painful, he seemed pleased that some Amish were moving in to cultivate some other acreage [Don't recall if they were on former Hibbard land or next to it, but he respected them]. The simple, quiet ways which hark back to an earlier era seems right in line with what Grandpa desired. As Grandma is quoted as saying in a newspaper article about the cabin, "He was born 100 years' too late." Beyond the grave plot along the road, the childhood shool house where he had played 6-man football (and led their team for 4 years straight to state championships, undefeated), the little diner where he ate and enjoyed hamburgers & fries, the cricks [creeks] hills, valleys, flowers, wind ... all these things that God has made, where he had grown & he had at times raised his family, yet looking for a better country. Not quite satisfied with the hills of New York, nor the mesas of New Mexico & the Southwest ... he kept looking, all the while remembering where he had come from.

+ "Preach to me." Years ago, when grandpa visited El Dorado, he took me on a trip to fish in a crick near a deserted stretch of land that was bordered by miles of oak bottoms & loblolly pine. We put out our lines & caught nothing. We had Wendy's burgers (the square - old fashioned kind) & fries. ... In the months before Sheila & I left El Dorado [that _mythical_ city of gold] last year and at other times in 1997, he & I would also go to Wendy's. The difference was I would be driving ... somewhere, anywhere, and he would say, "Preach to me." ... When he was in the hospital, he said repeated the refrain, & I reiterated the good news & closed with an invitation to look to Jesus (There is, after all, no sermon without an application :-). The love of God in 1 John & the hope of eternity from Revelation 21-22 comforted & calmed him while he had a stroke that the nurses & doctors & various evangelists & nothing else could overcome. He slept that night, while everyone else was gone. I've traveled many wonderful places, eaten many diverse foods, studied many things, learned a little bit of a few languages. I've read too much & written about the same, but faith, hope & love, these last. The Language of Love, Jesus, He will never fail.

May Grandpa obtain the promised Land he so deeply desires
when his "cabin beyond the clouds" is fully prepared:
simple & enduring, well-founded & untouched by fire.
May it be said of him:
"He was not a man of his times, but he sought a better Day."

Your brother, son, cousin, nephew, etc.
Merton Joseph Hershberger

This is a letter to the editor of the "Michigan Daily" the student paper of the University of Michigan - in response to an editorial attempting to justify not publishing the "controversial" cartoons but only publishing blank spaces:

===
You wrote a justification for not publishing some political cartoons satirizing "Muhammed" but only publishing blanks. To my knowledge, none of them portrayed the Arabian poet since he is dead & the Arabian conquistadors did not possess any weapon of mass destruction other than swords & animals.

Please forgive the delay in replying, but after considering the issue of not wanting to offend unnecessarily:

If it is okay to offend other religious groups ...
& If it is okay to offend politicians ...
& If it is Islam has a definite political component (something that any half-honest Muslim in political science would concur with) ...
Then why should a paper that has a page of editorials that are bound to offend, be afraid to offend people by including cartoons of a person named Muhammed, though in some of them there was no direct portrayal of Muhammed the dead poet of Arabia, whom many Muslims praise? (Who died without any certainty of peace with God & thus many are still attempting to wish peace upon him.)

These cartoons are accessible on the internet quite freely & are all rather innocuous. Much worse & more libelous things have been said in your own publication of living people who hold power over militaries & jails.

Or, to put it another way,
If it is okay to search for truth ...
& If we may speak against what is not true ...
& If Islam is not true & rational (unless the presence of weaponry & threat of violence changes your mode of rationality) ...
Then why is it wrong to say that Islam is not an honorable system, but an oppressive system?

For one example of a former Muslim who came to this conclusion: look at Dr. Wafa Sultan from Syria who was featured in March 11, 2006 New York Times.

For an example of a nation affected by the Islamic Sharia Law mentality: look at Afghanistan under the Taliban.

Thanks for your re-consideration of this vital matter.

My conclusion: you are scared for your jobs & don't want your resumes tarnished by honest reporting. Why are you scared of dead people?

Abdul Kalimatullah // Mert Hershberger
M.A. - Theology
M.A. - International Development