Philippines, Congo, Sister Chenoor, April 2007
Brother Théophile Mwagalwa of Rwanda has got a message to us in French, which translated reads:
Our ecclesias here need help at all levels, Brother David Smith or Brother Steve Weston could tell you about it. Some of our members were even raped by militiamen. They were taken away into the forest by members of the Interahamwe opposition movement from Rwanda. The three of them were raped, and then released a few days later. They are now receiving treatment at a Norwegian Protestant centre. The ecclesia where this took place is Bukavu –Lukananda, in Congo RDC, about 25 km from Bukavu.
It's hard to establish contact, but we are aware that this is far from the only case of sisters in Central Africa and in the refugee camps being prone to these horrors. At present "all" we can do is pray for them, ever seeking to be able to more concretely intervene to try to ensure that no sister, anywhere in the world, is unduly exposed to the possibility of rape. Please do pray for these sisters and for our efforts.
SISTER CHENOOR
Sister Chenoor, the Iranian refugee sister in Turkey for whom over 2000 signed petitions, has had a hard setback- although she is safe, and Canada have agreed to issue a visa for her to go there and be reunited with her parents, the Turkish authorities refuse to allow her to leave Turkey. The UNHCR have again been contacted and they have done what they can to reason with Turkey but to no avail. Forcibly separated from her parents and husband, who is still in a refugee camp in Holland, this is a huge blow to her. One of our Carelinks team from the UK has gone to Turkey and is currently staying with our sister seeking to encourage her. Again we do ask for your prayers in a humanly almost hopeless situation.
SOUTHERN PHILIPPINES
More positively, we remind you of the good work previously reported going on in the Moslem areas of the southern Philippines. Recently two CCM workers, brothers Mark Gilbert and Steve Jones, were able to spend a week there with Bible Basics contacts. They had a very stimulating time with people genuinely eager to accept Bible teaching, many of whom have already forsaken the common false doctrines of the trinity, devil, etc.
They report as follows:
Brother Steve Jones and I visited Manila and an island called Mindanao - south of Manila to follow up contacts. In Mindanao we held a two day Bible camp with 21 young people(18 to 22 years of age) in a town called Butuan. They were all very interested and attentive and asked many questions on a variety of topics. Over the two days we did talks on love, faith, grace, the Spirit, the Kingdom of God, repentance and baptism, death and resurrection, sin and the devil and satan, and the relationship and roles of God and Jesus in Gods plan of salvation. As well as these we answered their many questions.
Photo: Teaching about grace with a whiteboard.
Photo: Eager contacts in small groups and larger groups. Mark taught them some sign language, and the strange signs some are making are a result of those lessons!.
At the end of the two days we asked if anyone would like to come with us to another town four hours away where we would have another one day camp. Two of the young men came with us.
In the next town we had four people and the two from Butuan. We talked about similar things as in Butuan. As in Butuan, they were very attentive and also had many questions. It was here that one of the young men from Butuan decided to be baptised. His name is Lovigie Almine. Please pray for him and for God and Jesus blessings in his preaching of the gospel.
Photo: Brother Mark baptizing Lovigie
Please pray for the other 20 people in Butuan and the four in the second town who showed great interest. Pray also that they will preach to others and God and Jesus will magnify their name throughout the Philippines and the world.
Your brothers in Christ, Steve Jones and Mark Gilbert