URGENT PRAYER REQUEST- Update on Kenneth Bae: "US Ready to Bargain with N. Korea for Bae's Release,"- CBNNews.com, Aug 14, 2013 http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2013/August/S-Ready-to-Bargain-with-N-Korea-for-Baes-Release/ - The United States is willing to engage North Korea to secure the release of imprisoned American Christian Kenneth Bae. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said the United States is "willing to consider a number of different options" to bring him home.In a video recently released by a North Korean newspaper, Bae requested the United States send a high-ranking official to North Korea to seek his pardon. It is unclear if he spoke of his own volition in the video. Bae, 45, was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for sharing his faith. He suffers health problems such as diabetes and is currently hospitalized.[PRAY for 1) God's healing of and presence with Pastor Bae, 2) His earliest release by the North Korean government, and 3) God's comfort for his family and friends.]
“Abandoned” For Christ" - Graham Calls On White House To Support Abedini - By Dr. Tom Askew, Aug.8, http://www.presidentialprayerteam.com/opinion
Franklin Graham is the latest to join the chorus of voices calling for U.S. State Department and White House officials to take a more vocal role in protesting the Iranian imprisonment of American pastor Saeed Abedini. September 26 will mark the one year anniversary of Abedini’s imprisonment for allegedly “endangering the national security” of Iran.
Graham pointed out that, in contrast to Iranian accusations, “Pastor Saeed was in Iran trying to help children. With the permission of Iran’s government, he was working to build an orphanage. But his humanitarian mission led to an arrest on bogus charges and nearly a year of inhumane treatment, simply because he loves Jesus Christ.”...
Behind the scenes, more than 600,000 people around the world have signed a petition sponsored by ACLJ in support of pastor Abedini. A concerted movement this past May brought together Christians from many nations to set aside Pentecost to pray for Abedini. On June 13, demonstrations were held at Iranian embassies in at least six countries to protest Abedini’s treatment. And, on July 29, Arizona Republican Representative Trent Franks spoke on the floor of the House to urge other Congressmen to join him in “adopting” Pastor Abedini through the bipartisan Defending Freedoms Project.
Saeed’s response…and yours
Through his family living in Iran, Pastor Abedini has been made aware of these efforts on his behalf, and is grateful. “I heard that the persecution, my arrest and imprisonment has united churches from different denominations, from different cities and countries. That the churches have united together in prayer to put one request (my freedom) on one day (Pentecost) before God,” he wrote in a letter.
The story of Saeed Abedini, the jihad against Syrian Christians, the attacks on Coptic Christians in Egypt, and the ongoing desecration of churches in Nigeria and India should cause every American to reflect on the blessings of freedom still enjoyed in this nation.
PRAY: - For comfort and peace for Saeed’s wife and children here in the U.S.
- For a strong witness and testimony from Pastor Abedini in the prison where God has placed him
- For Christians around the world who are being persecuted for their faith in Christ
- BOLDly (Beside Our Leaders Daily) for leadership from the White House and State Department in defending the freedoms of Abedini and other Americans
Go to SaveSaeed.org to sign a petition over 600,000 others asking for his immediate release.
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"Inheriting Pro-Life - How a Son Learned from His Father to Defend the Weak." - John Stonestreet; Breakpoint.org; August 19, 2013; http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/breakpoint-commentaries-archive/entry/13/23083
Rebuilding a pro-life culture means more than opposing abortion. It also means caring for and defending the helpless at all stages.
Fr. Thomas Vander Woude, pastor at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Gainesville, Virginia, has a special place in his heart for children born with Down syndrome. His recent parish campaign to save one such life grabbed headlines. But to understand this story, and why these children are so special to Fr. Vander Woude, you need to know another story. This one blew me away.
Earlier this month, Fr. Vander Woude got wind of a young couple in another state whose unborn child had been diagnosed with Down syndrome. The couple made the decision close to ninety percent of parents in their shoes make—to abort their special needs baby. Because the pregnancy was almost six months along, they had just days before the legal cutoff for abortions in their state. But Father Vander Woude had other ideas.
He contacted the parents and convinced them to hold off just a little longer, while he and a volunteer sent messages via the church’s social network accounts, pleading for a family willing to adopt the baby and save its life.The next morning, the calls and emails began—over 900, in fact—some from as far away as England and The Netherlands, ready to make the life-changing decision to adopt a special needs child. As the torrent subsided, three of the families were placed in contact with the expectant parents and an adoption agency for interviews.
You would think this outpouring of love and acceptance for a child nine out of ten American couples consider unworthy of life would impress pro-choicers—especially those who repeat the tired accusation that pro-lifers care only about children in the womb, not after they’re born. Well, I’m sad to say pro-abortion activists at the blog Jezebel wasted no time in heaping scorn on Father Vander Woude and the hundreds who responded to his call. One Jezebel blogger accused him of pressuring this woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy by “crowdsourcing an adoptive family.” “[A]nti-abortion folks,” she cedes, “care more about fetuses with fairytale narratives than actual babies.”
Folks, these charges are simply ridiculous, especially now that pregnancy care centers designed to offer help and create options for women and children in crisis outnumber abortion clinics in the United States almost 2-to-1, and with so many families lining up to adopt.
But this particular accusation that Father Vander Woude and his Twitter followers care nothing about older children with Down syndrome rings especially hollow. You see, this priest isn’t the first person in his own family to snatch a victim of Down syndrome from certain death.
His father, Thomas, Sr., died in 2008 after leaping into a septic tank to save his youngest son, Joseph, who had fallen in. According to sources at the time, Thomas, 66, allowed himself to sink beneath the sewage while holding 20-year-old Joseph above his head until rescuers arrived. Joseph has Down syndrome. His father died so that his special needs son would live. It seems Fr. Vander Woude, who officiated his dad’s funeral, inherited a pro-life view that is not just intellectually true, but one of action. His father would be proud.
The groundswell of families who responded to this plea for adoption are putting feet to their pro-life views, while at the same time showing how wildly out-of-touch with reality abortion apologists have become.
This story also reveals how we might hope to return what Pope Benedict called a “culture of death” to a “culture of life.” It requires doing and saying. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote to his former seminarians, “Not in the flight of ideas, but only in action is freedom. Make up your mind and come out into the tempest of the living.”
Fr. Vander Woude and his father have both given some of those with “fairy tale narratives” a chance at a real happy ending.
[bold and italics emphasis mine]
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