Soul and Spirit

Loopy Virginia

This isn’t just loopy. It’s sick. Evil, actually.

A loophole in state law is preventing Campbell County investigators from charging a woman they say killed her newborn baby.

Deputies were called to a home in the 1200 block of Lone Jack Road in Rustburg around 11:00a.m. Friday. The caller said a woman in her early 20s was in labor. When deputies arrived, they discovered the baby had actually been born around 1:00a.m., about ten hours earlier. Investigators say the baby was already dead when deputies got there.

Investigators tell WSLS the baby’s airway was still blocked. They say the baby was under bedding and had been suffocated by her mother. Investigators say because the mother and baby were still connected by the umbilical cord and placenta, state law does not consider the baby to be a separate life. Therefore, the mother cannot be charged.

“In the state of Virginia as long as the umbilical cord is attached and the placenta is still in the mother, if the baby comes out alive the mother can do whatever she wants to with that baby to kill it,” says Investigator Tracy Emerson. “She could shoot the baby, stab the baby. As long as it’s still attached to her in some form by umbilical cord or something it’s no crime in the state of Virginia.”

The Campbell County Sheriff’s Office and Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office worked unsuccessfully to get the law changed after another baby died in the county in a similar case. Emerson says they asked two delegates and one state senator to take the issue up in the General Assembly. He says the three lawmakers refused because they felt the issue was too close to the abortion issue.

Can’t touch infanticide because it’s too close to abortion. 😯

So what are they lacking? A spine? A heart? A conscience?

Maybe it’s a moral compass.

And compassionate morality.

Truly we live in depraved, perilous times.

The full article might interest you: Mother won’t be charged with baby’s death because of law loophole

Sewing Hope

Through the Gospel for Asia Christmas Gift Catalog, ten women were given a desperately-needed second chance. These women came from a painful background — some had AIDS, some left the sex trade, and others were abused. Each received a sewing machine and hope for a new life.

Ten GFA-supported missionaries delivered the machines with a message of God’s love. The sewing machines provide these women with a source of income and the ability to sustain themselves, along with preventing a future drenched in despair. Learning to sew opens up job opportunities that weren’t previously attainable.

Aishwarya Baiji prayed faithfully with her husband that God would provide a sewing machine; she had long dreamed of being a seamstress. As a field worker, Aishwarya earned only half the wages that men were paid. After receiving a GFA-provided sewing machine, she and fellow believer Kanta Baiji planned to share this hope with others in their village.

Full article at Mission Network News.

Algeria: Despite Laws

Despite laws preventing conversion, Muslims are turning to Christ in what’s being called an amazing move of the Spirit in Northern Algeria.

In 2008, Algeria put into full effect a new anti-conversion law that prohibited efforts to convert Muslims to another religion and gave the government the right to regulate every aspect of Christian practice. This law was a direct attack against Christians since almost all Algerian Christians are converts from Islam. The new law could make nearly all Christian churches in the country illegal.

Despite this new law, 2009 has been an incredible year for evangelical church growth, says Pastor Youssef Jacob with Operation Mobilization. “We have churches that have grown 802%. Many converts have come from Islam with no Christian heritage, no Christian background, no resources whatsoever, no training. But they just believe in God and His Word.”

Jacob says the Kabylie people are the most responsive in the Kabylie region, which is home to more than 2,000 towns and villages. “In every village and every town there are Christians, and there are churches,” says Jacob. “In one town, actually there are more churches than mosques, which is a big miracle to happen in the Middle East.”

Source: Mission Network News

Hear Them Bells?

Is that chiming you hear a call to worship?

Or is it all in your head?

Like this, for instance: Bells toll to halt climate change.

Toll the bells; halt climate change.

Great. 🙄

Wow, who would have thought it could be so simple. And think of all the carbon and footprints expended getting to, around, and from Copenhagen for that CCC (climate change conference).

…a worldwide bell-ringing event initiated by the World Council of Churches for Sunday, Dec. 13. Churches have been asked to sound their bells or other instruments 350 times to symbolize the 350 parts per million considered the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Churches without bells are invited to use handbells or other noisemakers instead. Some congregations are choosing to toll their bells 35 times instead of 350.

Our church has no bells. But if anyone shows up with handbells or cow bells or dumb bells, I’ll try to remember to let you know via Twitter.

And about those congregations opting to tithe the bell ringing, what’s with that? Maybe they’re slackers. Maybe they don’t want to be fanatical. Maybe they think some anti-climate-change conspiracy has infiltrated the movement and succeeded in setting “the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide” 1000% too high.

Mark’s Special Request to the Bell Ringers: Please consider the consequences of halting climate change! Are you sure that’s really what you want?

Anyway, I thought you should know what all the bell ringing is about. (But won’t all that excessive ringing drive the bats out of the bellfry?)

Oh, and sorry this is so late. I meant to post it yesterday.

Eritrea: 30 Christian Women

Arrested in Eritrea

A religious rights advocate in Washington, DC is condemning the arrest of more Christians in Eritrea. According to International Christian Concern, 30 Christian women were arrested in Asmara, the country’s capital city.

International Christians Concern’s Regional Manager for Africa and South Asia Jonathan Racho says, “The Christians were praying at a house at the time Eritrean officials raided the prayer meeting, arrested all of the people, and took them to the police station.”

Their children and grandchildren told ICC sources that they are concerned about the safety of their loved one. Racho is concerned, too, “because we know that Christians who are imprisoned in Eritrea are mistreated, they face torture, and there are cases where Christians were tortured to death.”

Racho is baffled by their arrests. “They don’t pose any security risk to the country. These are just old married people. They have just come together to pray. It doesn’t make any sense to arrest moms and grand-moms for praying together.”

Most of the detainees are members of Faith Mission Church, an evangelical body. The church has been carrying out evangelistic and development activities in Eritrea for over five decades. It was forced to go underground in 2002 after Eritrean officials required all religious groups to register. The officials then allowed only three Christian denominations to register. They include: the Eritrean Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Lutheran denominations.

I’m Splittin’

I caught the swing plunging to its end.

Maybe eight inches to go.

Mark Roth splitting firewood
Swing frozen by the camera

I pressed the shutter release; I swung the axe/maul/whateveritis.

(Photo shot at 12:50 pm Pacific on Friday, December 4, 2009.)

I’m thankful again for all the work and thoughtfulness our children (all seven of them) put into getting us cords and cords of firewood last year!

Above all, love God!
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