Hello,
While the world watches the ruins in Gaza, you return to your home which remains standing. However, I am sure that it is clear to you that someone was in your home while you were away.
I am that someone.
I spent long hours imagining how you would react when you walked into your home. How you would feel when you understood that IDF soldiers had slept on your mattresses and used your blankets to keep warm.
I knew that it would make you angry and sad and that you would feel this violation of the most intimate areas of your life by those defined as your enemies, with stinging humiliation. I am convinced that you hate me with unbridled hatred, and you do not have even the tiniest desire to hear what I have to say. At the same time, it is important for me to say the following in the hope that there is even the minutest chance that you will hear me.
I spent many days in your home.
Torture in Eritrea
Mission Network News reports:
| Two more Christians have died in Eritrea’s military-styled confinement.
[…] According to a Compass Direct report, Asgedom died on January 16 from ongoing physical torture and complications related to his diabetes. Kiflom also died recently after undergoing torture for refusing to recant his faith. […] “Eritrea has denied that there were any Christians in prison at all. They refuse to acknowledge that they are persecuting evangelical Christians. The reason they are able to deny this is because none of these men and women have even been brought to trial.” Some 2,000 Eritrean Christians are believed to be jailed without a legal charge because of their religious beliefs. […] “Pray for those that are in prison,” Penner asks. “There are believers being tortured in some of the most inhumane ways. Pray for them that they’ll continue to hold firm in their faith and that God will make Himself real to them. Pray for the families as well. Many of them have no idea where their loved ones are or even if they’re still alive.” Pray that those in mourning will find peace in knowing that those who suffered with Christ will be glorified with Him. Pray for the release of Christians imprisoned in Eritrea. |
And this from Wikipedia:
| Jehovah’s Witnesses, Bahá’í Faith, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and numerous Protestant denominations are not registered and cannot worship freely. They have effectively been banned, and measures have been taken against their adherents. Many have been incarcerated for months or even years. None have been charged officially or given access to the judicial process. In its 2006 religious freedom report, the U.S. State Department for the third year in a row named Eritrea a “Country of Particular Concern”, designating it one of the worst violators of religious freedom in the world.
There is one last native Jew in Eritrea, formerly from a community of hundreds in Asmara, whose ancestors had crossed from Aden in the late 19th century |
Hurt People
“Hurt people hurt people.”
–John Coblentz
Getting Along With People God’s Way
My Cat and I
Well, my cat is black.
And I don’t dress like Jon. At all.
Your Stuff on Facebook
So you have a Facebook account.
What rights do you have regarding what you post (comments, photos, and such)?
I don’t know.
But according to what this fellow found in their terms of use…
| …putting any of your work up on Facebook you are giving them carte blanche to use your photos, artwork or writings for anything they want including, advertising, promotion etc… |
So they’re excluded from any copyright protections, eh?
In my view, chalk up another negative in the Facebook column.
HT: Dunker Journal
Pray for My Young Friend
He’s 24 or 25 years old with a wife and three children. He lives in northwest Mexico. I’ve known him since (his) babyhood. His initials are GS.
He has been trying to get help for his back injury from the government hospital. (Such help is supposed to be facilitated by and paid for by his employer.) Neither has been helpful, at least not much at all.
So, after receiving a money gift from up here, he set out to get some tests and opinions from a private (as opposed to a government) specialist.
The specialist can’t proceed without some sort of signed paper from the government hospital. GS went to get that on Monday.
As I understand it, when the government hospital/doctor learned why GS wanted that paper, they changed their tune and said they would help him. (Apparently, the private doctor could get them in big trouble for not helping him.)
So GS was admitted to the government hospital on Monday. He’s still there. He’s afraid of the notorious carelessness and cold-heartedness of so many doctors and nurses in that system. In an earlier “event” with them a year or more ago, they worked on one of his fingers and left it worse. Understandably, he’s very leery of them working on his back (or ruptured disc or cracked vertebra or whatever the issue is).
I texted him for more details a few minutes ago, also asking how he wants us to be praying for him. Here’s my translation of his reply:
| It looks like they are going to do some tests on my spine to learn what really is my problem. Pray that God would show Himself in all this. |
Thanks,
Mark
Quiz With a Point
OK, here are portions of two paragraphs from the story:
| …the ___ ambassador to ___, says his country wants the ___ government to fully enforce ___ laws, crack down on….
“If Mexico and the United States are going to be successful, we are going to have to tango together,” ___ said. |
What’s the subject: drugs, guns, immigration?