Free Republic

U.S. — A group of devout Christian missionaries has arrived all the way from Africa to reach the United Methodist Church and tell them about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Upon hearing of the UMC's beliefs on life and social issues, a group of African believers felt a strong prodding from the Holy Spirit to venture into an entirely foreign culture and bring the Gospel to a dark and godless place. "If we do not go, who will?" asked Abosede Adeyemi, a Nigerian Christian burdened to reach lost Americans. "These United Methodists are in urgent need of the Good News....

American missionaries trapped in Haiti pleaded for rescue on Tuesday, reporting constant gunfire around their hideaway and corpses rotting in the streets. The group’s leader said the only assistance they have received from the Biden administration was advice to “be safe.” “Okay, well, that’s not really helpful,” Jill Dolan of the group Love A Neighbor said of the response she received from the U.S. Embassy when she asked for help getting her family out of Haiti. “My fear is that we will be caught in the middle of something really dangerous. We’re already on the front lines of it; we’re...

Yesterday marked the opening of a new film by Angel Studios — Cabrini — and the film has already generated an impressive amount of buzz. Considering the Catholic content of the film, this is somewhat surprising but in a very good way. I haven't seen the film yet, but I intend to over the next week. I'm told that local theaters are basically sold-out this weekend. Of course, nothing produced with religious content is without controversy. Cabrini is being promoted as a sort-of feminist anti-Barbie, which is an interesting tactic. This indicates that the filmmakers are attempting to broaden the...

Christian Aid Ministries, Charity in Haiti The Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries thanked God Thursday morning as it announced that the 12 remaining missionaries who were among 17 kidnapped by the notorious 400 Mawozo gang in Haiti have now all been released. “We glorify God for answered prayer — the remaining 12 hostages are FREE! Join us in praising God that all 17 of our loved ones are now safe. Thank you for your fervent prayers throughout the past two months. We hope to provide more information as we are able,” the international aid ministry said in a statement to The...

Authorities in Haiti say that the gang behind most abductions in the Caribbean nation between June and September is also responsible for Saturday's kidnapping of 17 Christian missionaries. Haitian police inspector Frantz Champagne told The Associated Press that the 400 Mawazoo gang based in the Ganthier area east of the capital of Port-au-Prince abducted the 17 missionaries with the Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries, 16 of which are American and one Canadian. "The group of sixteen U.S citizens and one Canadian citizen includes five men, seven women, and five children," the Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries said in a statement Sunday. "Join...

“PLEASE PRAY FOR US!! WE ARE BEING HELD HOSTAGE”. 16 AMERICAN MISSIONARIES AND THEIR CHILDREN, PLUS A CANADIAN CITIZEN, ARE KIDNAPPED BY ARMED GANG MEMBERS IN HAITI AS ABDUCTEE SENDS A SECRET WHATSAPP MESSAGE DURING ABDUCTION. A group of Christian missionaries and their family members were kidnapped on Saturday by gang members in Haiti's capital of Port-au-Prince. The missionaries were abducted from a bus headed to the airport to drop off some members of the group before continuing to another destination in Haiti, a report by the New York Times stated, citing security officials from the crisis-engulfed Caribbean nation. The...

French RAID operators (police special forces) have been making runs in Kabul to retrieve French citizens and others and get them safely to the airport. Chapeau! https://t.co/B0DjvNbuGh— Andrew Lebovich (@tweetsintheME) August 18, 2021

February is Black History Month, and to continue learning about the establishing, evolution, and culture of the Black Church, I spoke with African American Christian leaders and educators to guide us through the history of the Black Church and the critical purpose it serves as part of the full Kingdom. Our American history is rarely told from the perspective of African Americans because it can be an uncomfortable narrative for the majority population in our nation to hear and understand, but when we highlight one part of the church, it sheds more light on the whole church.Dr. Eric Washington is...

In China’s Hebei province, local Christians and foreign missionaries are being blamed for a resurgence of COVID-19 infections that resulted in a strict lockdown enacted on Jan. 6. Asia News reported on a conversation between a local priest and a member of his parish, showing that there has been a post circulating on social media singling Christians out as the source of the new coronavirus epidemic. The post reads: “the village of Xiao Guozhuang, near Gaocheng is a Catholic village; 20 days ago, there was religious activity here, there were several priests from Europe and the United States […],” implying...

"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."Matthew 28:19-20These were the last words Jesus spoke to His disciples before He ascended into heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father. Yet it would take the stoning of Stephen to force His followers to obey His last commandment. Soon, the early Christians would leave friends, family,...

What I offer today is a dissertation I stumbled upon while doing research for a book I plan on writing. The subject of my book is the time when Jesus visited the Temple with His parents when He was 12. I was investigating the various rules and regulations concerning Jewish boys. While in my search I stumbled upon a few commentaries discussing what the age Christ's Disciples would have been. As usual, I found my self going on a tangent away from my main topic. However, this was one rabbit hole I enjoyed so much that I felt it worthy...

On this date in 1934, Chinese Communists beheaded John and Betty Stam in the Anhui province town of Miaoshu. The Stams had settled as China Inland Mission proselytizers in the town of Jingde (at their time generally rendered as “Tsingteh”). Betty Stam (nee Scott) had grown up in China, the daughter of a Presbyterian missionary. John was a New Jersey native who had graduated Moody Bible Institute in 1932. They had a three-month-old daughter named Helen Priscilla. On December 6, 1934, Communist rebels in China’s long-running civil war entered Jingde and seized the foreign family. According to a tribute page...

[I'm excerpting to my experience. Some missionaries have chosen to return to their home countries.]... Some missionaries never had any choice. Mary Lott is currently in Alabama, hoping that next year she and her husband can go back to Indonesia. She would have stayed if she could have. A staff member with Wycliffe Bible Translators, Lott and her husband have worked at an international school since 1995. They considered the health risks when they first moved to the country—long before anyone knew of COVID-19. “We knew malaria is endemic,” Lott said. “Dengue fever. Typhoid. Typhus. Tuberculosis. We knew that when...

LAKE GEORGE - It was a choppy afternoon on the lake and Jimmy MacDonald from Albany was paddling in a kayak. As Jimmy tells it, he drifted away from his wife and stepkids because he was taking pictures with his new smartphone "and not really paying attention." As he tried to make his way back, the water got choppier and he paddled harder before he tipped over and lost his paddle. He was in about 30 feet of water, his ill-fitting life jacket coming up over his head and he was holding onto the kayak with one hand and his...

The Franciscan Protomartyrs and Interreligious Dialogue The Franciscan order was founded at the height of the Crusading era. Political and religious leaders were consumed with a noble cause: to recover the Holy Land that had been taken centuries earlier by Muslim forces. St. Francis, however, had a different obsession: to convert the Muslims to the one true faith, Catholicism.In 1219, the Franciscans held a General Chapter, and St. Francis announced that he would be traveling to the East to preach to the Muslims. At the same time, six brothers were given the task to travel to the West, Morocco specifically,...

Hundreds of missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints streamed through the doors of Salt Lake City International Airport on Sunday and were greeted by a large group of family and friends, marking an atypical detour in their religious service for the Utah-based faith. The global outbreak of the novel coronavirus has prompted the church to adapt its foundational proselytizing program, shuttering Missionary Training Centers worldwide and scrambling to return young men and women to their native countries.

Let the Amazon Learn From China, Where the Church Flourished With Very Few Missionaries. Celibate The mantra with which the proponents of married priests justify their demand is the irreversible shortage of celibate priests in regions with small communities scattered over remote places, like the Amazon or the islands of the Pacific. It must be guaranteed - they say - that the celebration of the Mass is offered to all on a regular basis, and not just a few times a year.Curiously, the same ones who display such generosity in wanting to bestow the Eucharist are also the stingiest in...

[Catholic Caucus] Five Heroic Men Who Withstood Hellfire for Their Faith August 25, 1624 marks the martyrdom of four priests and a brother On Aug. 25, 1624, five Catholic heroes faced hellish deaths for having brought Christ to the people of Japan. Burned at the stake in Ōmura, east of Nagasaki, was Jesuit Fr. Miguel Carvalho, S.J., Franciscan Frs. Luís Sotelo and Luís Sasada, Dominican Fr. Pedro Vázquez and Franciscan Br. Luís Baba. Padre Carvalho, the Jesuit, had entered Japan in 1622 on a Portuguese trading ship, having disguised himself as a soldier. The three Franciscans had been sent from...

In his book, “The Reason for God,” Tim Keller argues that Christianity is the only truly global religion. Indeed, within a few generations of Christ, the Christian faith had spread across much of the known world—from India to North Africa to furthest reaches of the Roman Empire and into the barbarian lands of Northern Europe. Yet up until a hundred years or so ago, for all kinds of historical and sociological reasons, Christianity became a predominantly Western religion. The missionary efforts of the last hundred years began to change that, and now Pew Research predicts that Africa will be the...

Settlers in New England highlighted the conflict between two powerful human motivations: greed and the gospel. Gospel-motivated missionaries wanted to bless the native inhabitants, both physically and spiritually. Unfortunately, greed-motivated settlers viewed natives as an unpredictable danger obstructing safe expansion, as they would sometimes steal from farms or kidnap women and children. Compared to civilizations of Europe, Asia, India, North Africa, and the Middle East, natives of North America still subsisted rather primitively. The abundance of wild game and fish meant there was little need to domestic animals and crops, read or write, smelt bronze or iron, or even invent...