Prayer Hub
Praying for the End of Syria's War
Use this link to find excellent articles with pictures to use in your prayers for the healing of the conflict in Syria which has now claimed well over 100,000 lives, men, women and children. Please continue to pray for His peace to cover this land and for negotiations to end it.
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Ukraine: Pastor named interim President
Reported in Joel News International
"We reported on the role Christians played in the massive protests in Ukraine. Last week saw an escalation of violence and police opening fire on the crowds, leading to the death of 88 protesters.
In the weekend the corrupt President Victor Yanukovych fled the capital Kiev. Journalists and Ukrainian citizens storm
ed his private mansion and surrounding grounds, closed off to the world for nearly a decade, to discover their President had lived in incredible opulence. The new government has charged Yanukovych with murder and has issued a warrant for his arrest.
Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, considered a hero of a 2004 Orange Revolution against Yanukovych, was released Saturday after 2½ years behind bars. The court case against her was widely considered politically motivated. Just hours after her release, in a wheel chair, she addressed the jubilant crowds on Independence Square. Tymoshenko sees the crisis in Ukraine as primarily spiritual. For this reason she proposed spiritual education in all Ukrainian schools. In 2010 she participated in a national prayer meeting organized by the churches in which she confessed the sins of the government. "I want to ask the Lord for forgiveness to be given to all the authorities and to me personally, for all unjust and dishonest things done," she said.
On Sunday, Oleksandr Turchynov, a well known Baptist pastor and top opposition politician in Ukraine, was unanimously named interim President by the Parliament in a bid to fill the political void and to end the three-month-long crisis. The choice of a Baptist pastor as acting president in Ukraine does not come as a huge surprise to Sergey Rakhuba, head of U.S.-based Russian Ministries. "He is well-known in political circles as a principled, honest leader. It is great that Turchynov is calling for unification and healing of the nation."
Ukrainian evangelicals are calling for national prayer, forgiveness and reconciliation in the wake of the traumatic recent violence. Valery Antonyuk, vice president of the All Ukrainian Union of Evangelical Churches, issued the following statement:
A Message of Reconciliation
"During this time of fateful change in the life of the Ukrainian nation, the Church and each Christian individually cannot remain spectators on the sidelines of the battles and losses. The Church serves society and mourns together with it. We went through difficult days together with the nation - we served through prayer, evangelism, volunteers, medical help, clothing, and food. Today a time has come for a ministry of active reconciliation, which will help maintain unity in our country and nation.
We supported the nation's demand to put an end to the tyranny of the authorities and repressions by the police. Now it is important to restore justice and due process of law in the country, to form a government that has the people's trust, and provide fair presidential elections. We believe that those guilty of crimes against the people will be justly judged, and that peaceful citizens will be protected.
But on behalf of the Church we must say more, we must speak the whole truth; we must say that which is still hard to accept and fulfill; that, which is a precondition for a better future.
Therefore the Church calls the Ukrainian nation to more than just feelings of human justice - to Christian forgiveness, grace, and reconciliation. We pray to God for repentance for the guilty. However at the same time we ask victims to forgive those who are already repentant as well as those who are still lost. In order to unite the nation, in order to reconcile its various parts, its various social, cultural, and political groups, laws and justice are not enough. Without repentance, grace, forgiveness and reconciliation, the country will remain divided and in conflict. This is the precondition for a deep spiritual transformation of Ukraine...
We call on the Evangelical churches of Ukraine to serve to bring peace between people and healing to the wounds of war. We do not call black white and do not justify crimes or even mistakes. But we, as Christians, forgive, because we have been forgiven by God. He reconciled us to Himself, and gave us a message of reconciliation. This grace-giving Word to our whole nation should be heard from Lvov to Donetsk, from Kiev to Simferopol.
We also call upon the international Christian community asking for prayer and intercession for the Ukrainian nation and for help with peacemaking. We mourn for the victims, and thank God for His grace toward Ukraine, and pray for peace and spiritual revival in our nation."
The Parliament has set new national elections for late May.
Let's pray with our Ukrainian and Russian brothers and sisters for the resolution of this crisis in Ukraine and Crimea during this pivotal time in this nation's history.
NORTH KOREA: Dozens detained, 33 to be executed
A call to pray for the traumatized, remnant Church in North Korea
On 27 February South Korean Baptist missionary Kim Jung-wook (50) fronted a North Korean press conference in Pyongyang to 'confess' to his crimes and plead for mercy. For seven years, Kim Jung-wook had been providing food, clothing and sanctuary to North Korean refugees and job-seekers in the Chinese border city of Dandong. Kim was arrested in North Korea on 8 October 2013, a day after crossing into the state, although a source in China told South Korea's Chosun Ilbo that Kim was kidnapped by North Korean agents in Dandong. In the press conference, Kim confessed to conducting 'anti-State' crimes with funding and assistance from South Korea's intelligence agency. When arrested, Kim reportedly had Christian literature and DVDs that allegedly he was going to use to set up 500 underground churches to spy on and overthrow the regime.
When Hong Kong-based Australian missionary, John Short (75), was arrested in North Korea in mid-February, he confessed to his 'crimes', apologised and was expelled. As an Australian, Short was of little value to the regime in Pyongyang. The situation is more serious for Korean-American missionary Kenneth Bae. Arrested in late 2012 while leading a tour, Bae gave a similar press conference confession in April 2013 before being sentenced to 15 years' hard labour. In August 2013 Bae was transferred to a hospital due to his deteriorating health. However, on 20 January the regime returned Bae to the labour camp to protest American B-52 bomber flight drills around the Korean Peninsula. As an American, Bae is a pawn of great value.
There is no word yet as to what punishment Kim Jung-wook will face. According to Radio Free Asia, 'dozens' of people have been detained, accused of assisting Kim. Border guards who let Kim slip through security, North Korean believers, new converts and the families of the accused are amongst those banished to labour camps upon Kim's 'confession'. Now South Korean news agencies report that 33 of the accused have been sentenced to death, charged with conspiring with Kim to overthrow the regime. It is reported they will be executed in a secret cell at the State Security Department. Doubtless these 33 are predominantly Christians, probably significant Christians who may or may not ever have been in contact with Kim but whose ministry is deemed an existential threat to the regime. This will be a terrible and traumatising blow to North Korea's remnant Church.
As noted in RLPB 248 (18 Feb 2014), the regime's main concern is managing the state monopoly on information in the face of severe challenges posed by new communication technologies, while endeavouring to raise living standards so as to ward off revolt. In response to pressure, the regime is ramping up repression, spreading darkness and stoking fear. Security on roads has reportedly doubled, making it more difficult for North Koreans to travel around the country. Furthermore, North Korean security agents now have new signal detectors, enabling them to intercept mobile phone signals in real time. Now people using cellphones smuggled in from China can be arrested within minutes. The recent wave of arrests will ensure that people stop using their cellphones.
PLEASE PRAY SPECIFICALLY THAT GOD WILL --
- 'Lift up his hand' to 'break the arm [instrument] of the wicked' and 'call his wickedness to account'. Pray Psalm 10 for North Korea.
- Spare the lives of the 33 who are to be executed. However, if that is not to be, then sustain and comfort them so that instead of being overwhelmed with fear, they will know 'the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding' (Philippians 4:7 ESV) as God himself encompasses them. 'And he will become a sanctuary [Hebrew: miqdas, the place where God dwells] . . .' (from Isaiah 8:11-14a ESV). [For more on this subject, see: The Promised Presence, by Elizabeth Kendal.]
- Comfort and encourage the North Korean remnant Church; may they know 'the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding' (Philippians 4:7 ESV). 'When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory."' (See 1 Corinthians 15:50-58 ESV.)
- Take this evil event of the executions and use it for his glory to effect the exact opposite of the regime's intent. May the news of these executions spread through all the country, establish not terror, but the link between Christianity and freedom. May interest in the transforming gospel of Jesus Christ and in his power and grace to spring up all across the nation. 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.' (John 12:24 ESV)
'Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.'(Psalm 24:7 & 9 ESV)
By
Elizabeth Kendal
Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin (RLPB) 251
Special to ASSIST News Service
HORROR OF NORTH KOREAN PRISON CAMPS
Trapped in cages built for animals. Beaten, chained and forced to stand in torturous poses. Left to subsist on snakes and rats. The damning UN report on North Korea's crimes against humanity contains shocking allegations, but its message of misery is driven home even more powerfully by eight sketches drawn by a man who survived more than two years in Pyongyang's hell on Earth. The drawings, released as part of the 400-page report, lay bare the brutality of a regime that has practiced torture on its people, undeterred, for years.
"This was the first thing that I saw: there it said that 'if you run, you die,'" Kim Kwang-Il, the 48-year-old artist and one of some 300 witnesses the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights spoke to in compiling the report. Kwang-Il's sketches offer a rare glimpse inside a prison camp, where photographs are forbidden. Some depict the torturous poses inmates are compelled to assume for hours at a time, under threat of beatings by chains and ropes. "We are supposed to think there's an imaginary motorcycle and we are supposed to be in this position as if we are riding the motorcycle," he said, describing one such torture. "And for this, we pose as if we are airplanes ourselves. We are flying. And if we stand like this there's no way that you can hold that position for a long time. You are bound to fall forward. Everybody in the detention center goes through this kind of torture," said Kwang-Il, who now lives in South Korea.
Another heart-wrenching sketch shows a starving inmate trying to catch a rat.
"Because we starved so much and did not have enough to eat, we would find snakes in street," said Kwang-Il, who now lives in South Korea. "How do you eat a snake in the street? But for us the first one to find it was the person who got to eat it. Everybody raced to catch those snakes and that's because we were so starved."
The UN report castigated the Hermit Kingdom for its ruthless treatment of people, depicting a brutal nation "that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world."
"Crimes against humanity have been committed in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea pursuant to policies established at the highest level of the state," the U.N.'s high commissioner on human rights stated in a report released Monday. "These crimes against humanity are ongoing because the policies, institutions and patterns of impunity that lie at their root remain in place."
Kwang-Il served 29 months in a North Korean labor camp after he was caught smuggling pine nuts across the border. Other survivors told the UN panel during its yearlong investigation of conditions in the secretive communist dictatorship. One witness described how a female inmate gave birth inside a camp. When a guard heard the baby's cries, he beat the mother as a punishment. And when she begged him to let her keep the baby, he forced her to drown the newborn.
Experts say it is common for prisoners in North Korean camps to lose up to half their body weight, or starve to death altogether. Many who survive are permanently disfigured from being chained to walls for days or even weeks at a time. The cruel regime not only punishes those it brands as criminals or disloyal, it also imprisons and tortures members of that person's family and succeeding generations, according to those who made it out of Pyongyang's gulags alive..
Human rights groups, including Amnesty International, estimate that more than 200,000 North Koreans are being held in camps similar to the one depicted in Kwang-Il's sketches. Other activist groups, like Open Doors USA, estimate that number to be even higher, reporting that the secretive nation has detained about 400,000 of its citizens -- many of them Christians. In North Korea, the practice of Christianity is illegal. Owning a Bible is a crime, and any person caught with one is sent - along with three generations of his or her family - to prison.
Pyongyang refused to cooperate with the investigation and denied the commission of inquiry access to North Korea. Last May, North Korea sent a letter saying it "totally and categorically rejects the Commission of Inquiry," said Michael Kirby, the chair of the UN Commission of Inquiry.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay pressed Tuesday for North Korea to be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) following the report.
"We now need strong international leadership to follow up on the grave findings of the Commission of Inquiry. I therefore call on the international community, in line with the report's recommendations, to use all the mechanisms at its disposal to ensure accountability, including referral to the International Criminal Court,'' Pillay said in a statement.
Please continue to cry out to the Lord for the plight of suffering people in North Korea. This has got to stop and this wicked regime must be reformed or removed so that the two Koreas can be reunified and these horrors are ended.
