Christian aid ministries working inside the country take precautions against threat of attack
The capture of Saddam Hussein in early December may have been cause for rejoicing for many Iraqis, but the jubilant mood was short-lived for foreign relief workers, including Christians who are helping to rebuild the country.

“Since the capture of Saddam, we have received one report that terrorist activities are being planned for northern Iraq,” said World Relief Disaster Relief Desk Officer Brandon Pustejovsky, who witnessed the celebration in that area on the day of the capture. “I wish the news was better, but I think we are dealing with issues of pride, religion and family, which extend beyond the influence of a mere man.”

Pustejovsky was the only non-Iraqi working for the agency in Iraq until just before Christmas, when he returned to the United States. World Relief’s 11 Iraqi employees are continuing to work under the auspices of Mission East. That group is one of several Christian relief organizations that carried on with their efforts long after hundreds of secular nongovernmental organizations left the country following the August bombing of United Nations offices in Baghdad and attacks on “softer” targets, including aid workers.

Those who remain face daily uncertainty about their safety. “The danger and the problem there is that it’s so unstable,” said Judy Moore, who is based in Albania but serves as World Vision’s interim operations director for Iraq. “One day will be fine, and the next day people will be killed. Every time you go out, you don’t know whether you will be attacked or you will be safe.”

As an added precaution, members of the World Vision team placed the agency’s identifiable vehicles in storage, avoided wearing apparel bearing the World Vision logo and stopped keeping a routine schedule. In addition, the organization has declined requests from network TV news agencies to accompany the staff and cover the work they do.

“It’s tough to turn down, but we always put the safety of our staff first,” said Dean Owen, World Vision’s public relations director.

Like World Vision, other Christian agencies that have chosen to stay try to keep their workers as safe as possible by maintaining a low profile. When Samaritan’s Purse realized in October that it could no longer guarantee the safety of its workers–or successfully continue its operations in Iraq–the organization called a 90-day hiatus and pulled its workers out of the country.

“The mainstream media accused us of offering aid just so we could distribute Bibles and only going over there to help Christians. It was crazy,” said Samaritan’s Purse International Projects Director Ken Isaacs. “No one came to see what we were doing. They compromised us and put us in a high-profile position.”

Still, the work continues. Under the agency’s direction Iraqi Christians feed 1,000 families a month and provide other means of financial and material support. And an existing Baghdad hospital and a partly built clinic completed by Samaritan’s Purse continue to make good use of the 16 tons of medical equipment donated through the organization last year.

Though some churches have been threatened, Isaacs does not believe faith is the primary motive for the persistent danger in the country. “Iraq is a fairly secular Islamic country. If they attack a church it’s because they want a juicier target,” he said. “This is about power and force and evil, and the terror is being exercised to scare the Iraqis. It’s all about chaos and destabilizing everything.”

But neither the United States nor most Christian agencies have given up their efforts to stabilize the country, despite negative reports that reach Americans, Isaacs said. The U.S. government kept the food pipeline flowing, he said, while reports of problems such as power outages were exaggerated and failed to tell the full story.

Electricity was quickly restored after the war, but the sudden availability of consumer goods such as appliances created an overload on the country’s antiquated electrical grid.

“The problems have less to do with the war and more to do with bringing the country up to the 21st century,” he said.

To many Iraqis, whatever chaos exists today is minuscule compared with the overt persecution the people–including Christians–faced under Hussein’s regime. “Before the war, churches in Iraq were persecuted just as Islam was,” World Relief President Clive Calver told Charisma. “Christians were shot, churches and bookstores were bombed, people were thrown in jail. When I went to Iraq immediately after the conflict, church after church asked me to please thank the Americans and their brothers and sisters [in Christ] for giving them their freedom.”

World Relief suffered a personal loss in September when a church leader in Iraq who worked with the agency was killed in a land-mine accident. At least one worker has been shot at, though it’s not clear whether the shooting was random or related to the relief work.

World Vision has not lost any workers in Iraq, but the agency–with 20,000 workers worldwide–loses about one worker per year. “We work in very dangerous places, and Iraq is now near if not at the top of the list,” Owen said. “We are monitoring the situation very carefully and will continue to do so until the situation improves and we don’t have to be so vigilant.”

Security is such a high priority for World Vision that the organization offers an intensive and comprehensive five-day course on security issues for its own staff and for that of other aid agencies, as well as for journalists who work in dangerous areas.

Despite the daily threat of danger, all three agencies say they have seen such an outpouring of love and faith among the Iraqi Christians that they can’t help but believe that God is at work in the country. The Iraqi people remain hopeful, Calver said, that a just government will be established–in spite of lingering concern that fundamentalist Muslims will end up in power.

Said Calver: “This is their message to the [United States]: ‘You won the war, now make sure you win the peace.'”
Marcia Ford

Cerullo asked believers to fast in mid-February.
International evangelist Morris Cerullo hopes to mobilize 1 million Christians in prayer for the United States through his Save America Now campaign, which launched in January. Cerullo said he received a sober prophetic word in June that warned of looming disaster in the nation.

“God was faithfully revealing His prophetic secrets to His servants (Amos 3:7), not to scare–but to prepare–in this case a mighty prayer initiative that would pierce the darkness and push back the forces of the enemy that are set against America–while issuing a 2 Chronicles 7:14 call to national repentance and prayer,” Cerullo wrote on the campaign’s Web site, .

Morris Cerullo Ministries spokesman Greg Mauro said the group has asked 250,000 churches to participate in a week of prayer and fasting Feb. 7-14. The prayer week was to be preceded by a media blitz that would include full-page ads in leading newspapers such as USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The Washington Post.

The ads are designed to raise awareness about the prayer call and to educate the nation about its Christian roots. Monthly prayer meetings are scheduled to follow the week of prayer, and the campaign culminates with a national TV special at the end of October “to send voters into the polling booths in a spirit of prayer,” Mauro said.

Cerullo’s ministry, which is financing the campaign, said the effort is not a political movement but an attempt to spur people to pray. Cerullo has enlisted the support of more than 80 Christian leaders, including John Bevere, Cindy Jacobs, Bishop Eddie Long, Marilyn Hickey, Eddie and Alice Smith, Rodney Howard-Browne and Bishop George McKinney.

“The USA is facing its greatest moral, spiritual, political and national defense crisis since the birth of the country,” prophetic minister Grant Jeffrey wrote at the Save America Now site. “It is essential that serious Christians commit themselves to prayer and fasting in light of this unprecedented time of both danger and challenge.”

There is no cost to join the campaign, and everyone who participates will receive regular prayer updates and a copy of Cerullo’s book America in Crisis.
Adrienne S. Gaines

It doesn’t claim large conversion numbers, but the ministry believes it has helped change Jewish attitudes about Christ

As Jews for Jesus celebrates 30 years in Messianic ministry, the head of the evangelistic organization is urging Christians to resist efforts aimed at reducing their evangelistic activity among Jews.

In a recent six-page letter to donors, Jews for Jesus President David Brickner challenged several prominent Christian leaders–including the Rev. Billy Graham–to not cave in to Jewish pressure to downplay their evangelism efforts among Jews. He cited a 1973 statement by Graham in which the evangelist said, “In my evangelistic efforts, I have never felt called to single out the Jews as Jews.”

“That comment is still quoted by Jewish community leaders as proof that Graham does not approve of evangelistic ministry directed to the Jews,” Brickner wrote. Graham declined to comment on Brickner’s letter, but the ailing evangelist previously has said: “I preach the gospel to any and all who come to our meetings, whether they be Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, Christians or people of no faith.”

Brickner’s letter noted that several ministers–including broadcaster Pat Robertson, pastor Jerry Falwell and American Values President Gary Bauer–support the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, an organization that funds several pro-Israel efforts but whose president, Rabbi Yechiel Ecksetin, has long opposed evangelism among Jews.

“If you press [certain evangelicals], they will say, ‘We believe everyone needs Jesus to be saved, but we don’t want to be offending people,'” Brickner told The Washington Times. “Pastors are nervous about taking the heat.”

Jews for Jesus is used to taking heat for urging Jews to embrace Jesus as the Messiah. Last summer a group known as Jews for Judaism shadowed Jews for Jesus missionaries in Toronto to detract from their Behold Your God campaign. The initiative is part of a five-year effort to proclaim the gospel in 66 cities worldwide that have Jewish populations of more than 25,000.

“Their claim that we can become more Jewish by believing in Jesus is like saying you can become more of a vegetarian by eating steak,” a Jews for Judaism ad declares.

Despite such hostility, Brickner insists Jews for Jesus has changed the climate of opinion about Jesus in the Jewish community. In the 1960s rabbis could declare that Jews didn’t believe in Jesus because they’re Jews, Brickner said. Today, he believes a Jew can follow Christ without thinking he’s the only person crazy enough to make that decision.

Rabbi Charles Kluge, president of the Messianic Jewish Alliance of America, believes Jews for Jesus’ impact has been positive and negative. Though the group has led many Jews to faith in Jesus, “the Jewish community seems to identify Messianic Judaism as Jews for Jesus,” Kluge said. “Jews for Jesus is not the representative of Messianic Judaism, though it is a part of Messianic Judaism.”

Since 1998 Jews for Jesus has recorded approximately 2,250 salvations a year, the majority Gentiles. Brickner attributes that to their ministry style, which relies heavily on street evangelism.

Looking ahead, leaders say they hope to refine their evangelistic strategy and mend fences with former staffers, some of whom are so bitter they started an ex-Jews for Jesus Web site. Many of their complaints of control and authoritarianism are aimed at retired founder Moishe Rosen. In an open letter released last fall, Rosen wrote: “We had a tough job to do and sometimes I fear that I was too tough on some of the staff. For those mistakes, I truly apologize.”

Though some former employees now reject Jesus as Messiah, a former Rosen associate said most have kept their faith.

The Messianic Jewish movement has grown to include about 500 U.S. congregations. Yet not all Messianic Jews support the confrontational evangelism style Jews for Jesus practices, preferring to use Jewish liturgy and symbolism to draw Jews to Christ. Barry Rubin, who left the group in 1980 and now serves as rabbi of the nation’s oldest Messianic congregation, located in Baltimore, believes the “cutting edge of reaching Jewish people” is the Messianic movement’s softer approach.

Charismatic businessman Joe Bell, who leads a Messianic congregation in Bristol, Tenn., credits Jews for Jesus with leading him to Christ and discipling him. “I think there’s a bashing going on and that Jews for Jesus is being persecuted for righteousness,” Bell said. “The devil hates Jews–especially when they get saved.”
Ken Walker

Started in 1996, New Generation has more than 10,000 participants in schools throughout Norway and Sweden
In an increasingly secular Europe, an energetic band of young Christians is aggressively evangelizing students in Scandinavian schools.

Nordic society has drifted far from its Christian heritage. Fanned aflame in past years by powerful revivals, church attendance today has waned, and many Scandinavians grow to adulthood without ever hearing the gospel.

However, a movement called New Generation is changing that. Young students are viewing their schools as their mission field.

Generally, each principal determines how much evangelistic freedom students are given, though invitations for salvation must be done one-on-one. Students have been able to lead outreach events and hold prayer meetings on their campuses because they already are part of the school milieu.

Eli Skimmeland, 22, a Norwegian, was a New Generation member in her hometown near Bergen. Her membership continues today at her university. “Our youth pastor encouraged us to take responsibility for our school,” she recalled. “We started by openly bringing our Bibles. We also prayed daily before school for classmates, our teachers and our mission.

“God really got our attention when He saved one of our main antagonists among the teachers … one that we had really been praying for. That teacher is now a Christian missionary.”

In Sweden, 16 year-old Sara Victorsson started a New Generation group with three other students shortly after she became a Christian. But within months, she was diagnosed with cancer. She told a New Generation leader: “OK, the Bible says God can heal me. But even if I die, I’ll take as many with me to heaven as possible.”

Her group became one of the most radical in the country, reaching individual students 10 times as often as the national goal of once annually. Through music, drama, one-on-one evangelism and prayer, their group grew from four to 35 within the year. They even saw a satanist in the school get saved.

Students said Sara exhibited great joy throughout her cancer ordeal. Today she is a county coordinator for New Generation–and healed.

One key New Generation distinction is that students are the Holy Spirit-fired “motor.” Adult leaders provide guidance for school leaders, but not control.

New Generation students seek creative ways of evangelizing. Swedish national leader Joakim Lundqvist said that one team raised more than $12,000 in three weeks–enough to purchase Bibles as Christmas gifts for all their schoolmates. A donor matched their hard work and sacrifice, and 6,500 students received a Bible. Not content to just hand out Bibles, the group wrapped each Bible and included a personal greeting.

Lundqvist said these gifts continue to bear fruit as students read God’s Word –many for the first time.

The New Generation concept started at Oslo University in 1996. The organizers quickly realized that the plan was relevant not only on their campus but also throughout Norway. Today more than 7,500 members of New Generation in 200-plus Norwegian schools are actively spreading the gospel.

New Generation kicked off in next-door Sweden in 2001. With encouragement from the Norwegians, the Swedes ran with it. After two years, New Generation Sweden had grown to more than 3,400 members in 230 school groups in nearly every county.

“We have a basic statement of faith, but we do not take a stand on denominational and church-movement distinctives,” Lundqvist said. This interdenominational approach has helped New Generation enjoy widespread acceptance among Scandinavian church organizations.

Seeing this effectiveness, other Europeans want to get onboard. The ministry even spread to Russia after New Generation leaders from Sweden preached at a youth conference in Moscow in 2002. The first New Generation International Conference–scheduled for Sept. 29-Oct. 3 in Gothenburg, Sweden–may fire even global interest. More details can be found on the Sweden New Generation Web site, .

“Our goal in Sweden is to present Jesus to every student, every year,” Lundqvist said. “School is where everyone is; the whole coming society is there. We want to see New Generation in every school.”
David M. Johnson in Uppsala, Sweden

Pastors in Montreal say churches are growing and Italians in the city are embracing Pentecostal teaching

Pentecostal ministers within a small Italian community in Montreal say they are seeing cautious church growth and people set free from lives of crime and demonic oppression.

Though the 300,000-strong Italian population in Montreal has deep roots in Catholicism and religious tradition, pastors say they are slowly seeing walls fall as people embrace faith in Christ.

“God works in mysterious ways,” said David Mortelliti, pastor of 510-member Fabre Street Pentecostal Church in Montreal.

“When someone is willing to go beyond that which is business as usual or tradition, and is willing to look for the truth in the Word of God, that person is close to making a decision for Christ.”

Here, pastors say, each decision for Christ is miraculous. “When you look at it numerically, it does not convey the reality of what’s happening to anyone outside of our context,” said David DiStaulo, pastor of 700-member Emmanuel Pentecostal Christian Church. “It’s like comparing a church in Texas to one conversion in Israel. One baptism there is like baptizing 1,000 in America.”

DiStaulo said Catholicism in the Italian culture is strongly associated with superstition and even witchcraft. He said his church has seen many people set free from demonic oppression, as well as from lives of crime.

“A large percentage of our church is of Sicilian background,” DiStaulo told Charisma. “A lot of these people got saved because a family member–sometimes a parent–killed someone and the resulting consternation drew them to the Lord.”

In the 1920s Italian immigrants began moving from California to Chicago, then on to Hamilton, Ontario, and Toronto, and later to Montreal. DiStaulo said that after a few years of house meetings, the first Italian Pentecostal church–Fabre Street Pentecostal Church–was built in 1926. In 1944, the Italian Pentecostal Church of Canada (IPCC), now a national fellowship of about 20 churches, was formed.

Though few Italians are currently immigrating to Canada, there are about 300,000 in Montreal. Of these, 75,000 do not speak English, and only 2,500 are non-Catholics. “For Italian Catholics, their life revolves around their church. Every one person who is saved faces a high price to be paid,” DiStaulo said, adding that many converts have had their lives threatened.

Though most of the Italian Pentecostal churches in Montreal have bilingual services and ministries, the congregations are becoming increasingly diverse and “less Italian” with each new generation. John DellaForesta, pastor of 200-member Laval Christian Fellowship, said ethnic groups in Montreal hold on to their roots more strongly than ones in the United States. “We don’t want to ignore that reality,” he noted, “but we don’t want to be a predominantly Italian outreach. It’s a tightrope.”

Although Fabre Street also extends its ministry to everyone, Mortelliti noted, “If Italians don’t reach Italians, it will be harder for others to reach them.”

At the Leonardo da Vinci Cultural Centre in the heart of Montreal’s Italian community, the IPCC churches hold joint evangelistic events and hand out gospel tracts. The churches also get together regularly for retreats, rallies, national conventions, pastors meetings, youth activities and special events.

Mortelliti and DellaForesta both say the most effective outreach method is friendship evangelism. “People won’t come to church just because of a bumper sticker,” said Mortelliti, whose church also has radio and TV broadcasts. “We have to allow people to explore our lives and to come up with the hard questions.”

One of the challenges the churches face, DellaForesta said, is the fact that Montreal “is the most evangelically depressed area in North America … but inroads are being made.” One of his church’s long-term goals is to plant other churches. “I believe the Lord would be happier with 10 churches of 200 people than one church of 2,000,” he said.

DellaForesta’s personal dream is to see the area’s churches enjoy “genuine fellowship that goes beyond denominational ties,” he said. “I’d rather have 10 magnets in a bag than 100 marbles. If the bag breaks, the marbles will disperse. But the magnets will stick together.”
Ann-Margret Hovsepian in Montreal, Quebec

Industry veterans say equipping believers to work behind the scenes can bring change from the inside out
Churchgoers are expected to flock to theaters to see Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ when it opens this month. But Christians inside the entertainment industry hope believers will become as enthusiastic about making another kind of showing–behind the scenes in Hollywood.

Through his 14-city Conquering Hollywood tour that began in September, producer and director S. Bryan Hickox, winner of several Emmy Awards, including one in 1987 for Blood Vows: The Story of a Mafia Wife starring Melissa Gilbert, is seeking to train Christians to be marketable in Hollywood.

His two-day event, which costs roughly $300, offers writing instruction from faculty at Act One, a Los Angeles-based ministry that teaches screenwriting to Christians, as well as workshops on acting and how to make a successful pitch. The tour has already made stops in Atlanta, Dallas and Phoenix, and is scheduled to hit San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis, Chicago and Washington, D.C., in the coming months. The last stop will be Honolulu June 11-12.

Hickox believes a few hundred Christians working behind the scenes as set designers, makeup artists, casting directors and the like can influence the content coming out of Hollywood. Hickox said research shows that Christians and non-Christians want more films with a moral base, pointing to the success of Finding Nemo, Bruce Almighty and The Matrix Reloaded as proof.

A 40-year industry veteran who accepted Christ in 1974, Hickox said in the early days of his career “less than 6 percent of the media gatekeepers had any church or synagogue affiliation. That is changing. In Hollywood, there is an awakening.”

But he doesn’t foresee the entertainment industry being gutted of “objectionable content.” He sees room at the table for Christian perspectives, and he doesn’t want believers to miss an opportunity.

“We have a chance to impact the world,” Hickox told Charisma during a break at the inaugural event, held in Jacksonville, Fla. “Other countries are growing weary of American morality. As Christians stand on truth, we can reclaim the entertainment industry.”

Casting director and acting coach Michael Stark said the tour is about helping Hollywood “clean up [its] act.” An actor who spent 26 years working in films and daytime dramas, Stark hopes the tour will encourage young artists to help reform the industry. “We old guys can talk to the young guys, but it’s the young guys who will have to do it,” he said.

Richard Colla, a director, writer and producer whose career dates back to a stint as director for the TV series Gunsmoke, doesn’t consider himself a Christian but wants to help students learn how to sell their stories. His track record is good–he has sold every script he’s ever pitched. “I certainly am interested in the condition of man, and that certainly requires an examination of the character of man,” Colla said.

Participant Jeff Carr has loved film for years but realized only recently that he could be a Christian and pursue filmmaking as a career. “I was kind of thinking God had a cruel sense of humor to give me these ideas, only to have to pitch it to a den of thieves,” said Carr, 27. “I never knew this [network of Christians] existed.”

The network has been mostly underground, stealthily working behind the scenes trying to find creative ways to keep the characters on That ’70s Show from losing their virginity, for example, or convincing a studio executive to remove a scene in which church choir members are portrayed as hypocritical drug addicts.

“Most of the victories of the Christians in Hollywood are what you don’t see on the screen,” said Act One founder Barbara Nicolosi. “But we’ve got to get beyond playing defense. We’ve got to start making the movies we want to see.”

In 10 years she believes there will be “a profound change” in the entertainment industry as Act One students and other Christians develop a brand of morally based films that make viewers want to be better people.

Chatting during a break from an afternoon workshop session, 25-year-old Naji Hendrix said the conference has been a source of encouragement. The Iran native accepted Christ five years ago and believes God wants her to make a film about her testimony.

The tour has brought her dream “a little closer to reality,” she said, “like it’s not impossible to fulfill my vision.”
Adrienne S. Gaines

Leaders Dutch Sheets and Chuck Pierce hope their 50-state initiative will spark widespread revival
A movement of targeted intercession has been working its way across the United States as part of an attempt to turn the nation back toward God and prepare for a revival on par with the Methodist revival of the early 1800s and the Azusa Street Revival of the early 1900s.

Dubbed the 50-State Prayer Tour, the move has been led by pastor Dutch Sheets of Springs Harvest Fellowship in Colorado Springs, Colo., and Chuck Pierce, president of Glory of Zion International Ministries in Denton, Texas, and head
of the U.S. Strategic Prayer Network (USSPN). Both have written extensively about revival and intercessory prayer.

Sheets gained prominence in 2000 when he mobilized thousands to pray for the presidential election. Last June he issued an urgent call for Christians to fast and pray that godly people would replace the retiring Supreme Court justices.

Pierce and Sheets said they were each impressed to visit the 50 states to mobilize intercessors and “shift” each region into God’s purposes. Sheets said the nation was in a pivotal season and would either change for better or for worse.

“This year, more than any other in recent history, will determine the future of America and the world,” Sheets wrote in a spring 2003 ministry newsletter. “We will see either great breakthroughs or great setbacks. It is much as it was for Paul, ‘a wide door for effective service has opened for me, and there are many adversaries’ (1 Corinthians 16:9).”

The first meetings were held in New Mexico, Oklahoma and Arizona. Pierce said he was led to start there because the region has the greatest concentration of First Nations people in the lower 48 states. Sheets said New Mexico was called to be a reservoir of revelation for itself and the nation. “We declared that a ‘Jesus of Nazareth, blood bought prophetic people’ would arise in New Mexico, having greater wisdom than the supernatural forces presently operating there,” Pierce reported after the event.

The two men went on to Oklahoma and Arizona, where they prayed for healing from broken land covenants, and that the states would fulfill their purpose.

Since those meetings, the tour has attracted hundreds of intercessors in each state. Equipped with historical information about each state, the pair, who some consider to be a modern-day apostle and prophet, said they seek to deliver specific messages that will help Christians in each region understand their state’s calling.

Pierce believes they have a unique ability to bring spiritual breakthrough. “Our giftings have a synergistic effect that helps the body break through into a new place of revelation and faith,” he told Charisma.

Delaware USSPN coordinators Dale and Miriam Mast agree, saying Pierce and Sheets helped intercessors there move into a new level of faith and authority. “They brought their mantle of authority into our state,” Miriam Mast said. “There were pockets of vision, but we did not have the ability to rally the people.”

Through the course of the tour, which had hit 31 states by December and was to end in April, leaders say they have seen dramatic answers to prayer. In January 2003, Pierce and 200 intercessors in Sacramento “decreed” that by mid-October the government of California would change. They believe it was no coincidence that on Oct. 7 voters recalled former Gov. Gray Davis and elected actor Arnold Scwharzenegger to replace him.

In February in Florida, Pierce said God showed him a network of terrorist activity in Tampa. He told attendees, “It will be found out in the week to come.” The next week a Florida professor believed to be the North American leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad was arrested with three others and charged with racketeering and conspiracy to commit murder.

In June in New Jersey, which prayer leaders say is called to be a “watchman state,” Sheets prayed for the state to receive a mantle of prayer, enabling it to guard the United States against evil. Pierce later told participants: “There are vipers working in Jersey City and Newark. Find those vipers, so the vipers do not become snipers.”

Small groups of intercessors began praying in their homes from 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. By August the “night watches” had spread across the state.

Prayer leaders believe the intercession aided in the July capture of three New Jersey teens planning to murder three people and other random victims. The teens were heavily armed with rifles, handguns, machetes and ammunition. In August two British men were caught trying to smuggle in Russian anti-aircraft missiles to shoot down commercial aircraft.

In other states, the fruit of the intercession was less tangible, leaders say. In Michigan, intercessors prayed for the state to regain its voice, which they said it had lost as a result of unholy alliances made with Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein. Their research found that Henry Ford funded Hitler in the 1940s, and in 1982, Coleman Young, then Detroit’s mayor, gave the key to the city to Hussein after the Iraqi leader donated nearly a half-million dollars to a Chaldean church, run by a group of Catholics from Iraq.

Intercessors across the nation say the tour helped bring greater unity among believers in their regions. “We know that Missouri is not an island,” said Regina Shank, USSPN Missouri prayer coordinator. “The plan for Missouri is connected to a bigger plan.”

Since the October meeting in her state, Shank said several people have contacted her, saying they want to join her in praying for the state. Like other intercessors across the country, they want to see more than church growth. “We’re looking for the kind of revival where bars shut down,” central Missouri USSPN coordinator Linda Ordway said, “a true move of God that we haven’t seen for a long time.”

Karen Tom

An American Bible teacher recently preached the gospel to Yasser Arafat–the second time R.T. Kendall witnessed to the Palestinian leader in 18 months. On Nov. 20, Kendall met with the 74-year-old head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization at Arafat’s compound in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

“Rais [the Arabic word for president], there is something I want you to think about,” Kendall, minister at famed Westminster Chapel in London for 25 years until his retirement in 2002, recalled telling Arafat. “It has been revealed to me that Jesus Christ is very important to you.” Kendall said Arafat replied: “Very, very important.”

Kendall, who began praying for Arafat daily in 1982 after hearing evangelist Arthur Blessitt talk about his visit with the Palestinian president, said he knew Arafat had dreams about Jesus. Arafat told Kendall he had a dream in 2002, when the Israelis took over his compound. “On the third day of the siege … a lamb led me to Bethlehem,” Kendall recounted Arafat saying. “There I saw the Virgin Mary holding Jesus. I kissed Jesus. When I woke up I was so moved that I ordered a lamb to be slaughtered and taken to the priests at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem for them to have a feast.”

Kendall then said: “I want you to confess that Jesus actually died on the cross for your sins. Not that He was delivered from the cross, but that He actually died.” However, a translator objected to his “call for conversion.” “But Arafat lifted his hand to the translator to suggest that it was all right for me to continue,” Kendall said.

After he explained to Arafat the benefits of becoming a Christian, Kendall noted that the translator objected again. Later, Kendall asked Arafat: “Will you do me a favor? Will you consider this?” Arafat said that he would. Kendall, who first shared the gospel with Arafat in July 2002, told Charisma he prayed for Arafat and gave him a copy of his book Total Forgiveness.

“Whether I did any good on my two visits to this torn, frail but unusual leader, I don’t know,” said Kendall, whose meetings with Arafat were arranged by the Rev. Andrew White, archbishop of Canterbury’s envoy to the Middle East. “I only know I never tried so hard in all my life to lead a person to Jesus Christ.”
Eric Tiansay

Thousands journeyed to the Holy Land last fall despite State Department warnings against traveling to the Middle East
Despite U.S. State Department warnings against traveling to Israel, where the intifada between Israelis and Palestinians has escalated in the last several years, thousands of Christians journeyed there recently to show their support for the nation they say is crucial for the fulfillment of biblical prophecy.

More than 4,000 Christians from 80 nations attended the annual Feast of Tabernacles celebration hosted by the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) in October. Founded in 1980 to “bless” Israel and encourage Christian support for the nation, the ICEJ is represented in 100 countries and has 55 branches worldwide.

The Feast of Tabernacles, held at the Jerusalem Convention Center, is the ICEJ’s signature event and has become the largest tourist event in Israel. It includes a week of activities–from a parade of nations through the streets of Jerusalem to nightly music festivals to an outdoor worship concert in the desert near the biblical spring of Ein Gedi.

“Our [delegates] are driven by biblical considerations,” ICEJ Executive Director Malcolm Hedding said. “They believe that Israel’s modern-day restoration is evidence of God’s faithfulness to His promise to Abraham. … They therefore come to bless what God is blessing and to share their love … with Israelis.”

Blessing and encouraging Israel was Texas pastor John Hagee’s reason for taking a group of 100 Christians to Israel in early November to tour holy sites. Pastor of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Hagee said his 21st visit to the nation was the most “joyous, pleasant trip we’ve ever had.”

“I went to Israel to send the message to the government leaders and to the people on the street that Israel is not alone, and 70 million evangelicals in America support them,” Hagee told Charisma.

Demonstrating support for Israel and “[strengthening] the Israeli people through commerce and tourism” is what motivated televangelist Benny Hinn to lead a group of 250 supporters to the Holy Land Nov. 1-7.

“[Hinn] wants his partners to understand the unique biblical importance of the Holy Land and to experience the spiritual perspective that can only be gained by visiting this place,” Benny Hinn Ministries spokesman Don Price said.

The Israel Ministry of Tourism has reported a sharp decline in tourism since the fighting between Israelis and Palestinians intensified nearly four years ago. As some tourist-related businesses have been forced into massive layoffs or closure, Christian tourism has brought a ray of hope, ICEJ leaders said.

Hagee and Hinn said local leaders received them warmly, and the ICEJ reported that every Israeli prime minister except one has appeared at the feast since its inception.

On opening night of the feast, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon thanked the packed house for their support. “Your friendship is important to us,” he said. “With your support, we can realize the hopes and dreams for peace, security and prosperity in the whole land.”

Despite the Israeli government’s welcome of Christian groups, Messianic Jews within the nation say they frequently experience hostility from officials, and members of the Messianic Jewish Alliance were not allowed to participate in the Jerusalem March, which coincides with the Jewish observance of the Feast of Tabernacles.

“When we went to the municipality of Jerusalem to apply for our permit, we were told we could not march,” said Avi Mizrachi, pastor of Adonai Roi and founder of Dugit, a Messianic outreach center in Tel Aviv. “We took it as religious discrimination. … Even a New Age cult was allowed to march and give out their brochures,” Mizrachi added.

Messianic Jews in Israel are seen as neither Jewish nor Christian, but as traitors, Messianic leaders say. “Ideally it would be wonderful to see our Christian brothers and sisters, when they see discrimination against their Messianic Jewish brothers, [to] stand up and register … their disapproval of such actions,” said Joel Chernoff, president of the International Messianic Jewish Alliance, adding that relations between Christians and Jews in Israel have improved significantly in the last two decades.
Cameron Fisher in Jerusalem
with Adrienne S. Gaines

Former USA Today columnist Barbara Reynolds is showing women how to break free of drug and alcohol dependency

At one time in her life, Barbara Reynolds spent her days writing newspaper columns that shouted her outrage about national and world affairs to millions of people. Part of the founding editorial team for USA Today, she once found herself in the enviable position of opining on three major TV news shows in one day. It was what she lived for. Then.

Today, the Rev. Barbara Reynolds is working outside the media limelight. Her main platform is a pulpit at the Greater Mount Calvary Holy Church in Washington, D.C., which is affiliated with the historic Pentecostal denomination Mount Calvary Holy Churches of America.

She is spreading the gospel with fresh fervor to a more targeted audience. Her mission is to help women who are living desperately because of drug, alcohol and cigarette addictions.

She knows personally about the firm grip that alcohol can have on a person’s life. Reynolds said that for many of her years as a prominent journalist she was a weekend drinker who hid her problem from others. “People didn’t know what a slippery slope I was on,” she recalled in a recent interview.

She accepted Christ in the late 1970s at a storefront church in Chicago. “A cool alpine wind blew through my body, just like the way Jesus described the born-again experience to Nicodemus,” she says today.

Spurred on by the 1984 adoption of her son, now 22, Reynolds said she asked God to release her from her cravings. He did, placing in her a hunger to help other women find freedom in Christ through a ministry she founded in 1996 called Harriet’s Children, named after the abolitionist Harriet Tubman, who helped liberate African Americans from slavery.

Reynolds will soon open a healing center in the Washington suburbs for women with addictions. She is also designing a seven-week program focused on spiritual makeovers to show people how they can change from the inside out.

On a warm night recently, Reynolds stood in the chapel at Greater Mount Calvary, looking regal in a dark suit accented with a brightly colored stole. “I just want to set the tone,” she told those who had gathered at the monthly “Friday Night ‘Get Right’ Service.”

“You have entered the supernatural,” she told the crowd. ” I believe in miracles. I believe something good is going to happen tonight, something awesome.”

Reynolds has experienced miracles. When she looked over the mostly female audience, she saw women who had given up addictions and accepted Christ. Many of them then joined in the work of Harriet’s Children.

When she glanced over at the young minister waiting to preach the evening’s sermon, Maria Terry, 32, Reynolds recognized the hand of God at work. Three years ago, Terry suffered a paralyzing stroke and short-term memory loss. “She came out of this [ordeal] a preacher,” Reynolds said about the young woman she calls a goddaughter.

At the service was another young woman, Millicent Barnes, wearing her security guard uniform and with two active youngsters in tow. “I rededicated my life to Christ this year,” Barnes said after the service. “Harriet’s Children has adopted my family because they know what I’m going through. It has been helping me keep my focus away from drugs and alcohol.”

Bishop Alfred A. Owens Jr., the pastor of Greater Mount Calvary, said Reynolds is a blessing to the ministry of his inner-city church. “I have literally seen the lives of hundreds of women changed. Over the years, she has done so much. And it’s not just the ones she ministers to on Friday nights.”

Owens ordained Reynolds in 1995. She is an elder on the church’s evangelistic board and is on the faculty of its Calvary Bible Institute. She earned her master’s
degree in religious studies from Howard University School of Divinity in 1991 and her doctor of ministry degree from United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio, in 1998.

At 61, Reynolds is a woman transformed. She said she is experiencing more every day the power of God’s forgiveness and grace. She has overcome–not so graciously she said–her very public firing from USA Today eight years ago. Her strong political views and her insistence on writing about religion fueled her ouster, she said. “I was one step away from throwing away everything I had learned in seminary.”

After the firing, she considered drinking again and moving to Europe, until Owens stopped her and reminded her of the ministry she had begun.

More recently, she has begun a process of reconciling with the mother from whom she has been estranged for 58 years. “Through forgiveness, my whole life changed toward her,” Reynolds said, “and I began to thank her for bringing me into this world.” In 2002, she shared Thanksgiving with her mother, her brother from whom she was also estranged and a niece she had not met before.

Reynolds now hosts an hour-long Saturday satellite radio show and often lectures on college campuses. Next spring she expects to release her fourth book, an autobiography titled Out of Hell and Living Well.

“I feel a great need to pass on what I have learned [about] how to survive, how to grow,” she said. Her desire is to do as Harriet Tubman did years ago when she risked her life to help slaves escape to freedom through the Underground Railroad. Reynolds said she and about 35 women ministers, along with other participants in Harriet’s Children are “snatching from the hands of the enemy” women enslaved by addictions and offering them healing through Christ.
Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb