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

Christian nightclubs are popping up in cities across the country, providing unique evangelism opportunities
Christians are taking back the night as more and more faith-based nightclubs are popping up in cities across the country. Sponsored mostly by churches and Christian youth ministries, these venues ban cigarettes and alcohol, are open to all ages and feature bands with positive lyrics.

“Christians want a place to go to hear music and have fun that’s not church and not a bar, and they’ve wanted that for a long time,” said Russell Hobbs, owner and founder of The Door in Dallas, a club he opened in 1998.

Once lone rangers, Christian club owners such as Hobbs are part of a growing crowd. In October, Club Three Degrees moved into the heart of the downtown Minneapolis club scene after occupying two previous locations under a different name, the New Union. After a $3 million renovation, Club Three Degrees has the largest capacity of any Minneapolis nightclub.

In addition to its regular club activities and concerts by such groups as ZOEgirl, Kutless, GRITS and Skillet, Club Three Degrees–an outreach of Living Word Christian Center in Brooklyn Park, church services on Sunday and Wednesday evenings that include rock-inspired praise and worship and “relevant, keep-it-real teaching.”

“We’re so accessible now,” Club Three Degrees co-pastor Nancy Aleksuk said. “Thousands of people walk by on their way to other clubs and come in.”

In the six weeks following the club’s opening in its new location, 43 people had accepted Christ, including a crack dealer who came off the street for a nightclub-style church service.

The Murray Hill Theater opened in Jacksonville, Fla., in 1995 and has a 500-capacity concert hall, a cybercafe and music shop. The Murray Hill Theater even sparked an economic revival in its declining area of Jacksonville.

“We’re hoping the Christian community will use the theater not just as a place to come and have fun and Christian social interaction,” Murray Hill Theater President and founder Tony Nasrallah explained. “But our vision is to have Christians invite non-Christian friends to a concert setting, not in a church where it would be threatening, and use it as a place to hang out and build relationships.”

Those relationships are being built at clubs across the country, including the Underground in Cincinnati; Club Praize in East Orange, N.J.; The Wreck in Kendalville, Ind.; Rocketown in Nashville, Tenn.; and Club Jubilee in Atlanta.

Creating a safe nightspot for youth is an attractive idea in itself, but making it financially profitable isn’t so simple. The Door is one of the few self-sufficient clubs, partly as a result of Hobbs’ wealth of experience. He started an entire club scene in a depressed area of Dallas in the 1980s before his conversion. That business savvy has reaped benefits for The Door, which recently opened a second club in Fort Worth.

Club Three Degrees in Minneapolis is mostly self-sufficient, but relies on support from Living Word Christian Center in tight financial times. “I think that’s the reason we were the first and have been around since 1989,” Aleksuk told Charisma. “I really believe it’s because we have the backing, spiritually and financially, of a local church committed to reaching people in their area.”

However, leaders at the Underground found church-sponsorship to be a hindrance. After Tri-City Assembly of God started the outreach in their basement, other local ministries complained that they were trying to steal teens.

“We’ve tried to tell youth pastors and senior pastors that this is not anything about building our own church,” said the Underground’s Chris Human. “It’s about building the kingdom of God.”

Still the Underground recently left its church to form a nonprofit organization, teaming with Christian music show The Zone and building a new 13,000 square-foot facility set to open this spring.

Even independent clubs are thankful for the support from individuals and local churches. Nasrallah started the Murray Hill Theater with money from his own pocket. Today the club manages to break even, thanks to the support of individual donations and local churches.

No matter how they’re funded, the clubs meet Christians’ desire for places where they can be entertained without feeling threatened by the negative aspects of the bar scene, or stifled by the traditional aspects of church, leaders say.

“God is pushing the church out of the Sunday morning box,” Hobbs said.
Kevin D. Hendricks

Bill Prankard and his wife, Gwen, have seen thousands come to Christ through their preaching in the northern territories
When God called Bill Prankard in 1972 to take His word from “sea to sea and to the ends of the earth,” the Canadian pastor didn’t dream that meant raising up Inuit spiritual leaders north of the Canadian Arctic Circle.

“I experienced the Holy Spirit in an incredible way at a Kathryn Kuhlman meeting in 1972,” said Prankard, 58, an ordained pastor with the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada.

“Right after that, God gave Gwen, my wife, and I Psalm 72:8 as our ministry mandate to take the gospel to our own nation first and then to other countries–‘He will rule from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth.’

“So we left the church we were pastoring, preached all over Canada–from ‘sea to sea’–then on our first trip up north of the Arctic Circle, we fell passionately in love with the Inuit.”

On that first trip in 1973, a church was established in Povungnituk, in northern Quebec, within a few days. An elderly Inuit man who had never heard the gospel asked Prankard why he hadn’t come sooner and pointed to a white cross marking the grave of his wife, who had died just months earlier never having heard of Jesus. It changed Prankard’s whole life perspective.

“That man’s plight touched me so much that I made a commitment then and there to bring Jesus to the Inuit,” he said. Today, 90 percent of Povungnituk’s residents are reported to be born-again believers.

Prankard’s commitment has taken him and his wife across northern Canada. The couple has seen thousands of Inuit converted and hundreds brought back from the brink of suicide and addictions. Today, they frequently visit all the Inuit communities they influenced and hold huge conferences for them once or twice a year.

“In many of the communities, almost everybody’s born again. It’s a real book of Acts revival up there. White men introduced the Inuit to alcohol and drugs and destroyed their culture,” Prankard told Charisma from the Ottawa headquarters of Bill Prankard Evangelistic Association (BPEA). “Now the government leaders are Inuit Christians, and they hunt and fish the way their ancestors did because their minds are clear.”

In Nunavut, a new Canadian territory that was formerly part of the Northwest Territories, many of the government’s leaders are Inuit Christians. Louie Arreak, the wife of James Arreak, former director of finance for Nunavut Territory and an associate of BPEA, led an unprecedented revival in 2002 during which a mighty, rushing wind reportedly swept through a church in Pond Inlet, Baffin Island. David Aglukark, a land negotiator representing Nunavut to the federal government, is another one of the Inuit spiritual leaders Prankard has nurtured through the years.

These and other transformed Inuit Christians help Prankard minister to nonbelieving Inuit. Nain, a town of 1,500 in northern Labrador, is renowned for its animist beliefs and high suicide rate. BPEA workers distributed groceries for a complete Christmas dinner to every family in Nain in December 2002. The ministry is currently building an outreach center there for troubled residents to visit at any time for prayer, encouragement or practical assistance.

Manitok Thompson, minister of education and human resources for Nunavut, said Prankard is widely accepted by the Inuit because he respects their culture and wants to empower the people rather than condemn or criticize them. “Whenever Bill holds a meeting, people from all denominations come because they know he’ll give a positive message filled with hope,” she said.

Recently, Prankard began taking his team to remote northern Russia to spread the gospel to the thousands of Inuit there. “Their culture is very similar to that of the Canadian Inuit, so they can relate to what our workers are saying,” said Prankard, who visits Russia twice a year.

Although Prankard’s passion is to reach the Inuit and other northern peoples, he started the River Outreach Centre in Ottawa in September because he believes Canadian revival needs to start in the nation’s capital. The charismatic church already boasts several hundred members and a school of evangelism. BPEA hosts two TV shows, and Prankard preaches in churches around the world, from Ireland, England and Sweden to Korea and Japan.
Josie Newman

Since the death of their 6-year-old daughter, Harry and Cheryl Salem have been helping people find healing from grief
After spending years traveling to encourage congregations to become people of dynamic faith, Harry and Cheryl Salem are finding a new audience–through some of their prayers that were not answered.

The Tulsa, traveling ministers are helping people struggling with loss find new hope by sharing their own personal story of tragedy.

Although close friends such as Oral Roberts, Benny Hinn and Kenneth Copeland prayed for her, the Salems’ 6-year-old daughter Gabrielle died of cancer in 1999 after battling the disease for almost a year.

The family faced the ordeal publicly. They continued to travel in ministry, with the young girl appearing to sing hooked up to an IV drip on occasions.

Many joined in praying for Gabrielle, but after her funeral one man approached Harry Salem–formerly a senior leader in Roberts’ ministry–and told him his daughter had died because Salem did not have enough faith.

Just three months later, while they were still reeling from Gabrielle’s death, the couple discovered that Cheryl, a singer and former Miss America, had cancer and needed surgery. Their message of faith was being challenged.

“It’s easy to have faith when everything is going good. Faith really comes out when things are tough and when you don’t see what you are hoping for,” Harry Salem said. “We went from faith to trust. Faith is believing for something good in the future; trust is going on when it doesn’t happen.”

The Salems have recounted their journey in two books–From Mourning to Morning and From Grief to Glory–and in numerous TV appearances. They have also found themselves speaking on grief and ministering to individuals they meet as they continue to travel to churches with their two sons, Harry III, 17; and Roman, 14.

“We have a deeper message,” Harry Salem said. “Our ministry has exploded because there are more people out there waiting for their miracles because they didn’t get their first one, people sitting in churches asking: ‘What did I do wrong? Where did I fail?'”

Now cancer-free, Cheryl Salem said she had learned “you can’t have religious ideas about grief. It has no economic lines, no political lines; people deal with so many forms of loss–maybe a loved one, sometimes a career or a marriage. People grieve over some of the strangest things.”

They encourage people to be honest about their feelings and doubts. “People say a faith person shouldn’t ask why,” Harry Salem said. “Jesus hung on a cross and asked, ‘My God, why have You forsaken Me?’ Our flesh has a voice.”

For the Salems, part of their healing came from gaining a higher perspective. “God showed us that Gabrielle was not in our past, she was in our future,” Cheryl Salem said. “She is healed, whole, happy, filling heaven with joy. You can’t go forward looking back. … We had to begin to let God give us a new vision for our life.”

The Salems were not strangers to adversity. Harry lost his father at age 10, while Cheryl overcame the injuries of childhood sexual abuse and a serious car wreck. They knew they had to work hard to avoid the marriage and family breakdown many who suffer serious loss experience.

“If you focus on what you don’t have, you will lose what you do have,” Harry Salem said. “Gabrielle is where we want her to go; we still have two boys and still have choices to make. We can’t neglect them.”

They said the outpouring of love and support they received from around the country helped them. “We had to decide, do you still go on when you have no answer? That’s the real question in life,” Harry Salem said. “Can you go on when you don’t always get a yes? We all go through stages when we don’t understand, and the question is, ‘Do I still serve God when I don’t understand?'”

They find reliving their experiences tiring at times, but satisfying. Cheryl Salem said one day God showed her that “only scars that have changed other people’s lives will be seen in heaven. This [loss] is one of those scars that we have, and we want it to be one that we keep for eternity because we want it to change other people’s lives.”
Andy Butcher

Ohio pastor Darlene Bishop said the $1.5 million Home for Life is a response to a burden she has carried for 17 years
When a 15-year-old girl in Ohio discovered she was pregnant, she didn’t rush to the nearest women’s clinic to abort her unborn child. Instead she turned to a newly built, faith-based residential facility for unwed, pregnant teens.

The Darlene Bishop Home for Life in Monroe, Ohio, opened in July and offers teenage expectant moms an alternative to abortion. “Society says it’s acceptable to have an abortion,” said Bishop, who co-pastors the charismatic Solid Rock Church with her husband, Lawrence. “Young girls seldom get the truth.”

The 23,000-square-foot facility offers off-site, professional prenatal care, career and health education, computer training, an anger management course and a home-school program–all directed by a team of Christian staff and volunteers.

Amanda Burns, who is seven months pregnant, heard about the home through a Girl Scout leader. “I was thinking about abortion because I knew my baby would be in heaven and not in pain,” the 16-year-old reasoned. But after visiting the home, the Hamilton, Ohio, resident changed her mind because she “didn’t want to be a murderer.”

It took the church four years of legal wrangling and $100,000 in court and attorney fees to break ground on the $1.5 million home, which is a ministry of the church.

City officials claimed the church’s surrounding property was not zoned for a residential facility, but lawyers for the church argued otherwise. “The church didn’t need approval to erect a building on its own property,” said Ron Carter, an administrator for the church. “It already had the proper license to expand.”

When a lower court ruled in favor of the church, city leaders continued to appeal the case. Solid Rock Church eventually appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court. Church officials are convinced that “God worked it out” because the court refused to hear the case, making it possible for the church to proceed with its initial plans.

According to the National Vital Statistics Report of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, fewer teenagers are becoming mothers. The birthrate for U.S. teens declined steadily throughout the 1990s, falling from 62.1 births per 1,000 teenagers 15 to 19 years old in 1991 to 48.5 in 2000, the report said.

However, Camille Peay of Columbia, S.C., who teaches teens through her
Bottles and Bookbags ministry how to care for their children, said churches must continue efforts to reach teens because the report does not show how many girls had abortions instead of carrying their babies to term.

Bishop, who is a popular conference speaker, isn’t waiting for others to do what has been her burden for the last 17 years. Bishop said she donates “every penny” of her honorariums to the two-story, “state-of-the-art” home.

“I have a heart for these girls, and I don’t want to see any of them fall through society’s cracks. That’s why I opened a home,” she told Charisma.

The Home for Life currently houses eight moms-to-be but has enough room to accommodate 32 girls. Pregnant teens interested in participating in the ministry can apply by completing a brief application and a telephone interview.

All of the girls’ food, education and living expenses are provided free of charge. Medical expenses, however, are the responsibility of the applicant, her parents or a legal guardian. Those without health insurance can apply for assistance through a local county agency.

Beth Ward, program director for the home and a member of Solid Rock Church, said the ministry is eager to help teenagers make positive decisions for themselves and their babies. “Girls from across the country can apply to come here. It doesn’t matter what religion, race or background they come from, we want to help,” Ward explained.

Moms currently living in the home say it’s “a blessing” for their unborn babies. Grateful to live in a place that has “no stress or tension,” Burns explained: “I’m no longer surrounded by my friends and influences that lead to bad decisions. God’s love is here.”
Valerie G. Lowe

For more information about the Darlene Bishop Home for Life, write P. O. Box 700, Monroe, OH 45050; visit ; or call 513-423-LIFE. To reach Camille Peay of Bottles and Bookbags, e-mail her at mjpeay@.

Indonesian Christians Attacked, Murdered

Four members of a church in Poso, Indonesia, were beaten to death during attacks by Muslims on Nov. 16, The Barnabas Fund reported. Oranje Tadjodja, 58, treasurer of Central Sulawesi Christian Church, and his nephew, Yohanes Tadjodja, 26, were ambushed in their car as they drove between two Muslim villages near Poso. Dennis Lingkuliwa and a fourth church member identified only as Bowo were murdered in separate incidents in the city. The attacks were reportedly spurred by attempts to arrest Muslim suspects believed to be responsible for anti-Christian violence in October that left at least 10 Christians dead.

Turkish Believer in Coma After Assault

A new Turkish Christian was left in a coma after being severely beaten for distributing New Testaments. Yakup Cindilli, 32, was attacked Oct. 23 by three men in his hometown of Orhangazi, in the country’s northwestern region. Cindilli had faced opposition from his family after becoming a Christian about two years ago, Compass Direct reported. Recently he had visited Bursa Protestant Church in Orhangazi, asking church leaders for some New Testaments for distribution. Among three people arrested in connection with the assault was the president of a local chapter of a militant political party accused of violent, “neo-fascist” activities during the 1970s and historically linked with an Islamic version of nationalism, Compass said.

Police Arrest Egyptian Converts From Islam

More than 20 Egyptian Christians, many of them secret converts from Islam, were arrested in late October in a crackdown on those leaving their Muslim faith. Some of those taken into custody were beaten, interrogated and tortured, and charged with falsifying official identity cards and papers, The Barnabas Fund said. Although Egypt has no law against conversion, former Muslims who turn to Christ are routinely targeted by police who try to force them to return to Islam. A Christian who converts to Islam can receive new identity papers with an adopted Muslim name within 24 hours, but it is impossible for Muslims who become Christians to change to a Christian name, The Barnabas Fund said.

The ‘Ten Commandments Judge’ said he has no regrets
An Alabama ethics panel voted Chief Justice Roy Moore from office Nov. 12 for his refusal to remove a granite monument of the Ten Commandments from the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building. Moore, who had been suspended since August, said he had no regrets and announced plans to unveil proposed legislation that would rein in the power of federal courts.

“You will hear from me again when it comes to the right to acknowledge God,” Moore told supporters after the decision.

Judge William Thompson, who presided over the nine-member panel that voted unanimously to oust Moore, said Moore had placed himself “above the law,” the Associated Press reported. However, The Washington Post reported that the firing helped cement Moore’s celebrity status, adding that he is seen as a possible candidate for the U.S. Senate or Alabama governor.

The dispute over the legality of putting religious displays in public places has galvanized many Christian conservatives, with Focus on the Family’s James Dobson participating in rallies aimed at drawing Christian support for Moore’s fight.

Moore’s attempt to take his case to the U.S. Supreme Court failed, but Christian leaders say the battle is not over. “Roy Moore’s struggle … is a conflict between tyranny and freedom,” said the Rev. D. James Kennedy, founder of the Center for Reclaiming America in Washington, D.C. “The outcome may well settle the question of whether we will return to freedom or be confirmed in our emerging status as objects of our ‘robed masters.'”
Adrienne S. Gaines