Detroit pastor Keith Butler announced April 12 that he will run for U.S. Senate in Michigan’s 2006 election.

“With all that I have seen, heard and felt in my soul, running for the United States Senate at this time and place in Michigan’s history is not a mere opportunity,” said Butler, founding pastor and bishop of 21,000-member Word of Faith International Christian Center, the Associated Press (AP) reported. “It is something much more important: a responsibility.”

A longtime Republican and former Detroit city councilman, Butler said he believed he had a moral obligation to oppose Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow, citing such issues as gay marriage and challenges to religious freedom as motivation for his run, the AP said.

Republican state Sen. Alan Cropsey is endorsing Butler and said he believes his chances of winning are strong, though the primary will likely be a tough race. “He’s a staunch conservative on fiscal issues; he’s a staunch conservative on moral issues,” Cropsey said. “But he’s more than a conservative. He’s a spokesman. He’s a leader.”

Butler is not as well known among Michigan Republicans outside the Detroit area, and Cropsey said white conservatives might not immediately see why they should vote for a black man from a densely urban part of the state. But he says Butler will win their support when they realize he shares their values. They also will likely be impressed with his business acumen, Cropsey said, as Butler has built the state’s largest church, which has 15 branches in the U.S. and abroad.

He added that Christian voters–a block that Cropsey said “will swing any [Republican] primary”–likely will not be deterred by Butler’s affiliation with the Word-Faith movement. “I take a look at Keith Butler, and I say, ‘This man holds my values. On the key issues, this man believes as I believe,'” said Cropsey, a Christian who has known Butler since the early 1980s. “I may disagree on some of the charismatic issues, but I know this is a man of God.”

Observers say if Butler wins the Republican primary, he could unseat Stabenow if he gains the typical percentage of Republican votes and at least 20 percent of the black vote. Butler supporters from Cropsey to Traditional Values Coalition founder Lou Sheldon to former National Religious Broadcasters chairman Glenn Plummer say he could win at least that percentage.

Cropsey said he believes Butler is called to this race. “In my spirit I sense there is a strong anointing from God on Keith Butler,” he said.
Adrienne S. Gaines

Thousands of Christians across the nation are supporting pastor Dino Gentile’s appeal for clemency
Thousands of Christians nationwide have written letters expressing support for a Pentecostal pastor serving a 41-year sentence for a crime he said he was coerced into committing.

Pastor Dino M. Gentile of Chatsworth, Calif., is seeking clemency from President Bush for his role in a 1998 bank robbery in Pensacola, Fla.

The 49-year-old former pastor of The Ark, a Chatsworth congregation affiliated with the Apostolic World Christian Fellowship Inc., said he was forced to drive the getaway car at the threat of harm to his wife and two children in California.

“Dino was in terrible fear [that] he and his family [would be] executed,” said his mother, Emila Gentile Medeiros.

Gentile said he became involved in the robbery when Jeffrey Durham, now serving time for the Monsanto Employees Credit Union robbery, asked if he could accompany Gentile on a cross-country evangelism and fundraising trip.

Durham, who first represented himself as a mild-mannered Christian man and an agent with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, was eager to participate in church activities and interacted closely with the Gentile family. By the time Durham revealed his plan to rob the Pensacola bank, Gentile trusted him.

“Gentile embraced society’s throwaways, an aspect of his personality that spilled into his ministry,” said Jennifer Elise Chase in a master’s thesis she wrote about Gentile’s case, which she titled “The Preacher Who Trusted Too Much.” “Dino believes everyone has redeeming value.”

But as he sat outside in Durham’s getaway car with a bomb on the seat behind him and a threat of death if he did not cooperate, Gentile said he was forced to make a decision. “He turned from a model saint in my church for eight months to this absolutely possessed young man,” Gentile told Charisma.

So instead of running to the police the minute he got the opportunity, Gentile drove Durham back to California. “He was screaming at me the whole time we drove back to Los Angeles,” Gentile said. “I had to wonder what he was capable of.”

Durham was arrested for the robbery in 1998, and FBI agents later linked Gentile to the crime, charging him with aiding and abetting. Gentile claims his attorney failed to introduce evidence that would have supported his version of the events. Within 15 minutes, a Pensacola jury convicted Gentile. He received 30 years for his alleged use of an automatic weapon, and 11 years for the abetting charge.

Since then, friends, relatives, former parishioners and members of his 3.2 million-member denomination have written some 3,000 letters and faxes requesting clemency. Supporters repeatedly describe Gentile as a man of integrity and devotion.

“This good and decent man has suffered enough,” wrote Bishop Samuel L. Smith of the Apostolic World Christian Fellowship. “His community work has been exemplary. Helping the poor, the down and out, was a particular passion of this humble man.”

Linda Oakland, senior pastor of The Well Foursquare Church in Northridge, Calif., agreed. “All of his life and his work reflect the testimonials, one after another, of people who came out of difficult circumstances, who now serve as vital people in our community,” she wrote. “…We are anxious to have Pastor Gentile back serving our community in Southern California where he is so desperately needed.”

Among those who received letters and petitions are California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Senators Mark Montigny and Bob Dole, the U.S. Department of Justice, former President Clinton and now President Bush.

In 2001, Justice Department pardon attorney Roger C. Adams sent a letter to Sen. Dole, saying Gentile’s request for a reduced sentence was being processed. Four years later, the process is still not complete. Gentile is praying for a miracle.

For several years, Durham, who is serving a 120-year sentence in a Colorado prison, has been promising to exonerate Gentile. “Don’t waive your right to an appeal, Brother,” Durham wrote in a 1999 letter to Gentile. “That’s what’s going to get you out of prison–that and a statement from me. I have to wait until after my trial before I make any statements. I will do what I said, Brother. Just be patient and know that the truth will set you free.”

Durham has not provided a statement to authorities yet.

Gentile said his appeal process has been exhausted, but a presidential pardon may still be available. White House officials won’t discuss Gentile’s case. “We do acknowledge when we receive a petition or application that is under review,” said Justice Department spokesman John Nowacki, “but we don’t discuss anything during the interim process.”

Gentile has seen dozens of men saved since his incarceration, but he hopes his prison ministry will soon end and has asked supporters to keep writing and faxing the president on his behalf.
Michelle Lovato in Lompoc, Calif.

Pharmacists Challenge Order to Give ‘Plan B’ Pill
The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) filed suit on behalf of two pharmacists challenging Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s order requiring pharmacists to dispense medication even if the drugs violate their religious beliefs or conscience. The move came after two pharmacists refused to dispense morning-after birth control pills, invoking their “right of conscience,” which they believed was protected by the state’s Health Care Right of Conscience Act, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. The governor said the act does not cover the pharmacists and said refusing to dispense the pills denies a woman her right to health care. The ACLJ is asking a state court to declare Blagojevich’s emergency order null and void.

Lawsuit Against Jews For Jesus Dismissed

A second lawsuit filed against Jews for Jesus (JFJ) by a woman who claims she was wrongly said to have accepted Christ in a 2002 ministry newsletter has been dismissed. Liberty Counsel, which represented JFJ, said Florida Circuit Court Judge Catherine Brunson dismissed Edith Rapp’s claims that she had been defamed by the praise report her stepson wrote, in which he said she became a “Jewish believer.” A previous judge dismissed a lawsuit Rapp filed in May 2004, after her husband’s 2003 death. She later refiled portions of the suit. Those claims have also been dismissed. At press time Rapp had filed another lawsuit against JFJ. Liberty Counsel said it planned to file a motion to dismiss the third lawsuit.

School Board Sued for Praying at Meetings
The ACLU is suing members of a Delaware school board for opening monthly business meetings with prayer, AgapePress reported. The civil liberties group claims the actions of Reginald Helms, vice president of Indian River School District Board of Education, and his colleagues are unconstitutional. “I think there is Supreme Court precedent to say that these are legislative type prayers … so we’re hoping that in the end it will be upheld as constitutional,” John Whitehead, head of the Rutherford Institute, which is representing the board members, told AgapePress.

Founded by ‘the world’s oldest teenager,’ the Winkie Pratney Memorial Library will house works by trailblazing ministers
The man affectionately known as the world’s oldest teenager is looking to historic revival leaders for lessons in radical Christian living.

Winkie Pratney, a New Zealand-born evangelist who journeys hundreds of thousands of miles speaking to more than a half-million people each year, is preparing to open his unique collection of rare, handpicked books this summer as an extension of his ministry to young people and their leaders.

Located on Youth With a Mission’s Twin Oaks Ranch outside Lindale, Texas, and comprising more than 10,000 volumes, the Winkie Pratney Memorial Library will offer a unique look at the lives and teachings of historic revival leaders such as John Wesley, Charles Finney and William and Catherine Booth. Eventually, Pratney hopes to make many of the writings available online for free.

“The ultimate goal is to be a library that tracks evangelism, missions and spiritual awakening,” Pratney said, “one that chronicles the work of the Holy Spirit in history.”

Pratney, who celebrated his 60th birthday last year, said the library will be based on a Hebraic, rather than Greek, style of learning. Instead of packing the library with as many books and resources as he can acquire to help patrons accumulate knowledge, Pratney said he wants to highlight the works of leaders who can teach by example, who were known both for their evangelistic zeal and their Christian character.

“[When selecting a book] I ask: ‘Is the person who wrote this a soul winner? Are they doing what Jesus did, or are they merely theoretical?'” he said. “… The next thing I ask is, ‘What was the long-term fruit of their lives? What were the kinds of results they got when they pushed the truth God gave them? When you put these two meshes on a good chunk of the Christian life, a large number of things get left behind. What remains is a core of people who left a lasting legacy.”

Pratney said many of the authors in his collection have been omitted entirely from the racks of most Christian bookstores. And many of those who are included in anthologies have been edited to remove their emphasis on the supernatural.

“This is a unique sort of library because it follows the stream of the red-headed stepchildren of the Reformation,” Pratney said. “Many of these writers were neither Catholic nor Reformed, but were persecuted by both sides. They were of the stream that believed that a pure heart and unreserved love and obedience was what God required and that Jesus still worked miracles in their day.”

The library houses such original works as Butler’s Lives of the Saints, which John Wesley used extensively; the complete collected hymns of John and Charles Wesley; Charles Spurgeon’s 80 volumes of sermons from the Metropolitan Tabernacle and the Park Street pulpits; as well as books by such revivalists as Charles Finney and Catherine and William Booth.

The library will also house a natural healing library that includes books, videos and current research into alternative healing methods. Pratney plans to have a fully stocked kitchen where visitors will be able to prepare healthy alternatives to the burgers, fries, refined sugar and white flour that are staples of the American diet.

“Martyrdom is one thing … but death by stupidity is something else,” Pratney said. “I’m interested in Christians living long, productive lives so they can die old and happy serving Jesus.”

Plans are under way to make it possible for patrons to watch archival footage of revivals or teaching videos by such ministers as Campbell McAlpine, Leonard Ravenhill, Keith Green, Gordon Olson or even Winkie Pratney.

“Winkie is part of our spiritual heritage,” said Bob Weiner of Weiner Ministries International and former president of Maranatha Campus Ministries. “The world’s been changed because of the message he’s preached, and millions of young people have gotten saved.”

Weiner said Pratney has been teaching the truths he gleaned from the lives of the people represented in the library for more than 40 years. “Because of it, thousands of people are out there preaching the truth of the kingdom of God,” Weiner said.

“We need to study the works of [past great saints of God] to learn why they were so anointed and why God used them,” he added. “There’s something in the character of the people God chooses, and we need to line ourselves up with that.”

Vinson Synan, dean of the Regent University School of Divinity in Virginia Beach, Va., said a library of this sort can help provide a backdrop against which to judge present-day spiritual awakenings.

“No movement lasts very long unless it is buttressed by good thought and strong theology,” Synan said. “Experience is important, but it’s what you write down that affects future generations.”
Amado J. Bobadilla

Though Sarah Lui has been released, hundreds from the South China Church, including its pastor, remain in prison
A Christian woman imprisoned for years in China has exposed some of the abuses that occur in labor camps, describing her arrest and torture at a February press conference in Washington, D.C.

A Christian since 1989 and a leader in the South China Church, one of the largest unregistered churches in China, Sarah Liu was arrested May 27, 2001, on her 30th birthday, when Chinese military police broke up a worship service being held in a local Christian’s home.

The church’s pastor, Gong Shengliang, escaped, but Lui faced her third arrest. Previously she had been tortured and eventually released, but this time was different.

“I was interrogated in a bedroom,” she said. “Seven male policemen surrounded me. They started laughing at me and cursing me, then started touching my body and asked me what did I do. I said ‘I’m just a Christian believer.’ And one said sarcastically, ‘Why don’t you believe in the Communist Party [instead of] this foreign god?'”

As the night wore on, it became clear that the police wanted Lui to testify that Gong had raped her. She refused.

The police then shackled her feet and began beating her legs and back, she recalled. One officer whipped her toes with a metal coat hanger. When she fell, they bashed her head into the wall until she passed out.

“The pain was so great that I could hardly breathe,” she said. “They said I was only pretending to be dead. The shackles bit into my feet and ankles such that wherever I walked was covered with blood.”

Again they asked her to make a false confession against Gong, and again she refused.

Using an electric prod, the police shocked every part of her body. When she cried out, they shoved the prod in her mouth.

“Then they tried to take off my clothes, but I resisted,” she recalled. “They kicked me and shoved me into a corner and pulled off my clothes.”

In the end, two officers forced a weakened Lui to fingerprint some documents, one of which she said was otherwise blank. As a result of several similarly coerced accusations by women in the South China Church, pastor Gong and three church leaders were sentenced to death. The women, including Lui, were put in prison.

Wracked with guilt for playing a role in pastor Gong’s conviction, Lui said she wanted to die. “But in my heart there was a deep cry,” she said. “And in my heart I said, ‘No, I will not reject Jesus. I want to live. I want to live and tell the truth about what is really happening to the South China Church.'”

Due to an overwhelming international outcry coordinated by China Aid and other international organizations that work to assist persecuted Christians, the Chinese believers received a second trial. Pastor Gong and those condemned to death were instead given life sentences. Lui and four other women were declared innocent and released.

Though cleared of any crime, Lui was sentenced to three years of “re-education through labor.” She was sent to a labor camp, where she was forced to assemble electronics and work in the fields. Christians were forbidden from praying or reading the Bible. Lui said they were treated like members of an evil cult and assigned onerous tasks. Lui said she passed out from exhaustion twice.

Released in February 2004, Lui said her freedom came with the warning that she would be rearrested if she were ever to resume practicing Christianity. She said she lived in constant fear. Eventually, with the help of China Aid and other organizations, she received refugee status in the United States in January.

In the last 10 years more than 8,900 members of the South China Church have been arrested, and many are still in prison. According to the latest reports from China Aid, Gong continues to serve his life sentence and is dying in his prison cell.

Lui hopes to one day return to a China that honors religious freedom as government leaders have promised in multiple international covenants and its own constitution. In the meantime, she wants to draw attention to religious persecution in China and the suffering of Gong and others affiliated with the South China Church.
David Mundy in Washington, D.C.

Despite having a 4 percent chance of recovery, Casey Treat says his blood work shows no sign of the liver disease
After a public battle with hepatitis C, Seattle pastor Casey Treat says he has been healed of the viral liver disease.

Though doctors gave Treat only a 4 percent chance of complete recovery, the pastor of 7,000-member Christian Faith Center said blood tests in March showed no trace of the disease he had been battling since late 2003.

Doctors, nutritionists and physical therapists each claimed credit. Treat, 50, attributed it to all of them working in tandem with God’s healing touch. “My approach has always been to use prayer and doctors,” Treat said. “We should use every endeavor God has given us for healing.”

In 2003, before Treat learned he had the disorder, much had been going his way. He was launching a huge building project and broadening his media ministry. But a simple medical exam to qualify for a life insurance policy threatened to upend it all.

“I was shocked and dismayed,” he said. “This was not good. God got my attention.”

Now a husband and father of three, Treat believes he contracted hepatitis C as a teen. Before he accepted Christ at age 19, he had been a drug user and was part of the hippie subculture of the day. He said it was during a time of drug rehabilitation that he first heard the gospel.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people with hepatitis C often experience no symptoms for years–and Treat had not seen any signs. Nonetheless, 70 percent of infected persons might eventually develop chronic liver disease. The worst cases need liver transplants. A few die.

Because hepatitis C cannot be transmitted to others through casual contact, Treat continued his ministry activities, but he also began chemotherapy. He chose to
keep his condition private until he started losing hair and weight.

When the news was public, Treat used himself as a living illustration. He preached a series titled “How to Be Your Best When You Feel Your Worst,” and reminded teens that dangerous behaviors such as drug abuse and premarital sex can have latent consequences.

As Treat battled for his health, Christian Faith Center continued to expand. What started with 30 people when Treat was 24 has matured into one of the largest churches in the Pacific Northwest and now meets in two locations. More than 150 people work on staff for the church and its affiliated grade school and Bible college. Treat also hosts international radio and TV broadcasts.

After fighting a lengthy zoning battle, Christian Faith Center plans to move into a $40 million headquarters next year that will house a 5,000-seat sanctuary. The facility will be located in Federal Way, Wash., between Seattle and Tacoma.

Today Treat preaches regularly at both Christian Faith Center campuses, taking a helicopter between the two. And he still has big plans. Within 25 years, he wants to double the number of campuses and grow the congregations to at least 100,000 people throughout the Pacific Northwest.

In his early years, Treat was influenced by such charismatic leaders as pastor Frederick K.C. Price in Los Angeles. Now, he mentors others.

“Casey has a major influence on pastors, both nationally and internationally,” said Jim Reeve, senior pastor of Faith Community Church in West Covina, Calif. “But he has gone beyond just being an influential leader or a model to becoming a father for other pastors of independent and charismatic churches.”

Reeve often invites Treat to preach at Faith Community Church and has hosted Treat’s Vision conference. “Behind the scenes, Casey lives what he teaches,” Reeve said. “Of all the people I know, he is one who truly walks what he talks.”

Bill Wolfson, senior pastor of Church for All Nations in Tacoma, agreed. “Casey walks it,” Wolfson said. “He is a man of faith. But more than that, he is a man whose faith works by love.”

Treat said his approach is simple. “I keep trying to be a better Christian every day,” he said. “This is the key to staying on course and reaching your destiny.”
Steven Lawson

Ministers say the Navajo Nation is experiencing a move of God that is marked by dozens of salvations and healings
Some communities in the largest American Indian reservation in the U.S. are experiencing a move of God that ministry leaders claim is comparable to the miracles recorded in the book of Acts.

They say that in parts of the Navajo Nation, entire families have come to Christ, crack houses have been turned into houses of worship as drug dealers have been converted, many have been delivered from alcohol and drugs, and a well that was dry for years is now filled with water that brings healing.

“The only big name involved in this revival is God, and it is sweeping the Navajo Nation,” said Ray Saragosa, missions pastor of New Song Fellowship, a 300-member charismatic church in Denver.

Saragosa has taken ministry teams seven times to the Arizona communities that are located in the Navajo Nation, which extends through a large portion of the Grand Canyon state and into New Mexico and Utah.

The Navajo Nation is the largest of the 275 reservations and 500 federally recognized tribal governments in the U.S. Roughly the size of West Virginia, the territory covers 25,351 square miles and has a population of 180,000, according to census reports.

Since May 2003, Saragosa, 51, has taken truckloads of clothing, toys, bikes and furniture to Ganado and Whippoorwill, Ariz., located approximately two hours northeast of Flagstaff, Ariz.

He said the Navajo people live in poverty-stricken circumstances, and most of the church buildings are “very rough,” but that has not stopped them from attending revival services.

“Many of the meetings are held in tents, which are simply put up somewhere and the people flock in by the hundreds, hungry for God,” said Saragosa, who is Mexican-American.

A Navajo native who was raised on the reservation, Daniel “Larry” Furcap, senior pastor of Whippoorwill Fellowship Church, said a “full explosion of revival” is happening in Whippoorwill and Ganado, which are about an hour apart.

“It seems like the Lord started doing the outpouring beginning in December 2003,” said Furcap, 42, who is ordained in the Church of God (Cleveland, Tenn.).

Furcap and Sammie Begay, senior pastor of Ganado Glory Temple, held what was supposed to be a weeklong revival.

“During the revival meeting, we preached about the grace of God,” said Furcap, who has seen the church grow from eight members to 135 since he became pastor in 2000. “Through that the people accepted that they were accepted and redeemed. That’s when they opened up and when the outpouring started taking place. The week of revival kept going on and it continued for weeks.”

Furcap said nearly 200 people have accepted Christ in Whippoorwill, Ganado and the community of Hard Rock, which have several thousand residents.

“Two couples in Whippoorwill who were the main drug dealers of the town got saved,” he said. “Their houses had bullet holes and no windows. Everything was trashed. The people from our church came out to clean their houses, remodeled and painted their houses, got their power turned back on, and gave them food. They’re now holding jobs and are part of the church.”

Shirley Baker said she and several of her siblings got saved last year after one of her brothers and a nephew, who were both Christians, died. “We went through a lot before we knew God,” said Baker, 42, who attends Whippoorwill Fellowship. “I would drink three or four nights each week, and I didn’t think about anything except to get drunk again because there was no one to turn to for love or forgiveness. But now He has set us free from sins.”

Besides deliverance and salvations, Furcap said he has seen supernatural signs and wonders. He said a well close to the Lord’s Church near Piñon, Ariz., which was dry for years, was suddenly filled with water in April 2004, attracting people from outside the reservation. “People who drank or bathed from the spring experienced healing in their body,” Furcap said.

He added that members of the Lord’s Church reported seeing an oil-like substance on the walls during services, as well as the appearance of gold-colored dust and nuggets.

“I believe God is really moving in the Navajo Nation,” he said. “The reason is that people have opened up to God and said, ‘We’re willing for You to do great and mighty things.’ They have laid down their religious things. They want Him to be in control. The Word of God says where the Spirit of God is, there is liberty.”
Eric Tiansay

Sammy Mah’s appointment is part of a corporate restructuring designed to boost the organization’s ability to respond to disaster
As part of a major reorganizing campaign aimed at positioning World Relief to be a leading advocate for the world’s poor and needy, the Christian humanitarian organization recently appointed a former General Motors executive as its president.

Sammy Mah was to be installed as head of World Relief April 18, ending a leadership search that began last year after the resignation of former president Clive Calver. Previously Calver had been general secretary of the Evangelical Alliance of Great Britain, the United Kingdom’s equivalent of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE).

Now senior pastor of Walnut Hill Community Church in Bethel, Conn., Calver is credited with having raised the visibility of World Relief and crystallizing its vision of “helping churches help churches help the poor” during his seven-year tenure.

“We all credit Clive with polishing off the vision we were founded [on],” said acting president Tim Ziemer, who was to step down April 18. “We understood that the church’s role is to reach out and do compassion ministry. When you do that compassionate work and you evangelize, you see light. One without the other doesn’t necessarily get you where you want to go. It’s not the whole gospel. Clive came to this organization and made sure we all knew that.”

Both Ziemer’s and Calver’s resignations came as part of a massive restructuring aimed at transitioning World Relief from a traditional style of ministry leadership, in which an organization is led by a visionary president and operations are carried out by an executive director, to a CEO model.

“We really believed we had some of the finest technical people in World Relief,” said board chairman Gordon MacDonald. “What we needed was leadership at the top in this new era who would bring the best out of the competence we have. … We were not looking for a leader who was going to give us a new mission or take us in new directions. We were looking for someone who would take this mission and run with it.”

MacDonald said the new structure was needed to enable World Relief to realize a series of resolutions the board adopted last year. Among them is a desire to make World Relief, which is the humanitarian-assistance arm of the NAE, a leader in addressing such issues as refugee resettlement, the AIDS epidemic, micro-enterprise and food development, and child mortality.

“We don’t have any sense of urgency to be the biggest; we would never come into World Vision’s league,” MacDonald said. “But quality-wise, we would like to be among the best.”

He added that World Relief wants to sound “a prophetic voice” to the U.S. church to remember the poor. “The average Christian in America doesn’t see his or her commitment to the issue of the poor as an evidence of conversion,” MacDonald said. “And we would like to be a leader organization in the 21st century of making sure that the Christian community gets that message. That this is not an option; it’s a given.”

Other humanitarian organizations, such as Compassion International and World Vision, which operates a budget close to $1 billion, have been using a CEO model for several years. Describing Mah as “a very godly man with very vigorous and deep faith in Jesus and a great sensitivity to God’s calling and leading,” MacDonald said the board believed Mah was “capable of running a finely tuned organization and bringing out the best in individuals.”

The son of Chinese immigrants, Mah earned an MBA from the University of Michigan and spent 27 years as an executive at General Motors. He and his wife, Lorelei, and their three children have been active in youth ministry at their church, Cornerstone Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brighton, Mich., and have participated in missions trips to various parts of the world.

Mah’s arrival comes as World Relief continues to recover from a challenging 2001 move to Baltimore. The relocation consolidated offices in Illinois, New York and Georgia and largely is viewed as a positive change. But it also resulted in a significant loss in domestic staff, as some key personnel chose not to transfer. The organization, which operates a $40 million budget, later cut additional staff due to a decline in giving after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

MacDonald said World Relief has braved the worst of the transition, and he is optimistic about the organization’s future. Despite the changes, Ziemer said, World Relief has been able to respond to recent natural disasters, with teams going to work in Indonesia after the tsunami, Grenada after Hurricane Jeanne and Iran after an earthquake struck in December.
Adrienne S. Gaines

Anti-Conversion Bill to Be Considered in Sri Lanka

The Sri Lankan government may adopt legislation in April that would make it illegal for someone to convert to Christianity. The National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka reported that if the bill which was introduced last year by Rathnasiri Wickramanayake, the Minister of Buddhist Affairs were to become law, relief groups may face increased scrutiny, as some might think the humanitarian work was merely a ploy to entice conversion. Violating the proposed law, which is wider in scope than another anti-conversion bill declared unconstitutional last year, could lead to as many as seven years in prison.

Christian Students Arrested in Eritrea

In a continuing crackdown of Christians, a group of Sunday school teachers and students were recently arrested in the capital of Asmara. On Feb. 19, 131 children between the ages of 2 and 18 were attending classes at Medhane Alem Orthodox Church when they were apprehended by police, according to Christian Solidarity Worldwide. At press time, most of the students remained jailed with their teachers, Compass Direct reported. The Medhane Alem congregation has normally been exempted from the government’s harsh crackdown against Protestant churches. But recently the entire ministry was ordered closed down by government officials without explanation. At press time, 214 Eritrean Christians had been arrested in two months, Compass reported.

Turkish Pastor .Reconverts to Islam

A former Turkish pastor announced on several national TV stations that he converted back to Islam after being a Christian since 1987, Assist News Service reported. He also told viewers they should guard against Christian workers in the nation. The man claimed the missionaries wanted only to help the United States undermine the Turkish government. The report of the man’s claim was distributed by Turkish World Outreach (TWO), which noted that a call was to be issued March 11 for all Muslims to unite and stand firm in Islam, Assist reported. TWO expressed concern that the call would trigger violence against Christian workers in the area.

The group’s 78-year-old leader says she wants “to love and to rock and to hold” the children as only a grandmother can
Miriam Machovec said her heart broke last year as she watched a 12-year-old HIV-positive child in South Africa playing both mother and father to her nine younger siblings after their parents died of AIDS.

The 78-year-old grandmother said she returned to her Fort Lauderdale, Fla., home with a heavy prayer burden. During intercession for the children, she said God told her to organize a Granny Brigade to take grandmotherly love and care to the orphans infected with HIV and living in African refugee camps.

“I had to look in the dictionary to see what the word “brigade” meant,” Machovec said. “I knew it had a military meaning. I changed the definition a bit. The Granny Brigade is a group of grannies with a purpose to accomplish much.”

The widowed mother of three, grandmother of six, and great-grandmother of three is leading a group of 11 women, whose average age is 60, back to South Africa from April 29 to May 9 to minister to thousands of kids.

Book of Hope, a Pompano Beach, Fla.-based international ministry focused on reaching children with the gospel, is sending the Granny Brigade under its umbrella, but the women are paying their own way.

The grannies will visit an orphanage, a refugee camp and a small village to bring the love of God to hurting people. The brigade will also visit public schools to distribute Book of Hope’s Scripture books to schoolchildren at the request of the local government. Book of Hope books contain all four Gospels.

“We can’t cure AIDS, but we can hold and rock and love the children of the world that have AIDS, as only a grandmother can do. And we will,” said Machovec, a longtime member of Christian Life Center, an Assemblies of God congregation in Fort Lauderdale. “We are going to hold them and love them and tell them grandma stories.”

While the Iowa native enjoys rollerblading with her grandkids, Machovec is not content to live a leisurely life in the warm South Florida climate when so many children are suffering in remote South African villages. Even while she is on the home front, Machovec has the work of the ministry on her mind.

This out-of-the-ordinary near octogenarian has been a full-time volunteer with Book of Hope since 1988. Before taking the gospel to South Africa last year, Machovec made two trips to Siberia, two trips to Russia, and individual trips to Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania and the Dominican Republic. But God has put South Africa’s children on her heart.

“How easy it is for me to hold my own healthy grandchildren and so many other children in my lifeÑand give them the love they need,” Machovec said. “But how much more do these dying children need the human touch and genuine love in their lives, which will be cut short by AIDS?”

Book of Hope executive director Rob Hoskins said he immediately embraced what he believed was an inspired initiative and set out to help the can-do granny make the vision a reality.

“The love that the grandmas are going to provide to those desperately needy kids will be powerful,” Hoskins said. “Miriam is my hero. I wish every grandma in America had her spirit and vision. She always says to me time after time that a vision without action is just a dream.”

Hoskins still remembers overhearing Machovec making calls to other grannies across the country in what he calls her “no-nonsense Iowa way” and telling them, “YouÕve got to come with me to South Africa!”

One of the women she called was Arlene Allen, national director of Women’s Ministries for the Assemblies of God. Allen rallied behind her, helping her recruit willing women.

“The Granny Brigade is right up my alley,” Allen said. “I am 60 years old and have two wonderful grandkids. I am excited about the work we will be doing to train older siblings how to take care of their little brothers and sisters whose parents died of AIDS.”

Machovec believes the Granny Brigade will make additional trips to South Africa. She says the Lord knows how old she is, and she’s depending on Him to help her carry out this mandate.

“If He tells me to train someone else, then I would be happy to do that,” she said. “So far no one has shown up to lead the Granny Brigade into South Africa.”
Jennifer LeClaire