Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi is using drastic measures to try to wrestle control back from the anti-government protesters.

After telling them he would not tolerate any opposition to his power, he tried to quell the uprising by calling air strikes on them.

Not surprisingly, Libya has also experienced “rolling blackouts” of its internet and mobile phone connections during the uprisings.

Rex Rogers is with SAT-7, a Christian satellite television ministry to the Middle East and North Africa. He says, “Three times, we’ve been knocked off the air; not just SAT-7, but many Arabic language channels. It’s being attributed to roots in the social unrest that is taking place in the Middle East.

However, the actual cause of these service cuts can’t be directly connected to the government. There is a possibility they’re caused by power outages or traffic overload. “Our tech people are watching it carefully. We are back on the air and broadcasting now, so that‘s one concern: that we would be able to stay on the air. Secondly, there are Christian people on the ground in Libya that we’re quite concerned about.”

As it happened in Egypt’s protests, the ministry is offering biblical tools through new shows to help viewers. “These new programs then feature theologians, psychologists, counselors–all Christian people–commenting about what’s taking place and trying to help people deal with it.”

Rogers urges other believers to pray for the Holy Spirit to continue to act as a catalyst for hope. “In times of adversity, we don’t pray for it, we don’t want it, but the Scripture tells us that in times of adversity, there is response. We all do that. We either reject God or go to our knees.”

Pray for the right individuals to step up during the protests and in resolution. Ask God to protect the Church through the changes. This is a critical time for followers of Christ. “God is at work, even now in the midst of all this strife. There are things that He can do and will do. We’ll see spiritual fruit from this.”

Jesus once said that the sower sows the Word. But in Wycliffe’s case, the translator is looking to reap a financial harvest for the Word’s sake.

Bible translator Wycliffe is working to raise $1.5 million so it can buy a plane to operate in Indonesia, which Wycliffe Associates President and CEO Bruce Smith calls “one of the most challenging mission fields on earth.”

One of the most challenging, in part, because the people of Indonesia speak more than 700 separate languages. Indonesia is also one of the least explored places on earth and one of the hardest to travel. Spiritual strongholds there include animism and spiritism and impoverished people are struggling just to survive.

“It takes specialized airplanes to keep Bible translators at work, planes designed specifically to get in and out of the incredibly complicated terrain: steep cliffs, narrow gorges, short runways carved out of thick jungles,” says Smith. “I’ve been in some pretty difficult situations as a missionary pilot, and I can tell you that a dependable airplane is not optional. An airplane is a lifeline.”

The $1.5 million is to help replace 40-year-old airplanes that use a rare and expensive fuel. Wycliffe Associates says the new planes will be a critical component of Bible translation efforts in the region. There are 340 languages left in Indonesia that translators are targeting.

“This is not really about machinery—it’s about eternity,” says Smith. “A single plane, over the course of its projected lifetime, will serve hundreds of thousands of people.”

The 2010 World Cup in South Africa generated over 3 million visitors from across the globe to join in weeks of festivities. The next World Cup is not until 2014, but with those kinds of numbers, host country Brazil has already begun to prepare.

Many are excited for the games to be played in a such a beautiful place, and they expect the World Cup along with the 2016 Olympic Games to be a significant boost for the Brazilian economy. The two large sporting events will be an all-around good thing for the country then. Right?

Unfortunately, not for the poor.

One of the largest threats to the impoverished of the country as it relates to the events is a swell in human trafficking. A rise in the number of sex slaves is inevitably tied to these large sporting events, as was evidenced at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver, Canada. Where the demand is high, so also will be the supply.

The “supply” in Brazil is already disturbingly high and will only grow. Kathy Redmond with Compassion International describes the current scene as “pure evil.” Redmond reports that parents often sell their children into prostitution, most commonly around the age of 12. Many young girls live in fear of rape–an all too common occurrence in the country. Kidnappings are not unheard of either.

Young Brazilian girls are sold, coerced or abducted into the sex trade, blossoming numbers of victims to as many as 400,000, according to the U.S. State Department.

The likelihood that these numbers will skyrocket as we approach these two events is extremely high, but even now, traffickers are plotting their moves. “There’s definitely a fear among the project directors and among Compassion Brazil that the girls are going to be heavily recruited for these events beginning very early,” says Redmond.

Their fear is legitimate. An International Mission Board worker told Mission Network News that traffickers “started the trafficking of people in 2004 as soon as they found out the World Cup would be in South Africa” for 2010. That was six years ahead of the event. With just three years to go until the next games, young girls and boys may already be getting trafficked and prepped.

So whose problem is this exactly? Some would say the issue should fall to the Brazilian government, but Redmond says the government is already busy trying to cover up Brazilian slums with nicer houses for the upcoming events. Aesthetics are their aim. So perhaps the police could take over? But police will already be spread awfully thin tackling the security issues that come with millions of tourists. Even if police start scooping girls and boys up now, there are few safe homes to take them to.

So who is to step up for the defenseless? Who is to speak out for the voiceless? Redmond says: Christians. “Christians are needed so much in this area that it’s time that they put down their guards and talk about something like this that affects so many children.”

Compassion is already planning ways to be Christ to those suffering at the hands of traffickers. “What we would like to do is be able to try to help build some of these girls’ homes–and even if they need boys’ homes, to do the same thing–so that they can be taken away from this environment and be redirected toward what they can do as they get older, toward something that actually brings them choices in life. They don’t have a choice.”

Prevention through safe houses and the expansion of child sponsorship will be vital, but what may help the most is for you to get the word out as soon as possible. Redmond asks for you to make your church aware of the issue and start thinking of ways to help. Possible opportunities could be to build a girls’ home in Brazil, to support a ministry fighting the issue, or to sponsor a child in Brazil. Once you get something started, contact your local media and get them in on it, too. Homes need to be built as soon as possible to provide a shelter for girls and boys well before the events start, when it may be too late.

You’ve heard the example of cashing a check against your heavenly bank account in the name of Jesus. Well, a senior citizen in East Tennesee has taken the notion a few steps further.

Sixty-nine-year-old Barbara Whitt and
43-year-old Michael Whitt pleaded guilty in federal court in Greeneville
to stealing more than $1.5 million from the First Baptist
Church of Morristown, according to a report in The Citizen Tribune.

“A
high school-educated woman who managed to steal more than $1.5 million
from First Baptist Church of Morristown will be booked into a federal
prison in July. Her son, who reportedly spent most of the money, will be
going away at the same time,” the story reports. “Mrs. Whitt cashed more than 1,600 checks totaling $1,514,593 over a 34-month period on the church’s general-fund bank account.”

I don’t read Esquire magazine, but with a circulation estimated at 700,000 it’s clear that the publication has a loyal following. So when comedians like Chris Rock start using words like “racism” within its pages, it gets the attention of subscribers and non-subscribers alike.

In the March issue of Esquire, writer Scott Raab interviewed the comical superstar. Raab shared with Rock how he cried the night Barack Obama was elected as the first African-American president of the United States. He called it a “high point in American history.”

But then the tone of the interview turned. When Raab asked Rock to weigh in on the “sh—storm of hatred” since the election, subtle accusations of racism came against members of the Tea Party movement.

“I actually like it, in the sense that—you got kids?” Rock responded. “Kids always act up the most before they go to sleep. And when I see the Tea Party, it actually feels like racism’s almost over. Because this is the last—this is the act up before the sleep. They’re going crazy. They’re insane. You want to get rid of them—and the next thing you know, they’re f—ing knocked out. And that’s what’s going on in the country right now.”

Some African-Americans are taking exception to Rock’s allegations and are slinging racism accusations back at the former Saturday Night Live star.

Indeed, Lloyd Marcus, a black Tea Party spokesperson and author of “Confessions of a Black Conservative,” feels that Rock’s statement was an unfounded and undocumented accusation that suggests millions of white Tea Party patriots are motivated only by racism against a black man. Given Rock’s high profile platform, Marcus feels Rock’s comments were irresponsible, divisive—and racist.

“A Bible parable speaks of a rich man who is suffering in hell. He sees Lazarus in paradise and pleads with him to send someone to warn his brothers so they will not suffer his fate. The man is told such an effort would be useless. His brothers will not believe,” Marcus says. “I am convinced there are poor souls, black and white, who are so consumed with their own prejudices and ‘mind numb’ liberal mindsets, and they will never believe the truth about the Tea Party or Obama.”

Chris Rock could not immediately be reached to respond to Marcus. If Rock’s publicist responds, Charisma News will offer an update.

Do you feel Tea Party protesters are racist?

Faith without works is dead. So when Dustin James saw his pastor’s little girl suffering with Leukemia, he put his faith into action.

Last Spring, James went on a mission to find five-year-old Kaelyn Adams an affordable home that was safe enough for a little girl with a compromised immune system—infections are life-threatening for Kaelyn. When the search turned up fruitless, he launched Project Kaelyn to build the family a house from the ground up.

“We decided we would raise support to build a home,” James says. “Most of our help came from contractors and subcontractors that donated time and material to build the house. Local churches also pitched in and helped on the weekends.”

The Keller Williams Monroe market center offered a helping hand. Chuck Roberts, team leader of the Monroe market center, says James approached him with passion in his voice and a total commitment in his heart to make Project Kaelyn happen. Roberts called a meeting to start planning the massive project the next morning.

“This is the kind of person that Dustin James is everyday inside and outside of our market center,” Roberts says. “He is one very awesome guy that makes all of us want to be better. He is constantly helping us do just that without even realizing just how big an impact he has on everyone around him.”

The Adams family purchased the land in a subdivision less than an hour away from St. James Hospital where Kaelyn undergoes treatments. The four-bedroom home includes a special air filter system—with double filtering for Kaelyn’s room. The entire house is designed to keep bacteria at an absolute minimum, including a water system that filters water coming into the house and a reverse osmosis drinking water fountain for Kaelyn. Kaelyn is currently in remission, but continues to undergo treatments.

“The reason why we built the home here is because, according to our doctors at St. Jude, if Kaelyn contracts a fever we have to get her to the hospital and have antibiotics started within an hour or it could be fatal,” says Cal Adams, a local pastor who baptized James and performed his marriage ceremony.

“This house is part of our efforts to keep her well. And we know that our child needs this, it’s the case with so many other sick children. Northeast Louisiana is a hotbed for childhood cancer. We want this house to eventually be a place where families with sick children can come and live rent-free.

James raised all but $50,000 of the cost of building the home. The Adams took out a mortgage on the debt, but James won’t be satisfied until he gets the mortgage paid off. James believes in debt-free living and recently became personally debt-free at the age of 29.

“I’m trying to find a way to pay for the house because the family want to donate it to someone else when they move on,” James says. “The Kaelyn Project can benefit someone else in the same situation in the future.”

“There’s a day of dialogue. There’s a new energy around the identity of Islam. And that is going to give Christians an opportunity.”

That’s York Moore with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, talking about how the winds of revolution in the Middle East are affecting Muslims students in the United States. He says, “I think that the recent events throughout the Middle East are going to shape how we connect with Muslim students on [U.S.] college campuses.”

Intervarsity works on college campuses across the United States, but especially in the Detroit area were the largest U.S. Muslim population lives. Moore says Muslims now see themselves differently. “When we look at some of these regimes and see these regimes fall, that challenges the very foundation of what it means to be Muslim. And at the crucible is where Christians need to be asking the hard questions and engaging in love with their Muslim neighbors.”

But do Muslims respond to this? Moore says, “What really draws them into InterVarsity Christian Fellowship is the authenticity, the power that they sense, that there is something different in the Christian community that I don’t think Muslims often find. And the missing element that you and I know is Jesus Christ.”

Moore says this is an opportunity to change the Muslim world. “God has already brought the future leaders of these countries to the United States. That’s to influence nation builders who have come here to get a world-class education.”

Muslim background students are turning to Christ, and “their conversions are almost always extremely costly,” says Moore. “Sometimes they have to be announced and shared and discipled in secret” because their lives are in danger.

Moore is asking Christians to pray that Muslims will begin asking questions and that Christians will begin sharing answers with love and compassion, which will ultimately lead them to Jesus.

Police discovered gruesome evidence when the raided the offices of Pennsylvania abortionist Kermit Gosnell. In fact, gruesome may be an understatement.

Authorities found jars holding the remains of pre-born babies—some of them 30 years old. The police also reported that the clinic was operating in squalid, unsafe conditions.

Meanwhile, charges against other abortionists, including Nicola Riley, James Pendergraft, and Andrew Rutland, offer insight into the sinful underworld of abortionists.

According to official records, some women were scared into getting unnecessary hysterectomies. Other reports cite over-prescribed painkillers, falsifying medical records, and even engaging in sexual intercourse with patients.

Stephen Broden, among many others, is fed up. In response to these revelations, Broden, of the Fair Park Bible Fellowship in Dallas Texas, is calling for new measures of accountability from black leaders. In fact, he says the silence of black leaders encourages “these butchers in their targeting of our women and babies for profit.”

Walter Hoye of the Issues4Life Foundation had some strong words for the Congressional Black Caucus and the NAACP. As Hoye sees it, these groups have not only consented to
Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry’s murder of black babies, but are complicit in the horrific reality of genocide of their own people.

That’s a pretty bold statement, but one with which Will Ford of Ex Ministries wholeheartedly agrees: “The Congressional Black Caucus has a 100 percent voting record in favor of taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood. This is a travesty in light of Planned Parenthood’s targeting of the black community since its inception as a means of population control.”

Arnold Culbreath of Protecting Black Life claims these national black organizations are in partnership with Planned Parenthood—and Planned Parenthood is not genuinely concerned about the betterment of the black community.

“The atrocities uncovered in the Kermit Gosnell case, as detailed in District Attorney R. Seth Williams’ report, highlight very dark abortion-related realities in the black community,” Culbreath says. “It is time for national outrage and dialog about abortion, the leading cause of death in the African American community.”

Planned Parenthood, the NAACP, the Urban League, and the Congressional Black Caucus could not immediately be reached for comment. Al Sharpton has not responded to multiple requests for comments.

Three-year-old Corbin Morris doesn’t chat like other kids his age, but the fundraising efforts he has unknowingly inspired for children with communication deficiencies are speaking loud and clear.

Corbin has an unknown condition that slowed his physical development, including his walking and talking. But the quest for a cure—and the quest for better health—led his grandfather and parents to take up the cause of all kids with communications challenges.

“I was looking at Christmas pictures of Corbin and myself from a year ago,” says Dave Neal, Corbin’s grandfather and an agent at the Wichita East market center. “I was frightened by what I saw—a picture of me at age 54 weighing 240 pounds. I decided to make a complete lifestyle change—not just a diet—so I started running.”

When Neal started running, he couldn’t go one step further than a city block. But a determined Neal kept pressing on. Eventually, he started running in local competitions with his daughter Shawna Morris and son-in-law Buck, also a Keller Williams realtor. Now, Neal is down to his high school football weight of 177 pounds. But the weight loss victory lead to a new challenge: running for kids like Corbin.

“I started thinking about the financial need of ERIN IS HOPE, the non-profit clinic that has helped Corbin so much. They take anybody, regardless of their ability to pay,” Neal says. “So we decided to put on an upscale running event on the waterfront to raise money for the ERIN IS HOPE Foundation.”

Neal and the Morrises worked to build a base of corporate sponsors to offset the event expenses. Dave Neal and Associates took the lead corporate sponsorship, then the trio started marketing the 8k competitive run with a web site, posters, brochures, and handouts.

Neal garnered support from waterfront restaurants like PF Chang, as well as his real estate connections. The corporate sponsorships raised $10,000, which covered the expenses of holding the first annual charity run. For an entry fee of $35, participants joined the run and later enjoyed dinner on the waterfront, live music from a local band, and emceeing from Wichita’s most popular DJ.

“We only had 60 days to pull this together. But we hosted 519 runners—and the overall winner is trying out for our U.S. Olympic team now,” Neal beams. “We had approximately 1,000 people attend the dinner. And we raised more than $16,000 for the ERIN IS HOPE Foundation, while also raising awareness of the non-profit in our community.”

Shawna served as the campaign coordinator for the event. She felt raising funds for ERIN IS HOPE was the least she could do after the therapists there invested so much in Corbin. With dated equipment and compassionate hearts that are unwilling to turn any child away, the non-profit was in sore need of financial support. ERIN IS HOPE used the money in a scholarship fund to provide services to families that can’t afford treatment.

“There are so many kids who came to ERIN IS HOPE with no ability to say a word—and today they are off in college doing wonderful things,” Shawna says. “Because of our event, the parents of non-verbal kids that need therapy became aware of ERIN IS HOPE and are getting help for their kids.”

In response to videos produced by Live Action showing Planned Parenthood workers willing to conspire in sex trafficking, Florida Rep. Cliff Stearns joined other members in calling for the defunding of that organization.

At a news conference last week hosted by Live Action and Susan B. Anthony List, Stearns said he plans to call the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), Kathleen Sebelius, to testify on taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood and that organization’s tolerance of sex trafficking and other criminal activities.

Stearns is chairman of the Energy & Commerce Committee’s Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, which has jurisdiction over HHS, and the hearing will be scheduled soon.

“Taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood is increasing, rising from $337 million in 2008 to $363.2 million in 2009,” says Stearns. “We have a $14 trillion national debt while running a deficit this year of $1.5 trillion—Planned Parenthood is an egregious abuse of taxpayer funds. Not only does this organization provide about one in every five abortions in this nation, its centers have also been caught violating state sexual assault and child abuse reporting laws, and it has encouraged young girls to lie about their ages to circumvent state reporting laws.”

The undercover videos from Live Action expose Planned Parenthood’s cover-up of child sex trafficking. In one, a Planned Parenthood manager coaches a man and woman posing as sex traffickers in how to obtain abortions and other services for child sex workers.

Watch the Planned Parenthood video.