With the string of wins and the media attention Denver Broncos Quarterback Tim Tebow has received, it was inevitable he would garner negative attention once his team lost a game (or two). After this past week’s Christmas Eve loss to the Buffalo Bills, Comedian Bill Maher took to Twitter to poke fun at Tebow, saying “Wow, Jesus just f—– #TimTebow bad! And on Xmas Eve! Somewhere in hell Satan is tebowing, saying to Hitler ‘Hey, Buffalo’s killing them’“. While neither Maher or Tebow is new to controversy, some say the comment by the “Real Time With Bill Maher” host took it a bit too far.

Some claim that prayer helps the performance on-field, while critics ask why God would listen to the prayers about a Football game over those of starving children around the world. Does prayer help you perform better?

For the the last 50 years, a Christmas Tree and Creche were the only holiday displays on the Loudoun County Courthouse. Recently more religious and non-religious groups have lobbied for a presence. Now Athiests, Jedis, Flying Spaghetti Monster and others have displays up. This year, a Santa skeleton mounted on a cross sits at the courthouse on display.

One of the displays include a banner portraying a Nativity-style scene, but Jesus is nowhere to be found. Instead, the Virgin Mary is holding a stalk-eyed noodle-and-meatball creature.

For Loudoun county locals, the issue isn’t really about a Santa Claus corpse or atheist signage. The issue lies between freedom of speech, or separating church and state and the importance of preserving traditions.

This issue/conflict is sure to on for years to come.

Funnyman Leslie Nielsen died this past Sunday, Nov 28, 2010 due to complications from pneumonia. He was 84. In his final moments at a Fort Lauderdale, Florida hospital he was surrounded by his wife Barbaree, family and friends. Originally a serious actor from Canada, Nielsen became a star from his role as Dr. Rumack in the 1980 comedy “Airplane!“and klutzy Lt. Frank Drebin from the “Naked Gun” series. Please pray for him and his family.

According to the LAPD, actor Corey Haim was found dead in his apartment  at the age of 38 of an apparent overdose. It is believed that Haim, who has had past struggles with drug addiction died at 3:30AM on Wednesday (March 10, 2010) and was pronounced dead Providence St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Burbank.

The actor shot to fame in the 80′s for his memorable role in the movie The Lost Boys with the other Corey (Feldman).

Two Americans remain detained in a Haiti prison following the release of eight people from the Baptist Missionary group from New Life Christian Refuge. The two still being held are Laura Silsby, 40, and Charisa Coulter, 24. They are being detained on charges of child kidnapping and criminal association.

Laura Silsby and Charisa Coulter were supposed to be questioned by the judge today (Feb 18th) but the process has been stalled. Laura Silsby was the one in charge of the group and Charisa was her assistant.

This all stemmed from the incident in late January, when the New Life Children’s Refuge Group picked up 33 children and attempted to across the border to the Dominican Republic to establish an orphanage. They were arrested at the border. Laura Silsby, head of New Life Children’s Refuge, told the AFP that the group’s aims were entirely altruistic. She told the AFP that “We came here literally to just help the children. Our intentions were good … We wanted to help those who lost parents in the quake or were abandoned.”

Related Stories:
- Children taken by Baptist Group being reunited with Parents
- Baptist Group arrested for trying to take 33 Children out of Haiti
- New Life Children’s Refuge Haitian Orphan Rescue Mission
- Baptist Group in Haiti has been charged with Child Kidnapping

The U.S. Postal Service announced that they plan to put Mother Teresa on an upcoming stamp. The Freedom from Religion Atheist group is organizing a boycott of the stamp by it’s supporters and is making claims that it violates the postal regulations.

Mother Teresa’s 100th birthday will occur on August 26th of this year, so the USPS plans to release the new stamp on that day to honor her for her humanitarian work. Fox News reported that Annie Gaylor, the spokeswoman for Freedom from Religion, said that the stamp goes against a postal stipulation that prevents the Postal Service from honoring “individuals whose principal achievements are associated with religious undertakings…. Mother Teresa is principally known as a religious figure who ran a religious institution,” Gaylor argued. She also said, “You can’t really separate her being a nun and being a Roman Catholic from everything she did.” The USPS said that there is a long history of individuals with religious backgrounds like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. who have been honored on stamps.

There is a long time between now and Aug 26th, so I am sure there is more to come on this story.

Mother Teresa’s snippet/bio from the USPS Press Release:

With this stamp, the U.S. Postal Service recognizes Mother Teresa, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her humanitarian work. Noted for her compassion toward the poor and suffering, Mother Teresa, a diminutive Roman Catholic nun and honorary U.S. citizen, served the sick and destitute of India and the world for nearly 50 years. Her humility and compassion, as well as her respect for the innate worth and dignity of humankind, inspired people of all ages and backgrounds to work on behalf of the world’s poorest populations.

Mother Teresa, an ethnic Albanian, was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu on Aug. 26, 1910, in Skopje in what is now the Republic of Macedonia. Drawn to the religious life as a young girl, she left her home at the age of 18 to serve as a Roman Catholic missionary in India. “By then I realized my vocation was towards the poor,” she later said. “From then on, I have never had the least doubt of my decision.” Having adopted the name of Sister Mary Teresa, she arrived in India in 1929 and underwent initial training in religious life at a convent in Darjeeling, north of Calcutta. Two years later, she took temporary vows as a nun before transferring to a convent in Calcutta. She became known as Mother Teresa in 1937, when she took her final vows.

Following a divine inspiration and deeply moved by the poverty and suffering she saw in the streets of Calcutta, Mother Teresa left her teaching post at the convent in 1948 to devote herself completely to the city’s indigent residents. Two years later, she founded her own congregation, the Missionaries of Charity. Like Mother Teresa, the nuns of the new order wore white saris with a blue border rather than traditional nuns’ habits. In addition to the traditional vows of chastity, obedience, and poverty, they took a fourth vow of wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor. “In order to understand and help those who have nothing,” Mother Teresa told the young women, “we must live like them.”

When Mother Teresa accepted the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize—one of her numerous honors and distinctions—she did so “in the name of the poor, the hungry, the sick and the lonely,” and convinced the organizers to donate to the needy the money normally used to fund the awards banquet. Well respected worldwide, she successfully urged many of the world’s business and political leaders to give their time and resources to help those in need. President Ronald Reagan presented Mother Teresa with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1985, the same year she began work on behalf of AIDS sufferers in the U.S. and other countries. In 1997, Congress awarded Mother Teresa the Congressional Gold Medal for her “outstanding and enduring contributions through humanitarian and charitable activities.”

Mother Teresa died in Calcutta on September 5, 1997, and is buried there. She had been a citizen of India since 1948.

In 1996, President Bill Clinton and the U.S. Congress awarded Mother Teresa honorary U.S. citizenship. As of February 2009, the honor has only been bestowed on five others. Winston Churchill received it in 1963, Raoul Wallenberg in 1981, William Penn and Hannah Callowhill Penn in 1984, and the Marquis de Lafayette in 2002. With the exception of Hannah Callowhill Penn, each of these figures has also appeared on a U.S. postage stamp: the Marquis de Lafayette four times (1952, 1957, 1976,
and 1977), William Penn in 1932, Churchill in 1965, and Wallenberg in 1997.

The stamp features a portrait of Mother Teresa painted by award-winning artist Thomas Blackshear II of Colorado Springs, CO.
usps.com – pdf

New figures were released that show that attacks on Jewish people and Jewish property is at all all time high in the UK. According to a recent report from the Jewish Community Security Trust (CST), there were over 924 reports of violence. The Community Security Trust has been tracking violence against jews since the early 80′s.

Report Snippets from Executive Summary:

- CST recorded 924 antisemitic incidents in 2009. This is the highest annual total since it began recording antisemitic
incidents in 1984, and is 55% higher than the previous record of 598 incidents in 2006.

- The total of 924 incidents is an increase of 69% from the 2008 total of 5461 incidents, and follows two years of falling incident totals in 2007 and 2008.

- The main reason for this record high is the unprecedented number of antisemitic incidents recorded in January and February 2009, during and after the conflict between
Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

-212 of the 924 antisemitic incidents reported to CST in 2009, or 23 per cent of the total,included a reference to Gaza alongside the antisemitic content, motivation or targeting. 158 of these occurred during January.

- There were 288 antisemitic incidents reported to CST in January 2009, by far the highest monthly total ever recorded, and 114 incidents in February. The previous monthly high was 105 incidents recorded in October 2000.

- There was a 157% rise in the number of incidents that showed political motivation, from 172 in 2008 to 442 in 2009.

- 68 incidents involved Jewish schools, schoolchildren or teachers as targets, a 36% rise from the 50 incidents relating to schools and schoolchildren recorded in 2008. Of the 68 incidents, 37 were against Jewish schoolchildren on their journeys to or from school, 11 took place at Jewish school premises and 20 involved Jewish children or teachers at mainstream schools.

In addition to the 924 antisemitic incidents recorded by CST in 2009, a further 489 reports of potential incidents were received by CST, but not included in the total number of antisemitic incidents as there was no evidence of antisemitic motivation, targeting or content.

Please pray that there is a reversal to this trend and there is an end to anti-Semitism in all its forms.

——————
About the CST:

An essential part of CST’s work involves representing the Jewish community to police, legislative and policy-making bodies, and providing people inside and outside the Jewish community with information to combat antisemitism. CST has recorded antisemitic incidents in the United Kingdom since 1984.

View Jewish Community Incident Report (PDF Format)

The Baptist group in Hati was charged with child kidnapping Thursday. The group of 10 Baptists had hoped that today would be the end to this ordeal, but instead, there is still a long road ahead. The prosecutor in the case feels there is enough evidence to build a criminal case.

The children were picked up last week by a Baptist group called New Life Children’s Refuge (based out of Idaho). They tried to take the 33 children across the border to the Dominican Republic to establish an orphanage. They were arrested at the border. Laura Silsby, head of New Life Children’s Refuge, told the AFP that the group’s aims were entirely altruistic. She told the AFP that “We came here literally to just help the children. Our intentions were good … We wanted to help those who lost parents in the quake or were abandoned.” Even though there were 10 people in the Baptist Group, it looks like Laura Silsby was the brains behind the events. Most of the other folks in the group were completely unaware.

U.S. authorities are currently monitoring the proceedings and open to discussing other legal avenues with the Haitians for the accused. For now, it looks like the Haitian government is dealing with the case on their own. The case is supposed to go before a judge within the next few months. It’s unclear if the American’s will be jailed during the whole time.

It looks like some of the Top MMA Fighters are devout Christians and they aren’t afraid to show it. Modern MMA has roots in Brazil and Japan, places not typically associated with evangelical Christians, but the sport has developed a strong following within Christian groups.

The list of top MMA fighters who are devout Christians include Rich Franklin (former Middleweight Champ), Ken Shamrock (MMA Pioneer), Diego Sanchez (TUF Champ), Randy “The Natural” Couture, and Matt Hughes (two time UFC Champ).

Randy Couture let out his religious beliefs when questioned after winning a fight. When asked why he believed in America, his answer was “there’s two people – Jesus Christ, who stepped up and died for our sins, and the American GI that steps up and dies for our freedom on a daily basis. This fight is for them!”

Matt Hughes, wears his Christianity on his sleeve. When Hughes was on “The Ultimate Fighter” he devoted one training session to the Book of Esther and compared himself to her.

There is also Christian based MMA apparel that is showing up. The new brand, “Jesus Didn’t Tap” is a Christian brand of MMA clothing. The designer of the brand coined the phrase Jesus Didn’t Tap, meaning that Jesus didn’t give up. The designers hope to spread their message throughout the fighting community.

Overall, it looks like many of the top/rising MMA stars are Christian, and they are professing Christian beliefs during their post fight interviews. So now when you watch two guys tearing each other up on TV, you will know it’s for a good cause.

Jesus Didn’t Tap Video:

The 33 Children taken by the Baptist Group in Haiti are being reunited with their families. In earlier reports it was thought that the children were all orphans. But it looks like some of the children are not orphans at all. Many of the children said that they had parents, so the current group caring for the children are searching for the parents. Some of the parents have already started coming in to reclaim their children.

The children were picked up last week by a Baptist group called New Life Children’s Refuge (based out of Idaho). They tried to take the 33 children across the border to the Dominican Republic to establish an orphanage. They were arrested at the border.

Laura Silsby, head of New Life Children’s Refuge, told the AFP that the group’s aims were entirely altruistic. She told the AFP that “We came here literally to just help the children. Our intentions were good … We wanted to help those who lost parents in the quake or were abandoned.”

It is still unclear what the charges will be for the Baptist Group. They are currently being detained and may face a charge of criminal conspiracy in Haiti as well as possible charges of kidnapping minors and child-trafficking. It is also unclear what the US will do and how they will get involved. At this point, US consular has visited the Americans and given them food.

There is more to come on this story, so stay tuned.

Related Posts:
- Baptist Group arrested for trying to take 33 Children out of Haiti
- New Life Children’s Refuge Haitian Orphan Rescue Mission
- *** NEW UPDATE *** Baptist Group in Haiti has been charged with Child Kidnapping

Please continue to pray for the people of Haiti.

——