RATE FOR KILLING A PASTOR : $250

ORISSA - Hindu extremist groups are offering money, food and alcohol to anyone who murders Christians and destroys their homes.
The violence is nothing new in Orissa, India, where India's Communist Party estimates that more than 500 Christians have been killed by Hindu mobs in Orissa since late August, 12 times more than official government claims of only 40 homicides.
But now the stakes are even higher – and pastors have a bounty on their heads.
Faiz Rahman, chairman of Good News India, said Hindu militants are targeting Christian leaders, the Christian Post reported.
"The going price to kill a pastor is $250," he said.
Rahman, a head of several orphanages in Orissa State, said he's helped 25 pastors to leave refugee camps, but 250 Christian leaders are still in shelters.
"All of the pastors are high value targets," Rahman told the UK-based Release International. "We've got to get them out of the refugee camps."
An All-India Christian Council spokesman said, "People are being offered rewards to kill, and to destroy churches and Christian properties. They are being offered foreign liquor, chicken, mutton and weapons. They are given petrol and kerosene."
One official said he personally authorized "cremation of more than 200 bodies" found in jungles after Christians were blamed for the death of Hindu leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati on Aug. 24. They continue to be persecuted even though Maoists openly admitted to murdering Saraswati.
Thousands of homes and churches have been destroyed, and an estimated 50,000 Christians have been forced to flee the violence. Mission Network News estimates 5,000 Christian homes have been burned and 200 churches ruined. According to the Christian Post, 30,000 people remain in government-operated refugee camps. Tens of thousands are living in forests – many seriously wounded.
Father Manoj, based at the archbishop’s office in Bhubaneshwar, said Christians remain in hiding.
"They are too scared to go home. They know that if they return to their villages they will be forced to convert to Hinduism."
Religious rights group Barnabus Fund told the group Hindu militants "forced" Christians in Orissa to "convert" to Hinduism by threatening them with rape if they refused.
Neighbors reportedly gang-raped a Hindu woman after her Christian uncle refused to renounce his faith, according to reports.
Another Christian woman named Jaspina was told by neighbors, "If you go on being Christian, we will burn your house and your children in front of you." She and her family were forced to eat cow excrement to "purify" themselves of Christianity.
Other Christians were doused with gasoline and told to participate in conversion ceremonies or be lit on fire.
This week, Hindu extremists said they have set a deadline for the capture of Saraswati's murderers. If the killers are not caught by Dec. 15, they promised to begin a massacre on Dec. 25, Christmas day.

A NEW EFFORT TO TRANSLATE BIBLE INTO ALL LANGUAGES BY 2025

ORLANDO, Fla. — A new effort to translate the Bible into every living language kicks off Saturday with the help of a $50 million anonymous gift to the Orlando-based Wycliffe USA — the world's largest bible-translation company.
The goal of Wycliffe's Last Languages Campaign is to translate the Bible for all of the 2,400 languages that still do not have one. Those represent about a third of all languages spoken and include nearly 200 million people, mostly in three regions — Central Africa, northern India-southern China and Indonesia-Papua New Guinea.
The translations are expected to take at least 17 years to complete.
Robert Creson, president of Wycliffe, would identify the cash donor only as someone with a longtime interest in biblical translation.
"It's a huge encouragement and a huge investment of faith," he said.
Samuel Mubbala, a Ugandan translator working on a Bible in his native language, knows how difficult the task can be.
Mubbala grew up speaking a non-written language called Lugwere that is used by about 500,000 people. He helped create an alphabet for it a few years ago and then started translating scripture into the newly written language.
Although the Bible already had been translated into a related Ugandan language, that version did not seem to speak to him intimately enough.
For example, Mubbala said, in one of the written languages of Uganda the word "believe" has three shades of meaning — accepting, agreeing and religious faith.
But in his native language, "belief" referred only to agreeing and accepting. So when some speakers of Lugwere heard their salvation could be ensured if they believed and were baptized, they happily agreed to it. But they didn't understand that the baptism ceremony was founded on faith in Jesus Christ.
Mubbala and others had to come up with a new linguistic construction that Lugwere speakers understood as something like "to trust in God or Christ as true."
Wycliffe was founded in 1942 by American missionary Cameron Townsend, who saw the need for native-language Bibles while working in Guatemala in 1917. The company was named for John Wycliffe, who initiated the first English translation of the Bible in the 14th century.

ANONYMOUS DONOR GIVES $50 MILLION FOR BIBLE TRANSLATIONS

ORLANDO, Fla. — A new effort to translate the Bible into every living language kicks off Saturday with the help of a $50 million anonymous gift to the Orlando-based Wycliffe USA — the world's largest bible-translation company.
The goal of Wycliffe's Last Languages Campaign is to translate the Bible for all of the 2,400 languages that still do not have one. Those represent about a third of all languages spoken and include nearly 200 million people, mostly in three regions — Central Africa, northern India-southern China and Indonesia-Papua New Guinea.
The translations are expected to take at least 17 years to complete.
Robert Creson, president of Wycliffe, would identify the cash donor only as someone with a longtime interest in biblical translation.
"It's a huge encouragement and a huge investment of faith," he said.
Samuel Mubbala, a Ugandan translator working on a Bible in his native language, knows how difficult the task can be.
Mubbala grew up speaking a non-written language called Lugwere that is used by about 500,000 people. He helped create an alphabet for it a few years ago and then started translating scripture into the newly written language.
Although the Bible already had been translated into a related Ugandan language, that version did not seem to speak to him intimately enough.
For example, Mubbala said, in one of the written languages of Uganda the word "believe" has three shades of meaning — accepting, agreeing and religious faith.
But in his native language, "belief" referred only to agreeing and accepting. So when some speakers of Lugwere heard their salvation could be ensured if they believed and were baptized, they happily agreed to it. But they didn't understand that the baptism ceremony was founded on faith in Jesus Christ.
Mubbala and others had to come up with a new linguistic construction that Lugwere speakers understood as something like "to trust in God or Christ as true."
Wycliffe was founded in 1942 by American missionary Cameron Townsend, who saw the need for native-language Bibles while working in Guatemala in 1917. The company was named for John Wycliffe, who initiated the first English translation of the Bible in the 14th century.