IN AN EXTREME CASE OF RELIGIOUS REVERANCE A DEVOTEE OFFERS TONGUE TO GODDESS DURGA; PRAY SO THAT THESE BLIND FAITH'S CAN BE ERASED FROM OUR COUNTRY

BAHRAICH: In an extreme case of religious reverence, a devotee offered his tongue to Goddess Durga in a temple here on Thursday.

Ramroop, a resident of Adharipurwa village under Risia police station, first offered prayers to the Goddess Durga in the temple of Samai Mata located in Chakia gram and then cut off his tongue with a knife and placed it at the feet of the Goddess. It was said that Ramroop did the crazy act stating that the Goddess had fulfilled a wish of his. Later, he was admitted to a primary health centre in an unconscious state. There is huge rush of devotees in the temples of Goddess Durga these days because of Navratri.

KOSUKE KOYAMA , 79, AN ECUMENICAL THEOLOGIAN, DIES

The Rev. Dr. Kosuke Koyama, a theologian internationally known for using arresting metaphors drawn from his experience as a missionary to convey an influential vision of Christianity as compatible with Asian traditions, died on last Wednesday, in Springfield, Mass. He was 79.

The immediate cause was pneumonia, said his son Mark, who added that his father had had esophageal cancer.
Dr. Koyama, who taught at the Union Theological Seminary in Manhattan, strove to make the teachings of Christ culturally meaningful to Asians, without sacrificing the essential Gospel message. His 1974 book, “Water Buffalo Theology,” was “one of the first books truly to do theology out of the setting of Asian villages,” Donald Shriver, president emeritus of Union, said in an interview on Tuesday.
In an online review, Herb Swanson, historian for the Church of Christ in Thailand, called the book “one of the classic works of contemporary Asian theology.”
Directed at the concerns of peasants, the book points out that Christianity and Buddhism do not communicate; rather, Christians and Buddhists do. Dr. Koyama advocated seeing God “in the faces of people” to achieve good neighborliness among religions. He spoke of trying to “season” the Aristotelian roots of Western theology with Buddhist “salt.”
The book favored communicating about Jesus in culturally comforting words but urged missionaries to criticize and reform a given culture if it was found to be against Christian values.
Dr. Koyama made the book’s case in poetic, not academic, language. As a missionary in northern Thailand, he said, he was inspired to write it as he listened to the “fugue of the bullfrogs” while watching farmers working with buffaloes in the rice fields.
“The water buffaloes tell me that I must preach to these farmers in the simplest sentence structure,” he wrote. “They remind me to discard all the abstract ideas and to use exclusively objects that are immediately tangible. ‘Sticky rice,’ ‘banana,’ ‘pepper,’ ‘dog,’ ‘cat,’ ‘bicycle,’ ‘rainy season,’ ‘leaking house,’ ‘fishing,’ ‘cockfighting,’ ‘lottery,’ ‘stomachache’ — these are meaningful words for them.”
Dr. Koyama’s 13 books also included “Mount Fuji and Mount Sinai: A Pilgrimage in Theology” (1984) and “Three Mile an Hour God” (1980), which reflects Dr. Koyama’s thought that God moves at walking speed through the countryside.
Dr. Koyama became an influential voice for ecumenism, speaking at conferences around the world and teaching classes on Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism at Union.
“I feel a mission to teach about different religious traditions,” he said in an interview with the Religion News Service in 1995. “I think it’s the Christian thing to do.”
Dr. Koyama was born on Dec. 10, 1929, in Tokyo. In 1945, as American bombs rained down on Tokyo, he was baptized as a Christian at the age of 15. He was struck by the courageous words of the presiding pastor, who told him that God called on him to love everybody, “even the Americans.”
Dr. Koyama graduated from Tokyo Union Theological Seminary in 1952 and earned a bachelor’s degree from Drew University in 1954 and a doctorate from the Princeton Theological Seminary in 1959.
He was then sent by the United Church of Christ in Japan to be a missionary in Thailand. In 1968, he moved to Singapore to become dean of the South East Asia Graduate School of Theology and editor of The South East Asia Journal of Theology.
From 1974 to 1978, he lectured at the University of Otago in New Zealand. In 1980, he joined Union. Before he arrived, someone noticed that his “Water Buffalo” book had just landed on the discard pile outside the library door, Dr. Shriver said. Apparently, a librarian had concluded that the prestigious school had no program for teaching theology to water buffaloes. The book quickly and quietly returned to the shelves.
Dr. Koyama was the first holder of the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Chair in Ecumenics and World Christianity. He retired in 1996.
In addition to his son Mark, Dr. Koyama is survived by his wife of 50 years, Lois; another son, James; his daughter, Elizabeth; and five grandchildren.
Once, in discussing death, Dr. Koyama recalled the story of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. He said Jesus would be with others the same way:
“Looking into our eyes and heart, Jesus will say: ‘You’ve had a difficult journey. You must be tired, and dirty. Let me wash your feet. The banquet’s ready.’ ”

1MILLION RED ENVELOPES DELUGE WHITE HOUSE TO SHOW THE INNOCENT BLOOD SHEDS THROUGH ABORTIONS AND THE PLEA FOR BLOOD OFJESUS OVER THE SIN OF OUR NATION

Over one million, empty, red envelopes have poured into the White House mail room, symbolizing the empty promise of lives snuffed out in abortion; and with Red Envelope Day planned for tomorrow, coordinators estimate that number could more than double.
The Red Envelope Project is an idea sparked in the mind and prayers of a Massachusetts man, Christ Otto, who envisioned in January thousands of red envelopes sent to the White House, a visual expression of moral outrage over the president's position on abortion.
On the backs of the envelopes, senders write a message Otto composed: "This envelope represents one child who died in abortion. It is empty because that life was unable to offer anything to the world. Responsibility begins with conception."
"We are trying to change the president's heart," Otto writes on a website explaining the project. "This is a message to a man that God hears the cry of innocent blood. It is not a political stunt, although I hope it changes policy in Washington. If the capital is flooded with so many letters that no one can deny it, I am hoping the image will be burned into Barack Obama's mind that this is about human blood, and that he lies awake at night until he cannot resist doing something about it."
The original project began small, but when Otto sent out an email to friends asking them to join him in the envelope effort, the symbolic gesture spread through the Internet like wildfire.
"I sent an email to 120 people who pray for me daily, and asked them if they wouldn't mind sending a red envelope, and if they thought it was a good idea, forwarding it on to their friends," Otto told WND. "About a week and half later, a friend told me to Google it, and I found about 30 blogs dedicated to the red envelopes."
Otto told WND a few days later, he began receiving contacts from national pro-life organizations and churches that had taken up the cause.
By February, Otto learned of a Texas man named Brian Potter, who set March 31 as Red Envelope Day, a date when supporters would drop hundreds of thousands of the envelopes in the mail, presumably being delivered to the White House near the beginning of Holy Week, just prior to the start of Passover.
Potter's Red Envelope Day website has also partnered with AmazingCauses.com to enable supporters to send the red envelopes online in one easy and coordinated effort, so that, in Potter's words, "they will send out a truckload of envelopes to the White House."

Visitors to Otto's site have testified to over 1.1 million envelopes sent so far; Potter's website records more than 125,000 envelopes waiting to be sent on March 31; and Otto told WND churches around the country are piling up envelopes, thousands at a time, preparing to mail an estimated quarter of a million tomorrow.
The Catholic News Agency reports that a consortium of 11 different student groups at the University of Notre Dame, in protest of the university's invitation of Barack Obama to speak at graduation, plan to hand deliver a surge of the red envelopes to the pro-abortion president when he arrives to give the commencement address in May.

Otto told WND the message on the backs of the envelopes was crafted in response to a previous Obama speech, his inaugural address.
"The president spoke for a long time about creating a culture of responsibility, and part of creating a culture of responsibility was not taking the lives of the innocent. He actually said that in his inaugural address," Otto said. "That was why I added the line, 'Responsibility begins with conception.'"
Otto's FAQ page about the project also explains why the color red was chosen:
"The envelopes represent the innocent blood shed through abortion, and the plea for the blood of Jesus over the sin of our nation," writes Otto. "This campaign is a symbolic act to flood the mail with red. The more we send, the more powerful this symbol will be."
Otto told WND he thought a few thousand red envelopes would simply be a statement, showing that there are still people who care about the abortion issue deeply. As more and more people have joined him, however, Otto says the red envelopes are having an effect.
"Do I think it will change the President? I don't know," Otto writes on his website. "Last week I received an unsolicited call from a senator's office. They thought that I was in Washington, and that I must have a huge PAC. This gave me indication that someone on Capitol Hill knows about these envelopes. So, I guess it is making a difference."
Otto told WND, "As I've watched this grow, it's become clearer and clearer to me that the thing I'd like people to see is that they can make a difference in whatever they do. The message of my life is to listen to God and do what he tells you. And if you listen to God and do what he tells you and live a live of prayer and obedience, you can make a difference.
"I know this has empowered many people who felt powerless before this came along," Otto continued. "I know that there are thousands of people involved – there are a quarter of a million on Facebook alone – and if people can see that they still have a voice, to me, that means it's a success."
Details on how to participate, including specific instructions to ensure envelopes aren't sent to the dead letter bin, are available at RedEnvelopeDay.com and The Red Envelope Project website.

MUSLIM AUTHORITIES EXPELLED FIVE CHRISTIANS FROM MOROCCO; PRAY AND MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN MOROCCO

RABAT, Morocco — Authorities have expelled five Christian missionaries from Morocco on the grounds that they were illegally inciting Muslims to convert, the Interior Ministry said Sunday.
The missionaries were caught Saturday during an assembly with Moroccan Muslims in Casablanca, the North African kingdom's economic capital, and have been sent to Spain by boat, the Interior Ministry said in a statement carried by the official MAP news agency.
"Numerous pieces of evangelical propaganda material were also seized," including video cassettes in Arabic that advocated conversion to Christianity, the statement said.
A senior Interior Ministry official said the missionaries were four Spaniards and a German woman. He insisted Morocco has nothing against the Christian faith, but that authorities felt the missionaries had gone too far. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with Interior Ministry rules, said the missionaries were expelled without being officially arrested or charged. He could not specify the Christian denomination to which they belonged.
Several Evangelical Christians have been charged or detained in recent months in neighboring Algeria, and authorities throughout North Africa have become increasingly wary of an apparent push by some Protestant churches in this overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim region.

Christianity and Judaism are freely practiced in dozens of churches, temples and synagogues throughout Morocco, but proselytizing to convert Muslims is considered illegal.
A tourism haven and a strong Western ally, Morocco has a reputation for tolerance. At the same time, the country's King Mohammed VI is also "Amir al-Mouminine," or commander of the believers and protector of the Muslim faith.
Morocco appears to have hardened its stance on moral issues in recent weeks. A Shiite Muslim school was closed earlier this month on suspicion it was trying to convert pupils, and Rabat severed its diplomatic relations with Iran, accusing the Shiite Islamic republic of trying to undermine Morocco's Sunni unity.
The Interior Ministry also recently issued a statement asserting it would not hesitate to crack down on media or activists that threatened the country's religious or moral values. The statement was viewed as targeting Shiites, as well as some newspapers that recently called for more rights for homosexuals.

RED RIVER RECEDING; FLOODS ARE BRACED FOR SNOWSTORM; PRAY FOR NORTH DAKOTA AND MINNESOTA

USA ― U.S. President Barack Obama has declared a federal emergency in response to flooding in the United States along the Red River in North Dakota and Minnesota.

The Christian Reformed World Relief Committee Disaster Response Services staff asked local Christian Reformed church members in North Dakota and Minnesota to "use prayer chains, word of mouth, or whatever means you have at your disposal to make potential volunteers within your communities aware of this urgent need."

The churches sent hundreds of volunteers to help sandbag. Now, residents are braced for an early spring snowstorm that could dump over a foot of snow, even as record floodwaters recede.

Officials said the winds from the new storm will cause waves in the floodwaters that will put more pressure on the sandbag dikes along the Red River, but the river levels were expected to continue their gradual decline.

Art Opperwall, CRWRC-DRS groups manager, said traffic, bad weather, and other congestion concerns are causing crisis management personnel in Fargo to request that only local volunteers respond at this point.

The ministry staff is collaborating with local authorities in Fargo and other relief organizations on a near-daily basis this week. DRS regional manager Jay DeBoer says, "There are minimal folks in shelters at this point. Residents in this area are known to stay with relatives rather than shelter, although some neighborhoods, nursing homes and hospitals have been partially evacuated."



CRWRC's Bill Adams says their DRS team is on alert. "They actually would come in and help with the cleanup. In the case of flood, you have to wait for the immediate rescue to occur; you have to wait for the water to go down. They were pretty much ready to go, but we've got them on hold, right now."

Even while the teams are asking for additional funding help, they're looking for ways to share Christ. "Anytime our people go into the community, it's to work, but it's to be the hands of Christ. That's really what it's all about. You go in, and you lend a hand, and you're invariably offered the opportunity to pray and to encourage. The ministry opportunities abound whenever you have a disaster in a community."