HUNDREDS OF CHRISTIAN TEENS GOING TO VISIT COSHOCTON FOR THE PURPOSE OF HELPING CITIZENS THEY DON'T KNOW

COSHOCTON -- Some 400 teens will descend on Coshocton next summer from across the country for the purpose of helping citizens they don't know.
"You can go to band camp, you go to soccer camp, you can go to football camp and you can go to a work camp. And they've chosen not to go to another country or to a big city, inner city, but to go to places throughout the United States and work," said project co-chair Mayor Steve Mercer.
The work camps program started in 1975 in Colorado when a storm caused a flood that wiped out a small town and church. Locals from around the area, particularly youth, pitched in to help with the rebuilding of the city and the program grew from that.
Project co-chair Brad Fuller recently spent a week in Colorado where he learned more about the program and its workings. Fuller is in charge of home selection and assembling the needed materials.
"It's a well oiled machine," Fuller said. "They're teenagers, they're not skilled laborers, but they're all coming to this camp because they have some degree of skill."
The program will see 400 youths and 100 adult supervisors stay in Coshocton from June 13 to 19. They will do light repair and painting on 70 to 80 homes. When staying in Coshocton for the week, they will sleep and eat at Coshocton High School.
The youths ages 12 to 18 pay $424 to take part in the program, which pays for transportation, food and other needs. Those who wish to have their house worked on pay nothing.
"I see it as something that will be such a tremendous help to our community and to people in need. It's geared toward low to moderate income, the elderly or disabled, and certainly the economy the way it is it is difficult for that demographic to do much maintenance. So to have a group like this to come in at a time like this is just a perfect fit to give our community a real shine," Mercer said.
The program is Christian-based and provides more than physical repairs and work to the teens taking part and the communities they go to.
"It's not just home repair. That's a nice by-product. What happens is, it's a spirit that happens in the community and people really get on board with it and see this community spirit and take more pride in their homes," Fuller said. "Spiritually what happens (with the teens taking part) is a great thing. It's building them up personally. They know they have the ability to help their fellow man. The by-product is we get out town looking a little better."
Locally, $19,000 needs to be raised to pay for materials and supplies for the work. Paint, tools, ladders and other equipment also can be donated.
"I'm confident that we'll be able to raise the dollar amount that we need without city funds," Mercer said. "That money stays right here, it goes nowhere else."
The Coshocton Baptist Church is acting as fiscal agent for the project. Checks can be made to Coshocton Work Camps and mailed to the Coshocton Baptist Church, 1631 Denman Ave., Coshocton, OH 43812.
Applications for the project soon will be available at City Hall and those who wish to donate materials or some how aide the project can call the mayor's office at 622-1373 or Brad Fuller at 623-8027.

PASTOR TED HAGGARD GOING TO LEAD WORSHIP AGAIN

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO - Ted Haggard, who was dismissed from the megachurch he founded after a man alleged a cash-for-sex relationship with him, plans to lead people in worship again.
The pastor told The Gazette he is holding a "prayer meeting" November 12 in his Colorado Springs living room, but said it would also be correct to call it a church.
Haggard says he has no goals of building something like New Life Church, which began with about 25 people in his basement in 1985 and grew to thousands of members.
Haggard resigned from the church in 2006 after a Denver man said Haggard paid him for sex.
The gathering on Thursday will include music, an offering to New Life Church, and a talk from Haggard about the power of prayer.

CHRISTIANS PROTEST AT POTRAYAL OF JESUS AS A TRANSSEXUAL WOMEN

More than 300 Christian protesters demonstrated in the centre of Glasgow last night against a publicly funded play that portrays Jesus as a transsexual woman.
The demonstrators, who waved placards and sang hymns and gospel songs, blocked Chisholm Street for about two hours from 6.30pm as they held a candlelit vigil outside the Tron Theatre where Jesus, Queen of Heaven will run until Saturday.
A ecumenical congregation including Catholics and evangelical Christians voiced their disapproval of the show, which presents Christ as a man who wants to become a woman.
One placard said: “Jesus, King of Kings, Not Queen of Heaven”.
Another stated: “God: My Son Is Not A Pervert”.
The production is part of the Glasgay! arts festival, Scotland’s annual celebration of homo­sexual culture, which receives funding from Glasgow City Council and the Scottish Arts Council.
The Christian Institute, which is opposed to equality for gay people, has said the festival is “further proof of an agenda to use taxpayers’ money to fund assaults on Christian values.”
Protesters said last night that they did not feel their demonstration would give more publicity to the show they wanted banned.
Jack Bell, pastor of the Zion Baptist Church in Polmadie, said: “We are here to protest against the blasphemy of this play.”
Another demonstrator, Peter Campbell of St Andrew’s Roman Catholic Church in Greenock, said: “I am here to say enough is enough. I feel I have to do something because I don’t feel this is right and I have to stand up for the cause of Jesus.”
Publicity material for the play shows the writer and lead performer of the piece – transsexual Jo (formerly John) Clifford – posing as Christ with crucifixion wounds and a halo.

READER'S DIGEST AND RICK WARREN ENDS MAGAZINE VENTURE

Less than a year after starting a hybrid magazine and paid membership organization, the Rev. Rick Warren and the Reader’s Digest Association said Wednesday that they were pulling the plug.
Their plan was to capitalize on Mr. Warren’s best-selling books, like “The Purpose Driven Life,” to create a group patterned on his calls to Christian evangelism and charitable works.
They sold $29 annual memberships to Purpose Driven Connection, built around local chapters and online social networking tools. Members received a quarterly magazine of the same name — edited by Mr. Warren — DVDs and study guides. The magazine were also sold through retailers.
But their timing could not have been worse; the project began near the worst of the financial crisis, in the depths of the recession.
“The numbers for the membership were quite disappointing,” said William K. Adler, a spokesman for the Reader’s Digest Association. The partners declined to release sales figures for the memberships or the magazine.
They plan to keep operating the organization’s Web site, purposedriven.com, which has been free.
“Our biggest discovery was learning that people prefer reading our content online rather than in print, because it is more convenient and accessible,” Mr. Warren said in a statement.
The fourth and last issue of the magazine will be published this month. The Reader’s Digest Association said it had just one employee who worked on it full time, Frank Lalli, the editorial director, who recently left the association.
The company filed for bankruptcy protection in August under a plan that would make its lenders its majority owners, while reducing its $2.2 billion in debt to $550 million.

DRUG LORD PABLO ESCOBAR BURNT $2 MILLION TO KEEP HIS DAUGHTER WARM FOR A SINGLE NIGHT !

Drug lord Pablo Escobar burnt cash worth Rs 9 crore to keep his daughter warm and cook food, during a night on the run, his son saysColombian drug lord Pablo Escobar burnt $2 million (Rs 9.4 crore) to keep his daughter warm during a single night on the run, it has emerged. The infamous cocaine baron is said to have lit a bonfire using wads of US dollars at a mountain hideout while he was being hunted by authorities.
Terror: Escobar's cartel controlled 80% of the global cocaine marketHis son, Sebastian Marroqui­n, who has changed his name from Juan Pablo Escobar, claimed his father burnt the notes when he realised his daughter Manuela was suffering from hypothermia.

Escobar's son, who moved with his family to Argentina after his father's death 15 years ago, also told the Colombian magazine Don Juan that the security-mad billionaire bought his own taxi firm to find out when outsiders arrived in their native Medellin.He also moved his family every 48 hours between 15 hideaways he had all over the city.

He even blindfolded them before each move so that they could never work out the whereabouts of each house and give the locations to torturers if they were captured.Escobar, head of the infamous Medellin Cartel, was shot dead in 1993 as he tried to escape police.Rich & PowerfulAt the height of his power in 1989, he was ranked the seventh richest man in the world by Forbes magazine with an estimated £18 billion (Rs 85,000 crore) fortune, while his Medellin cartel controlled 80% of the global cocaine market.