MISSIONARIES CELEBRATE NEW OPENINGS IN MACAU

Macau ― ReachGlobal staff recently joined a group of pastors from a local church (the Gospel Center) in Macau for an idol-removal ceremony.
An elderly couple formerly owned a shop that sold paraphernalia for idol worship. Their daughter, a Christian, had witnessed to her parents for years and finally saw them come to Christ a year ago.
As her parents' health deteriorated and they were unable to participate in the church services, their daughter asked the local pastors from the Gospel Center to keep discipling them in their new faith.
Roger, one of the pastors, visited them weekly for several months, and the results were evident as they declared their faith in Christ and rejected their former idols.
The Reach Global missionary team is encouraged by how Pastor Roger and his wife, Sarah, interacted with this couple and believe they will have an effective and caring ministry among the elderly as they reach out to them and include them at the Gospel Center.
Staff are in Macau helping to develop more ministries. One project that's continuing to grow is the Evangel Adult Education Centre.
The Evangel Adult Education Centre was opened in 1998 as a way of reaching out into the community with the Gospel. Its two main goals are to provide high-quality adult education for the people of Macau (social service), and to share the love of Christ with every student (evangelism). The hope is that new converts would be incorporated into EFC church plants.
Because the center has outgrown its present facility and needs additional classroom and office space for growth and development, EAEC rented a new facility and relocated to its new location in January 2004.
Before they could begin using this new facility, however, renovation work was needed, which included dividing walls, floor tiling, electrical wiring, painting, A/C, signage, furniture and equipment, such as computers, telephones, whiteboards, etc.
Keep praying for continued effective ministry efforts in Macau.

MUSLIM BACKGROUND CHRISTIANS TORTURED IN LIBYA; PRAY AND MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN LIBYA.....

Libya ― International Christian Concern (ICC), a Christian human rights group, says it has learned that Libyan intelligence officials have detained and tortured four Christians for converting from Islam, adding that the Christians have been imprisoned for the past seven weeks in Tripoli, Libya's capital.
A spokesperson for ICC told ANS, "Libya's External Security Organization is believed to be behind the detention and torture of the Christians, according to our sources. The security agents have barred the families from visiting the detained converts and are putting severe physical and psychological pressure on the Christians in order to force them to reveal the names of other converts. Fearing for their lives, other converts from Islam are on the run.
"The detention and the torture of the Christian converts come at a critical time in Libya's relations with the international community. The country has been improving its relations with the international community following the lifting of sanctions imposed on it due to its involvement in the bombing of an American airliner in which 270 people were killed.
"By torturing the four Christian converts and stifling religious freedom, Libya is once again violating basic principles of the international human rights law."
ICC's Regional Manager for Africa, Jonathan Racho, said, "We call upon Libyan officials to stop torturing the four Christians and release them from detention. Libya must respect the rights of its citizens to worship freely and not to be tortured. We particularly ask the Libyan leader and the current head of the African Union, Mr. Muammar Gaddafi, to set the prisoners free and demonstrate his country's commitment to respect human rights."
The ICC spokesperson added, "Please pray for the safe release of the detained believers. Also pray for comfort and strength for their families."
You can help secure their release by contacting the Libyan embassy.

PASTOR SHOT AND THE CHURCH EXPLODED BY CRUDE BOMB IN BIHAR ( INDIA )

In an effort to stop conversions to Christianity in the eastern state of Bihar, a 25-year-old ailing man on Sunday (March 8) exploded a crude bomb in a church and shot the pastor.
Police Inspector Hari Krishna Mandal told that the attacker, Rajesh Singh, had come fully prepared to kill the pastor, Vinod Kumar, in Baraw village in the Nasriganj area of Rohtas district, and then take his own life.
“However,” Mandal said, “believers caught him before he could do more damage or kill himself.”
The 35-year-old pastor was taken to a hospital in nearby Varanasi, in the neighboring state of Uttar Pradesh and at press time was out of danger of losing his life, according to a leader of Gospel Echoing Missionary Society (GEMS) who requested anonymity.
The church, Prarthana Bhawan (House of Prayer), belongs to GEMS. Around 30 people were in the church when the attack took place. Some women in the church sustained burns in the blast.
“Rajesh Singh threw a crude bomb from the window of the church, and the sound of the explosion created a chaos in the congregation,” said Inspector Mandal. As members of the church began to run out, he added, Singh came into the building and shot the pastor with a handmade pistol from point-blank range.
Singh had more bombs to explode and three more bullets in his pistol, but church members caught hold of him and handed him over to police, the inspector said.
“In his statement, Singh said he was personally against Christian conversions and wanted to kill the pastor to stop conversions,” Mandal said. “He wanted to take his own life after killing the pastor, and this is why he had more bullets in his pistol and an overdose of anesthesia in a syringe.”
Asked if Singh had any links with extremist Hindu nationalist groups, the inspector said no such organization was active in the area, though local Christians say Hindu extremist presence has increased recently. The GEMS source said people allegedly linked with a Hindu nationalist group had sent a threatening letter to the pastor, asking him to stop preaching in the area.
The source said the incident could have been fallout from conversions in nearby Mithnipur village, where a Hindu family had received Christ after being healed from a mental illness around six months ago. Singh also lives in Mithnipur.
“Pastor Kumar had not been visiting the village, fearing opposition from the villagers who were not happy with the conversion of this family,” the GEMS source said. “The same church’s cross had also been damaged about a year ago by unidentified people.”
The source said he believes that although Singh’s affiliation or linkage with a Hindu nationalist group has not been established, it is likely that he was instigated to kill the pastor by an extremist group. Pastor Kumar, married with three children, has been working in Rohtas district for the last 12 years.
Local Christians complain that the presence of the Hindu extremist Sangh Parivar (a family of organizations linked with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or RSS, India’s chief Hindu nationalist group) has recently increased in the area. They say the Hindu nationalist conglomerate has been spewing hate against Christians for more than 10 years, accusing them of using monetary incentives and fraudulent means and foreign money to convert Hindus.
The attacker has an amputated hand and was said to be mentally disturbed since 1996, when he was diagnosed with cancer, Inspector Mandal said.
“According to the villagers,” he said, “Singh had been mentally disturbed ever since he was diagnosed with cancer, and later tuberculosis, although there is no medical report to substantiate this.”
The government of Bihar is ruled by a coalition of a regional party, the Janata Dal-United (JD-U) party, and the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The JD-U is also part of the National Democratic Alliance, the main opposition coalition at the federal level led by the BJP. The JD-U, however, is not perceived as a supporter of Hindu nationalism.
Of the 82 million people, mostly Hindu, in Bihar, only 53,137 are Christian, according to the 2001 census.

EGYPTIAN CHRISTIAN BURNED ALIVE; FATHER MURDERED; PRAY AND MAKE A DIFFERENCE....

A young Christian man was suddenly set on fire by a Muslim man in Egypt after a rumor circulated that the Christian man had a relationship with the Muslim man’s sister.
Yasser Ahmed Qasim approached 25-year-old Sabri Shihata and poured gasoline on the Coptic Christian and then set him on fire, reported the Voice of the Copts on Friday. The young Copt tried to put out the fire by throwing himself into a nearby canal, but the burns were too severe and he later died.
His 60-year-old father, Sabri Shihata, later arrived at a village rally where a group of Muslims stabbed him to death. One stab reportedly entered his back and came out of his abdomen below the rib cage, according to Voice of the Copts. The elder Shihata was taken to the hospital but nevertheless died from the attacks.
The Muslim group also attacked the Coptic man’s younger brother, 22-year-old Rami Sabri Shihata, causing a deep injury to his head.
Local police have arrested those involved in the attack, including Yasser Ahmed Kassem, as well as victim Sabri Shihata, who is being held in custody at Dmas Hospital, located in the northern province of Qalubiya, north of Cairo. The perpetrators are charged with deliberate homicide.
Security forces have also surrounded the victims’ house and extra security has been deployed throughout the village of 60,000 people.
A media blackout has been put in place as the prosecution and the State Security Services continue investigation.
In Egypt recently, sectarian violence has been on the rise as Christian-Muslim relations have been strained by conversions to Christianity and government opposition to recognizing the conversions.
Furthermore, changes in living arrangements have also contributed to increased tension between the two groups. Previously, Christians and Muslims used to live peacefully in mixed communities, but recently the two groups have tended to live separately only among their own religious communities and there have been less interaction between the two groups.
Egypt has the largest Christian population in the Middle East with an estimated 10 million Copts in Egypt, making up about 10 percent of the country’s population.

COMCAST, DIRECT TV TO ALLOW PORN PROMOTION IN LOS ANGELES; PRAY AND MAKE A DIFFERENCE ...

LOS ANGELES -- The economy may be in shambles, but satellite and cable companies are making whoopee.
Faced with increased competition from former phone companies such as AT&T and Verizon, satellite and cable companies are loosening their chastity belts and getting more aggressive about promoting adult content on other male-heavy channels such as ESPN and Spike TV. What's more, even as they raise prices on regular channels, the price of their adult fare is about to get much cheaper and more attractive.
Region by regionLate last year, Rupert Murdoch's DirecTV quietly ended its moratorium on hyping adult video-on-demand offerings on other channels. Meanwhile, the nation's largest cable company, Comcast may soon start promoting adult content, though on a region by region basis, insiders say.
A spokeswoman for Comcast declined to comment, but Robert Mercer, a spokesman for DirecTV, said that while the company still has "a long-standing policy of not marketing adult content at retail or to consumers in general," it will now run promotional spots "for existing customers on certain male-oriented channels in the early morning hours -- between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. ET, say."
"We've always been extremely discreet about this," wrote Mr. Mercer in an e-mailed statement to Ad Age, "for obvious reasons."
All about the bottom lineStill, Ali Joone, CEO of Digital Playground, a Van Nuys, Calif.-based adult studio, notes, "We're coming out of an eight-year political administration that was very tough on the adult business. What is driving cable operators now is money, not fear. They're starting to not really care what people say; they're looking at their bottom line."
In a down economy, adult PPV is almost pure profit for both cable and satellite operators. And those profits are substantial. Mr. Joone said that while the split of revenue between cable operators and Hollywood studios favors Hollywood, when it comes to adult content, "90% of the revenue goes to cable operators. They have the lion's share of the profits."
Accounts vary as to porn's actual economic impact because, like most men, the adult industry also tends to misrepresent its true size. But a 2007 Kagan Research report found that adult video on-demand and pay-per-view is expected to make up a $1.4 billion market by 2014.
More bang for buck

Curiously, while DirecTV and Comcast are in the midst of raising overall prices on their TV channel subscription packages (DirecTV by 4% just this month; Comcast by 4.5% on average this year), pay-per-view porn will be coming down in price.
"I don't know if its going to be a [McDonald's] 'Dollar Menu,' but giving people more for their money is on the agenda," said Ken Boenish, president of New Frontier Media, the Boulder, Colo.-based adult pay-per-view firm that operates both The Erotic Network and Penthouse On-Demand.
The main reason?
Pay-per-view porn is being slowly nibbled to death by more cheaply-priced (or free) internet smut, while adult studios are suffering from stalled DVD sales.
"Five years ago, 90% of our business was DVD," said Mr. Joone, "This year it will probably be less than 60%."
He added: "And a lot of the broadcasters, they're putting out the same material out that you can pay for by the minute on the internet. At that point, the consumer is like, 'I can get this for pennies!'"
Just last week, rival Playboy Enterprises posted a massive $145 million loss, with fourth-quarter domestic TV revenue essentially flat.
But a lack of marketing may also be to blame for porn's ills.
'Shattering' conventional wisdom

In an industry awash with exaggerating raconteurs, Mr. Boenish is one of the few adult-industry executives with the distribution relationships needed to commission serious, factual research of consumers' porn habits. A recent New Frontiers Media in-house study of satellite customers found that almost 75% of satellite customers are unaware that hard-core content is available to them; 56% of cable customers are unaware of the option.
The study "shattered a lot of conventional wisdom at the company," said Mr. Boenish. "We used to be of the opinion that people who purchased adult entertainment on cable were ignorant of the internet. But we found that of the 80% of customers who buy adult content from their cable operator, 63% pay for content on the internet as well."
These surprisingly "dual users" of both internet and PPV porn cited the value proposition that pay-per-view offered: better video quality, superior overall viewing experience on larger screens, and, of course, the freedom from worry about the ultimate sexually transmitted disease -- the internet-porn computer virus.
Package deals

As such, many of New Frontier's adult PPV offerings are now packaged with free adult internet offerings, or with a subscription package that will allow access to 50 adult movies a month for $15.99 instead of a single adult film for just 24 hours. The result has been a 5% increase in adult revenues year-on-year at New Frontier.
Whether more aggressive adult PPV marketing alone will equal higher profits for the cable and satellite companies remains unclear.
"It's a Band-Aid," said Mr. Joone. "Is it a long-term solution? Absolutely not."
He insists the answer is to spend more not only marketing adult content, but on making it, too. While the typical adult film costs between $15,000 and $25,000, Mr. Joone often spends three times that amount to shoot in exotic tropical locations, in high definition video with well-known stars. His "Pirates 2" just crested 1 million units sold in a business where a blockbuster porn title typically sells just 5,000 copies.
"If you you're creating something that's just going to be masturbatory, fine, but if you want to stay alive in this business, you have to do better. I like to say, 'Water is free, but we pay for it in a bottle.' That makes a lot of sense to me."