LIAONING PROVINCE – On March 14, local police arrested 54-year-old house-church leader, Gu Changrong, in Fushun City, Liaoning Province, after she shared her faith with the secretary of the Communist Party in her village. According to China Aid Association (CAA), Yu Mingfu called the police and accused Gu of "poisoning Communist Party members with the Christian message." According to Gu's relatives, she has been sentenced to one-year of re-education through labor for "using evil cult organizations to obstruct the exercising of state laws." The family has not received a formal notice of her sentence since her arrest, according to CAA. Gu is serving her sentence at Ma San Jian Labor Camp, which is known for its harsh treatment and torture against thousands of imprisoned Falun Gong members.
Pray God comforts the families and congregations of the arrested house-church leaders and ask God to encourage the pastors. 2 Corinthians 1:5 -7

Voice of the Martyrs

Prayers for April 10, 2007

Human Rights

"On December 10, 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). This Declaration guarantees the rights of all people and encompasses a broad spectrum of ecomomic, social, cultural, poitical, and civil rights."

Right to Equality

Freedom from Discrimination

Right to Life, Liberty, and Personal Security

Freedom from Slavery

Freedom from Torture and Degrading Treatment

Rigth to Recognition as a Person before the Law

Right to Equality before the Law

Right to Remedy by Competent Tribunal

Freedom from Arbitrary Arrest and Exile

Right to Fair Public Hearing

Right to be Considered innocent until proven guilty

Freedom from interference with privacy, family, home and correspondence

Right to free movement in and out of the country

Right to Asylum in other countries from persecution

Right to a nationality and the freedom to change nationality

Right to marriage and fmaily

Right to own property

Freedom of belief and religion

Freedom of opinion and information

Right of peaceful assembly and association

Right to participate in government and in free elections

Right to socail security

Right to desireable work and to join trade unions

Right to rest and leisure

Right to adequate living standard

Right to education

Right to participate in the cultural life of community

Right to a social order that articulates this document

Community duties essential to free and full development

Freedom from state or personal interference in the above rights

I think it this Declaration is very interesting considering that the UN is made up of nearly all countries in the world, yet how many of them abide by this... including ours. I think of China and Ethiopia... What's the point of accepting a declaration that you don't intend on following?

I would venture to say that at least 80% of the world has no clue that this Declaration even exists. And even if they did, would it matter? Would it affect the way they are treated? The solution to human rights cannot be a man made declaration. As long as we are human we will never cease to degrade eachother. Oh how we need a savior!

Ethiopia

I learned a lot the other night at the film and panel discussion on Ethiopia. The panel was made up of an attorney from Center for Human Rights, Obang Metho, (an Anuak from Ethiopia who serves as the Director of International Advocacy for the Anuak Justice Council, he is the executive producer of the film we watched) and two other prominent Ethiopian men.

These are some rough notes I took from:

"Betrayal of Democracy--Ethiopia"

Summary of film, Panel
discussion, and Q&A

Film: Documentary on the lack of Human
Rights in Ethiopia. Under the leadership of the Prime minister Zinawe there is
oppression, lack of justice, etc.

One example of an
atrocity that somehow missed national news:

December 13, 2003
The Anuak people massacred by uniformed Ethiopian military. All educated
Anuak men and boys tortured and killed. They believe its because they live
on oil wells. The atrocity was never investigated. At the time Prime minister
Zinawe claimed that the military was trying to intervene in a civil war. Now he
claims that this even is fiction. The Anuak people are becoming extinct. Many
refugees fled into Sudan. Minnesota has the largest number of Anuak in
the world outside Ethiopia.

2005
Ethiopia held open election.
96% of voting population came to vote. The corrupt regime of Zinawe claimed to
have won and maintained his dictatorship. He then declared all demonstrations,
gatherings, any kind of assembly illegal. Still there were many riots and many
people were killed and imprisoned.

All leaders in opposition to
the government imprisoned. All educated Oromo, journalists, leaders concerned
about the situation all imprisoned. According to one of the panelist the number
of those killed in Ethiopia could fill the metronome 8 times (not sure what time
span this covers or if he meant in all of Africa??)

Many doctors
flee the country due to oppression. When Zinawe was asked about it he said, "we
don't need doctors." This is absurd since thousands are dying of aides, and
other diseases.

Current government is destroying Ethiopia's
economy, creating a state of terror, dividing people groups, creating confusion,
all under the name of democracy. Oromos, Somalis, and other groups discriminated
against. The Ethiopian government has a democratic constitution, but it is not
followed in practice. Zinawe has managed to charm the US and British governments
with his constitution and empty words.

The situation of the Anuak
and Oromos is very similar. Academic freedom denied, civil rights oppressed, no
prisoners receive a trial.

Ethiopian government supports US "War on
Terror" as it distracts the world from the terrors going on in Ethiopia every
day.

Africa is in these kinds of situations due to Mismanagement
and Corrupt leadership. (The panel said they could count the number of GOOD
African leaders on one hand)

The ruling ethnic group is actually a
minority, making up only 7% of Ethiopian population. Oromos make up the largest
ethnic group in Ethiopia (about 40%), still they are treated like a minority and
denied political representation. The government maintains rule by keeping the
population uneducated, denying them of independent press, people are denied
fertilizers, land is suppressed, lots of surveillance, people are kept from
assembling.

We must continue to educate and share the truth. The
truth will set you free. The ethnic groups must unite.

1. Standing
for human rights is a basic human duty. There is nothing unpatriotic about
raising your voice for another country or people group. It is a universal
situation.
2. Don't judge the degree of human violation by the amount of
people killed. Every life matters.
3. We can't eliminate violations of human
rights by standing for only one ethnic group. All must unite and fight together
equally.

Question was asked: Isn't Zinawe a puppet of the US?
The US supports Zinawe. The US can't call the December 13, 2003 even
"genocide" because then they'll have a responsibility to do something about it.
Even a 60 some page report was written on the event and the US did not release
it saying "It's not in US interest to release this document"....they will not
release the report for 25 years.

About the possibility of the US
wanting a share in the oil found on Anuak land "Finding oil on your land is like
finding a tumor in your brain"

Many other questions were asked
about US involvement and support (financially and politically). But the Anuak
man on the panel said, "the US does support the Ethiopian government but we
cannot blame America for our problems; we have do some rethinking..." raise up
GOOD African leaders " If we don't have leaders with a fear of God we will go no
where"

The last comment was made by an Anuak woman in the audience.
People make such a fuss when animals near extinction. But nobody cares that the
Anuak people are becoming extinct. We need to educate people about what's
going on. Raise awareness. We need to value human life and human rights. We
need to take action and communicate with our government representatives.


Come to the seminar/ panel discussion on raising a "new
breed of African leaders" on April 6.

I love to learn about the countries of the people that I'm working with. I've learned so much already. This is just a snippit. I will be going April 6 to the other panel discussion. I'm excited to learn more. It's so much easier to listen and take notes now then in college. I guess I was overwhelmed with classes there, and now I can go to things I want to hear and I'm not required to be there and I'm not paying thousands of dollars for it. Takes the pressure off.

Last week I also attended a seminar on West Africa and learned so much there also. It was quite a busy week. Not only were we going to seminars, but it was also the end of our quarter and we had to reach our goals, AND we were being audited. It was so crazy busy. But the energy and adrenalin of being busy and in a rush made the time go by fast. This week has already been really slow and I'm having a hard time finding things to do! I'd almost rather be crazy busy.

Go Jesus! Go Twins!

Last night I had the privilege of joining Hope Community Church in going to the Twins Home Opener at the Metrodome! It was actually really fun. As you can see the dome was packed out. I've only been to one other Twins game in my life.


I'm can't help but notice things that others may not... these observations, may go unnoticed by most people because they are things we see every day. Going to an even of this magnitude, it's hard for me to not think of it in light of eternity. There's no secret that Sports is a god in this country. Things have not changed much since Bible Times. The gods just look diferent. People gather together to worship their idols. I kid you not, that when the MVPs went up to bat people were literally bowing down and worshiping, giving their praises. I kid you not. If we would only gather together with this amount of energy and excitement and bow down and give our praises to Jesus... how amazingly different this world would be! I imagine in heaven there could be a thousand stadiums like this filled with people cheering in unison at God's awesomeness, even doing a worship wave. Ha ha ha.
I'm homesick for heaven.

Meet...

Meet the new member of my family! I don't have a name for him yet, but maybe you could give me some ideas. He's a pretty one, eh!? He's quite photogenic, in my opinion. I bought some freeze dried blood worms for him today... that's the icky floaties you see in the pics.