Friday 5 June 2020

HAPPENING NOW IN WUMBA – ABUJA - Police: How 3 brothers murdered an Abuja-based widow lured through Facebook


HAPPENING NOW IN WUMBA – ABUJA

Police: How 3 brothers murdered an Abuja-based widow lured through Facebook

Three brothers have been arrested over the abduction of Janet Nnenna Ogbonnaya, a 55-year-old widow who was murdered after honouring the invitation of one of them who was her friend on Facebook.

Police operatives attached to the intelligence response unit of the inspector-general of police arrested them in Imo state where they reportedly fled to after the woman was killed in Abuja on May 14, 2020.
The three suspects are 38-year-old Johnson Emmanuel, 31-year-old Gideon Emmanuel, and 27-year-old Success Emmanuel.

According to a statement signed by Frank Mbah, police public relations officer, on Thursday, the suspects killed the woman after serving her with a drink laced with drugs.

“Investigations that led to the arrest of the suspects is sequel to complaints received from one Chinedu Ogbonnaya who alleged that his mother, Mrs Janet Nnenna Ogbonnaya, 55 yrs, a native of Ozuitem in Bende LGA of Abia State had been kidnapped and a 5-million naira ransom demanded before she could be released,” Mbah said.

“A comprehensive and painstaking investigation by the police operatives resulted in the arrest of the three (3) suspects, whom, in the course of interrogation, revealed that the victim had long been murdered and buried.

“Further findings revealed that the victim, a widow, who had been a Facebook friend of the principal suspect – Johnson Emmanuel, was lured from her home in Gwagwalada to visit the suspect.

“The suspect thereafter took advantage of the visit, served her yoghurt laced with drugs and subsequently had her murdered. The suspect, having killed the victim and buried her remains in a septic tank, went ahead to reach out to the family of the victim using her phone and demanded 5-million naira ransom as pre-condition for her release.”

He added that the suspects led a team of investigators, which included pathologists, to a residence at Wumba District, Lokogoma, Abuja, where the woman’s decomposing body was found.

The corpse was exhumed from a septic tank and taken to the University Teaching Hospital, Gwagwalada, Abuja, for forensic examination, according to Mba.

“A Toyota Highlander Jeep belonging to the deceased has also been recovered by Police operatives at a mechanic workshop in Apo where it had been repainted into a different colour, vehicle documents fraudulently changed and ownership of the stolen vehicle criminally transferred to one of the masterminds of the crime – Johnson Emmanuel,” he added.

“Investigations also revealed that the house where the deceased was killed and buried originally belonged to one of the suspects but was hurriedly sold off to a third party apparently to obliterate evidence.

“The Inspector-General of Police, IGP M.A Adamu, NPM, mni, while commending the operatives for a job well done, reassures that perpetrators of any form of crimes in the country will not go undetected and unpunished. He, however, enjoins citizens to be more security conscious and report any suspicious activities within their neighbourhood to the nearest police station.”

Friday 8 May 2020

CT interviews Stephen Rasche on Erbil’s Catholic presence, the need for Christian unity, and why Christians will “no longer be shy” with the gospel.


Why We Opened a Christian University in Iraq Amid ISIS’ Genocide.
CT interviews Stephen Rasche on Erbil’s Catholic presence, the need for Christian unity, and why Christians will “no longer be shy” with the gospel.


F
or 25 years, Stephen Rasche was a “bare knuckles” international lawyer. But in 2010, he offered his services to the Chaldean Catholic Church of Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan and has increasingly dedicated his life to the preservation of this ancient community.

Under the leadership of Archbishop Bashar Matti Warda, in 2015 Rasche helped found the Catholic University of Erbil, where he serves as vice chancellor. Also the director of its Institute for Ancient and Threatened Christianity, Rasche lived this title as ISIS ravaged Iraq’s Christian homelands in the Nineveh Plains and many believers fled to Erbil.

After testifying on their behalf before the United Nations and the US Congress, Rasche allows them to represent themselves in his recent book, The Disappearing People: The Tragic Fate of Christians in the Middle East. The book has won a diverse range of endorsements, from leaders such as Matthew Hassan Kukah, bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, Nigeria; Yahya Cholil Staquf, general secretary of Nahdlatul Ulama, the largest Muslim organization in the world; and Thomas Farr, president of the Religious Freedom Institute.

The US State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom reports that less than 250,000 Christians are living in Iraq, most in Kurdistan or on the Nineveh Plains. Two-thirds belong to the Chaldean Catholic Church.

CT interviewed Rasche about the logic of establishing a university during a genocide, how its Catholic identity functions in a Muslim society, and his enduring optimism for Christianity in Iraq.

What led you personally to invest your life in this endeavor?

In 2010, Bishop Warda had just been made archbishop, and I went to pay him a visit of respect, asking if there was anything I could do to help. “Yes, in fact,” he said. “You Americans have made a big mess here, and you could stay and help me. I have 3,000 displaced families here from the south, they need help, and no one is helping us with them. We don’t have jobs for them, and there’s a whole range of things I would like to do.”

I assisted on and off on a pro-bono basis for the next four years, but by 2014 the situation looked really desperate. ISIS was maybe 30 miles away from Erbil. But in a visit just after Christmas, I sat down with the bishop and the priests who told me, “We are going to stay. Will you be with us here, and help us?”

Honestly, I was skeptical. But after some deep thinking, I tried to determine the right thing to do and if there was a calling in this for me.

Tell us more about that calling.

Being an international transactions lawyer involved a fair amount of bare knuckles litigation. And not a lot of it, quite frankly, was fulfilling in the sense of believing that you were providing a meaningful service to the world or to your fellow brothers and sisters.

An open-heart surgery slowed me down for a couple of months, which allowed me to really ponder what I’d been doing and where I was going, particularly with my faith. How much did I really have? My discernment centered around the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount. Do I really believe this? And if I really do, then what can I do to show it?

I can honestly say that those years on the ground in Iraq, especially 2015–2018 when everything was really difficult, eclipse all the other working years in my life in terms of a sense of worth, purpose, and well-being.

What does it mean practically to have a Catholic university in a Muslim-majority nation?

At a fundamental level, it’s about presence. It’s to say, “Look, we are a Catholic university, and in the middle of all of this, we are here.” Our view is very much long term. We see the importance in planting the seed. At the end of the day, the primary purpose of the university is to serve as an anchor institution for the remaining Christian population, so that they can demonstrate their value to the entire community.

But also, in the US and around the world, there is a discussion about the importance of religious freedom. Well, our Catholic university in Iraq was founded during the genocide. This gives us a unique moral standing and frame of reference that’s not academic. It’s not theoretical. It’s real. We can speak out and be real leaders on this.

Is there any role desired, or possible, in terms of witness and gospel?

Over the last 1,400 years in Iraq and most of the Middle East, proselytizing has been forbidden. What the Christians have done is practice what they call evangelization by example—opening hospitals, founding universities—so that the way you live your Christian life demonstrates your service towards others, regardless of who they are.

There was an unwritten understanding that the Christians would not overtly proselytize and share the gospel, but be indirect and not offend sharia law. But after ISIS and the lack of any real response from the Muslim world, Archbishop Warda says that this agreement is now finished. That as we go forward, we will no longer be shy. We are going to proclaim the gospel, proclaim the teachings of Christ, and whoever comes to us will come.

Interesting.

He basically said, “Look, what else can happen to us? They’ve tried to kill us, destroy us, wipe us out with genocide. And if it means that we’re approaching our end, we’re not going to go quietly—not anymore.”

Christians in Iraq are at a historical inflection point. Their presence here can be extinguished quickly in many ways—primarily if there were to be, God forbid, war or proxy war between the US and Iran. It would take place right where the Christians are living. It would make things completely untenable for them.

But I fully expect that if they make it through this current period, Christians will find ways to assert themselves in ways that they haven’t before. In the past, they tried to walk quietly, keep their heads down, and not cause any trouble. I think those days are over.

Your book features the testimony of local Christians about their situation in Iraq and the Middle East. Many might blame Western policies. Others might pinpoint Islam. 

But how do Christians identify their own failures? How do they evaluate their own contribution to their dwindling numbers?

In many respects, they blame a continuing division and discord that has left them far more vulnerable than if they were unified and supportive of each other. In some cases, it has also hindered the well-intended support coming from the West. It occurs between different groups within the apostolic churches; between the apostolic churches and the evangelical churches; and even within the evangelical community, where competing groups want to assist the apostolic Christians in different ways.

This division and discord are a failing that goes against the core teachings of Christ. While certainly not unique to the East, it is a failing which has had particularly tragic consequences for Middle Eastern Christians in the face of their many pressures over the last decades.

And these pressures have forced the Christians remaining in Iraq to come to terms with the depth of their faith and what it really means to them. It’s one thing when it’s the drip-drip-drip of 1,400 years of persecution. It’s another thing when you have a full-blown genocide that comes to wipe you out and take everything away. It has happened every 70 years or so, but this is the first time in their living memory, and it really shook them.

There are still Christians in Egypt. There are Christians in Lebanon. But when you look at Iraq, it’s hard to find hope given the current geopolitical and religious realities. Yet in the middle of disaster, nobody builds a university.

That’s right.

So what hope do you have? Projecting into the future, expecting God to strengthen and grow his church in Iraq, what will it look like?

That Christians present such an example of service that the people of Iraq will not be able to deny not only their worth as people but also their worth in how they live their lives.

If they understand that, then that’s all we get to ask for—anywhere. There may not be many Christians in Iraq. But as an old priest said once to me, “Well, remember Christ only had 12, and everyone wanted to kill them, too.”

Tuesday 5 May 2020

'The Great Quarantine Revival': 100,000+ Choose Christ During Virtual and Broadcast Services Easter Week


'The Great Quarantine Revival': 100,000+ Choose Christ During Virtual and Broadcast Services Easter Week


It's being called the Great Quarantine Revival. More than 100,000 people watching virtual and broadcast events in countries across the world during the week of Good Friday responded to the Gospel and professed faith in Jesus Christ, according to Pulse, the Christian ministry that organized the programming. 

Nick Hall is the founder of Pulse and said responses to the Gospel came via international call centers, email, website and text messages, and are evidence that God is at work in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We were literally getting smartphone photos from all over the world – from Nigeria to India and China – of families gathering in their living rooms, around 18-inch cathode-ray TVs, laptops, and HD screens watching our services," Hall said. "The doors to our church buildings may have been closed, but the church has not closed. We are living through a Great Quarantine Revival, and I think God is just getting started."

Susan Harris, Director of Advancement for Pulse, told CBN News that the idea for the outreach was born out of this unique time when people are closed in at home and connected mostly by technology. Hoping to have something special by Easter week, the ministry swung into gear to coordinate a massive network of contacts all around the world to pull together the broadcasts, translators, and follow-up ministries. Harris said they were "amazed" and "blown away at how God orchestrated the events and opened doors" for it all to happen in time.

Viewers responded to two major Pulse events over the Easter week: Leader Check-In and a Good Friday service.

Pulse's Good Friday program featured talks by Hall, renowned Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias, best-selling author Max Lucado, NFL Super Bowl Champion and Hall of Fame Coach Tony Dungy, Francis Chan, and Rev. Samuel Rodriguez with worship by Lauren Daigle, Michael W. Smith and singing duo Kari Jobe and Cody Carnes. 

The service was broadcast in nearly 100 countries, including Japan, China, Nepal, Thailand, India, Kenya, Nigeria, Ukraine, and Russia, and was translated into 40 different languages. 

"We had translators working in closed countries who were risking their lives to bring this message in their language to their people, because that's how precious the gospel is to them," Hall said. 

Prior to the Good Friday event, in an effort called Leader Check-In, Pulse also reached out to Christian ministers and pastors around the world to encourage them in their work as the Easter weekend approached.

As a result, Hall said this may have been the most significant Easter in a century.
"The fields have never been riper for harvest as people search for hope and meaning during this global pandemic. It may very well be the greatest opportunity we've had to share the gospel – but we will miss it if we don't care for our pastors and ministers now."

Leader Check-In featured Bible teachers and speakers like Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, Priscilla Shirer, Beth Moore, and Grammy Award-winning hip-hop artist Lecrae, as well as public officials, US Senators James Lankford and Tim Scott, who joined the conversation to give updates on the government's response to COVID-19. 

"I am grateful – not for the pandemic, not for COVID-19 – I am grateful that God will turn things around for the collective good of his children," Rev. Rodriguez said. "He will work these things out: all things work out for the good of those who believe. I am grateful I am alive for such a time as this to experience this fresh awakening."

Harris told CBN News Pulse is planning more Leader Check-In events soon, and hopes to make the Good Friday outreach an annual happening. And considering the amazing harvest from this year's events, she said, just think what can be accomplished for the Lord with more time to plan.