Monday, June 27, 2011
Global Mission Mondays: Libya
Tonight at our prayer meeting we will be praying for the country of Libya which is in the midst of civil war.
Libya is a predominantly desert country. Up to 90% of the land area is covered in desert. It is a very large country with very small populations that is concentrated narrowly along the coast. About 88% of the population is urban, mostly concentrated in the three largest cities, Tripoli , Benghazi and Misrata. Libya has a population of about 6.5 million, around half of whom are under the age of 15.
The Libyan economy depends primarily upon revenues from the oil sector, which constitute practically all export earnings and about one-quarter of gross domestic product (GDP). It has the 10th-largest proven oil reserves of any country in the world and the 17th-highest petroleum production.
The World Bank defines Libya as an 'Upper Middle Income Economy', along with only seven other African countries. In the early 1980s, Libya was one of the wealthiest countries in the world; its GDP per capita was higher than that of developed countries such as Italy and Singapore.
Native Libyans are primarily Arab or a mixture of Arab and Berber ethnicities
By far the predominant religion in Libya is Islam with 97% of the population Coptic Orthodox Christianity, is the largest and most historical Christian denomination in Libya. There are over 60,000 Egyptian Copts in Libya, as they comprise over 1% of the population.
The Joshua Project says
Libya is a predominantly desert country. Up to 90% of the land area is covered in desert. It is a very large country with very small populations that is concentrated narrowly along the coast. About 88% of the population is urban, mostly concentrated in the three largest cities, Tripoli , Benghazi and Misrata. Libya has a population of about 6.5 million, around half of whom are under the age of 15.The Libyan economy depends primarily upon revenues from the oil sector, which constitute practically all export earnings and about one-quarter of gross domestic product (GDP). It has the 10th-largest proven oil reserves of any country in the world and the 17th-highest petroleum production.
The World Bank defines Libya as an 'Upper Middle Income Economy', along with only seven other African countries. In the early 1980s, Libya was one of the wealthiest countries in the world; its GDP per capita was higher than that of developed countries such as Italy and Singapore.
Native Libyans are primarily Arab or a mixture of Arab and Berber ethnicities
By far the predominant religion in Libya is Islam with 97% of the population Coptic Orthodox Christianity, is the largest and most historical Christian denomination in Libya. There are over 60,000 Egyptian Copts in Libya, as they comprise over 1% of the population.
The Joshua Project says
“The Libyan Arabs are one of the most unreached people groups in the world. No form of evangelism or missions work is allowed in Libya. Congregations of expatriots are able to meet. However, they are closely monitored, and a Libyan would not be able to attend for fear of being watched, betrayed, imprisoned, or even killed. There is also a limit of one church, per foreign denomination, per city.”
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Evening for Senior Citizens
Last night was our church's monthly evening for senior citizens. We had a pretty good turn out, around 35 people some of whom came for the first time. Liese headed up the meal preparation which was pasta and meatballs with greek salad on the side.
Here are a few snapshots of the evening I took on my phone as I ran around helping get everything set up:
The ladies in the kitchen chopping veggies.
Enjoying the evening's entertainment, a song performed by some girls in our church and a slideshow of photos taken over the last year.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Global Mission Mondays: Chad
This week our church will be praying for the country of Chad.
Chad is one of the poorest and most corrupt countries in the world; most inhabitants live in poverty as subsistence herders and farmers. The United Nations' Human Development Index ranks Chad as the seventh poorest country in the world, with 80% of the population living below the poverty line.
Chad was ruled by France until 1960 and from 1965-1900 was in a nearly constant state of civil. Chad remains plagued by political violence and recurrent attempted coups d'état. Recently, the Darfur crisis in Sudan has spilt over the border and destabilised the nation, with hundreds of thousands of Sudanese refugees living in and around camps in eastern Chad. Chad hosts over 280,000 refugees from the Sudan's Darfur region, over 55,000 from the Central African Republic, as well as over 170,000 internally displaced persons.
The population is about 10 million; 25.8% live in urban areas and 74.8% in rural ones. The country's population is young: an estimated 47.3% is under 15 and the life expectancy is 47 years.
To give an idea of the poverty level of Chad there are only 14,000 fixed telephone lines in all of Chad and only 1.5% of the national population is covered by the state electrical company.
Chad has more than 200 distinct ethnic groups from the Arab Nomads in the north to the sedentary Sara in the south. About 54% of Chadians are Muslim, 20% Roman Catholic, 14% Protestant, 10% animist, and 3% atheist. Muslims are largely concentrated in northern and eastern Chad, and animists and Christians live primarily in southern Chad.
Chad was ruled by France until 1960 and from 1965-1900 was in a nearly constant state of civil. Chad remains plagued by political violence and recurrent attempted coups d'état. Recently, the Darfur crisis in Sudan has spilt over the border and destabilised the nation, with hundreds of thousands of Sudanese refugees living in and around camps in eastern Chad. Chad hosts over 280,000 refugees from the Sudan's Darfur region, over 55,000 from the Central African Republic, as well as over 170,000 internally displaced persons.
The population is about 10 million; 25.8% live in urban areas and 74.8% in rural ones. The country's population is young: an estimated 47.3% is under 15 and the life expectancy is 47 years.
To give an idea of the poverty level of Chad there are only 14,000 fixed telephone lines in all of Chad and only 1.5% of the national population is covered by the state electrical company.
Chad has more than 200 distinct ethnic groups from the Arab Nomads in the north to the sedentary Sara in the south. About 54% of Chadians are Muslim, 20% Roman Catholic, 14% Protestant, 10% animist, and 3% atheist. Muslims are largely concentrated in northern and eastern Chad, and animists and Christians live primarily in southern Chad.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Our week
I haven't managed to blog recently, so I'll just give a run down and some pictures of some of the things we've been up to this week.
We had Wednesday night home group at our house this week, and decided since the weather was nice to have it in our yard. Danny went out to the rehab center to lead a bible study on Thursday.
Liese is helping her friend Tanya do some plaster work, she is getting pretty good at plastering.
I worked on our front door overhang/pergola and got it pretty much finished. I haven't decided if I'm going to put a finish coat of lacquer or something on the wood.
We are starting to gather fruit and Liese is making jams. We had a small strawberry yield this year because there hasn't been much rain. The water table has dropped quite a bit and we can tell as our well goes dry if we leave the water on too long. But we are getting lots of cherries, both the black and white varieties. We'll get sour cherries in another month or so.
We've been plastering the little room that I use for a study and once that is done it will be the end of plaster work in our remodel. It is nice to see light at the end of the tunnel. The next project is to make a fence out of these boards:
Monday, June 13, 2011
Global Mission Mondays: Sudan
This week our church will be praying for the country of Sudan. So much is going on in Sudan and so much has happened over the last two decades that it is difficult to sum up anything about the country that would help us to pray for them.
This quote sheds some light on the situation:
Sudan is officially a federal presidential representative democratic republic but the politics of Sudan are considered by the international community to take place within an authoritarian dictatorship.
From 1955-2005 two civil wars were fought in Sudan the first from 1944-172, the second from 1983-2005. In 1989, colonel Omar al-Bashir led a group of army officers in ousting the unstable government in a bloodless military coup. Under al-Bashir's leadership, the new military government suspended political parties and introduced an Islamic legal code on the national level. It is estimated that as many as 200,000 people had been taken into slavery during the second civil war.
Sudan has 597 ethnicities that speak over 400 different languages and dialects split into two major ethnic groups: Sudanese Arabs of the largely Muslim Northern Sudan versus the largely Christian and animist Nilote Southern Sudan of the south.
An estimated 70% of the population adheres to Islam, while the remainder of the population follows either animist and indigenous beliefs (25%) or Christianity (5%).
Recently south Sudan is rated as one of the poorest place in the world. People are still dying of hunger, children are dying of malnutrition. Starvation was responsible for more than half of the 2.5 million people who died during the civil war. South Sudan largely lacks basic sanitation, clean water, clinics, hospitals and other essential infrastructure. NGOs are still feeding more than half of the population there.
The Darfur Conflict is an ongoing guerrilla conflict or civil war centered on the Darfur region of Sudan. It began in February 2003 when the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army and Justice and Equality Movement groups in Darfur took up arms, accusing the Sudanese government of oppressing non-Arab Sudanese in favor of Sudanese Arabs. The rebels accused the central government of neglecting the Darfur region economically. Both the government and the rebels have been accused of atrocities in this war, although most of the blame has fallen on Arab militias known as the Janjaweed. According to declarations by the U.S. government, these militias have been engaging in genocide; the fighting has displaced hundreds of thousands of people, many of them seeking refuge in neighbouring Chad.
Colin Powell termed the Darfur conflict a genocide, claiming it as the worst humanitarian crisis of the 21st century. So far, over 2.5 million civilians have been displaced and the death toll is variously estimated from 200,000 to 400,000 killed.
This quote sheds some light on the situation:
"Sudan's independent history has been dominated by chronic, exceptionally cruel warfare that has starkly divided the country on racial, religious, and regional grounds; displaced an estimated four million people (of a total estimated population of thirty-two million); and killed an estimated two million people." J. Stephen Morrison
Sudan is officially a federal presidential representative democratic republic but the politics of Sudan are considered by the international community to take place within an authoritarian dictatorship.From 1955-2005 two civil wars were fought in Sudan the first from 1944-172, the second from 1983-2005. In 1989, colonel Omar al-Bashir led a group of army officers in ousting the unstable government in a bloodless military coup. Under al-Bashir's leadership, the new military government suspended political parties and introduced an Islamic legal code on the national level. It is estimated that as many as 200,000 people had been taken into slavery during the second civil war.
Sudan has 597 ethnicities that speak over 400 different languages and dialects split into two major ethnic groups: Sudanese Arabs of the largely Muslim Northern Sudan versus the largely Christian and animist Nilote Southern Sudan of the south.
An estimated 70% of the population adheres to Islam, while the remainder of the population follows either animist and indigenous beliefs (25%) or Christianity (5%).
Recently south Sudan is rated as one of the poorest place in the world. People are still dying of hunger, children are dying of malnutrition. Starvation was responsible for more than half of the 2.5 million people who died during the civil war. South Sudan largely lacks basic sanitation, clean water, clinics, hospitals and other essential infrastructure. NGOs are still feeding more than half of the population there.
The Darfur Conflict is an ongoing guerrilla conflict or civil war centered on the Darfur region of Sudan. It began in February 2003 when the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army and Justice and Equality Movement groups in Darfur took up arms, accusing the Sudanese government of oppressing non-Arab Sudanese in favor of Sudanese Arabs. The rebels accused the central government of neglecting the Darfur region economically. Both the government and the rebels have been accused of atrocities in this war, although most of the blame has fallen on Arab militias known as the Janjaweed. According to declarations by the U.S. government, these militias have been engaging in genocide; the fighting has displaced hundreds of thousands of people, many of them seeking refuge in neighbouring Chad.
Colin Powell termed the Darfur conflict a genocide, claiming it as the worst humanitarian crisis of the 21st century. So far, over 2.5 million civilians have been displaced and the death toll is variously estimated from 200,000 to 400,000 killed.
Monday, June 06, 2011
Men's Monthly Bible Study
We've been having a monthly men's meeting at our church for the last few months. We want the men to be meeting together regularly and we want to raise the bar for them in their spiritual lives.
We've been talking about what it means to be a disciple of Christ, specifically the three things that Jesus said in the gospel of John that are the marks of a disciple: 1) abides in Jesus' words, 2) loves other believers, 3) bears much fruit.
Last night we got together and had a BBQ before the bible study. I cooked the meat (shashlyk) with some help from Vladik (who is 11 years old, but we let him come and pretend to be a man because we figure it is better than never growing up) who is learning how to BBQ Ukraine style (with few American things thrown in).
After dinner I taught about about abiding in the words of Jesus and the natural outworking of those words in our lives being that we pass on what we have learned to others. A disciple who abides in Christ's words cares about those around him and communicates Christ's word to them to help them know Christ more.
We've been talking about what it means to be a disciple of Christ, specifically the three things that Jesus said in the gospel of John that are the marks of a disciple: 1) abides in Jesus' words, 2) loves other believers, 3) bears much fruit.
Last night we got together and had a BBQ before the bible study. I cooked the meat (shashlyk) with some help from Vladik (who is 11 years old, but we let him come and pretend to be a man because we figure it is better than never growing up) who is learning how to BBQ Ukraine style (with few American things thrown in).
After dinner I taught about about abiding in the words of Jesus and the natural outworking of those words in our lives being that we pass on what we have learned to others. A disciple who abides in Christ's words cares about those around him and communicates Christ's word to them to help them know Christ more.
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| Vladik helping BBQ shashlyk |
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| dishing up the food in the backyard at our church |
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| getting ready for the bible study |
Global Mission Mondays: Egypt
This week our church will be praying for Egypt.
Egypt is the most populated country in the Middle East and the third most populous on the African continent, at about 80 million. About half of Egypt's residents live in urban areas, with most spread across the densely populated centres of greater Cairo, Alexandria and other major cities in the Nile Delta. In income distribution, an estimated 35 to 40% of Egypt's population earn less than the equivalent of $2 a day, while at the high end 2-3% may be termed rich.
Egypt is a predominantly Sunni Muslim country with Islam as its state religion. There is a significant Christian minority in Egypt, who make up between 5% and 18% of the population. Over 90% of Egyptian Christians belong to the native Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, an Oriental Orthodox Church.
The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life ranks Egypt as the fifth worst country in the world for religious freedom. The Pew Forum also ranks Egypt among the 12 worst countries in the world in terms of religious violence against religious minorities and in terms of social hostilities against Christians. Coptic Christians are minimally represented in law enforcement, state security and public office, and are being discriminated against in the workforce on the basis of their religion.
Since Mubarak took office in 1981, more than 1,500 violent attacks against Copts left thousands of Christians killed and injured. After the ousting of Hosni Mubarak, violent incidents have continued. Numerous cases of anti-Christian violence by extremist groups have gone unpunished. On May 7th, 2011, a Church was burnt down in Cairo.
[information via wikipedia]
Egypt is the most populated country in the Middle East and the third most populous on the African continent, at about 80 million. About half of Egypt's residents live in urban areas, with most spread across the densely populated centres of greater Cairo, Alexandria and other major cities in the Nile Delta. In income distribution, an estimated 35 to 40% of Egypt's population earn less than the equivalent of $2 a day, while at the high end 2-3% may be termed rich.Egypt is a predominantly Sunni Muslim country with Islam as its state religion. There is a significant Christian minority in Egypt, who make up between 5% and 18% of the population. Over 90% of Egyptian Christians belong to the native Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, an Oriental Orthodox Church.
The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life ranks Egypt as the fifth worst country in the world for religious freedom. The Pew Forum also ranks Egypt among the 12 worst countries in the world in terms of religious violence against religious minorities and in terms of social hostilities against Christians. Coptic Christians are minimally represented in law enforcement, state security and public office, and are being discriminated against in the workforce on the basis of their religion.
Since Mubarak took office in 1981, more than 1,500 violent attacks against Copts left thousands of Christians killed and injured. After the ousting of Hosni Mubarak, violent incidents have continued. Numerous cases of anti-Christian violence by extremist groups have gone unpunished. On May 7th, 2011, a Church was burnt down in Cairo.
[information via wikipedia]
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
In Lumine Media video
Our friends at Halle Project put this video together for In Lumine Media.
If you want to know why we are involved in book publishing in Ukraine this video explains it all.
If you want to know why we are involved in book publishing in Ukraine this video explains it all.
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