Italy: earthquake leaves towns in ruins
26 Aug 2016
Residents in mountain communities 85 miles east of Rome woke up on Wednesday to scenes of devastation after a strong shallow earthquake rocked them at 3:30am. At the time of writing, the death toll has reached 267 and could rise further as rescue teams search for survivors under the rubble of flattened towns. Hundreds of homes have been destroyed. Trucks full of debris leave the areas every few minutes. People are frightened, sleeping in cars or tents with the earth continuing to tremble under them from aftershocks, hundreds of which have struck since the quake. Two of them registered 5.1 and 5.4, just before dawn. ‘I haven't slept much because I was really afraid,’ said 70-year-old Arturo Onesi from the town of Arquata del Tronto, who spent the night in a tent camp for survivors and rescue workers. Also on Wednesday, a 6.8 magnitude earthquake hit Myanmar. See
Germany: IS’s terrorist strategy
26 Aug 2016
A German intercessor reports that Islamic State strategy documents have been discovered and statements from key witnesses in Germany have revealed that IS wants to provoke a religious war. The motives of refugees must be regarded with suspicion, fear of them must be stirred up, and attacks on them by Neo-Nazis and right-wing extremists provoked. The state is expected to react with drastic measures. This is intended to make the Muslim minority community in Western Europe feel discriminated against, alienated and isolated, and consequently be more prepared to fall into line with and support IS’s global campaign. Three people have now returned from Syria to Germany, and they have broken their silence. From their statements it has become clear that IS leaders know that especially in Germany and Great Britain they have few sympathisers who are ready to sacrifice their lives. Thanks be to God!
Olympics evangelism update
26 Aug 2016
Last week we prayed for the distribution of an evangelistic book ‘Power to Win‘. Thank you for all your prayers. God is moving. In the final week of the Olympics Alex Ribeiro wrote to say, ‘Our book is in the hands of people from Kenya, Cameroon , Tunisia, China, Greece, New Zealand, Russia, Ireland, England, Germany, USA, Zambia, Honduras, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Equatorial Guinea, Mexico, Canada, Cuba, Myanmar, Togo, South Korea and Brazil at the Olympic Village.’
USA: attack on prosperity preachers
26 Aug 2016
Russell Moore, President of the Southern Baptist Church, has launched a devastating attack on prosperity preachers, criticising those who sit on a ‘golden throne’. Moore said it was dangerous to ‘normalise’ Christianity and it was good news that the Christian faith ‘isn't normal anymore’. He said he got the same shock of adrenaline from watching prosperity preachers as others got from watching horror movies. In his podcast, Moore described a prosperity preacher who said that even if the gospel was untrue, she would still be a Christian because it is ‘the best way to live’. Moore insisted that Christianity comes ‘with a scandal and with a cross’, reminding people that in first century Ephesus, when identifying yourself with a crucified and resurrected Messiah you might also lose your standing in the marketplace.
A pastor in Turkey has asked for prayer after a bomb blast at a wedding party in the south-east of the country killed 54 people and injured 100 more last Saturday. Josh Wentz, pastor at Batikent Protestant Church in Ankara, was speaking after the attack in Gaziantep, near Syria's border. He said there is hope in this dark time. ‘What gives us hope is knowing that in the Bible God is no respecter of persons, and He doesn't prefer any one group of people over another - He has love for all people. It's our prayer that everyone in Turkey will come to know that love.’ Officials said the incident appeared to be a suicide bombing committed by a 12-year-old boy. President Erdogan said that IS was ‘the most likely perpetrator’ of the attack. Also see Prayer Alert article 6, below.
USA: churches help flood victims
26 Aug 2016
The floodwaters in Louisiana are beginning to recede, revealing thousands of homes and businesses destroyed by over 2 feet of rain in 2 days. More than 20,000 were rescued. Churches not swallowed up by water opened their doors as Red Cross shelters and national relief organisations rolled up their sleeves to help with the clean-up. First Baptist Church in Zachary, the only church in the area sufficiently dry and equipped to become an overnight shelter, is welcoming flood victims to its Family Life Centre. Leaders took donations, organised rooms of clothing and bedding, and set up a games room for children and a medical station for volunteer doctors and nurses who offered to help. The Red Cross helped set up showers, cots, and kitchen systems. Many other churches in the area are surveying and fixing damaged homes. Repair teams have been ripping out soaked drywall and accessing homes where ‘water went all the way up to the ceiling’.
Syria: Christian agency’s aid to Aleppo
26 Aug 2016
World Help has announced that it is delivering emergency supplies of basic food and bedding for Syrians trapped in war-ravaged Aleppo. The aid convoy will be a ‘first-step’ response to the crisis in the city. They said, ‘For more than five years, Syria has seen its children suffer in refugee camps, drown in the Mediterranean, or suffocate under the wreckage of what used to be a home. Today, more than ever, Syria needs our help.’ News of the emergency delivery comes after images of five-year-old Omran Daqneesh and the death of his brother in hospital illustrated again the severity of the catastrophe. Children make up more than a third of the casualties in Aleppo.
Middle East: child suicide bombers
26 Aug 2016
As reported in article 3 above, an IS child suicide bomber killed at least 54 at a Kurdish wedding party in Turkey. He was aged between 12 and 14. Turkish authorities said that a destroyed suicide vest was found at the scene of the bombing. They are investigating the possibility that militants could have placed the explosives on the child without his knowledge and detonated them remotely, or that a mentally disabled child was duped into carrying the device, a tactic seen elsewhere in the region. Also this week Iraqi police removed a bomb belt from a suicide bomber aged 14. Officials suggested he may have been drugged before being sent on his mission. See: