Remembering the Holy Innocents

Today, December 28th, has traditionally been celebrated as the Feast of the Holy Innocents, the day when the Church remembers the babies so brutally slain by Herod in his quest to kill the Christ. This day serves as an opportunity to remember, honor, and pray for all those whom the tyrants of this world destroy in their quest to steal Christ's crown and stamp out His Church. As we reach the end of another year in which our brothers and sisters have suffered and died, often unknown and unheeded, let us not forget to pray constantly for those who still suffer and bear witness for Christ, and to honor the memories of those who have been faithful unto death.

Let us remember that Herod and all his imitators have been dethroned by Christ, and pray that we would see this made more and more visible as the saints bear witness to King Jesus.

Raking Roundup and Radio

There's been lots more to report on the raking front. On Saturday the 8th we raked at least as many leaves as the first week and made even more money--around $1100. In this two-week fundraiser, SRO raised as much as in the previous six months combined! And upcoming events look very promising as well.

This Wednesday, SRO will be featured on 92.5 FM around 2 PM. Be sure to tune in to hear about us and our ministry!

Raking for India

This website has been terribly un-updated, because we never assigned anyone as the designated webmaster. But that shall change.

SRO has been doing some wonderful work lately, in particular, a leaf-raking fundraiser for Christian refugees in Orissa, India, where Hindu extremists have been killing Christians and driving them out of their homes in a terrible outbreak of violence these last two months.

We had many great volunteers out working their tails off for hours on Saturday, even in the rain, and we far surpassed our fundraising goal.

Here's some fun statistics:
7 (or so)--tons of leaves we bagged up
25--number of folks who helped out; and number of yards raked
123--number of phone calls to and from my cell-phone over the seven hours I was coordinating the project
300 (or so)--number of bags chock full of leaves we filled up
1000+--number of dollars we raised
10000 (or so)--number of gallons of leaves we bagged

It was wonderful to know that, by the labors of our own bodies, we were helping to ease in some way the sufferings of the bodies of our brothers thousands of miles away. It was truly a blessing to be able to express such solidarity with them. A major purpose of SRO is to give students such opportunities to express unity and love toward our needy Christian brothers.

We are also thankful for the opportunities this project provided to spread the word in the community, bear witness to them, and be of service to them.

The fundraiser will continue this coming Saturday, and hope to have another excellent report to give.

Successful Farmer's Market Fundraising

We were blessed this morning with a successful maiden voyage of our quest to raise money and awareness at the Moscow Farmer's Market. With the aid of goodies baked by Rachel Littlejohn and Allie Bradley, we were able to raise about $95 this morning. We also disseminated 38 pamphlets outlining our ministry objectives for this summer, which will hopefully lead more donors and supporters our way soon.

All of the money raised this summer will be channeled through Sabbath House to Mercy Children's Home, an orphanage in Rangoon lacking many basic needs. Our top priority is to cover medicinal costs for the orphans, and we will determine what other costs we are able to cover at the end of the summer.

Thanks to all those who helped out this morning and those who gave generously!

Christians in Algeria

Algeria has seen a sharp rise in official and unofficial discrimination against Christians over the last few months. Since the beginning of this year, some 20 churches have been closed; many of them have been operating officially for many years. There have also been numerous arrests of Christians, often on questionable charges. (Extract from recent Barnabas Fund newsletter.)

Please pray for those suffering persecution and living in the fear of such persecution. If you are able,please write to the Algerian ambassador and/or government. Details can for that are here, as is a full report on the situation in Algeria.

Cyclone Nargis - Prayer Answered!

News has arrived from Naing Thang that despite the huge amount of death and devastation caused by Cyclone Nargis, both the church in Yangon and the orphanage (both in the path of the cyclone) were preserved. They are very thankful for our prayers, and we are very thankful they are safe. Please do thank the Lord for his great kindness to them.

We hope to raise money over the summer to help them in the aftermath of the cyclone. To achieve this we are asking our supporters to use a jar or tin to collect their loose change in over the summer. If you are able to help in this way, please do! Our friends in Burma will be blessed greatly by your sacrifice.

Thanks to all for a successful fund-raiser!

Thank you to everyone who showed up for the Benefit Swing Dance on Saturday Night!

We had to lower our fundraising goals when it became clear the Benefit Concert would not materialize this term, but the Swing Dance brought in more than we hoped, netting about $250 after expenses. Along with money from the fundraising jars in local coffee-shops and a couple private donations, we have $390 to give to Sabbath House to help Naing Thang pay for the purchase of malaria medications in Burma--a sum that should go a long way in such a poor country.

Praise God and pray for even greater fruits of our labors this fall!

Cyclone Nargis--Urgent Prayer Request

Some of y'all may have already heard in the news recently about Cyclone Nargis wreaking havoc in Burma. Nargis is by far the worst cyclone ever to hit Burma/Myanmar, having scored a direct hit on the low-lying and densely-populated Irrawaddy Delta region of Burma as a Category 4 storm, and then on the capital city of Rangoon/Yangon as a Category 3 storm.


Click here for video reports relating to the crisis:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/05/05/myanmar.relief/index.html

Thankfully, most of our contacts in Burma were likely relatively safe from this disaster, as most of the churches Sabbath House is working with were north of the storm, and Christians in the Karen state were protected by mountainous terrain. However, Naing Thang, the leader of the CREC churches in Burma, as well as the orphanage there that Sabbath House is supporting, are in hard hit Yangon. Most communications are down, so nothing has been heard from them yet.
Please pray:
1) That Naing Thang and the Christians in his churches are safe.
2) That all those suffering from this disaster might receive desperately-needed aid as soon as possible.
3) That the Christian churches in the area would be able to step up and assist those in need, and further the gospel in the process.

Refugees coming to Moscow!

This just in: the Sabbath House board voted today to approve the bringing of the three refugee families from Boise up to Moscow in the near future. The plan is to move them sometime in the month of June, after which time Sabbath House and local volunteers (including SRO members) will oversee their housing and furnishing needs, as well as helping them find employment, learn English, and gain other skills necessary to adjust to life in America.
The only difficulty will be the translation issue--the plan is to translate using a phone contact during meetings with the family at least in the near term; hopefully something better will become available soon.

Praise God for this opportunity to serve and pray that all would go smoothly.

Upcoming Benefit Dance

SRO had been hoping to pull together a benefit concert this term to raise several hundred dollars to provide anti-malarial medicines to church clinics in Northern Burma, but unfortunately impracticable this term. By the Lord's providence, however, another opportunity presented itself--the end-of-the-year swing dance organized by Ben Nieuwsma. Ben has agreed to let us advertise and run the swing dance as a Benefit Dance, charging $5 for admission, about $3 of which will be able to go to funding the medicines. The Dance will be this Saturday evening. Pray that the Lord blesses the event.

A Benefit Concert is still in the works, being planned for this Fall.

Pictures (finally)

I've finally got the pictures uploaded from the Boise trip. See them here:

Report on the Boise trip

The trip to Boise by Rusty Olps, Sabbath House board member, and I (Brad--I'll go ahead and speak in first person for this post) was a resounding success. Htee Khu (Beth) remembered me very well (much better than I remembered her, I must admit), and warmly greeted us. We were introduced to her aunt, uncle, and cousins, who, with her, are relocating to a new Karen community in Sault St. Marie, Michigan. She then took us next door to meet three families which are hoping to be able to relocate to Moscow (she had wisely assembled them from their apartments scattered around Boise so we could meet them all at once). They were very friendly and eager to meet us, though they spoke only a few words of English. One family had six kids--an 11-year old girl and then 5 boys aged seven and under (these had a rather violent streak and enjoyed swarming all over me and taking turns pretending to choke me); another had two toddler girls, and the third had one toddler boy and another on the way, as well as a young adult brother of the father who was with them. They had all been brought in by different agencies within the past couple months and were all from Mae La refugee camp in Thailand, a massive refugee camp for displaced Karen villagers, and they are all Christians. Rusty interviewed them and made copies of their paperwork to take back for the Sabbath House board to consider. The refugee aid organizations that have brought them in have taken no steps to aid them in becoming integrated in a local church community (nor have any of the churches in their area reached out), and have not helped them in finding jobs, which they are eager to do, but are finding difficult, given their inability to speak English. Their financial support will dry up soon and leave them destitute, so Sabbath House hopes to be able to resettle them up here as soon as possible. However, nothing is definite until the board of Sabbath House meets this week.

Pray that it will be feasible for Sabbath House to assist them, in which case SRO volunteers will have many opportunities to pitch in and show Christian love to them. Pray that God would meet their immediate needs, and would enable Sabbath House to find a translator and all the other things that will be necessary for relocating them here. Thank God for arranging everything so providentially so far, and for such a productive trip on such short notice.

I will post photos and video on photobucket soon, and link to them from here. For now, though, I will share a picture of my favorite kid, a little guy who seemed obsessed with tortilla chips and kept refilling the front of his shirt with a load of them the entire time.

Update on Boise refugees

Things are moving along quickly with regard to the refugees in Boise. Brad Littlejohn, SRO's President, has been invited to accompany Rusty Olps of Sabbath House to Boise on Saturday the 19th to meet the refugee families and assess their needs. Pray for a safe trip and a productive conference.

Refugees in Boise

We've just learned from our friends at Christian Freedom International that three families of Karen Christian refugees recently arrived in Boise, Idaho. The Karen (pronounced "Kuh-renn") are a mostly Christian tribe from Burma that have been largely driven into refugee camps in Thailand through 50 years of war and oppression by the Burmese government. CFI has been working with this tribe for some time and is currently resettling a number of refugee families to Sault St. Marie, MI. One of the families in Boise--Htee Khu (see picture below), her aunt and uncle, and cousins--will be moving to Sault St. Marie in May. After recent conversations between CFI and Sabbath House, Sabbath House is hoping to resettle the remaining two families in Moscow next month. Pending an official decision from Sabbath House, SRO is making plans to assist these families in adjusting to their new homes. We are hopeful that the Lord will work everything out for this exciting ministry opportunity. Pray for each of the families, and that the Lord would prosper this work.

Htee Khu "Beth"--a Karen orphan whom Brad Littlejohn, our President, knew years ago while working at the Karen refugee school in Thailand, now living in Boise.