Students for the Relief of the Oppressed

1. CHINA - Christian activist, SHEN PEILAN, has been abducted by government officials for the second time in a month. Please pray for her safety and immediate release. Thank God! Christian lawyer, GAO ZHISHENG, has been released and allowed to go home. However, it is believed that he remains under close surveillance and is not yet free. Pray that he will soon be completely free and reunited with his family (his wife and children are living in the United States). Pray for Uyghur house-church leader ALIMUJIANG YIMITI, serving a 15-year sentence. The Court has rejected his appeal. Ask the Lord to protect and strengthen him while in prison, and that authorities will act justly in his case. Pray that he, his wife, and their two young sons will rest peacefully in the knowledge of God’s love. 2. IRAN - Praise God for the temporary release of Pastor WILSON ISSAVI. The Court plans to review the charges against him. His faith remains strong, and he is in good spirits. H...

“There shall be no home where the Christian religion is practiced.” This was the opening line of a document, leaked a couple years ago by the government of the military regime in power in Burma since 1962. Burma (Myanmar) is listed 5th on the Restriction of Religious Freedom Index, only behind such anti-Christian countries as Saudi Arabia and Iraq. At least four to six percent of the 55,390,000 population of this country is Christian. The majority of the rest of the country’s population is Buddhist. The government has restricted the building of churches and in 2004 it was illegal to print or import the Bible into Burma. More recently there continues to be censorship of local publications of the Bible. In 2007 a Buddhist monk, backed by the military burned down a church and in ongoing ethnic struggles, 27,000 of the predominantly Christian Karen tribe were driven from their homes. In a more recent example of the persecution of Christians in Burma, pastors in Rangoon were forced to si...

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!

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!

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 Chri...