NoelHeikkinen.com

Breathe In Deeply

Sep 19, 2007 Uncategorized

.:mood:. Sober
.:itunes:. Waitress by Live

Wow.

The response to this weekend’s teaching has been massive.

Based on this clip from the movie “Amazing Grace,” I asked everyone to “breathe deeply” of the pain and suffering in this world.

A lot of people have asked for the stats I shared so I thought I’d post the transcript of that part of my message, along with the references. My thanks to Brett who compiled much of this research for me.

Just a few weeks ago, 23 South Korean missionaries were captured in Afghanistan and two of them were killed. After six weeks, the rest were released but not until many were severely beaten for not converting to Islam. Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi has vowed to do it again. He told the Associated Press

“We will do the same thing with the other allies in Afghanistan, because we found this way to be successful.”

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/08/30/hostages-korea.html?ref=rss
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070904/29174.htm

In July of this year, 36 Christians were kidnapped in the span of one week from one church in Baghdad. None of them have been seen since then but because they are not foreigners it hasn’t received much press.

http://www.persecution.com/news/index.cfm?action=fullstory&newsid=535

In April this year, 3 Bible publishers were killed in Turkey.

http://www.persecution.com/news/index.cfm?action=fullstory&newsid=511

Last year, a Christian woman was clubbed to death publicly for street preaching in Nigeria.

http://www.onefreeworldinternational.com/?q=news/nigeriaalert4192007

The year before, 3 Christian school girls were publicly decapitated in Indonesia.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4387604.stm

But all of these are small numbers…let’s look at the big numbers for a few minutes.

In Darfur, since 2003, 2 Million people have been displaced from their homes and 400,000 have been killed.

http://www.savedarfur.org/newsroom/policypapers/darfur_update_july_18_2007/

In the Netherlands, if your child is born disabled in some way, it is legal to kill them and it has been that way for over 15 years.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/003dncoj.asp?pg=1

I couldn’t find any stats on how many babies have actually been killed but I do know that in the United States 4000 babies are killed in the womb through abortion each day—that’s 1.3 million deaths a year and a billion dollar industry.

That only scratches the surface of abortion. The Center for Bioethical Reform reports that each day 126,000 babies are aborted worldwide—that’s 46 million a year!

http://www.abortionno.org/Resources/fastfacts.html

Many of those are in China where 500,000 – 750,000 baby girls are aborted each year because the government has enacted a “one child policy” and many people want a male heir to pass on their family name. So as soon as they see the ultrasound of a girl, they have her killed.

http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/2/14/202119.shtml

Speaking of China, 500 million Chinese citizens have no access to clean water and cancer has become the leading cause of death in China because of the severe pollution. There is something called the “Asian Brown Cloud” that blocks out 10-15% of the sunlight in China causing massive health problems.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/world/asia/26china.html?_r=1&oref=login

China also has an estimated 10 million child laborers many of whom are forced into it. For instance, in 2000, 84 kids were kidnapped to make Christmas lights in a factory. Any guesses where those lights were probably shipped?

http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/36/11097

It is estimated that between 400,000 and 4 million people a year are enslaved into either forced labor or sex slavery—it’s a $10 Billion a year industry. Around the world, 80% of forced laborers are women and 50% of them are girls.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/slaves/etc/stats.html

Each year, an estimated 17,500 women and children are sold as sex slaves and smuggled into the United States!

http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/kralis/060720