2 May 2000 (Newsroom) – Americans across the country will meet to pray on Thursday for the 49th National Day of Prayer. Last year there were an estimated 20,000 prayer gatherings across the nation. Prayer events are scheduled in each one of the 50 states, organizers say.
SANTA ANA, CA (April 28, 2000) — Since October 1999 some 23 Christians have been killed in public by firing squads on falsified criminal charges in North Korea reports Open Doors, the ministry begun 45 years ago by Brother Andrew, the Dutch-born author of “God’s Smuggler.”
25 April 2000 (Newsroom) — Indonesia vice president Megawati Sukarnoputri is visiting the Molucca archipelago this week in a further attempt to diffuse tensions between Muslims and Christians that have resulted in an estimated 3,000 deaths since January 1999.
LAGOS, 24 April 2000 (Newsroom) – Religious and political leaders have soundly condemned the attempt by a controversial senator to launch impeachment proceedings against Nigeria President Olusegun Obasanjo, a move they say is meant to embarrass the country’s first elected president in nearly two decades.
18 April 2000 (Newsroom) — Chinese evangelist Li Dexian has been kept in chains since his arrest April 11 in Guangdong province and is suffering physical pain, according to a Christian monitoring group. The house church leader, who has been arrested 13 times since October for his unauthorized church activities, is in the middle of a 15-day sentence.
13 April 2000 (Newsroom) — Chinese evangelist Li Dexian has been sentenced to 15 days in prison following his arrest on Tuesday for holding an unauthorized religious meeting, according to the Christian advocacy organization Voice of the Marytrs Australia.
LAGOS, 13 April 2000 (Newsroom) – Churches throughout Nigeria continue to send relief supplies to help more than 50,000 people displaced by religious riots in the city of Kaduna in February. Many churches in the state of Kaduna have turned their compounds into rehabilitation centers as well and are assisting orphans and others left homeless by the fighting.
NIGERIA, 4 April 2000 (Newsroom) — Northern state governors in Nigeria have approved the formation of a committee of Muslims and Christians to dialogue on aspects of the controversial Sharia, or Islamic law, which was implemented by several states earlier this year.
AMPTON, VA (March 29, 2000)(ASSIST) – Vietnamese Christian leader, the Rev. Paul Tran-Dinh-Ai, who was deported from Vietnam last Christmas with his wife Ruth and five children, has issued a “wake up call” to the American Church.
29 March 2000 (Newsroom) — When newly elected Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian visited the headquarters of the Presbyterian Church in Taipei last week it was more than just a courtesy call. Though its members comprise just 1 percent of the population, Taiwanese Presbyterians have held a leading role in an independence movement that helped set the stage for the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) narrow March 18 defeat of the nationalist Kuomintang Party (KMT), which had ruled the island since World War II.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, IL (March 26, 2000) – A Christian school in Southern Sudan was attacked on Thursday, March 23, by the Islamic-led government forces of Sudan and numerous injuries were inflicted to students and their parents.
ORANGE, CA (March 20, 2000) – (ASSIST) Bruce Smith, the new Chief Executive Officer of Wycliffe Associates USA, has challenged American Christians to “let God use you in Bible translation support and move you out of your comfort zone.”
NIGERIA, 17 March 2000 (Newsroom) – Nigerians need to hold a national conference to decide if they want to continue as one country, leaders of a prominent Christian organization and a tribal political group said this month.
16 March 2000 (Newsroom) — Prosecutors in northern Vietnam rejected an appeal by a Protestant who was sentenced to prison in December for “interfering with an officer” while she hosted a Christian meeting.
14 March 2000 (Newsroom) — Chinese house church leader Li Dexian was detained by police on Tuesday morning and released the same evening without harm. The Protestant evangelist was arrested by Public Security Bureau officers at his weekly 10 a.m. Bible study in Huadu near Guangzhou for the 11th time since October, a source in Hong Kong told Newsroom.
KADUNA, Nigeria, 13 March 2000 (Newsroom) — About 300 Christians of the Kabe ethnic group in the city of Kaduna were abducted and forced to renounce their faith by their Muslim captors during religious clashes in the state last month, according to a human rights group.
NAIROBI, Kenya, 8 March 2000 — “Religion is the most powerful philosophy in development,” a World Bank official told Newsroom at a conference focusing on poverty in Africa here this week.
GOLAN HEIGHTS, 6 March 2000 (Newsroom) — Orthodox Rabbis and evangelical Protestants are among the leaders of a biblically based campaign to prevent Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s government from transferring the Golan Heights to Syria. Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, supported that stance on March 1 with approval of the first reading of a bill that would require a special majority in a referendum on ceding territory.
22 February 2000 (Newsroom) — After a respite of one month, Chinese house church leader Li Dexian was detained by police on Tuesday for the 10th time since October. Public Security Bureau officers arrested the 45-year-old Protestant evangelist as he led his weekly 10 a.m. Bible study in Huadu, west of Guangzhou, a source in Hong Kong told Newsroom.
21 February 2000 (Newsroom) — Vietnamese Communist authorities are negotiating with Protestant church leaders to normalize relations, reports the World Evangelical Fellowship (WEF). If successful, the talks could pave the way for recognition of house churches that existed before the Communists took control in 1975, according to some Protestant leaders.