First time out with the XD...

I just got back from San-Lee with Mike. I couldn't wait to shoot the XD. Holy moly!!! I love it. It is, by far, the best shooter I've had to date. It can control the 165gr .40's with no problem.
Thanks again Mike for going with me on short notice.
Hugh

Christian Groups Fear Death Penalty for Chinese Religious Leader
International concern has reached new levels over the past days regarding the fate of Chinese religious leader Xu Shuangfu, who is waiting for a court verdict, with worries that a death sentence will be issued.

Posted: Monday, March 13 , 2006, 11:42 (GMT)
International concern has reached new levels over the past days regarding the fate of Chinese religious leader Xu Shuangfu, who is waiting for a court verdict, with worries that a death sentence will be issued, report Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW).

Xu is the leader of a religious group naled ‘The Three Grades of Servants’, and Xu along with at least fifteen others from the group were put on trial from Feb 28th to March 3rd in the Shuangyashan Intermediate Court, Heilongjiang Province in the northeast of China. International human rights organisations are watching for the imminent verdict.

CSW tell that China Aid Association (CAA), an organisation documenting religious persecution in China, reported that government sources have said that Xu and at least three co-defendants will be sentenced to death.

The government has accused the defendants of murdering leaders of the Eastern Lightning group as well as defrauding members of their own group.

The case has come under intense international scrutiny, after evidence emerged at the trial that severe torture and sexual abuse had been used against the defendants to extract confessions.

Evidence that has been issued had shown Xu describing how he was hung in the air for five hours and how interrogators tied his fingers, toes and genitals with wire and then connected the wire to an electrical supply.

The CAA report that Xu’s daughter, Ms Xu Baiyin, who was in court, stated that Xu immediately revoked his confession as soon as the court finished reading the interrogation records provided by the prosecutors.

In addition to this, Mr Li Maoxing, the second defendant, showed the court injuries to his fingers and said that the torture experts used a new torture method known as “Pi Long Pao” which involved suspending him with a very thick blanket and then giving him electric shocks while he was soaking wet, report CSW.

Xu denied all accusations in court, however, the chief judge disrupted the defence’s case pleading Xu’s innocence 20 times during proceedings, report CSW.

Xu disappeared in April 2004 in Harbin in Heilongjiang Province in a crackdown that is reported to have seen the arrest of over fifty members of his group.

CAA explains that numerous members of group have already been sentenced to death, although CSW tell that the decisions have not been approved by the People’s Supreme Court and uncertainty remains as to whether the death sentences have been carried out.

CSW also report that one of the group, Gu Xianggao, was beaten to death in custody the day after being detained on 26th April. His parents were given the considerable sum of compensation of 230,000 RMB (US$ 28,000 / £ 16,400 / € 23,800) and ordered not to speak about the situation.

Tina Lambert, CSW’s Advocacy Director, stated “It is obviously deeply concerning that such brutal torture has been used to extract confessions which were then produced in court against these religious leaders. Clearly any verdict based on such evidence is in flagrant breach of the core principles of international law. We encourage the public to join us as we urge the Chinese authorities to immediately ensure that these breaches of fair trial do not result in a serious miscarriage of justice.”




Daniel Blake
daniel@christiantoday.com

http://www.christiantoday.com/template/print.php?code=miss&id=636

Miniture Scriptures

Tiny tome
A miniature book containing The Lord's Prayer is displayed at Christie's auction house on Thursday. The book measures 5x5 mm and is believed to be the world's smallest. It forms part of an auction of fine books and manuscripts at Christie's on March 16 in London, England.

Christian News, Updated Daily - Christian Today > Eritrean Government Intensifies Crackdown on Christians:
"Eritrean Government Intensifies Crackdown on Christians
The Eritrean government is intensifying its efforts to crackdown on Christianity, jailing nearly 2,000 Christians held most indefinitely and without charge.

Posted: Monday, December 26 , 2005, 14:20 (UK)

The Eritrean government is intensifying its efforts to crackdown on Christianity, jailing nearly 2,000 Christians held most indefinitely and without charge.

The small East African nation of Eritrea was recently listed by Open Doors USA as one of the top three countries this year for Christian persecution, along with North Korea and Indonesia. According to a recent estimate, about 1,778 Christians may currently be detained in Eritrea, reported Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW).

Persecution of Christians has increase to the extent that even the government-sanctioned Orthodox Church has been affected. Its Patriarch, Abune Antonios, was stripped of all administrative duties and placed under virtual house arrest this year, primarily for refusing to close down the Medhane Alem Church, CSW reported.

In addition, the government in October unexpectedly asked the Indian pastor of St. George’s Anglican Church in Asmara to leave the country when the church had begun to draw large numbers of young Eritreans to its services.

CSW also reported that many of the Christians detained in Eritrea are held at military bases.

In one case, Full Gospel Pastor Abraham Belay has reportedly been transferred to Wi’a, one of the hottest places on earth to undergo military training despite the fact that ministers of the go"

The Voice of the Martyrs - News:
"CHINA: Over 36 Arrested as Public Security Bureau Closes Christian School
March 1, 2006



A house-church Bible school in Huaibei City, Anhui Province was stormed by China’s Public Security Bureau, who arrested 36 members at 10:00 a.m. Beijing time on March 1, 2006. About 50 or 60 Chinese police in anti-riot squad uniforms, along with plain-clothes officers, showed up in more than ten police and anti-riot vehicles that surrounded the school, according to two eyewitness accounts given to The Voice of the Martyrs’ ministry partner, China Aid Association. Armed with electric shock batons, police forces rounded up everyone from the trade and Bible school before illegally taking them into custody.

Christian students receiving Bible training and learning sewing skills were taken from the premises with their teachers and house-church leaders. Four of the leaders managed to flee the raid. The 36 who were arrested are from different regions of China, including the provinces of Anhui, Shandong, Zhejiang, Hunan and Jiangsu, as well as from the city Beijing and the inner Mongolia area. Three of the arrested pastors were Liu Haiting, Liang Zhenjun and Joseph Wang.

When the PSB attempted to videotape the school, its owner, Pastor Chu Huaiting, a renowned house-church leader and Vice President of the 300,000-strong Chinese House Church Alliance covering 21 provinces, insisted that proper search warrants and identification be presented, but they weren’t. The PSB continued to seize some 10,000 copies of Christian literature including Bibles and 200 new blankets while they were being delivered to the pastor’s house. During the raid, a school member called an emergency hotline, only to hear the officer receiving the call state that the police raid was a cooperative crackdown on illegal religious activities, orchestrated by China’s provincial leaders.

Three hours after the raid, at 1:00 p.m., PSB forces returned to Pastor "

JAMES JEDA

“I am a Christian”

James Jeda watched as the Islamic soldiers killed his mother, father, and four brothers and sisters. He was nine years old.

The soldiers did not kill James, but they did take him as a prisoner. That evening, they instructed him to gather wood for the fire, and he assumed they were preparing to cook their evening meal.

When the fire was well stoked, the soldiers asked James if he knew of any rebel soldiers in the area. He told them he did not. Then they told him that he must become a Muslim and bow to Allah.

James, still in shock from seeing his parents killed, told them bravely that this was not possible. He simply declared, “I am a Christian.”

Infuriated, the soldiers picked up the young boy’s body and hurled him into the flames of the fire, for which he had gathered the wood. Thinking him dead, they packed up their weapons and left the area.

James was not dead, though. Somehow he rolled out of the flames and ran into the bush to safety. Today, his entire abdomen is scarred, and his arm is partially deformed due to his torture. Clearly visible on his body are the places where doctors grafted skin over his third-degree burns. He still grieves the deaths of his parents and siblings. He still feels the pain of their loss; and looking into his eyes, you see a boy who has suffered unspeakable things.

Through all of this, though, his faith remains strong: “I am a Christian.”

There are thousands of others like James Jeda in Sudan, children who have lost parents to a religious war raged against them by fanatical Muslims from the North. The Voice of the Martyrs chooses to stand with these believers. Last year VOM teams took in more than 17,500 Sudan Life Packs, each containing the essentials for one Sudanese family to survive, as well as a Bible in a language they understand. VOM also sponsors a 100-bed hospital in Southern Sudan, the only medical facility available to more than 100,000 people.

This year we hope to ship 100,000 blankets to the people of Sudan through our Blankets of Love project, giving them a little bit of warmth from Christians in the West to help them on cold Sudanese nights.

Pray for James Jeda and the countless others like him in Sudan. His physical scars will always be with him, for he bears in his body the marks of Christ (Galatians 6:17). Pray that God would heal the emotional scars James carries and will use them for His ultimate good (Romans 8:28). Pray further that you will stand with James Jeda and say no matter the cost, “I am a Christian.”

From The Voice of the Martyrs’ January 2000 Special Issue newsletter.

India Fest this weekend...

Just want to be sure you know that the India Fest is this weekend at the Dorton Arena at the Fairgrounds. It's on Saturday from 12-9pm and Sunday from 1-6pm. I encourage you to go and jump into the Indian culture for a few hours! I know several of us went last year and enjoyed it! Please go to www.nuvyug.org for more information.

Amazing Juggling Finale - Google Video

This is the best juggler I've ever seen.
Hugh

Picking up trash in Holly Springs.....

Sissy and I just got back from picking up trash around Bass Lake
Shopping Center and up Holly Springs Rd. Although we never even talked
to anyone we had a wonderful time knowing that we were helping the
community by cleaning it up a little. The time went by very quickly and
we came away thinking this has got to be one of the best ways of being a
servant. To the community and to people around our own neighborhood.
What a blessing to be obedient to the Lord no matter how simple the act is.

The Statesman: "4th US Consulate at Hyderabad

HYDERABAD, March 3. — The USA would begin its fourth consulate in Hyderabad. It would begin functioning from Dilkusha Guest House, adjacent to Raj Bhavan, before moving to its own premises over ten acres near Hi-Tec City.
“Very befittingly, when Mr George Bush was here, the Centre and the USA agreed to open a US consulate here. This would help thousands of people from the state who till now would go and wait for visas at the US consulate in Chennai”, chief minister Dr YS Rajashekar Reddy told reporters.
He said a $100 million protocol, Indo-US Knowledge Initiative, has been signed. Under the protocol, Andhra Pradesh would be the biggest beneficiary in terms of interaction between agricultural universities and transfer of agricultural technology between two countries.
Dr Reddy flew with Mr Bush aboard Marine One, the US President’s helicopter, from the Hyderabad airport to the agricultural university.
This is the first time that a chief minister of a state travelled aboard a US President’s helicopter. On board, Dr Reddy briefed President Bush about the Telugus in the USA, their dominance in Silicon Valley and Telugu entrepreneurs succeeding in America, official sources told The Statesman. — SNS"

US offers F-16, F-18 to India

By Our Correspondent

WASHINGTON, March 3: The United States has offered to sell India advanced fighter aircraft as the next step in a rapidly expanding military relationship between the two countries.

Hours after President George Bush concluded a landmark nuclear agreement in New Delhi on Thursday, Pentagon issued a statement in Washington offering India greater military cooperation in areas like military trade and technology.

Cooperation on weapons development and technology “will serve key objectives of our strategic partnership by helping to build ties among our defence establishments and industries and to develop interoperability among our armed forces,” the Pentagon said in a statement on its Indian partnership.

“The United States is committed to providing state-of-the-art fighter aircraft in response to India’s requirements for a multi-role combat aircraft,” the Pentagon said.

“We have indicated our intention to offer both the F-16 and the F-18, both combat proven aircraft,” it said.

The Pentagon also pledged to work to make additional capabilities available to India, and said its proposal also addresses India’s interest in technology transfers and indigenous co-production."

http://www.dawn.com/2006/03/04/top10.htm

INDIA: Pastor Martyred in Cover-up

March 1, 2006

After preaching God’s Word at a New Years service at Beradakia Church in his native town of Baliguda, Kandhamala district in India, 35-year-old Pastor Jimendra Nayak (Mantu) never made it home to the village of Barakhema. At 8:00 p.m. on January 1, 2006, Nayak took an auto rickshaw after service to return to his home in Puri district, where he has lived for two years and served as pastor of Indian Church Assembly. He didn’t leave the vehicle alive. Police insist that he died in a mysterious “accident,” but the officer in charge and the postmortem doctor were not available for comments. VOM contacts investigating the pastor’s death reveal that the pastor’s accidental death was highly unlikely. Before Pastor Nayak’s body was removed from the alleged accident scene without proper procedures and dumped at Baliguda Hospital, his body was found inside the cabin of the rickshaw with his head badly smashed. Khanu, who is linked with Hindu radicals and is the owner/driver of the rickshaw with vehicle number OR_07L_2054, sustained no injuries, while no major damage was done to the glass of his transport. Other rickshaw drivers in Baliguda collected accounts of Khanu spending large amounts of money on friends and alcohol around the time of the incident. It is reported that when Nayak’s widow, Sashrekh Pradhan, and relatives initially attempted to file a complaint looking into the suspected murder, but the police officer to which it was submitted rejected it. The person assisting the widow as she prepared a petition for an investigation into the death of her husband was harshly rebuked by the presiding officer. No inquiry about the cause of Nayak’s death was made before the complaint, and no action was taken once it was filed. For six weeks following the pastor’s death, relatives have unsuccessfully tried numerous times to attain a postmortem report. All of the circumstantial evidence, along with the apathy demonstrated by the police and hospital, clearly point to the premeditated murder of Pastor Nayak. The police’s stance that the incident was an accident is strongly based on “evidence” provided by Binod Pattnaik, who was a co-passenger in the rickshaw and is a reported sympathizer of Hindu extremists. When VOM sources interviewed bystanders who were around the bus stop where Nayak found his ride, they noted unfamiliar people discretely asking questions about the pastor’s whereabouts, the time of his prayer service, etc. Furthermore, Pastor Nayak’s widow and relatives divulged that radical Hindus targeted him for some time, approaching him on numerous occasions because of his witness to Hindus. He was threatened and restrained from carrying out his missionary work in the community. But Nayak’s love for Christ saw him through all of the persecution, just as it is currently doing for his widow and family. His mourning wife, Sashrekh Pradhan, one-year old son, Digal, 14-year-old sister, eight-year-old handicapped brother and elderly parents are all living testimonies of his faithful service for the Kingdom. They are pressing forward in their quest to fulfill Jesus’ great commission on earth.

NIGERIA: More Than 50 Christians Killed over Muslim Cartoons
February 24, 2006 Image Image

Muslim rioters are responsible for up to 58 deaths (mostly Christians) on the streets of Maiduguri, in Nigeria’s northeastern state of Borno, which were triggered by protests over the Danish cartoons satirizing Islam. It is reported that at least 51 Christians were brutally killed on the February 18 rampage, while over 150 homes and 32 churches were burned, and 85 shops were destroyed. Authorities were finally able to control the volatile scene after arresting 114 and having militia enforce a curfew.

The mayhem began when Muslims staged their demonstration against degrading caricatures of Mohammad that were originally published in September 2005 by the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten. Even though the cartoons were by no means a Christian attack on Islam, Muslims in Nigeria and throughout the world have turned their rage toward Christians, many of whom have never even heard of the controversial sketches.

Muslims are using the cartoons as an excuse to wage their violent jihad (holy war) against Christians, and have been reported running through the streets of Maiduguri threatening people with death and violence if they did not speak their local dialect. Many of the dozens of victims were publicly tortured to death in the city streets.

Amidst the violence, six children were burned to ashes in front of their father, Joseph Tukwa, who was unable to rescue them, according to Nigeria’s The Daily Sun. Six Christian leaders, including Rev. Joshua Adamu, were injured and are now in hiding. Church of Christ in Nigeria, Living Faith Church, Church of the Brethren in Nigeria, St. Augustine's Catholic Church and St Mary’s Catholic Church were some of the churches set ablaze by rioters, who killed two Catholic priests. St. Rita’s Catholic Church was also torched, where Rev. Fr. Matthew Gajere was murdered and then burned after he helped several alter boys escape to safety.

http://www.persecution.com/news/index.cfm?action=fullstory&newsID=368

This is my initial post on my new blogger blog. I hope to put some interesting this on this blog about my ideas and beliefs. I hope nobody gets offended, but then, I hope to offend some into changing their way of thinking. We'll see how things go.

Hugh