Stories tagged with: mideast monitor

• As Arab Spring falters, 'open hearts' find God

  by Nicole Lee & Charles Braddix, posted Friday, January 23, 2015 (9 years ago)

  

  Photo by Jedediah Smith/IMB

  LONDON (BP) -- Once again the world's attention is drawn to the Middle East with the death of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz and the tendered resignation of Yemen's president, Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi. Read More

• Travel risks prompt Baptists to improve training

  by Shawn Hendricks, posted Thursday, November 06, 2014 (9 years ago)

  NASHVILLE (BP) -- Reggie Quimby thought he and his fellow mission team members were safe.

  In the company of local guides and a caravan of vehicles, they traveled at night on a rural road in Guatemala. While there was some risk involved with this particular road after sunset, Quimby believed the odds of something bad happening were too small. Read More

• ISIS forcing Yazidi conversions, marriages

  by Staff, posted Tuesday, October 14, 2014 (9 years ago)

  

  File photo by Chris Carter/IMB

  DOHUK, Iraq (BP) -- The ISIS terrorist group has imprisoned hundreds of Yazidis in Iraq and Syria, forcing men and boys to convert to Islam and enslaving the younger women as jihadists' brides, Human Rights Watch has reported.

  "The Islamic State's litany of horrific crimes against the Yazidis in Iraq only keeps growing," Fred Abrahams, Human Rights Watch special adviser said in a press release, referencing reports from families of the victims. "We heard shocking stories of forced religious conversions, forced marriage and even sexual assault and slavery -- and some of the victims were children." Read More

• WORLDVIEW: 2 Mideast realities

  by Erich Bridges, posted Thursday, October 09, 2014 (9 years ago)

  RICHMOND, Va. (BP) -- Sometimes the tears, the tragedies, the sheer horror of it all overwhelm Christian workers trying to help refugees fleeing war and terror in Syria and Iraq.

  Jayson Keath*, a Christian strategy leader based in the Middle East, visited a Syrian refugee family now living in a country inundated with traumatized Syrians. One of the small children in the family was missing a finger -- severed by a slammed car door as they rushed to escape the violence in their homeland. The parents had to knock the child unconscious so pursuing Syrian soldiers wouldn't hear his screams of agony. Read More

• Despite ISIS, BGR serving in tough places

  by Mark Kelly, posted Tuesday, October 07, 2014 (9 years ago)

  

  BGR photo

  KURDISTAN (BP) -- When ISIS began shelling this family's northern Iraq neighborhood, they had to flee into the night like everyone else. But with four children with disabilities, their escape was more difficult than most.

  A daughter who is blind, another with epilepsy and two sons with muscular dystrophy distinguished the family from others. Read More

• Airstrikes may worsen refugee crisis

  by Mark Kelly, posted Monday, September 29, 2014 (9 years ago)

  

  BGR photo

  LONDON (BP) -- Airstrikes now underway in northern Syria against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) will worsen an already heart-breaking refugee crisis, a Christian worker in the Middle East says. Read More

• FIRST-PERSON: Urgency

  by Ronnie Floyd, posted Wednesday, September 24, 2014 (9 years ago)

  SBC President Ronnie Floyd voices urgency over Southern Baptists' spiritual condition alongside the ISIS terror targeting Iraqi and Syrian Christians. Read More

• Prayer plea for Syrian, Iraqi Christians voiced by Floyd

  by Diana Chandler, posted Tuesday, September 23, 2014 (9 years ago)

  NASHVILLE (BP) -- Southern Baptist Convention President Ronnie Floyd added the crisis in Iraq and Syria alongside his continuing plea for prayer for spiritual awakening when he delivered his first address to the SBC Executive Committee Monday (Sept. 22) in Nashville. Read More

• N. Iraq: Grave danger as winter approaches

  by Mark Kelly, posted Monday, September 22, 2014 (10 years ago)

  

  Photo by Joseph Rose/BGR

  KURDISTAN (BP) -- Seasons are changing and summer's heat is passing, but forcibly displaced families in northern Iraq are worried because winter will soon bring bitter cold, and many of them may not survive. Read More

• Healing in Egypt begins with forgiveness

  by William Bagsby, posted Friday, September 19, 2014 (10 years ago)

  

  Photo by Hossam el-Hamalawy/Flickr. Used with permission.

  CAIRO (BP) -- A year after more than 85 churches and Christian institutions across Egypt were destroyed and burned, and three years after the country's longest serving president stepped down in the wake of nationwide protests, Christian workers there are finding an openness rarely experienced before.

  Some workers noted that forgiveness -- along with persistence in sharing the Gospel -- shown by local Christians toward Muslims has played a large role in the change. Read More