Friday, November 30, 2012

A Little Child Reaches out to Algerian Drug Dealers in France

Daniel Rhys has spent the last 18 years building an e-Learning business of which he is a managing partner. In 2006, he created Christ-based online abstinence training to address the HIV epidemic in Africa. In 2011, Daniel moved his family to France for three months to share Christ with the Muslim population.

He received a call from an old friend and spiritual mentor. He told me he’d joined forces with Greater Europe Mission to reach the growing numbers of Muslims in Europe with the gospel.  The friend finished the conversation by saying, “And I want you to bring your family to France next summer for ten weeks to work with Muslims in our pilot city.”

Daniel tells what happened...

"The next summer found our little family in a city in northern France. We quickly encountered places that frankly scared us! Our children, Virginia, seven, and Samuel, six, not only got to see us cry out to God, they also participated with us.

"The Lord led us to a small park where Algerian immigrants hung out. They gathered in small or large groups, many of them selling drugs to earn money. We visited the park regularly and I tried everything I could think of to break through the barriers and connect with these men. After three completely unsuccessful weeks, I turned my eyes heavenward and told God I was out of ideas. I said I’d come to the park every day and pray for these men, but if he wanted anything else to happen, he was going to have to do it. God in his goodness and grace seemed to say, “Ok. Now that you understand our roles, let’s get started.”

"Five minutes later a police van careened up the center sidewalk of the park. It screeched to a halt and gun-wielding officers poured out. As if a bomb had dropped on the park, drug dealers began running in every direction. Confused and surprised, I looked around and noticed that the groups were now gone, leaving lone individuals in a few places. Wow, I had just finished asking God to do this! He opened the door for us and now our job was to step through.

"I walked over and sat next to a man. He couldn’t speak English, but I soon learned his name was Habib. He came through Spain on his way to France and spoke Spanish.

Hearing “Spanish,” my son ran over and preceded to go through every Spanish word he had learned in kindergarten the year before. As Samuel spoke, I could see Habib’s eyes soften and grow warmer.

"When we arrived the next day, I saw Habib standing in his normal group and gave him a smile and a nod. Suddenly, Samuel broke from our group and made a beeline for Habib with arms stretched out wide. Habib bent down and received a hug that seemed to melt his heart. We were now “in.” Habib introduced us to his friend Karim. Karim spoke a fair amount of English and listened to my testimony. He wanted to understand more so he took me to Mohammed, who owned a small snack shop on the edge of the park. Mohammed spoke perfect English and we were soon spending hours together talking about Jesus.

"I didn’t know it at the time, but every drug dealer in the park would come into Mohammed’s snack shop to get drinks during the day. Before long we knew everyone in the park. And by the time we left France, we couldn’t walk through the park without men coming to us to talk and asking us for prayer.

"God grew our faith in ways I couldn’t have guessed. He also showed us that our children were not just along to learn. They were there to be used by God to open doors and build bridges to the hearts of many. Their faith began to blossom as Jesus went from an academic pursuit to being the living creator of the universe who heard them when they prayed and then answered their prayers in so many ways."

(selections from Daniel Rhys, And a Little Child Shall Lead Them, One Family's Journey on Mission in Europe, Mission Frontiers, Issue 34:6, Nov/Dec 2012)

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Sunday, November 25, 2012

Untold secrets of Planet Earth: Dire Dragons, by Vance Nelson

Did dinosaurs and people live together? According to creationist researcher Vance Nelson, this was indeed the case. Dire Dragons presents much never-before-published evidence.

Selections from Andrew V. Ste. Marie's book review of Untold Secrets of Planet Earth: Dire Dragons, by Vance Nelson.

(These selections by Marko Malyj are of the book review published in Creation Research Society Quarterly Journal, Volume 49 Number 1, Summer 2012)

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Carbon-14 dating of dinosaur bones and soft tissue finds both indicate that dinosaurs lived recently. Nelson critiques the idea that ancient men could have excavated or observed fossils and accurately reconstructed dinosaurs from them. He shows photographs of ancient depictions of dinosaurs and pterosaurs from five different continents. He also shows similarities between ancient and modern depictions of what appear to be the same animal. A wide array of creatures are shown in ancient art, including pterosaurs, mastodons, hadrosaurs, ceratopsians, sauropodomorphs, theropods, nothosaurs, and pachycephalosaurs.

The Kachina Bridge sauropod petroglyph, for example, is already known among creationists. But Nelson shows new evidence never before published in creationist literature. Examples include a Peruvian vessel with an apparent Protoceratopslike animal, a “salamander” emblem similar to a prosauropod, an apparent young hadrosaur on a sixteenth-century tapestry, and some very compelling ceratopsian depictions from China. Several depictions of the story of St. George and the dragon are also included, showing creatures similar to theropods and nothosaurs (pp. 71, 101, 121).

Many representations, although quite convincing, show slight inaccuracies, such as a wrong number of toes or fingers. However, modern artists have only bones to work with, and thus we do not know the details of soft tissue that the ancients may have had knowledge of, accounting for more differences. an ancient eyewitness to a living dinosaur may have only seen one a few times, perhaps while it was moving, obstructed, or at a distance.

Dire Dragons is an excellent book with much new, verified information that should be of great usefulness to creationists. In addition to being scientific, it is a beautiful work of art, a coffee-table type book with excellent graphics and beautiful dinosaur reconstructions. The book concludes with a gospel presentation.

Untold Secrets of Planet Earth, by Vance Wilson
Untold Secrets of Planet Earth Publishing Company
Red Deer, Alberta, Canada, 2011, 137 pages, $30.00.

Saturday, November 17, 2012

I demand my right to complete my prison sentence

To Dinh Trung was arrested more than 25 times for preaching the gospel in rural Vietnam. During his 24th imprisonment, in 1991, he was deprived of food for 12 days, "In prison, I worshiped the Lord a lot, praying and singing in a room by myself," Trung said. "My room was the prison toilet." After 12 days, village authorities dragged Trung before a people's court. "I became bold and grabbed the microphone," he said. "I said, 'For the Lord's sake, because of his name, I am willing to die: The police grabbed the microphone back, exclaiming, 'Once again. you want to preach the gospel.'"

The next time Trung was arrested, he spent three years in prison. VOM helped his wife and three children, and VOM supporters were invited to send him letters of encouragement. While in Quang Ngai prison, Trung helped lead many prisoners to Christ.

One day, prison officials offered to release Trung early, but Trung surprised them by replying, "I demand my right to complete my prison sentence,"' He wanted to spend more time leading prisoners to Christ and teaching new converts.

Trung completed his time in prison and immediately returned to ministry. Since 1999, Trung has trained 20 believers to become evangelists. Police still harass him, interrupting his church services and detaining him for questioning. Although his church is sometimes filled with more police than Christians, Trung relishes the opportunity to teach them the gospel, too.

(from Voice of the Martyrs newsletter, September 2012)

Also see Stacy L. Harp, Christian Prisoner Refuses Early Release Opportunity from Prison, September 24, 2012, PersecutionBlog.com.

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Saturday, November 10, 2012

Another Lunar Formation Theory is in Trouble

For the past 200 years, scientists have been working hard to come up with an explanation for the Moon's formation that does not involve the direct work of a Creator. The fourth hypothesis in that the Moon was formed by the impact upon Earth of a body the size of Mars. Early this year it was proved to be wrong by new evidence. A fifth hypothesis has quickly taken its place! When will they realize that the God hypothesis is the only fully reasonable explanation?

(Based on Ron Samec, "Lunar Formation Theories" published in Creation Matters, a publication of Creation Research Society, Volume 17, Number 4, July/August 2012, to appear at http://www.creationresearch.org/creation_matters/pdf/2012/CM17%2004%20for%20web.pdf)

Theory One. Fission Hypothesis.

George Darwin was the fifth child of Charles Darwin, who wrote On the Origin of Species, the sacred book of evolution. George, who became a professor of astronomy, followed in his father's footsteps by calling into question the Biblical account of the formation of the Earth and the Moon. In 1898, he published The Tides and Kindred Phenomena in the Solar System, in which he discussed the effects of tidal friction on the Earth–Moon system.1


Fission Hypothesis
In this fission hypothesis, George Darwin claimed that the early Earth rotated faster and faster, as more dense elements sunk to its core. When the earth exceeded breakup velocity, the material that would become the Moon tore from the Pacific Ocean Basin, leaving a scar (Ridges). 

The problem with this is that the initial spin or angular momentum is not conserved in the present Earth-Moon system (50% loss).

Also, the orbit of the moon and the obliquity of the ecliptic (likewise the inclination of the earth) should coincide, and they do not. The Earth’s inclination is about 23.5o to the orbital plane (the ecliptic) and the Moon’s orbit is inclined by some 5o



The plane of the Moon's orbit does not match the plane of the Earth's rotation.

Theory Two. Condensation Hypothesis.


The Solar System supposedly
formed from a spinning ball
of gas. But then why is the
motion of the Moon and
Earth on different planes?
The fact that the plane of the Moon's orbit does not match the plane of the Earth's rotation also defeated the second Lunar formation theory that became very popular among scientists, namely the Condensation hypothesis. It is an extension of the Laplace nebular hypotheses: the Moon formed from the solar nebula.

As the sun’s nebula condensed, conservation of angular momentum caused a disk to form and within the disk, eddies or whirlpools developed. At the center of these, the planets formed.  Secondary eddies led to satellites or moons of the planets.  The Earth and the Moon supposedly formed in an eddy and a secondary eddy. Again, the current, strange Earth-Moon orbital-inclination would not result — the Moon’s orbital plane and the Earth’s equator should coincide.

Theory Three. Lunar-Capture Theory.

A ring of dust around earth slows
the passing  Moon, but it can't be enough
for it to be captured by Earth's gravity.
Another theory is that the Moon was captured by the Earth as it passed by in an Earth-crossing orbit. One major problem with this idea is that capture is an extremely rare event!  And even if this unlikely event took place, the Moon would likely have swung by in a parabolic or an elliptical trajectory, which is a higher velocity orbit than is that of the near circular orbits of either the Earth or the present Moon.

The big question is what caused the Moon to slow down? If captured by the Earth, we would expect the present Moon to have a larger eccentricity and inclination. The resulting, fantastic tidal dissipation would have resulted in major distortions and destruction of the Earth. Also, if a near-collision brought the object within the Roche limit of the Earth, the Moon could have been shredded into rings.

Theory Four. Collision Hypothesis.

In 1976 astronomers Alastair G. W. Cameron and William R. Ward suggested that the Moon was formed by the tangential impact upon Earth of a body the size of Mars. Most of the outer silicates of the colliding body would be vaporized, leaving the metallic core of the two bodies. Hence, most of the collisional material sent into orbit would consist of silicates, leaving the coalescing Moon deficient in iron.2

A body the size of Mars collided with Earth, resulting in the Moon with core properties different from Earth.
This premise seems to solve all of problems of the earlier theories. except for the vanishingly low probability of such an event! In fact, it is much more improbable than is a near collision of a lunar mass dwarf planet, as in the capture hypothesis. To this theory's credit, the odd orbit of the Moon is easily explained by the initial orbit of the planet since it does not have to follow a particular path (except that it should be near the ecliptic, which is the plane of the Earth's revolution around the Sun).

A recent study of Moon rocks now puts even this model in doubt3. The research team confined their study to a rare form of titanium (using the 50Ti/47Ti isotopic ratio) which is known to occur in widely varying amounts throughout the solar system. After correcting for the difference caused by the continued exposure of the lunar surface to the Sun’s radiation, the scientists found that the isotopic abundance in Moon rocks was identical to that of the Earth.

This implies that the Moon came only from Earth materials and not an alien planet that collided with the Earth. Thus, there is no evidence of the Mars-mass object in these data.

In other words, the collision theory has failed.

The Real Explanation: the God Hypothesis


The sun and moon exert
gravitational forces on Earth
that influence tides, needed to
sustain life.
The real explanation of the Moon’s existence and orbital configuration is that God designed and created the Moon and set it in place, with a number of important purposes. These include the gyrostabilization of the Earth, cleaning of Earth’s shorelines by tidal forces, giving light in the evening, and the revealing of the Sun’s corona and chromosphere to scientists during solar eclipses. Helium was discovered because of the last listed design feature.

As we read in Genesis 1:16-18,
…God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

Theory Five. Efficient Impact Ejection.

Of course, scientists who work for mainstream universities and government agencies no longer allow themselves to think that there is a Creator God who was directly involved in the formation of the Moon, or of anything else.


Complete mixing of
two colliding bodies?
Very quickly, at least one group has come to the rescue with yet another lunar formation theory, to make up for the defeat of the Collision hypothesis. Zhang et al.4 (2012) stated that the twin nature of lunar rocks and the Earth could be explained by an “efficient impact ejection” by “exchange of material between the Earth’s magma ocean and the protolunar disk.”

It is hard enough to imagine such an improbable event as a planet just the size of Mars ... impacting the Earth at just the right angle ... to result in a perfectly placed Moon ... that benefits life on Earth in such wonderful ways. It is even harder, though, to imagine that this involved ... such a thorough mixing of the alien planet and the Earth’s crust ... so that the two bodies have identical core materials.

The God hypothesis will ultimately be the only fully reasonable explanation!

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References (selected)

1.  Britannica.com: Sir George Darwin, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/151966/Sir-George-Darwin, retrieved October 8, 2012.

2. Wikipedia.org: Giant impact hypothesis, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_impact_hypothesis, retrieved October 8, 2012.

3. Meier, M.M.M. 2012. Moon formation: Earth's titanium twin. Nature Geoscience 5:240–241.

4. Zhang, J.,  N. Dauphas, A.M. Davis, I. Leya, and A. Fedkin. 2012.  The proto-Earth as a signifi- cant source of lunar material. Nature Geoscience 5:251–255

Wednesday, November 07, 2012

Do Not Lose Heart

We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:8, 16, 18)