Thief comes to Christ in Burma, and villagers get angry

David was the neighborhood thief in one of the lake regions of Myanmar (Burma). Poor and without food, David stole from other residents to survive. And in a community that lives on the water, stealing is not an anonymous activity. Everyone knew David was a thief, and they ridiculed him for it. They thought he was possessed by demons, so they refused to associate with him. David could not get work, and he did not have a place to stay. He would sleep in boats and hope no one caught him. Then he met Peter, a Christian.

"Peter never scolded me," David said. "He never spoke any kind of bad words to me. He always showed love, and I felt happy when I was with him."

Eventually, Peter told David about Jesus Christ, and David accepted Christ about a year later. David cleaned up his act, stopped stealing and started working with Peter in his business as a boat mechanic. But soon the villagers found out and decided to put an end to Peter's evangelism.

One night in early 2009, Peter was awakened by yelling while he was sick in bed at a friend's house. He looked outside to see dozens of boats carrying 53 villagers with torches and machetes. "Leave this place," they shouted. "If you don't leave, we'll burn this house down."

Once Peter was kicked out, he lost not only his home but also his livelihood. He could not feed his family. He became a marked man, and no one in the lake region would rent him lodging, hire him or even allow him on their property. He was an isolated man living on an island.

The other 100 Christians in the lake area have experienced the same treatment. "Most of us are struggling to get our daily food," Peter said. "Yet I feel so happy, because I feel myself that I'm counted worthy to face that kind of persecution for Christ. Whenever we face opposition and whenever we face problems, it draws us closer to God and very soon we feel joy."

(from Voice of the Martyrs, March 2011)

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I am Joseph, your brother!

The apostle Paul asserts a certain priority (Romans 1:16) for the witness to the Jewish people. Every local church should demonstrate sensitive obedience to the enormous debt we owe the Jewish people by including a generous allocation to prayer for Israel and witness to the Jews. After all, "salvation is from the Jews" (John 4:22). Christian love instead of arrogance should foster "envy and jealosy" among the Jewish people for what we possess in Christ (Romans 11:11).

We long for the day when the Jewish people will hear deep in their hearts the tender voice of the Son of God himself speaking quietly, but firmly: "I am Joseph, your brother." We long for the day when Messiah will return and the entire people of Israel will know the Lord.

We also praise God that in the meantime he has been and is so gracious as to raise up the witness, working providentially through a multitude of circumstances to reach his people.

(Emanuel Machnicki, LCJE Bulletin, Issue 103, February 2011)

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Did Animals Eat Meat Before the Flood?

"Scripturally and scientifically, the answer appears to be yes. God created a world which was perfect and free of death, violence, and carnivorous behavior. After the Fall and the Curse, some animals became violent carnivores and even cannibals. The fossil record bears abundant testimony to this fact. Man, however, was not given meat to eat until after the Flood. The Bible also tells of the new heavens and new earth, where once again meat-eating and violence will be unknown."

Selections from Did Animals Eat Meat Before the Flood? by Andrew V. Ste. Marie

(These selections by Marko Malyj are of the article published in Creation Matters, a publication of Creation Research Society, Volume 16, Number 1, January/February 2011, to appear at http://www.creationresearch.org/creation_matters/pdf/2011/CM16%2001%20low%20res.pdf.)

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The Bible describes the perfect world God created in Genesis 1 and 2. One of the most notable attributes of the pre-Fall world was the absence of carnivorous (meat-eating) behavior.

Of course, Adam and Eve sinned and everything changed, including diets. Carnivorous activity is a prominent aspect of our world today, but when did it begin? It is not specifically mentioned in the Curse (Genesis 3:14–19). People were not given meat to eat until after the Flood (Genesis 9:2–4). But what about the animals? Did they begin to eat meat before the worldwide Flood? Scripturally and scientifically, the answer appears to be yes.


Biblical Evidence

The Bible describes the world before the Flood in Genesis 6:11–12: "The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth." The Hebrew word basar (flesh) seems to refer mainly to people, but also to animals (see Genesis 6:19, 7:15–16, 21).

People had corrupted their way and “cast[ed] off” God’s laws. The animals had apparently done the same. This is not meant to imply that animals were willfully sinning. point is that animals, as well as people, were engaging in corrupt activities which God had not originally built into His perfect creation.

The Bible clearly implies that there was violent animal life prior to the Flood. Paleontology tells the same story.

Pre-Flood violence and carnivorous activity revealed in the fossil record

Much of the fossil record was certainly formed during the Genesis Flood. There is general agreement among many young-earth creationists that at least the so-called Cambrian through Cretaceous rock layers were laid down in the Flood. Therefore, in this paper only evidence of carnivorous activity in these layers will be presented.

Ichthyosaurs. Ichthyosaurs were marine reptiles which resembled dolphins. Many well-preserved skeletons have been found in various places around the world. Gut contents have also been found; fish and fish scales, cephalopod (squids and octopi are cephalopods) hooklets, smaller ichthyosaurs, small turtle bones, and even a bird bone and pterosaur (flying reptile) remains have been found in the stomach areas of
fossilized ichthyosaurs.^1,2

Sharks. Sharks were also predators before the Flood. The (now presumed extinct) “Ginsu Shark” Cretoxyrhina seems to have been a vicious mosasaur killer. Partly digested mosasaur pieces have been found inside fossil specimens of Cretoxyrhina.³

Crocodile-like reptiles. Phytosaurs were reptiles similar to crocodiles with nostrils near their eyes. An animal vertebra has been found with tooth marks perfectly matching phytosaur teeth. One metoposaur (giant amphibian) skull has a row of phytosaur tooth marks from the back of the skull into the brain case.⁴ Stomach contents found in Belodon, a type of phytosaur, indicate it fed on a variety of reptiles.⁵

Theropod dinosaurs. Theropods were the two-footed, meat-eating dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptor. There is a large amount of evidence showing many of these animals to have been carnivorous.

The "Fighting Dinosuaurs" fossil.

Tyrannosaurus rex is by far the best known theropod. There is good evidence it ate meat and may have attacked live animals. Bite marks attributed to T. rex have been found on approximately 18 dinosaur
bones.^6,7 The famous “fighting dinosaurs” fossil preserves a Velociraptor locked in combat with a Protoceratops (similar to a small Triceratops).⁹ Other Protoceratops bones bear Velociraptor tooth marks.¹⁰

Cannibalism. Even with all this evidence of violence and carnivorous activity in the fossil record, the fossils tell of yet more pre-Flood corruption of God’s perfect creation — cannibalism. Some fossils of the theropod Majungatholus from Madagascar have teeth marks exactly matching Majungatholus teeth. Whether Majungatholus hunted or scavenged its own kind, it was a cannibal.¹¹

Summary

God created a world which was perfect and free of death, violence, and carnivorous behavior. After the Fall and the Curse, some animals became violent carnivores and even cannibals. The fossil record bears abundant testimony to this fact. Man, however, was not given meat to eat until after the Flood. The Bible also tells of the new heavens and new earth, where once again meat-eating and violence will be unknown.

"The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea." (Isaiah 11:6–10)

References (selected)

1. Kear, B. P., W. E. Boles, and E. T. Smith. 2003. Unusual gut contents in a Cretaceous ichthyosaur. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 270:S206–S208.

2. Norman, D. 1985. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs. Crescent Books, New York, NY.

3. Wieland, C. 2005. Dragons of the Deep. Master Books, Green Forest, AR.

4. Taylor, J. 1999. Fossil Facts and Fantasies. Mt. Blanco Publishing Co., Crosbyton, TX.

5 Walker, C., and D. Ward. 1992. Fossils. DK Publishing, Inc., New York, NY.

6. Longrich, N. R., J. R. Horner, G. M. Erickson, and P. J. Currie. 2010. Cannibalism in Tyrannosaurus rex. PLoS One 5(10):e13419.

7. Longrich et al. (ref. 22) list 17 such specimens. Their list does not include the Edmontosaurus skull with T. rex bite marks (ref. 8).

8. Taylor, J., and A. V. Ste. Marie. 2010. Creationists can be paleontologists! The Witness 8(7):3–12.

9. Hodge, B., and B. Davis. Two Fighting Dinosaurs? Retrieved July 18, 2008 from www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v1/n1/two-fighting-dinosaurs.

10. Hone, D., J. Choiniere, C. Sullivan, X. Xu, M. Pittman and Q. Tan. 2010. New evidence for a trophic relationship between the dinosaurs Velociraptor and Protoceratops. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 291:488–492.

11. Rogers, R. R., D. W. Krause, and K. C. Rogers. 2003. Cannibalism in the Madagascan dinosaur Majungatholus atopus. Nature 422:515–518.

Changing the lives of Bulgarian Orphans through Camp

Bulgarian brothers Vulio (age 10) and Plamen (7) attended a camp led by New Hope Bulgaria Director Dimitrie Todorov.

"The two boys," Dimitrie says, "had been placed in an orphanage because their mother was so sick. A family from the Philadelphia Church in Burgas became acquainted with Vulio and Plamen when their adult daughter - who had been adopted from an orphanage as a child - volunteered at the orphanage. She invited the boys to attend church, and they soon learned about our summer camp."

Camp Kotel was held at a retreat center in a small mountain town not far from the seaside city of Burgas in southeastern Bulgaria. Dimitrie coordinated this camp. "During camp," he remembers, "I watched these two brothers meet new friends and really connect with them." Today they love to go to church and learn about Jesus as much as they can! The boy's mom is still sick, but she feels well enough to have them back home now. And their influence has caused her to go to church, too.

(Connect, March 2011, Volume 41, Number 2, a publication of New Hope International)

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God provides expertise for ICR's K-12 Christian school science curriculum

Institute for Creation Research is excited about new opportunities the Lord has recently opened for us in our educational ministry! ICR has traditionally focused on graduate-level education, but we have been repeatedly approached by Christian schools to develop creation-oriented science education programs for the K-12 segment. This is no small task - science is a technical and complex subject, and special skills are often required to design suitable material for the lower educational levels. Frankly, ICR was not completely geared to meet this need. But we felt the Lord's leading and pressed on by creating the Science Education Essentials series of creation-based science curriculum supplements for the K-12 Christian and homeschool markets. The Lord has blessed, and these materials have been well-received. But it was clear ICR would need professional assistance if we were to continue this vital outreach program. We made it a matter of prayer and waited for the Lord to direct our steps.

The Lord knew this, of course, and supplied just what we needed (Philippians 4:19) through the generosity of a long-time supporter. As such, we are delighted to announce ICR has recently hired Dr. Rhonda Forlow to serve as our full-time curriculum professional for the K-12 school segment. Dr. Forlow brings a wealth of experience in K-12 curriculum development and will focus on producing more Science Education Essentials supplements on a variety of science subjects. We pray these biblically and scientifically sound teaching materials will encourage Christian teachers to promote a truly biblical worldview to the children entrusted to their care.

But that isn't all. Recently, several large local Christian schools have requested our help in designing creation-oriented science education programs for their middle and high school students this coming spring. And another large local church has asked for our assistance designing a similar program for their Vacation Bible School program this summer. Without the Lord providing the necessary means through Dr. Forlow, ICR would have been forced to turn these requests down. Needless to say, Dr. Forlow has been hard at work designing an engaging educational program centered on a "CSI" theme, complete with staged "fossil digs" on the ICR campus and follow-up lab work that will teach students to think critically on major science issues.

It is truly an exciting time at ICR. Please continue to pray, and give as you are able, to maintain this vital ministry in the days ahead.

(letter from Henry M. Morris, IV, Director of Donor Relations, Institute for Creation Research, February 11, 2011)

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