An Orphan's Difficult Journey

Martin grew up in a dreary Slovakian orphanage, but when he turned 18 he "aged out" of the orphanage and was forced to leave. Without money or any idea how to earn any, he decided to try stealing from local shops in hopes of getting arrested. At least in jail he would have a warm place to sleep and regular food. His plan worked and he spent most of the winter in prison. Aimless when he was released, Martin turned to alcohol to dull the pain. His bed was a park bench.

Lukas, a youth worker trained by New Hope Slovakia, spotted Martin sleeping in the park one afternoon. After waking him up and giving him some food, Lukas struck up a friendship with Martin and ended up spending time with him every day. Martin enjoyed his company - and the food Lukas brought him. And each day Lukas told Martin about Jesus.

It took several months, but Lukas had the joy of introducing Martin to Christ recently. Today Martin is super-charged about his faith and he's enthusiastic about telling others what God has done for him. Just last month, Martin began training other Slovakian believers for a special outreach inside a local orphanage.

Priase God for his work to bring orphans to Himself!

(from New Hope International prayer letter, December 2011)

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Prep for Facebook's Timeline Layout: 6 Must-Do Privacy Tweaks

Get ready for your Facebook past to come back with a vengeance; the social network is now rolling out its new profile layout, Timeline, to all users worldwide. Timeline is basically an online scrapbook that displays your Facebook activity in reverse chronological order going back to when you first joined the social network.

You can hide the embarrassing bits of your Facebook life before your new profile goes live, the good news is you can! Here are 6 steps to follow to safeguard yourself:

Get Timeline. There are three ways Timeline could arrive on your profile....

Hide Old Posts. If you want to get rid of an old status update, photo, article link or like, go to the post on Timeline and hover over its top right corner. Click the pencil icon and select "Hide from Timeline...."

Check the Log. If you want to keep a post on your Timeline, but don't want specific people to see it you can change an individual post's settings using your Activity Log....

Feature Old Posts. If you have a post you'd like to feature, such as a photo of a wedding or graduation, hover over the top right corner of the post again....

Set your cover photo. The top of your profile will now include a large photo called the cover photo that will be one of the first things people landing on your profile will see....

View as Public. After you've edited your Timeline, you may want to check what others will be able to see on your revamped profile....

Marko comments: Timeline will be mandatory for all Facebook users, that's what they're giving us!

(for the complete post see Ian Paul, Prep for Facebook's Timeline Layout: 6 Must-Do Privacy Tweaks, PCWorld, December 16, 2011)

I’m proud that my father is passing this exam

Sasha was just 10 years old when authorities in Uzbekistan burst into her family’s home to arrest her father, Dmitry Shestakov, for preaching the gospel. Although Sasha was devastated by her father’s imprisonment, she was encouraged by his commitment to the church.

“I am proud of my father’s strength, that God gives him power,” she said. “I’m proud that my father is passing this exam. He is in prison because he is pastor of a church. I ask you to pray for him.”

Praise the Lord, Sasha’s prayers were answered this year when her father was released after serving four years in prison.

(excerpted from Voice of the Martyrs newsletter, December 2011)

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Explain this without God: Big tuna are warm-blooded!

Paul Greenburg, a secular journalist for the New York Times, ponders the inability of evolutionary thinking to account for the tuna’s brilliant body and behavior:

Even the most confirmed enemy of “intelligent design” theories can have a hard time imagining [much less providing forensic evidence for] the forebears of these great fish inching slowly down an epochs-long evolutionary course to become modern tuna. They seem like deus ex machina incarnate or, rather, machina ex deo—a machine from God. How else could a fish come into being with a weird slot, as hard and fixed as the landing-gear slot on an airplane, into which it retracts its dorsal fin to achieve faster speeds? How else could a fish develop a whole new way of swimming where a slim crescent of a tail, insignificant in size compared to most fish tails, vibrates at astronomical speed while the rest of the body slips forward with barely any bend, pitch, or roll? And how else would a fish appear within a phylum of otherwise cold-blooded animals that can redirect the heat that its muscles throw off back into its very flesh and raise its body temperature by as much as twenty degrees above ambient conditions? Yes, the biggest tuna are warm-blooded.¹

Tuna—what a magnificent (and nutritious) fish! The seaworthy body and behavior of every living tuna exhibit the design and manufacturing brilliance of He who commissioned “fishers of men.”

(excerpted from James J.S. Johnson, A Christmas Carol in Four-Part Harmony, Acts & Facts, December 2011, Institute for Creation Research)

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References (selected)

1. Greenberg, P. 2010. Four Fish, the Future of the Last Wild Food. New York: Penguin Books, 199-200.

Why send out Bibles if they bring people danger?

"If you are caught with a Bible in Iran, you may be rejected by your family and locked in a prison. In Algeria, you might be beaten by police. In North Korea, where we drop gospel tracts from balloons (see photos below), you would be executed."

"Readers sometimes ask Voice of the Martyrs why we distribute Bibles if it brings such danger to the recipients. The answer is found in the Bible itself In John 15:20, Jesus says, "Remember the word that I said to you, 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you."

"Those who ask for Bibles know the risks better than we do. Some have never had a Bible and may never have read the verse above. But when they do read it, the words ring true. And then they ask for more Bibles."

(excerpted from Voice of the Martyrs newsletter, December 2011)

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