My Prayer Request Thread

I usually receive emails on persecuted Christians as well as other people going though problems so I'm creating this thread for the soul purpose of putting all of these prayer requests in 1 thread instead of making individual prayer requests. These prayers request maybe news related and personal and you may if you wish can post your own prayer request as well. So here are some prayer requests:

Christians targeted for destruction in West Africa:

Recent weeks saw the world’s attention focused on France. Rightly, there was almost universal condemnation of the brutal killing of 17 innocent people. A number of the world’s leaders flew to Paris to join arms and walk through the streets as an affirmation of unity and liberty. And yet in West Africa a new tragedy on a far greater scale is unfolding, to which little or no attention has been paid.

Church bus burned in two-day Islamist riots in Niger Last Friday, 16 January saw horrific attacks on Christians in Niger. Niger has been classified by the UN as the poorest country in the world. Its Christian population is 0.33%. In the town of Zinder every single church was razed to the ground, ten in number. The next day in the capital Niamey attackers destroyed another 55 church buildings. Some estimates put the total number of churches destroyed at over 70. Many Christian homes were also destroyed and Christians killed.
But Niger is not alone. In Cameroon there have been deadly attacks on Christians and many kidnappings. On Christmas Eve 24 December, Christians in Jéneme and Mouzlougoua were forced out as houses were burned. Two days later, all of the houses, millet, cotton, and peanuts were torched in Mbaljewel, where 60 bodies were discovered after shooting and fires. Militants also kidnapped up to 80 people, many of them women and children, in Cameroonian villages close to the Nigeria border on 18 January.
In Nigeria there are almost daily attacks on Christian-majority villages and towns. Whole communities are being systematically wiped out. Many hundreds of Christians are being killed: men, women, children and the elderly brutally slaughtered as if they were animals. Religious cleansing is taking place as militant Islam seeks to eradicate Christianity.
While Christians are a main target, the Boko Haram militants also attack Muslims in some contexts, and the total number of displaced and refugees is now thought to be over a million. The sheer brutality cannot be contemplated.
Christians in West Africa are pleading for help. They cannot understand why they have been forgotten, why their plight is unknown. When 17 Parisians are killed in two days the whole world knows, but when scores of West African Christians are slaughtered almost daily, their places of worship destroyed, their homes looted and burned, when they are abducted and kidnapped, silence reigns. A senior Nigerian church leader has urged the international community to take united action of the type shown after the Islamist violence in France, “not just when it [an attack] happens in Europe, but when it happens in Nigeria, in Niger, in Cameroon”.
They need your prayers as they seek to witness to their faith, to respond with love in the face of hatred, with hope in the face of despair and destruction, to be Christ-like when great evil is taking hold. Many have lost their Bibles, their church buildings are destroyed, both pastors and people are destitute.


Over 70 churches destroyed in Charlie Hebdo riots in Niger:


In two days of targeted riots that began on 16 January, violence across Niger has left ten people dead and over 70 churches are reported to have been destroyed. The rioters were protesting against the publication of a cartoon of Muhammad on the front cover of the French Charlie Hebdo magazine. More riots and protests occurred across many Muslim-majority countries, including many former French colonies.

The home of a Niamey church pastor was burned by Islamist rioters Following Friday prayers on 16 January, hundreds of mainly young Muslim extremists took to the streets in Zinder, Niger’s second largest city, burning and destroying all of the city’s churches, as well as the homes of Christians.
The next day, more than 55 churches, pastors’ homes, Christian schools and Christian organisations were burned or destroyed in the capital city, Niamey, as rioters targeted Christians and French-related businesses.
Ten people have been killed in the weekend attacks, one of whom was burned inside a church. And more than 200 Christian families are now being housed in military camps. The army has been deployed and the homes of Christians have been identified and secured. With the authorities overwhelmed by the scale of the violence, Christians have been told to stay together, just in case.
“The situation is currently extremely unstable despite assurances from the authorities,” says a Barnabas Fund partner in Niger. “Churches have not been placed under police protection despite assurances from the Ministry of Security yesterday…We are really scared.”
Large-scale protests have also taken place in Pakistan, the Philippines, and Chechnya. Capital cities in Algeria, Somalia, Sudan, Jordan, Mali, Senegal, and Mauritania have also witnessed protests against the publication. Twelve people who were working at the Paris offices of the magazine were killed by two masked gunmen on 7 January and the magazine then went on to publish a cartoon of Muhammad on the front cover of its next issue on 13 January

A letter from a Syrian Christian in Aleppo:

A Christian doctor in Aleppo emailed Barnabas Fund on 17 January to update us on the desperate conditions there, as Syria approaches the fourth anniversary of its ongoing civil war. Babies and elderly are dying in the sub-zero temperatures, which people must try to survive without any form of heating. More and more Christians are leaving the city, but this doctor stays in order to try to help those who remain.

A church destroyed in Aleppo The situation here still is very gloomy and bad. The winter is very bitter, and temperatures are below zero. There is no electricity (just 1.5 hours every 36-48 hours) and little water. There are no heating systems or fuel at all. We are just sitting and wrapping ourselves with blankets and wearing three pairs of trousers and blouses just to get some warm. Life is becoming unbearable and intolerable. Daily we have deaths among babies and small children, and elderly people because of the bitterly cold weather. You cannot imagine the severity of the weather in such situations. People are putting their babies in cardboard boxes just to take them away from the cold a little.
There have been no specific changes for better here. But everything is getting worse, for sure. Tens and hundreds of Christians are leaving the country. Aleppo will be empty of Christians in due time. We are suffering and struggling to stay and preach the word. Just imagine what the need for the word is like. And this in spite of the mortars, rockets, shrapnel, snipers, lots of houses destroyed, churches attacked, and corruption expanding with no single aim or way to be controlled. Life here is unspeakable. With all these, the need for His word is expanding and the needs for prayers are many.
The situation in our church is going well. There are many new faces and new people are coming to the Lord. Yes, the burden is getting greater but He is in control and in charge.
Be blessed with all His blessings Eph. 1: 3
Greet all with His grace.


Two Christian communities attacked by Hindu activists, accused of forced conversions:


Suspected Bajrang Dal activists interrupted a Sunday prayer meeting on 11 January in Jehanabad, Bihar state, beating up the Christians present and damaging church furniture. In a separate incident on the same day, enraged Hindu activists demonstrated against Christians who were meeting at a worship service in Kushulanagar, Karnataka state.

Christians in India are often the victims of brutality because of their faith After receiving a complaint that the Kushulanagar church was involved in forced conversions to Christianity, police officials arrived at the Sunday worship service and when it was over, they took the pastor and some of the church members to the police station for questioning. The pastor was eventually released with a warning to be careful when leading worship services.
In Jehanabad, police confirmed that they “found no evidence for [the] allegations” of “luring” Hindus into converting to Christianity after Hindu radicals stormed a church prayer meeting where 50 members had gathered.
Responding to news of the attacks, Sajan George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians, said: “Two attacks on the same day, in two different states of the country, are proof that extremist groups feel encouraged to attack Christians because they are not restrained by the law.”
Six Indian states (Gujarat, Odisha (formerly Orissa), Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, and Arunachal Pradesh) have “freedom of religion” laws which are implemented to varying degrees. These are often mis-used against Christians engaged in evangelism, who can easily be falsely accused of converting people by “force”, “fraud” or “allurement”, all of which the law prohibits. It is noteworthy that the Christians in these two attacks were falsely accused of forcing or luring Hindus to convert even though neither Bihar nor Karnataka states have “freedom of religion” laws in place.

Threatening letter sent to Iraqi Christian exposes vulnerability of Christian minority in Kurdistan:

In strongly abusive anonymous email sent on 14 January 2015 to an Iraqi Christian based in the UK, the rapidly diminishing Christian population in Iraq is threatened with permanent loss of their property and told they must convert to Islam. Referring to the Armenian and Assyrian genocide, which peaked in 1915, the apparently Kurdish Muslim sender promises similar, large-scale destruction of the Iraqi Assyrians, a Christian people-group.

Displaced Iraqi Christians seeking shelter in Iraqi Kurdistan Kurds form the majority of the population in Iraqi Kurdistan, the relatively stable region where up to 200,000 Christians have fled from other parts of Iraq, seeking safety. These newly arrived displaced people are in addition to the Christian minority communities who have lived there for many centuries.
As well as Assyrians, the letter also refers to two other main groups of Christians in Iraq: the Chaldeans (called Kaldus in this letter) and the Syrian Orthodox (called Siryanis in this letter). It also mentions another religious minority, the Yezidis (spelled as Ezidis in this letter), and the Peshmerga, the Kurdish fighting force. It alludes to 1991, the end of the Gulf War in which a US-led coalition fought against Iraq.
This kind of threat is breeding fear within the Christian community in Kurdistan. Thankfully, the Kurdistan Regional Government and the vast majority of the Kurdish people, have welcomed the Christians and are doing their best to support and help them at this difficult time, and have rejected religious extremism.


Kenyan church leader shot dead in Mombasa city:


Church members who met to worship together on Sunday 11 January are in shock after church official George Karidhimba Muriki was gunned down by unidentified assailants on a motorbike, just inside the church entrance gate, in the Majengo neighbourhood of Mombasa city.

Kenya’s coastal Mombasa city has seen several anti-Christian attacks in recent weeks It was reported that police stopped the gunmen from getting inside the church, preventing greater carnage. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but many suspect Somali Islamists Al-Shabaab to be behind the incident.
The attack is reminiscent of a shooting on 23 March last year, also in Mombasa, in which armed militants burst into a Sunday worship service, opening fire and killing six people. And in November, the group went on a rampage in the same city, targeting and killing Christians after police raided mosques thought to be involved in the recruitment of Islamist militants. Although Kenya is a Christian-majority country, the city of Mombasa is Muslim-majority.


Al-Shabaab promised revenge against Kenya after its government sent troops into Somalia to help in the fight against the Islamist group in 2011. Since then, Kenya has experienced repeated violence from Islamist radicals. In Mandera county, which borders Somalia, militants attacked a bus on 22 November, separating the non-Muslim (mainly Christian) passengers from the Muslims and shooting all 28 of the non-Muslims one by one. Just a few days later, 36 non-Muslim workers (including many Christians) were singled out and killed at a stone quarry, also in Mandera county.


Two Christians receive fines from Kazakh courts:


In separate incidents, two Kazakh Christians have been issued with heavy fines for exercising their right to freedom of religion without state permission. Both men are refusing to pay the fines and have been subjected to further punishments.

There are many restrictions on Christians in Kazakhstan According to Forum 18, in Uralsk, West Kazakhstan, Nikolai Novikov was fined twice in 2013 and again in 2014 for meeting to worship without state permission. In other court orders, Mr Novikov was issued with a ban on leaving the country and a restraining order was placed on his car.
In August 2014, he was imprisoned for five days, and now he is facing the confiscation of his garage. It is reported that court bailiff Erkebulan Andakulov ordered that Mr Novikov’s garage be valued so that it can be forcibly sold off to pay for some of his fines.
“These fines were illegal,” says Mr Novikov. The fines issued go against international agreements that are legally binding upon Kazakhstan. Despite the fact that churches require state permission to meet, the church where Mr Novikov is a member, has refused to submit to this complex and highly restrictive bureaucratic procedure.
In North Kazakhstan, Maksim Volikov was fined on 19 December for talking to people on the street about his faith while giving out Christian literature in the village of Novoukrainka, without state permission. Over 165 books, booklets, magazines, and CDs were seized and he was issued a three month ban on activity.
Mr Volikov was previously fined for leading a church in his home without the permission of the government. His appeal against this fine was denied by the North Kazakhstan Regional Court in July last year. Forum 18 reports that he is intending to appeal both the new fine and the seizure of his materials.

More prayer requests:

Pray For Four Christian Workers:

Four VOM(Voice Of The Martyrs)partners who work in the Central African Republic face increasing danger as rebel groups continue attacks in the area where they live. Two of the workers have fled with their families into more remote areas, and some fear that upcoming political talks will result in a further increase in violence. Seleka rebels ousted the country's president in early 2013 in hopes of creating a Muslim country, resulting in a civil war that has claimed thousands of lives. The U.N. began a peacekeeping mission in September 2014.

Pray for Book-Store Workers:

The employees of a Christian book store in Egypt are at continual risk of attack by the Muslim Brotherhood. "The workers can be killed anywhere," a VOM contact said, "even ... in their homes for working in the book store." The Muslim Brotherhood has kidnapped believers and attacked Christian businesses in Egypt in an effort to stop evangelism and anything else opposed to Islamic teachings

Pray for Christians in Nuba Mountains:

A church in the Nuba Mountains was destroyed in a bombing on Sunday, Nov. 30, during worship service. The congregation fled the building after hearing the planes pass overhead several times, so no one was injured in the attack. The area was bombed again just days before Christmas. VOM works closely with this congregation, and the church has served as a distribution point for Bibles and relief goods. VOM also supports several front-line workers through this church

More requests:

Pray for Family of Farah, Who Died from Injuries Sustained in Bombing:

Farah Javed passed away on Jan. 11, 2015, almost 16 months after being injured in one of the deadliest attacks against Christians in Pakistan's history. The All Saints Church in Peshawar was attacked by two suicide bombers on Sept. 22, 2013, leaving more than 80 dead and another 150 wounded. Farah was permanently paralyzed in the attack and died as a result of an infection. She had battled many medical complications in the months leading up to her death. Farah's father died in March 2014, and her mother and siblings are having a difficult time.

Pray for Christians Under Continual Threat from Islamists:

Church attendance is at an all-time low in northern Nigeria because of unceasing threats and intimidation from Islamist groups such as Boko Haram. In Rigim, Jigawa state, Muslims often throw rocks at churches during worship services, as they continually pressure Christian groups to leave the area. Three members of one church were killed by Boko Haram two months ago, and seven others have been killed over the last year. A pastor's family narrowly escaped being burned to death recently after they were locked inside a home that was set on fire. In addition, local officials have prevented a group of believers from meeting in their recently built church and prevented another church from beginning construction.

Pray for Two Sisters Persecuted by Their Family for Following Christ:

Two sisters who converted to Christianity were forced to flee their village recently after their brother threatened to kill them for leaving Islam. Before converting to Christianity, "Nazli" felt that Allah was unfair and discriminated against women. A Christian relative helped Nazli to understand how different the true God is. After Nazli's brother learned that she had become a believer, he beat her and threatened to have her killed. But Nazli led her sister to Christ as well, and both then decided to leave their village. They currently live in a VOM-sponsored safe house, where they are receiving further instruction in the Christian faith.

Three North Carolina Students Murdered ‘Execution-Style’ Overnight. Police Have Arrested a Suspect:
By Joseph Perticone

Three young Muslims were shot to death in their home in North Carolina on Tuesday, according to reports.

Police responded to reports of gunshots in their home near the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Sources told WRAL news that all three of the victims were shot in the head. The victims were 21-year-old Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, her 19-year-old sister, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, and her husband, 23-year-old Deah Shaddy Barakat.

According to the UK Independent:

The shooting has been met with an outpouring of anger on social media, where people posting new pictures of the victims studying and playing basketball claimed they had been “murdered execution style”.

Craig Stephen Hicks, a radical atheist, was arrested on suspicion of three counts of first-degree murder. Hicks is a vocal supporter of United Atheists of America and according to his personal Facebook page, was a fan of television shows like The Atheist Experience.
Craig Stephen Hicks - Source: Facebook

Hicks has posted a number of anti-religious images and writings on his Facebook page. One of the images he posted said:

“[W]hy radical Christians and radical Muslims are so opposed to each others’ influence when they agree about so many ideological issues.”

Images began to surface on social media from outside the crime scene.

Kristen Bolin, a UNC student who lives near the scene said:

“It was a regular day when I got off the bus… Now it’s chaos and confusion and they’re not telling us what’s going on.”

The University of North Carolina issued an alert message, and has made counseling services available for students.

Principal Fires Teacher Who Accused Her of Bullying Special Needs Students. Too Bad He Recorded It.:
By Kara Pendleton

The website for Hilltop School in Haverstraw, New York, claims that it offers “a predictable and positive learning environment” for children in grades K through 8 with learning and behavioral problems.

However, teacher’s aide Kenneth Egan took exception to the way the principal was talking to and treating the students.

Egan made multiple complaints and recorded some of the incidences. Then he was fired, just weeks shy of obtaining tenure.

What was Principal Kimberly Taylor doing that bothered him so much?

She was allegedly cursing at and threatening the students, and Egan says that wasn’t all:

“I’ve seen her grab kids. Push kids. Throw kids.”

His recordings capture multiple instances in which she lost her temper and went on verbal tirades against students, heavily laced with profanity. She also was recorded physically threatening the students:

“. . .’cause guess what? Everyone knows this school is for kids that have behavior problems, so it will be a normal thing if we drag you down and pull you out!”

In one recording, she purposefully “embarrasses” one of the students in front of an auditorium filled with other students, calling him a “retard.” In another instance she refered to the students as “animals.”

WABC-TV New York reports that in a statement from the superintendent, they were told that “the situation” happened more than three years prior and “involved a personnel matter that was addressed at the time.” WABC-TV was able to confirm that Taylor had been “suspended for the tirade.”

In the meantime, Egan has an attorney and is suing to not only get his job back, but to get Taylor removed from hers.