Satyanandam ‘Sathish’ Perumalla has baptized, as of this writing, 212 pastors in Jesus name, and the total keeps on climbing…

Photos at:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=14158&id=100000109972221&op=6

India, Orissa state:
During 2008, persecutors murdered more than 500 Christians, injured thousands more, burned down homes of thousands more.

In recent months, herds of wild elephants started storming villages home to some of the worst persecutors. In one village where in 2008 August rioters looted and then destroyed Christians’ homes, while Christians fled for their lives, now, exactly one year later, at the same time of day, a herd of wild elephants emerged from surrounding jungle, and the persecutors now ran for their lives.

The elephants kicked off festivities by first smashing up a rock-crushing machine owned by a persecution leader. Then, in a kind of progressive dinner, then destroyed his house and farms. This felt so good that, not wanting to stop while they were ahead, they demolished other non-Christian homes and gardens, leaving Christian homes untouched.

People ran to the police station to report. Policemen in a jeep trying to drive the herd away were attacked and the police barely escaped.

The elephants have, as of 2009 September, destroyed more than 700 houses in 30 villages, killed five people. Nobody in this area ever saw or imagined a wild elephant herd doing this. These elephants behave unusually: smaller elephants enter a village first, scout the community, rejoin the larger herd, then larger elephants follow and do the heavy work.

Restoration India Mission says, ‘We think that it might have something to do with avenging the blood of martyrs. In fact, the fear of God has fallen on the local people, who have labeled these elephants, “Christian elephants”.’

Morale: ‘Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord” (Romans 12:19).

Washington: President Barack Obama has hit the road to push a new $4.35 billion grant programme to encourage American schools to develop internationally competitive standards to let its students take on “folks in Beijing and Bangalore.”

The “Race to the Top” fund is one of the largest federal investments in school reform in US history, Obama said on a trip to Wisconsin Wednesday. It is being financed with money made available through the economic stimulus plan enacted in February.

“We’re putting over $4 billion on the table … but we’re not just handing it out to states because they want it,” Obama told an audience at a Wisconsin public charter school making it clear that the grants will go to only those “committed to real change in the way you educate your kids.”

“So, a race to the top has begun in our schools, but the real competition will begin when states apply for the actual Race to the Top grants,” he said outlining four key reform measures that will be used to help determine a state’s eligibility for grant money.

“The first measure is whether a state is committed to setting higher standards and better assessments that prepare our children to succeed in the 21st century,” Obama said noting that 48 US states are now working to develop internationally competitive standards.

“…Internationally competitive standards because these young people are going to be growing up in an international environment where they’re competing not just against kids in Chicago or Los Angeles for jobs, but they’re competing against folks in Beijing and Bangalore,” he said.

Second, the state will need to demonstrate a commitment to policies designed to encourage the recruitment and retention of effective teachers and principals. Conversely, teachers that fail to adequately perform need to be removed, he said.

Third, it will need to design systems to measure student success. Finally, federal officials will examine whether a state is taking steps to overhaul its lowest-performing schools.

“We’ll look at whether they’re willing to remake a school from top to bottom, with new leaders and a new way of teaching,” Obama said. The process of doing so may include replacing a school’s staff or even closing a school and sending its students to a better one nearby, he noted.

Bush legacy remains Obama’s biggest problem

A year after his historic election, President Barack Obama sought to remind Americans on Wednesday the biggest problems he is grappling with — from the economy to the war in Afghanistan — are the legacy of his predecessor, George W. Bush.

With his approval ratings down from once-lofty levels and Tuesday’s Democratic election losses raising questions about his political clout, Obama held no special ceremony to mark the anniversary of his election as America’s first black president.

He instead traveled to Wisconsin to appear before a friendly audience in a school gymnasium and promote education as a pillar of his economic recovery efforts.

Promise of sweeping change

Obama was elected on a promise of sweeping change after eight years under Bush, but many Americans are increasingly expressing impatience that his pledge has yet to bear fruit.

He used the preamble of his speech to insist his administration had indeed had important successes and also to remind Americans of the litany of daunting challenges he inherited when he took office in January.

“One year ago, Americans all across this country went to the polls and cast ballots for the future they wanted to see,” Obama said.

But he said his administration was also confronted with a “financial crisis that threatened to plunge our economy into a Great Depression, the worst that we’ve seen in generations.”

“We had record deficits, two wars, frayed alliances around the world,” Obama added.

He said his administration had acted swiftly to save the economy from “imminent collapse.”

“While we still have a long way to go, we have made meaningful progress toward achieving that goal,” he said.

Is he over playing the blame card?

Nine months into his term, Obama’s Republican critics have accused him of overplaying the “blame card” against Bush, a Republican who left office with one of the lowest poll ratings of any modern president.

Obama has seen his own approval numbers fall to the 50 percent range from above 70 percent as he struggles to push through a healthcare overhaul, reverse massive job losses and decide whether to send more troops to an increasingly unpopular war in Afghanistan.

He took another hit to his political standing on Tuesday when voters elected Republicans in state governors’ races in Virginia and New Jersey despite his personal campaigning for the Democratic candidates. The White House denied the election losses were in any way a referendum on the president.

Agencies

Maoist Assassination of Hindu leader; Suspicion and Acusation by Hindu activists against Christians; Subsequent Arson, Rape and Mass Murder of India’s Christians

In August, Hindu nationalist leader Laxmanananda Saraswati was assassinated.  Orissa police and media said suspected Maoists had killed Saraswati, but some Hindus thought Christians had killed him in revenge for earlier attacks on Christians by Hindu activist organizations so they, in supposed retaliation, started attacking local Christians, their houses and churches.

The worst violence against Christians in modern India erupted. According to All India Christian Council, more than 60 people have been killed, more than 18,000 injured and around 4,500 houses and churches destroyed. Two Christian women, including a nun, were also gang-raped. The violence later spread to at least 14 districts of Orissa and has left more than 50,000 people homeless.

Orissa police meanwhile arrested three tribal Christians in connection with Saraswati’s murder. The Indian Express said the three confessed involvement.  A representative of the Christian Legal Association said police tortured the three to pressure them to confess a crime they didn’t commit.

On October 5, the chief of Orissa’s unit of the banned Communist Party of India-Maoist, Sabyasachi Panda, told NDTV 24X7 news his organization was behind the murder.  The Maoists killed Saraswati because he was a key leader of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council or VHP), Panda told the channel. The VHP, he said, used non-tribal traders’ money to build VHP’s youth wing, Bajrang Dal, and ran a campaign against Christians, falsely accusing them of forced conversions and killing cows, considered holy by Hindus.  Panda said, ‘This forced us to attack him.  We left two letters claiming responsibility for the murders. But the [Chief Minister Naveen] Patnaik government suppressed those letters. It is a BJP [Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party] government; they will support the VHP. The state government made it look like Christian groups were responsible for the attack. The Christian community in Orissa does not have any Maoist organization supporting them here.’

The next day, Orissa’s police confirmed it.

So the Hindu Jagaran Samukhya (Society for Revival of Hinduism or HJS) circulated forged documents saying the plan to kill Saraswati in Kandhamal district was made at a meeting at Bethikala Church on May 25 attended by 17 people following a briefing and command from religious leaders, trying to implicate a local church in the August 23 murder.

So local Christian leaders Joseph Kalathil from the Catholic Archbishop House in Bubaneshwar and Prafulla Ku Sabhapathi, president of Bethikala Parish Council of Kandhamal, said, ‘We will file both civil and criminal defamation cases against the person who made such allegations…..Not only our signatures were forged, the contents of the documents were also fabricated.’
Attacks continue
Orissa’s Kandhamal district remained tense even 48 days after violence began.  About 15 more homes were burned by a mob in Lansaripalli Village in Kantamal Block of neighboring Boudh district, The Hindu reported.  Attackers came from Gochhapada area of Kandhamal district.  ‘Thursday’s was the third incident in Boudh district,’ added the daily. ‘More than 100 houses were burnt down in two separate attacks in the past few days.’

A mob burned and looted at least 25 houses belonging to Christians in Balligada Village under Daringbadi Police Station in Kandhamal’s Nuagam Block, Father Ajay Singh of the Catholic Archdiocese of Bhubaneswar said.

Over five houses were torched in Jalespanga area under Phiringia police jurisdiction in Kandhamal.  Another house was burned in the Sujeli village of G. Udayagiri Block.

The Hindu also said more than 16,000 Christians living in various relief camps were not returning to villages, fearing attacks on them if they refused to convert to Hinduism.

Fr. Singh from the Bhubaneswar Archdiocese said over 12,000 Christians from various relief camps feared more attacks, so moved out of Kandhamal to other districts and states.

But the VHP denies the facts about the Maoist murder.  VHP president Ashok Singhal  told Zee News channel, ‘What Hindu organizations including the VHP, the Bajrang Dal and the RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, India's chief Hindu nationalist group] are doing in Orissa is all legal and is the reaction of the murder of VHP leader Saraswati, who was like Jesus Christ to us.’  In an interview with The Week magazine, he said Hindu youth are ‘ready to die and, if necessary, to kill. [Their] patience is ebbing.’  He said a ‘Hindu uprising’ had begun, ‘and the political parties will have to rethink and reinvent themselves, for their own existence. If there is no arrangement for Hindus’ security, they’ll do it on their own.  The Hindus will not die.  If self-defense is militancy, so be it…the Hindu never went around the world for suzerainty or to convert…now they are here, undermining us. That causes anger.  In fact many want to fight back this harvesting of Hindus.’

Also, southern state Karnataka’s Bajrang Dal convener Mahendra Kumar while speaking to The Week magazine, said, ‘We supported those who attacked the churches, as it is a justified fight’.

Violence in Orissa spread to several other states, including Karnataka, where around 20 churches were destroyed and 20 Christians were attacked in recent weeks.

Many political parties and rights groups demand a ban on Bajrang Dal for attacking Christians and churches in Orissa and other states, so the federal government ruled by the United Progressive Alliance mandated the National Integration Council to give recommendations, reported Times of India.

Bajrang Dal warned any such move would have ‘grave consequences’ for the government politically, saying there was ‘no legal ground’ for such an action.

There are 897,861 Christians in Orissa, which has a population of 36.8 million.

India’s government had banned international adoption of children from Andhra Pradesh ever since 2001 or 2002, but now Americans would call India’s ‘federal’ government (called ‘central’ or ‘union’ government in India) has changed that.

The Union Ministry of Women and Child Development’s sub-agency, called Central Adoption Resource Agency (CARA), recognized Andhra Pradesh state’s Department of Women Development and Child Welfare (DWDCW) to place children for international adoption.

If you’re interested (I’ve placed a video in this website’s video gallery, showing orphans from Andhra Pradesh), please contact one of the adoption agencies approved by CARA (I’ve been in touch with Frank Block, executive director of Love Basket, which is one of these approved agencies) and ask them how to go about this.

India See Increase in Religious Persecution in 2007

by Stanley Scism

All India Christian Council compiled statistics to say Christians were attacked over 1000 times in India in 2007.

And 2008 isn’t starting well, with many attacks in Orissa, and a ripple effect in other N Indian states.  Many of the gun, knife and bomb assaults have been done by Vishwa Hindu Parishad workers, and in the police’s presence.  The VHP is trying to hide evidence,  and so many bodies are missing.

Near Barakhama Village, 415 of 450 homes of tribal Christians were burned.  One Christian of that village, Bhogra Naik, was cut to pieces by attackers after they destroyed his home.

From 1950 to 1998, government figures showed only 50 anti-Christian attacks.  In 1998, the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power at the central government,  and the attacks began escalating because attackers knew the government would do nothing to punish them.

Although now the central government is no longer under the BJP, several state governments are.  The present wave of attacks started on Christmas Eve.  A Hindu mob,  angry because some Hindus have become Christians, attacked Christians and churches.

Demonic attacks like this have failed before,  and they will fail now.  Times of persecution have been some of the times of most rapid Christian growth.  In Christianity’s early history, people noted that, for every Christian killed, ten more people became Christians,  and said,  ‘The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.’  Some day, when the dust clears, we’ll see that a larger proportion of India’s people became Christian during this time,  as people turned from hatred to God’s love shown to mankind by his coming down as Jesus Christ to save us from sin.

Only people afraid that their faith’s dominant position is endangered attack others.  Notice that the Christian majority nations are, generally speaking the ones in the world with religious freedom, simply because Jesus Christ has the best message, and it can take the competition in the theological and philosophical marketplace of ideas.

Sanjit Subba graduated from Scism Christian University, is now SCU’s representative for North Bengal/Sikkim, assistant pastor for the nation of Nepal, and secretary-treasurer for Bhutan. He reports:

Dear Brother Stanley,

Brother Muthu (of Malaysia)’s visit greatly blessed all our churches he visited in Nepal, Bhutan and North Bengal. Due to political problems, we changed some plans, but later we found that is how God wanted to work–his plan, not ours. Here is the report of his wonderful work in the churches we visited:

2007 November 25 – Kolkatta ( according to Bro Muthu’s report), 5 people received the Holy Spirit and 9 were healed.

27 and 28 – Jaigon, N Bengal, near Bhutan border. In two services, the Holy Spirit filled 17 people and healed 9.

29 – Birpara, N Bengal. Eleven people received the Spirit, 2 were healed.

December 1 and 2 – In Ilam and at a refugee camp, both in Nepal, 28 people received the Holy Spirit and 10 were healed. The refugee camp church elder is independent. He’s in touch with me all the time by phone, asking me to visit his church. Thank you, Bro M uthu, because by you we had a chance to meet this brother.

December 4 – Sikkim. Twenty people received the Holy Spirit, 4 were healed.

December 6-8, Darjeeling, N Bengal. Thirty-one people received the Spirit. For the first time, we had prophecy and tongues and interpretation in our church, and it was all from small children.

December 7-11, Panighatta, N Bengal. Seventee people received the Spirit, three were healed.

This is the first time that all small Churches came into one unity.Thank you brother Stanley for inviting Bro Muthu and his wife. God has done wonderful work. We always looking forward to see his great revival.

Sincerely,
Sanjit Subba