With fears of increased targeting, New Tribes Mission quiets its missionaries The Orlando Sentinel is reporting that New Tribes Mission has imposed a media blackout on their operations in the Philippines, "citing security concerns for the rest of the group's 179 missionaries." Guy Sier, an international crisis and emergency coordinator working for New Tribes, says media attention has become a "mini crisis" in itself within the larger crisis of its two kidnapped missionaries, Martin and Gracia Burnham. "The whole media thing became a distraction that was siphoning off from our focus at a crucial time," Sier said.
Fortunately, The Orlando Sentinel got its reporter to the Philippines before the media blackout. On Wednesday, it ran a wonderful profile of the Burnhams and New Tribes' work in the country. "Two wall calendars in Martin and Gracia Burnham's home never made it past the month of May," Sentinel staff writer Pedro Ruz Gutierrez began.
The chatter from a ham radio Gracia Burnham used to communicate with other missionaries around the Philippines has gone quiet. But family pictures and portraits are intact. Books are neatly stacked on shelves. A Nintendo video game sits abandoned beside a TV cart filled with videotapes. Skateboards, bicycles and a custom-made drum set wait to be used again. The May 27 abduction of the Burnhams by Muslim extremists in the southern reaches of this nation of islands has left their home eerily silent, and their village of U.S. missionaries 160 miles north of Manila under a haunting pall.
The article, with several onlinesupplements, is one of the few Weblog has seen to note the Burnham's children, and Gutierrez introduces them at the momemt they found out about their parents' kidnapping:
Mindy, the couple's 11-year-old daughter, was the first one to break down crying, followed by her 14-year-old brother, Jeff. The youngest, 10-year-old Zach, just walked away unsure of what it all meant. … When told they were leaving, Mindy apparently took time to complete a chore her mother had given her: Put items for a baby-gift set in a bag for a Filipino woman who had given birth recently. Mindy gave the present to a fellow missionary child who could pass it on to the new mother.
It's a solid, powerful story that also portrays well the importance of faith both to the Burnhams, their family, and their fellow missionaries.
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Put an end to Christian-bashing' | All-India Christian Council and others demand action, say government is supporting harassment (The Hindu)
Church and state:
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Star may be born on Kristin sitcom | Christian faith empowers the fictional Kristin, a nice girl who takes an interim job as a receptionist for a real estate tycoon and shameless playboy (Associated Press)
Rap duo wins high praise at fest | Increasingly popular as a form of worship to reach young people, Christian rap has distanced itself from its gangsta cousin (Charles W. Bell, New York Daily News)
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Also: Dying for responsibility | I challenge our community to accept responsibility for the negative message that is coming to town. (Jason Janz , The Denver Post)
Church life:
Lutherans oppose leadership | Christ Church in Freemansburg moving toward split with Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. (The Morning Call, Allentown, Pennsylvania)
Atheists given say in women bishops row | Church of England announces that consultation on women in the episcopate is widening beyond churchgoers to include Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Buddhists and those of no faith (The Daily Telegraph, London)
Nuns' conviction 'surprises' Vatican | Spokesman for Roman Catholic Church says "all who have sinned during the genocide" must come forward, but don't blame Church itself (Associated Press)
Church and state: Seeking complicity in a genocide | Catholic clergymen and nuns, as well as pastors of several Protestant churches, were caught up in the ethnic hatred that ripped the country apart, just like everyone else (The New York Times)
Vatican washes hands of convicted nuns (The Independent, Johannesburg)
Faith-based initiative:
Senate, House mull charitable-choice debate | Religious, political leaders examine whether offering more federal dollars to religious groups offends First Amendment (Freedom Forum)
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Missions and ministry:
Church group provides oasis for illegal migrants to U.S. | A wary collaboration has begun between Border Patrol officers and a religious group to help save the lives of people crossing into the United States (The New York Times)
Demand is rising for clergy as fewer answer the calling | A number of churches and synagogues are finding that filling vacancies takes much longer than it once did, and the pool of candidates has shrunk (The New York Times)
Ministers' wives face challenge | Clergy spouses now turning to their denominations and each other to help cope with their heavy burdens (Associated Press)
Adrian Hastings dies at 71 | Theologian, historian, and Africa expert recently edited The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought (The Independent, London)
'Hitler's wasn't so bad,' Abbot tells teens | "The subject of the Nazi rule is only ever seen from the negative side and not from the positive aspects it brought to the country," says head of Kremsmuenster monnastery in Upper Austria (Ananova)
Baltimore mayor drops plan to tax nonprofits | Hospitals, colleges would pay $20 million to city over 4 years; 'I think it's a win-win'; Council delays vote on budget to permit honing of agreement (The Sun, Baltimore)
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Gospel of Mike | One of the TV news greats finds a higher calling (The Nashville Scene)