Crisis in Darfur: an update by the Holocaust museum’s mapping initiative

Since 2007 the Holocaust Museum has been mapping the crisis with Michael Graham as the initiative’s coordinator. The mapping works by leveraging Google Earth’s large user base. The team has mapped and followed the crisis by creating layers of data on top of Google Earth and showing the location of destroyed villages, damaged villages and refugee camps that have been created as a result. In some instances the is photo evidence of the villages “before and after” the attack. These photos become powerful evidence of what has been happening in Sudan since 2003 and the maps show the actual locations of villages that were, in some cases, wiped out by the attacks.

There are also testimonies compiled by Graham’s team from survivors by Amnesty International and also mapped to the location of the villages. These testimonies tell of how Janjawid have overran villages, used rape as a weapon of war and killed men, women and children in merciless ways.  Here is a sample:

“I was living with my family in Tawila and going to school when one day the Janjawid entered the town and attacked the school. We tried to leave the school but we heard noises of bombing in the town and started running in all directions. All the girls were scared. The Janjawid entered the school and caught some girls and raped them in the class rooms. I was raped by four men inside the school. When they left they told us they would take care of all of us black people and clean Darfur for good.”
–one of the survivors of the Tawila attack

The amount of evil perpetrated there is a shocking reminder of the world we live in and a wake up call to non-stop intercession for the refugees of this conflict.  Let’s pray that God may open up the doors for more aid organizations to enter and work freely with refugees and that with his power the amount of evil there may subside. Let’s also give to those who are already working on-site and publicly decrying this genocide.

Please click here to go to the Holocaust Museum’s site and hear the entire audio update or read the transcript.  Next week, I will post a map of the crisis. If you want to know more, the link to the Amnesty International Report is below. Please visit SaveDarfur.org to contribute your time, your voice and your financial resources. Let’s persevere in prayer and in deed for Darfur!

Spanish speakers can see my previous post on Sudan here.

[Holocaust Memorial Museum] [Amnesty International: Darfur Report] [Save Darfur]

A testimony about Ramadan and Fasting

What follows below is a testimony, from a university student in Pakistan, about what it’s like during the month of Ramadan.  We invite you to join Maaria to take this month as an opportunity to pray for Muslims around the world. Her blog post is below.

Ramadan has begun. Around the world Muslims are fasting from sun rise to set. While the Muslims declare to the world through word& deed that from sun rise to sun down they will obstain from food, drink& smoking, their fasting is imposed on non Muslims around them. Where on one hand we would gladly be respectful of their faith and not tempt them by taking our freedom to an abusive level, we do not appreciate the fact that we are watched and observed closely, in schools, colleges and even while driving on the road or at the work place. Remember last year when Mrs Zia snapped at me for stirring my cup of tea? This time Ramadhan comes at the same time as our Crisis as Christians in Pakistan.

In the wake of the Gojra violence our Muslim neighbours are on a holy and righteous journey to please Allah and earn brownie points to go to heaven. All the while we are still mourning for the lives lost in the violence and the damage done to Christians because of the injustice of laws such as the blasphemy law which makes us vulnerable targets.

But while this crisis ensues, let us not forget that as always the beginning of Ramadhan brings with it endless opportunity to discuss our understanding of fasting. Normally our Muslim friends will talk to us about fasting and ask us whether we fast as well, if we do how long does one fast for, is it really 24 hours like we were taught in Catechism in school or not and whether all Christians have to fast like all Muslims and whether there is a difference between ‘sects’ and how they ‘fast’. Of course discussions like this lead to questions like ‘What is a denomination? Do you hate people of differing church background? What is a cult? Do you believe that members of another denomination will go to hell? Do you believe that if you do not fast you will go to hell?

To me all these are opportunities. Opportunities not to be ignored and lost. How great the opportunity to be able to say that no I am not compelled by a religious code to fast, I am not compelled by my pastor to fast, no I will not go to hell for not fasting. In fact my faith is in Christ and all the things I do I can do because either His Holy Spirit compels and leads me to do them and my joy is in obeying or then even if I am led by Him to do something which may not seem easy to me as Maaria, then by His Holy Spirit He will give me His Strength to achieve and obey His calling and direction as with all things and every day and all that lies on the path I walk.

I am able to talk about Lent and able to share with them that this is all an act of a closer walk with Jesus, a reminder to us that before His public ministry Jesus went into the wilderness, led by the Spirit, and set Himself apart to be alone with His Father.

As I share with my friends about these things I am able to talk about the temptations Jesus faced and explain what I mean by ‘The joy of the Lord is my strength’ and by ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me’. I am able to share with them about the idea of quietness and intimacy with Jesus. A fast and a period of abstinence is a time to draw close to Jesus, not to earn brownie points with Saint Peter for when I stand at the pearly gates. It is so that I can be so close to my first love, Jesus, that I am able to forgive when my brothers and sisters are persecuted, when I am not given full rights as a believer, when I must suffer for the Gospel.

Story via Secret Believers