Paul Long's Ramblings

Been a while since I blogged on this ... with so much sad news from Malaysia, this is good therapy. My Sunday sermon is also done! (Bonus blessing) Just got to make sure I don't read it anymore till Saturday or I will end up make all kinds of major changes :-) J JESUS This needs no elaboration. But this old song is nice and catchy ... Jesus, name above all names Beautiful Savior, glorious Lord. Emmanuel, God is with us. Blessed Redeemer, Living word. JENNIFER Got to make sure I mention my wife, right? :-) 19 years of marriage already! But marriage stuff is very personal so no comments except to quote my favour ite proverb (some of you know it as I quote it every often! :-) KJV sounds fancier so ... Proverbs 18:22 : Whoso findeth a wife findeth a go od thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD. JOKES I love good jokes. They help keep me sane! I don't think laughter is the best medicine but it is pretty good medicine fort me at least. A good laugh has helped ...

A wonderful reminder for me! Thanks be to God! The Spiritual Work of Gratitude To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to be grateful for all of our lives-the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections-that requires hard spiritual work. Still, we are only truly grateful people when we can say thank you to all that has brought us to the present moment. As long as we keep dividing our lives between events and people we would like to remember and those we would rather forget, we cannot claim the fullness of our beings as a gift of God to be grateful for. Let's not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God.

So much news of this kind all over the world. :-) This just came in ... ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 609, Lake Forest, CA 92609-0609 USA Visit our web site at: www.assistnews.net -- E-mail: assistnews@aol.com Sunday, January 10, 2010 Violence Against Christians Continues in Egypt After Christmas Eve Shootings By Dan Wooding Founder of ASSIST Ministries EGYPT (ANS) -- Violence broke out in the evening of January 8, 2010, in the southern Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi, in the main market and "Bein el Mehatat" area, spreading as well to the neighboring town of Bahgoura. Teenage Coptic victim of Christmas Eve shooting This has been reported by Mary Abdelmassih of the Assyrian International News Agency ( www.aina.org ). "Muslim mobs used swords, butane gas cylinders for explosions and Molotov cocktails to loot and torch Coptic-owned homes, shops and cars," she wrote. "Mary Om Boktor Kyrollos, a Coptic widow from Bahgoura, died of fumes after her home was torch...

Should be self-explanatory ... Copyright © Barnabas Fund - 11th January 2010 Maldives: Legislators seek to increase pressure on non-Muslims : “In the midst of the furore over the Swiss referendum to ban the building of any new minarets, a harshly restrictive piece of legislation to ban all non-Muslim places of worship was passing through the Maldivian parliament,” says Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, International Director of Barnabas Fund. “How tragic it is that this serious development should go virtually unreported. It was the same in 2008 when the Maldives introduced a new constitution that prevents non-Muslims from becoming Maldivian citizens, and no one noticed or cared.” The People’s Majlis (Parliament) of the Maldives have been debating a bill to ban non-Muslim places of worship. According to Maldivian sources the bill, proposed by Ibrahim Muttalib MP, would make it illegal to build non-Muslim places of worship or to practise non-Muslim faiths in public, although foreigners would be allow...

I'm back at work and looks like full steam ahead already. The last week has been emotionally tiring as I can't seem to get Malaysia out of my mind ... so it is good to get down to doing more positive things. It's not yet 9.30 AM and I've already had the pleasure to have had 2 good conversations with two non Christians that were beyond polite conversations about things like the weather! I make mention of non Christians simply because as a pastor, deeper conversations tend to be with Christians. so it is a thrill for me to be accepted and be allowed (even invited) into more intimate conversations with those outside my faith. It's a great start to my week! I am staring at a bunch of things I have to do - admin (planning involving activities) , sermon preparation, visitation and ministry correspondence and I decided that instead I shall blog on spider-man and then do my other things :-) The other graphic novel I borrowed (that I mentioned in a post sometime back) was ...

What will be the result of this court case? Click here. Something to pray about. Not just for the case judgment but the reaction to it. Picture is of the Malay Bible of 1818 (taken from the Malaysia-today news portal. Case postponed (not unexpected ...)

Got this news report in my mail ... Made me wonder ... is this a possible future for Malaysia? :-( ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 609, Lake Forest, CA 92609-0609 USA Visit our web site at: www.assistnews.net -- E-mail: assistnews@aol.com Sunday, January 10, 2010 Indian Muslim Extremists Threaten to Burn Christians Alive By Jeremy Reynalds Correspondent for ASSIST News Service WASHINGTON, D.C. (ANS) -- Muslims in Nutangram, West Bengal attacked Christian converts from Islam and threatened to burn them alive if they don’t return to Islam. The incident occurred on Dec. 18 2009. According to a news release from International Christian Concern (ICC), the Muslims verbally abused the members of a church designed for believers with an Islamic background, and also threatened to burn their homes. ICC said the alleged perpetrators also called for a social boycott against the believers and forced all area store owners not to sell anything to Christians or give water to them. They also urged ...