PRAY FOR INDIA

Please see below for selected photos of the devastation in India with a summary of the Hindu Anti-Christian violence and specific prayer requests from the Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin | No. 495 | Wed 10 Sep 2008.

PHOTOS from Google Groups "Christian Persecution India" group

http://groups.google.com/group/cpindia?hl=en

HINDU ANTI-CHRISTIAN POGROM SPREADS IN INDIA

The violent Hindu anti-Christian pogrom that flared up on 23 August in Kandhamal district in the north-east Indian state of Orissa continues to rage. It now engulfs nine districts, indicating a high level of VHP (Hindu World Council) orchestration. More than 50 Christians have been killed and multitudes have been raped, bashed, burned and slashed. Some 50,000 Christians are displaced. Even the relief camps are being attacked but, praise God, two attempts to poison their water supplies have been thwarted. Furthermore, anti- Christian violence is now erupting in other states. Churches have been torched in Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka whilst nuns from Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity were violently assaulted in Chhattisgarh. The central government appears paralysed. Please pray for God's intervention.

PLEASE PRAY SPECIFICALLY FOR:

* God's merciful intervention to protect the lives of his people,
thanking him that multitudes were spared when attempts to poison
relief camps' water supplies were foiled.

* the Holy Spirit to bring peace, comfort and supernatural grace to
the grieving loved ones and fellow believers of more than 50
Christians who have now been killed.

* the 50,000 displaced Christians to find a unity previously
unknown; may the Church emerge from this fire in solidarity,
brotherly love and faith in Jesus Christ as the Holy Spirit
forges Christian unity across race, caste and denomination.

* God to use the shame of this violence to trigger a national
awakening in India; may Indians across the nation reject Hindu
nationalism, recognising its ugliness and despising its violence.

* the present troubles to provide the Church with an opportunity
to share and explain the gospel in ways previously unattainable.

'"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Lord. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.' Isaiah 55:8,9 NIV