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Conflict and Islamic terror have escalated in the southern Philippines. The Abu Sayyaf group continues to hold hostage three women Jehovah's Witnesses whom they kidnapped last August after beheading their male companions. The terrorist kidnapping gang, Pentagon, also operates in the region, and the government believes the Moro Islamic Liberation Front is harboring and training them. Philippine President Gloria Arroyo has launched a major offensive against the Islamic militants in Mindanao. The strife has forced more than 25,000 civilians to flee their homes. American troops are present to "accompany and advise" the Philippine troops, helping them "disrupt and destroy" the Islamic militants and terrorists fighting there. On Feb. 19 suspected Islamic rebels attacked the village of Kalawit in the Christian region of Zamboanga in southern Philippines. Grenades were lobbed into homes before some 50 rebels gathered the residents together in the streets and sprayed them with machinegun fire. Fourteen people died -- all Christians -- including young children and an infant who was shot dead in his mother's arms. (World Evangelical Alliance)

NEW CHRISTIAN NETWORK PREPARES TO HELP IRAQI REFUGEES IF WAR BEGINS

The recently formed Refugee Highway Partnership has launched a Crisis Response Network to focus on the forced migration of Iraqis in the event of war. As tensions in the region continue to build, the World Evangelical Alliance's Refugee Highway Partnership is seeking to serve churches and organizations so they can respond well together in the event of a humanitarian crisis. In its initial stage, the network is collectig and publishing profiles of Christian organizations that have agreed to help with any Iraqi refugee crisis. Participating organizations and churches are posting their the profiles at refugeehighway.net. The Refugee Highway Partnership was founded in 2002 to create and nurture a Christian community that facilitates more effective refugee ministry, stimulates strategic initiatives, and equips the church so refugee ministries are strengthened and more refugees are served. (World Evangelical Alliance)

VISITING PASTOR FINDS SURPRISING RECEPTIVITY TO GOSPEL IN INDIA

Increasing antagonism toward Christians in India isn't stopping the spread of the gospel, says pastor John Meador, who recently returned from a trip with AMG International to the southeastern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Equipping national pastors was the original focus of the trip, but this assignment quickly increased, he says. "When we got there we discovered that they had expanded it to a format like a gospel meeting. About 8,000 people came to hear the gospel. We spent lots of time trying to dissuade people from making a decision if they were not ready to forsake all other gods." More than 1,000 people made professions of faith. Meador says prayer is needed for pastors and evangelists in the region. "One night we had about 400 evangelists in a meeting, and we polled them to find out how many of them of them had suffered actual physical persecution. I would say that 25 to 30 percent of those pastors said, 'Yes, I've got scars. I've had actual bloodshed take place because I'm preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.'" (Mission Network News)

SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISTS GET GRANT TO REBUILD SCHOOL IN TAJIKISTAN

The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) office in the Central Asian country of Tajikistan received a $59,000 grant from the Japanese government Feb. 12 to rebuild a school that will benefit 1,500 local children. The children live in Garm, a mountain community in one of the country's poorest areas. The five-month construction project is set to begin on April 1. The grant provides funding for building materials for the reconstruction of the school's main building. Since the school suffered heavy damage in Tajikistan's civil war, local children have continued to meet there despite a failing roof, destroyed electric cables, missing windows, unreliable electricity and cold indoor temperatures. In addition, only half of the local children in the area still attend the school. The rest travel to schools far from their homes and often miss classes during the severe winter months due to poor road conditions and lack of transportation. This is ADRA's first education project in Tajikistan. In 2002 the agency distributed non-food items (blankets, kitchen sets and hygiene kits) to 12,500 families in northern Afghanistan's Badakhshan province, and clothes and shoes to 18,548 people in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, as well as food to hospitals in the country's Karetegin Valley. (Adventist Press Service)

TREND SHOWS MOVEMENT AWAY FROM DENOMINATIONALIST CHRISTIANITY

Recent surveys indicate that Christians spend more on the annual audits of their churches and agencies ($810 million) than on all their workers in the non-Christian world. The larger nations in which evangelism is least cost-effective are Japan, Switzerland and Denmark. The nations where it is most cost-effective are Mozambique, Ethiopia and Tanzania. Meanwhile, a new Christian non-confessional megabloc -- independents/post-denominationalists -- is growing rapidly and numbers 19 percent of Christians worldwide. These 386 million independents in 220 countries have little or no interest in historical Christian denominations. (World Christian Trends)

* MISSIONARIES JOIN ECUADORIANS FOR 3 'TRUE LOVE WAITS' CONCERTS

Sexual abstinence before marriage, especially among young people, was the theme of a series of concerts in Ecuador this month led by Abner Pérez, a graduate of the HCJB World Radio's Christian Center of Communications (CCC), and his younger brother, Daniel. Missionaries Michio Ozaki and Ty Stakes joined the two brothers and three other Ecuadorian musicians as part of a seven-man band that presented contemporary Christian music in three cities -- Quito, Ambato and Manta.

"The response was great," Ozaki said. "More than 600 high school students attended the three concerts. We sang a several songs with styles ranging from rock to pop and jazz. Then we showed some videos with the same title of our theme song, 'El Verdadero Amor Espera' (True Love Waits). These were mini-dramas showing how sex before marriage destroys the relationship rather than building it."

The Pérez brothers wrote the music, while the videos were produced by Abner as part of his final CCC project to make four 60-second TV spots, urging young people to wait for sex until marriage. "It was a great theme to present in the month of February with Valentine's Day," said Ozaki, adding that the brothers have produced two Christian music CDs.

A couple from Medical Assistance Program International, a Christian-based organization involved in community development worldwide, accompanied the team, giving their Christ-centered presentation of abstinence as God's choice rather than "safe sex." The couple is involved an AIDS awareness and prevention program in Ecuador.

At the concert in the coastal city of Manta Saturday, Feb. 22, the team also collected money for a group of handicapped children who are raising funds for corrective surgeries to be performed during the first week of April. (HCJB World Radio)

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