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Vern Preheim
has resigned as general secretary for the General Conference Mennonite Church, effective Aug. 15, after serving since 1980. He says the highlight of his term was the decision to integrate the General Conference Mennonite Church with the Mennonite Church, believing a larger Mennonite conference would result in stronger witness to the world. He previously worked for the GC Board of Christian Service and with Mennonite Central Committee in Algeria, Zaire and Akron, Pa. He began work as resource development coordinator for the MCC Central States region beginning Sept. 1.--
GC News Service
Viktor Hamm
, an associate evangelist with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, held a crusade in Ulan-Ude, the capital of Buryatia Republic in the Russian Federation, June 12-16. Christians number about 400 out of over one million people in the republic. Almost 5,000 people attended the crusade, with 833 responding to the gospel. More than half of the inquirers were young people. Hamm also preached to about 300 prisoners at a local penitentiary. Three inmates committed their lives to Christ.--
BGEA
The Defense of Marriage Act
, which prohibits US government recognition of homosexual marriage, was passed Sept. 10 by the US Senate, by a vote of 85 to 14. The bill had earlier passed the House of Representatives by a wide margin. The bill now goes before President Clinton, who has said he will sign the bill. The legislation is seen as a preventative measure as the US awaits a Hawaii court decision on whether to require state recognition of homosexual unions on par with marriage. A separate bill called the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would have created special federal civil rights protection for homosexuals, was narrowly defeated 49-50.--
Family Research Council, Evangelical Press News Service
A Christian convert from Islam
who was convicted of apostacy earlier this year fled his native Kuwait Aug. 16 to an undisclosed location in the US, the Washington office of Christian Solidarity International confirmed. The 44-year-old Robert Hussein (Hussein Qambar Ali) is deciding whether to seek religious asylum in the US. He left behind his estranged wife and two young children. In February, an Islamic court ruled that Hussein should lose his wife and custody of his two children, along with at least four houses, his contracting business and about $4 million in assets and inheritance. On May 29, the court ruled further that Hussein was an "apostate" and that as such "he should be killed." The religious court's ruling led to a worldwide outcry, prompting the government of Kuwait to step in to guarantee the safety of Hussein. Since his public conversion, Christian leaders in Kuwait report that four more Kuwaiti Muslims have allowed their stories of conversion to Christianity to be printed in the newspaper, Al Hadaf, though they all used pseudonyms.--
EPNS
In early August
, Britons were alarmed by reports of a poor single mother who planned to abort one of her twins because she couldn't afford to raise two more children. The story, which took a twist when it was revealed that the abortion had already taken place, took yet another turn Aug. 15 when the Daily Express newspaper reported that the woman involved was neither poor nor single but was in fact a middle-class professional married to a company director. A court order prevented the newspaper from naming the woman. In a related case, the British pro-life charity Life is trying to persuade a second woman from aborting one or both of her twins. The organization is trying to raise funds to help the couple with the financial burden of raising twins.--
EPNS
A 72-year-old grandmother was jailed
in Singapore July 2 for possession of a Bible and three religious publications from the Jehovah's Witness cult. A Singapore court ordered Yu Nguk Ding to pay a fine of about $500 or spend a week in prison; Yu chose the prison term. Yu was imprisoned in April on similar charges. Though Singapore claims to guarantee religious freedom to its people, the rigidly structured city-state outlawed the Jehovah's Witnesses in 1972, saying that its objections to compulsory military service and oaths of allegiance undermine public order.--
EPNS
"Hell House",
the church-produced Halloween attraction which dramatizes real-life horrors ranging from abortion to teen suicide, is being marketed throughout the US by the Abundant Christian Life Center, creator of the spectacle. The church is selling how-to kits for $149, and a CD of sound effects for an additional $15; last year's "Hell House" attracted 5,000 visitors at $5 per head, netting the church a $17,000 profit.--
EPNS
Philippines President Fidel Ramos'
religious advisory group, the National Ecumenical Consultative Committee, has expressed unanimous support for the creation of an autonomous Islamic region in the south. The committee called the plan a key to lasting peace and economic prosperity in a region that has been at war for decades. But church leaders who actually live and work in the proposed region have expressed stern objections to the plan, which would subject the Christian majority in the Mindanao region to Muslim rule. Catholic leaders have urged President Ramos to put off the peace plan with Muslim rebels, saying that objections by the Christian majority in the affected region could lead to widespread violence.--
EPNS
Nonprofit organizations
and other donors who were victims of the Foundation for New Era Philanthropy, perpetrators of the largest charity fraud in US history, will see up to 65% of their invested money returned to them under a $39 million settlement approved Aug. 22 by US Bankruptcy Judge Bruce I. Fox. Under the settlement, about 1,500 organizations that profited from the scam will return at least $39 million, which will be distributed to 150 charities and 350 donors who lost $115 million. Groups that profited from the Ponzi scheme are being asked to return 65% to 93% of their profits to avoid a lawsuit by the bankruptcy trustee. But Prudential Securities Inc., which acted as broker for New Era founder John G. Bennett Jr., wants "winners" in the scheme to return all of the profits they received so that the "losers" can cut their losses further.--
EPNS
Dr. Jack Kevorkian's
latest victim of his assisted suicide practice, Judith Curren, was overweight and depressed--but not fatally ill. Authorities found no evidence to support the claim that Curren suffered from the non-fatal disease known as chronic fatigue syndrome, and revealed that her husband was charged with abusing her less than three weeks before her death. Curren's husband had claimed that the disease had left his wife paralyzed and bedridden.--
EPNS
For every 1,000 abortions
in the US, there are about 800 out-of-wedlock births but only 15.5 infant adoptions. In 1991, only 2% of all the nonmarital pregnancies carried to term resulted in an adoption.--
In Focus
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