Here comes the Summer.....

Since the clocks have now gone forward, and we have an extra hour of sunshine in the evening, I had to put some pictures from the Summer up! It's also only a week until the Easter Holidays begin, how great is that? ;-) What are you guys all doing in the holidays? Firstly I'm going up to Abundant Life Church next weekend for a conference, it's a worship leading one, where people like Tim Hughes and Peter Wilson are at. I will probably put some pictures on at some point in the holidays. Then I'm going straight on to Cornwall and staying there for a week. Hopefully the weather will be warm, and then I can sunbathe on beach before doing some surfing ;-) The rest of the holidays will be mainly doing revision work for the exams, as they aren't too long away, with my first being towards the end of May....!

It's Mother's Day today, and me and my brothers gave my Mum Pride and Prejudice! It was quite a good present as we really wanted to watch it becuase Keira is in it ;-) Also Reading got promoted to the Premiership yesterday, how cool is that! It was on the main news all day, and on the front of quite a few papers today ;-) Now Man U and Chelsea can quake when they have to play us next year ;-)

Anyway it would be cool to hear what people are up to in the holidays, hope everything is okay!
Blessings
Luke

Abdul Rahman could face the death penalty for turning to Christ. PLEASE PRAY FOR HIM

An Afghanistan man detained for converting to Christianity could face the death penalty if he refuses to become Muslim again, police and a judge in Kabul said on 19 March.
Abdul Rahman was detained two weeks ago after his relatives reported to the police about his conversion which is forbidden under Islamic law (shari'a).
"Yes that's true: a man has converted to Christianity. He's being tried in one of our courts," Supreme Court judge Ansarullah Mawlavizada said, adding that his trial began early last week.
The trial judge also described Mr Rahman's conversion as an attack on Islam.
Mr Rahman, who is 41 years of age, was found carrying a Bible and was charged with rejecting Islam.
Judge Mawlavizada said Abdul could face the death penalty if he refuses to revert to Islam as shari'a law mandates capital punishment for any Muslim who forsakes Islam or converts to another religion.
Afghanistan's constitution states: "No law can be contrary to the sacred religion of Islam."
If sentenced, Abdul will be the first to be punished for conversion since the ouster of the Taliban who introduced and implemented tough shari'a law.
Benjamin Sand reports for Voice of America:
"The court has ordered a delay in the proceedings to give Rahman time to hire an attorney. Under Afghan law, once a verdict is given, the case can be appealed twice to higher courts.
"This is the first case in which the defendant has admitted to converting and is refusing to back down, even while facing the death penalty.
"If convicted, the case could ultimately force President Hamid Karzai's direct intervention.
"The president would have to sign the papers authorising Rahman's execution, a move that could jeopardise Mr Karzai's standing with human rights groups and Western governments.
"So far, President Karzai has not commented on the case.
"But political analysts here in Kabul say he will be under significant pressure from the country's hard-line religious groups to make an example of Rahman."
The hardline Taliban regime was toppled by a US-led invasion in late 2001 for not handing over Al-Qaeda chief, Osama bin Laden, wanted for the 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States.

This upset me a lot, how can this possibly happen? You hear about persecuted Christians, but you don't hear many stories like this. How can it be a crime to turn to Christ? He has done nothing to offend his country. Our country excepts all religions, but they can't except anything but Muslims, it is so not fair. These extremist Muslims are affecting our world, and they need to stop. I think this is definetely to do with the Taliban. I know there are other parts of the world where Christians are seriously persecuted, but this is terrible. Please keep Abdul Rahman in your prayers, as he really does need our support. Our God will keep him safe, but he needs our prayers. May God keep him safe.
Luke

Reading!

I just wanted to share a couple of pictures I took when we last went to see Reading play. If you don't know who they are that's fine! But they've done really well this season and are first in the Championship which is the second division in England. They only need 6 more points and they are going to be in the Premiership! Sorry I'm really excited! Anyway the pictures were at the Preston match where we won 2-1 . If you are wondering why me and my family support them it's because our Aunt and Uncle live in Reading so whenever we go up to see them we try to watch the football ;-) Also the crowd was pretty big at over 23,000 , so a virtual sell out ;-)

Hope you all are having good weekends ;-)
Blessings
Luke

God knows everything

The time is coming when everything will be revealed; all that is secret will be made public. Whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be shouted from the housetops for all to hear!
Luke 12:2-3

By the way the picture is from our holiday in Switzerland, and you can just see the Alps in the far side of the picture.

Snow day, yesterday! Sorry I haven't done many posts recently, I've been really busy! But I thought you'd all like to see these snow pictures, as some are funny ;-) We played a massive snowball fight with our neighbours, and then me and my brother made this snowman ;-)

Hey! Delirious? yesterday was so cool! I love them, but yesterday was one of their best live performances! Ive got some pictures of the night above, hope you all like them! It was hard to take good ones because of the lighting, but I tried..! I just thought yesterday must have touched everyone who went, I really felt God was there and some of the songs, especially Miracle Maker were so powerful. Our God is so amazing! Now I just cant wait to see them again, bring on Soul Survivor!

Luke

You talk about crimes in the 20th century, and smuggling operations that happened, what do you think of? I bet you don't think of the 1,000,000 bible smuggling operation into China do you? China as a country is communist and therefore the state decides what is right or not. However with this comes the persecution of Christians, infact millions and millions of them. Most Christians have to go to underground churches or just deny they are Christian fullstop to prevent the state taking action. Then to top this off foreigners can't take any books or pages of writing into the country without it being checked, and as soon as the see it's religious or in anyway going to 'affect' the state it's banned.

So back in 1981 on June the 18th the world reacted this, and spectacularly, embarking on the biggest smuggling success of the entire century. China had just come out of it's cultural revolution, where before this Christians were virtually wiped out of the country, anyway now it was made slightly easier to be a Christian. But because of the happenings before there was a major shortage of bibles in the country, and the people desperately needed them because it's God's word they want to read about. Opendoors which is a major Christian charity helping persecuted Christians, were behind the plan, their leader was Brother Andrew who wrote the books Light Force and God's Smuggler. In the latter it was about how he smuggled Bibles into the once Communist Eastern European countries.

So that night the Bibles were loaded onto a massive tug boat in Hong Kong, and they set off on their journey. However because the operation had been delayed by a few months they were entering the typhoon season of Asia. In the end they had no option but to go ahead with the mission otherwise it would be 4 months until they could next try, despite the captain saying it was crazy. Then as they left a typhoon was reported, they had to protect the tug with it's incredibly expensive load, they tried to shelter it in a local port, but reports confirmed the tyhoon was going directly into them. There was no option to pray, since the whole mission was to spread God's word, quickly this spread around the world thanks to Opendoors and Christians prayed for them. Then suddenly the whole sea went calm and the typhoon changed course, they were free to go! Even now it wasn't safe as there were China patrol ships everywhere on route to where they wanted to drop the bibles, but somehow they didnt sense anything was unusual!

The bibles were all waterproof, and a barge was dropped off and helped take them to the shore. Some insider Christians were at the beach waiting to help out, other bibles reached further down the coasts. Unbelievably the mission was successful, the persuted Christians had bibles! The mission code named Project Pearl rocketed throughout the world, it just shows anything is possible with God. Also in the years to follow the Chinese Christians who helped out on the beach were still being quizzed on the project, but by then it was too late. Recently the government has started to print a few more bibles, but still there are millions in the world who just don't have access to them. God cares for every single one of his believers and we need to, too. I just loved this story when I heard about it for the first time, as it shows we can help them, and make a difference. We need to unite, as things we can do when we are can be beyond all imagination, I hope you all found the story interesting, and just remember that we are so lucky to be in a society of free speech and free actions. But we do need to pray for those who are in need, as China isn't the only country in this situation, for example there are thousands of Christians living in Palestine in terrible conditions, and yet the world just thinks of Palestine as Islamic. They and other Christians need our help.

Hope you all have had a good week, and have a good weekend ;-)
Luke