Mass marriage in Wadia village. Photo courtesy: PTI

FOR the first time in 65 years after Independence , young girls in Wadia village near Palanpur are getting ready for a mass marriage. This simple act of tying the nuptial knot will change the course of this small village’s history. For the first time, the girls will not be forced into the flesh trade. Wadia is known as the village of prostitutes in Gujarat.

The mass marriage of 15 girls is scheduled on March 11. Invitations have been sent out and 1,500-odd baraatis are expected to come. The excitement is palpable in the village, but this has not gone down well with the touts. Fearing they will lose the girls, they have made some threat call to the organizers. Like anywhere , young girls fetch a higher price when first introduced to the trade. Sharda Bhati, local guardian of the girls and leader of Vicharti Jaati Samuday Samarthan Manch which has got the girls and their families ready for marriage, has filed a complaint with the Tharad police station.

“Apparently, the touts don’t want the girls to seek a better life for themselves ,” says Mittal Patel, co-ordinator of the Manch. “They fear this would lead to the business of prostitution going bust.”

The prostitutes belong to the Sarania community, mainly from Rajasthan and Saurashtra. The NGO convinced boys from the community to marry the girls by building trust among them. Seven girls above 18 years of age and eight girls who are younger will take part in the mass marriage. This is commendable since most families are loathe to get a girl from Wadia as daughters-in-law as real identity of their fathers is not known. Wadia has a population of 750 people of which 100-odd women are believed to be involved in prostitution since pre-Independence days. The men of the families often live off their women’s income, pimping clients. Source: Times of India

Joel C Rosenberg: End times are here!

JOEL C Rosenberg, an evangelical Christian and New York Times best-selling author who has extensive experience in Middle East affairs, warned at a conference that Iran and Israel will soon be thrown into a war.

“War is coming,” Rosenberg said. “You and I are living in an extraordinary moment in one of the most dangerous moments in the history of our country; one of the most dangerous moments in the history of Israel and the Middle East; and one of the most dangerous moments in the history of the church.”

And the question is, “Are we ready for what could be coming?”

Rosenberg, who grew up with a Jewish father and a gentile mother, shared lessons from Daniel 5 on the future of America and the coming war in the Middle East.

Rosenberg, whose newest book ‘Implosion: Can American Recover from our Economic and Spiritual Challenges in Time’ is set for release in June, said many pastors are unwilling to speak about the future in terms of Bible prophesy.

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For some it’s because prophecy has been ‘sensationalized’ in the past and they resist the ‘cheapening of God’s Word’, he said. Others might feel unprepared. Some have simply forgotten its power.

“Prophecy is an intercept from the mind of an all-knowing and all-seeing and all powerful God,” he said. It is meant to inspire, motivate and encourage. It will lead to repentance, holiness, and prayer and fasting, Rosenberg said, adding that prophecy is about the “preaching of the Gospel, making of disciples, planting churches, reaching young people with the Gospel, [and] reaching all people with the Gospel.”

Speaking on “The pastor and his future,” Rosenberg asked pastors, “What is it that God is calling you and your congregation to do?”

Sharing examples of escalating tensions in the Middle East and rejecting ‘replacement theology,’ Rosenberg said the physical state of Israel is the Israel about which the Bible refers. “God is not done with us, He loves us, He has a plan for us,” Rosenberg said. “God so loves the world, the whole world, that He gave His only begotten Son.”

After a recent trip to the concentration camp at Auschwitz, Rosenberg said he was reminded “bombs can do in six minutes what it took Adolph Hitler about six years to do; to kill six million Jews.”

The church needs to teach Bible prophecy he said. Bible passages like Ezekiel 38-39, Jeremiah 49, and the book of Joel. “God is going to use a whole series of events ultimately for His glory, but in the meantime, the church has got to ask ourselves, ‘Are we just gonna be silent? Are we just gonna act like nothing’s happened? … Or we don’t care?’”

A question arising from his Auschwitz visit, Rosenberg said is: “Do I love the Jewish Messiah enough to love the Jewish people with unconditional love and unwavering mercy?”

“We are going to stand before the Jewish Messiah one day, but I don’t want to stand before him and have done nothing. … This is a universal message for Jews and gentiles. We need to be ready to show the love of Jesus.”

Other Middle East experts in recent times have also warned of the very real possibility of a new war involving Israel soon – including Bill Salus, an author, researcher and lecturer who focuses on the prophetic relevance of current Middle East and world events. He claims that the Rapture, a belief that believers will be taken into heaven, leaving unrepentant sinners behind on earth to experience God’s judgment, will soon occur – and that Christians today might be living in the last days.

It appears that Iran may indeed be considering war against Israel, as only at the end of last month, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, made a statement describing Israel as a ‘cancerous tumor that should be cut, and will be cut.’ The ayatollah declared Iran’s support for anyone who opposes the Jewish nation, further supporting fears of growing hostilities between the two Middle Eastern countries. Florida Baptist Witness / Christian Post

Louise Schofield, a former curator at the British Museum, was quoted by The Observer as saying that she was alerted to the mine by a gold prospector while working on an environmental development project in Ethiopia’s Tigray region.

The shaft, buried some four feet underground with an ancient human skull embedded in its entrance, apparently had not attracted much attention, even though locals panned for gold in a nearby river.

The site is within the former territory of the nearly 3,000-year-old Sheba kingdom, which scholars believe spanned from Ethiopia to Yemen. Schofield pointed to clues that suggest the site was an important place in the ancient civilization. What gives credence to her claim include a 20-foot stone slab carved with a sun and crescent moon – a ‘calling card of the land of Sheba,’ she said.

“I crawled beneath the stone – wary of a nine-foot cobra I was warned lives here – and came face to face with an inscription in Sabaean, the language that the Queen of Sheba would have spoken,” the archaeologist told The Observer.

In the Bible, the Queen of Sheba is described as arriving in Jerusalem to greet King Solomon with ‘a very numerous retinue, and with camels bearing spices, a large amount of gold, and precious stones.’

1 Kings 10 details the visit of Queen of Sheba to Solomon’s palace.

“When the queen of Sheba heard about the fame of Solomon and his relation to the name of the Lord, she came to test him with hard questions,” 1 Kings 10: 1 says.

Schofield says: “One of the things I’ve always loved about archaeology is the way it can tie up with legends and myths,” Schofield told The Observer. “The fact that we might have the Queen of Sheba’s mines is extraordinary.”

She added that she hopes to begin a full excavation of the mine, whose entrance is blocked by boulders, once she has the funds.

According to Russ Hersman, senior vice president of Wycliffe Bible Translators USA, many of the works that critics like the organization Bible Missiology have pointed to as changing familial terms for God and Jesus have either done no such thing or have already been pulled from circulation.

“(Lives of the Prophets) was an audio drama that originally substituted inadequate familial terms in the mid-1990s. Since that time, the translation has been removed from circulation and will not be re-released until it has been corrected and revised,” said Hersman.

Biblical Missiology created an online petition demanding that Wycliffe Bible Translators and its partners stop the production of certain Arabic and Bengali translations of the Bible, believing them to have eliminated familial terms to describe God and Jesus.

“Apart from the recent statements, most of them do not clearly state that … the divine familial terms are NOT removed but rather that they are committed to ‘accurately conveying’ the ‘meanings’ of this terminology,” said the Rev. Adam Simnowitz, a minister with the Assemblies of God of Dearborn, Mich., who is part of Biblical Missiology.

According to Simnowitz and others, Wycliffe and its partners are removing familial terms to describe God and Jesus from their translation of the Bible in order to appease Muslim communities. Examples pointed out by them include replacing ‘Son of God’ with ‘Messiah of God’ and ‘God the Father’ with words like ‘guardian.’

“Western missions agencies Wycliffe, Frontiers and SIL are producing Bibles that remove Father, Son and Son of God because these terms are offensive to Muslims,” reads Bible Missiology’s online petition.

“By replacing or removing ‘Father’ or ‘Son’ from the text of Scripture, these translations fail to portray God as who he is: the familial, eternal, loving God the Father, Son and Spirit.”

Among the projects mentioned that Wycliffe Bible Translators and its partner Summer Institute of Linguistics have released included the Bengali Injil Sharif and Wycliffe’s ‘Lives of the Prophets.’

According to Dustin Moody, a spokesman for Wycliffe, “Wycliffe had little direct involvement with those two particular projects.”

In the past couple weeks, both Wycliffe and SIL released statements officially denying that their translations headed for Islamic countries removes familial terms to describe God and Jesus. Christian Post

Bisutti won Victoria’s Secret Model Search in 2009 when she was 19, beating out 10,000 other hopefuls.

In an interview with FOX411’s Pop Tarts, she said: “Victoria’s Secret was my absolutely biggest goal in life, and it was all I ever wanted career-wise…I actually loved it while I was there, it was so much fun and I had a blast. But the more I was modeling lingerie — and lingerie isn’t clothing — I just started becoming more uncomfortable with it because of my faith.

“I’m Christian, and reading the Bible more, I was becoming more convicted about it. It was pretty crazy because I finally achieved my biggest dream, the dream that I always wanted, but when I finally got it, it wasn’t all that I thought it would be.

“Especially being married I just wanted to keep my marriage sacred because divorce rates now in America are pretty high, and I just want to do everything I can to keep my marriage special.”

For Bisutti who hails from Simi Valley, California, marriage was a factor that influenced her decision too.

“My body should only be for my husband, it’s just a sacred thing,” she said. “It’s a very hard industry to be in without falling into things you don’t want to do. I’ve fallen into many things that I wouldn’t have wanted to do; it’s a very tempting industry…

“I didn’t really want to be that kind of role model for younger girls because I had a lot of younger Christian girls that were looking up to me and then thinking that it was okay for them to walk around and show their bodies in lingerie to guys.”

Bisutti, however, is not giving up the catwalk just yet.

“I am still modeling but only with brands that respect my decision not to wear lingerie,” she wrote via Twitter. “I am also doing TV work now.”

She is appearing with Jennifer Lopez in a new Kohl’s commercial, and is slated to appear on a new TV show that hits the CW network in the fall, according to FOX411.

In his inaugural address at the 117^th Maramon Convention, organised by the Marthoma Evangelistic Association, on the sand-bed of Pampa near Kozhenchery on Sunday, Joseph Marthoma Metropolitan said that the people across the world face grave problems consequent to materialistic progress.

People have now distanced themselves from the path of God due to the improvement in the standard of living and are clamoring after excessive materialistic satisfaction, he said.

Development in education facilities had resulted in improved earnings and the consequent exploitation of the less privileged. Hence, the progress achieved in recent times had created more problems than virtues for the people, Joseph Marthoma said.

Even evangelists prefer to work in foreign countries instead of serving the poor and backward class people for their uplift, he regretted.

Valiya Metropolitan Philipose Mar Chrysostum delivered the benedictory address. Evangelistic Association president Thomas Mar Thimothios presided over the meeting. Association general secretary Rev Abraham P Oommen welcomed the gathering.

Rev Martin Alphonse delivered the day’s message.

Geevarghese Mar Athanasios, Geevarghese Mar Theodosios, Joseph Mar Barnabas, Abraham Mar Paulose, Mathews Mar Markarios, Gregorios Mar Zephanos, Thomas Mar Timothios, CSI Bishop Sam Mathew, Bishop Malusi Mpumlwana and Rev Kang-San-Tan were present at the inaugural meeting.

Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, State ministers P J Joseph and Adoor Prakash, MPs P J Kurian, Anto Antony and Kodikunnil Suresh, Chief Whip P C George, MLAs K Sivadasan Nair, Raju Abraham and P C Vishnunath, District Panchayat president Babu George, District Collector P Venugopal, Annapoorandevi, P Mohanraj, Peelipose Thomas, D K John, Rev Sam T Mathew, P P Achenkunju and Thomas T George were among those who were present on the occasion, IBN Live reported.

From the archives: Click here for Maramon Convention 2011 coverage

Houston’s untimely death at the age of 48 has come as a shock to the music world and those close to her. Her godmother, soul singer Aretha Franklin, said it was “stunning and unbelievable”.

Music mogul Simon Cowell said Houston had “one of the greatest voices I have ever heard in my life, ever”.

Civil rights campaigner the Rev Al Sharpton led prayers for the singer during today’s Sunday service at the Second Baptist Church, in Los Angeles.

“The morning of the Grammys, the world should pause and pray for the memory of a gifted songbird,” he said.

The legendary singer and actress was found unresponsive in her hotel room on Saturday and her death was confirmed later in the day by her publicist.

Houston was the daughter of gospel singer Cissy Houston and grew up singing in church.

She was a close friend of gospel singer CeCe Winans and collaborated with her on a number of tracks, including a cover of “Bridge Over Troubled Water”.

After being signed to Arista records in 1983, Houston went on to become one of the most successful female artists of all time, selling 170 million records worldwide and winning six Grammys.

By the nineties she had sealed her place as a diva with a string of hits, including “I Wanna Dance with Somebody”, “I Will Always Love You” and “One Moment in Time”.

In 1996, she starred in “The Preacher’s Wife” and sang the soundtrack, which became the best-selling gospel album of all time.

Her career suffered as her marriage to Bobby Brown hit the rocks and she struggled with substance abuse.

In 2009, she returned with I Look To You, which had strong gospel overtones and hinted at her continuing faith in spite of her battles.

A service was held today in Houston’s memory at her former church, New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey, where she sang in the choir as a teenager.

Pastor Joe Carter told the congregation: “We thank God for the gift of her unique voice. Others live to be 80 or 90 years old, but when they’re gone they leave us with nothing to remember. Whitney left us so many wonderful memories. We remember, we rejoice for that phenomenal one of a kind gift … What I remember best is her singing the praises of Jesus Christ.”

Hillsong worship leader Darlene Zschech tweeted: “My heart breaks for Miss Whitney’s family today.. Our prayers and love are with you all x Darls.”

Wendy Beech-Ward, who is on the Spring Harvest and Youthwork Conference teams, tweeted: Whitney Houston’s songs brought happiness to many. It’s tragic that her talent and fame seems to [have] given her such pain and sadness.”

Christian singer Sarah Walker tweeted: “News of Whitney Houston’s death has me feeling heavy.”

Gospel rapper Guvna B tweeted one of Houston’s best known quotes: “I’m my own devil. I’m either my best friend or my worst enemy”.

“Deep quote from her. Pray God comforts her family x,” he tweeted. Christian Today

Arab ministers met in Cairo to revive diplomatic efforts after Russia and China vetoed a UN resolution that called for President Bashar al-Assad to step aside. That resolution was based on an Arab peace plan and had Western backing.

Agency reports said the Arab League called for “opening communication channels with the Syrian opposition and providing all forms of political and material support to it”. It also urged the opposition to unify its ranks.

As part of the Arab efforts, Tunisia said it would host the first meeting on February 24 of a “Friends of Syria” contact group made up of Arab and other states and backed by Western powers.

“How long will we stay as onlookers to what is happening to the brotherly Syrian people, and how much longer will we grant the Syrian regime one period after another so it can commit more massacres against its people,” Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal asked ministers at the start of the League session.

“At our meeting today I call for decisive measures, after the failure of the half-solutions,” he said. “The Arab League should … open all channels of communication with the Syrian opposition and give all forms of support to it.”

The resolution said Arabs would scrap their monitoring mission which had been sent to Syria in late December but which was criticised by Syria’s opposition as ineffective from the outset. It also faced internal dissent and logistical problems.

Meanwhile, the Sudanese general leading the observers quit on Sunday.

In place of the Arab team, the League called for the UN Security Council to issue a resolution setting up a joint UN-Arab peacekeeping mission to go to Syria.

League chief Nabil Elaraby has already proposed such a joint mission to the U.N. secretary-general but the plan has drawn lukewarm support from diplomats at the United Nations in New York. The United States and Germany said they were studying it.

Reports quoting Syria’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi said the Syrian embassy in Qatar was also shut down, and Syrian ambassadors to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have also been expelled.

The move comes apparently in retaliation to similar actions taken against Syrian diplomats in those countries, Xinhua reported.

Tunisia was the first Arab country to announce the decision to expel Syria’s ambassador and to cut ties with the Syrian government.

Libyan Foreign Ministry had also announced its decision to expel Syria’s charge d’affaires and his staff, adding that it expects all Syrian diplomats to leave the country within the next 72 hours.

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries have also decided to withdraw their ambassadors in Syria, according to a GCC statement issued earlier this month.

The cause of the explosion was not immediately known, according to police.

News reports said the car, parked down the street from the Israeli embassy in a residential neighbourhood of central Delhi, was badly burnt.

Police spokesperson Rajan Bhagat said two people were injured when the car exploded. There were no details about their condition.

“There was an explosion in an Israeli diplomat’s car but we don’t know how it happened. We are in touch with the local authorities,” Israeli embassy spokesman David Goldfarb said.

Indian foreign ministry spokesman Syed Akbaruddin said two people were wounded, the driver and the wife of an Israeli diplomat.

“They are in the hospital and being tended to,” he said.

Meanwhile, Israel’s foreign ministry said an attempted car bombing in Georgia was thwarted. The bomb in Tbilisi was discovered before it went off.

Israel had put its foreign missions on especially high alert ahead of the Feb 12 anniversary of the assassination, in 2008, of the military mastermind of Lebanon’s Hezbollah guerrillas, linked to the Shi’ite Islamist group Hezbollah, Imad Moughniyeh.

Iranian-backed Hezbollah had vowed to avenge Moughniyeh’s death in a Damascus car-bombing, blaming it on Israel.

Israelis had also warned of possible reprisals ordered by Tehran for the assassination of several scientists involved in Iran’s controversial nuclear program. No one has claimed responsibility for the Iran killings.

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