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Please Pray Posted on 01/07/2009 11:00 AM   |  EMail to Friend   |  View Comments (0)

Friends, please could I ask you to pray for Church safety for our fellowship group here in my city. We had some strange people come into Church on Sunday and everyone felt they were surveying our premises and our congregation. We would like prayer that the services be protected and that whatever they found, they did not leave without a breath of the Lord’s own breath of life and that they may be changed and renewed. Pray for our pastor and his family who live on premises. I was not in Church but Jonny told me when he came home. Amma was cross with him for telling me as they are trying to keep me stress free at the moment but I am glad he did because now I can tell you about this and ask you to be praying. I am spending a lot of my time in bed praying and so I ask you to please be praying for your sister Hannah. Thus far we hear the pregnancy is going well. Its getting closer! Let us keep praying. There is a possibility that if I am better, I may just be able to be with her after she delivers. That’s one of the things I would love to do. But again it is not essential and if the Lord chooses to let me be with her, I will give her big hugs from all of you. Thank you for your faithfulness.

Moharram Posted on 01/06/2009 10:00 PM   |  EMail to Friend   |  View Comments (0)

I have a sore throat which I picked up in the hospital & my tonsils are pretty much swollen as are my eyes & ears! I find it hard to talk and be involved in stuff and if it were not for my faithful friends I would have been miserable. The Church family has as usual rallied around me & been there for me and Amma & Abba. You ought to have seen my little hospital room. God was good I was able to move in next door to the room of a friend from another Church. Zari is dying of cancer & would have spent a very lonely Christmas in the hospital, but we were able to put a Christmas tree up & a little nativity set made by my friend who I blogged about a few weeks ago. The lady whose husband was wounded defending his church- it was her decorations that adorned the room. While I was in procedure my Church family were having a Christmas party with Zari. She was thrilled. The Sunday School who had done a small nativity show at the Church Carol Service re did it for her & she was moved to tears. Now I am home and just so tired. Again a loved one is typing for me so I can share some of my thoughts with you. My room faces the garden & where I sit I see a weeping willow which is my favourite tree of all time! But these days I drift in & out of sleep, waking to the persistent sound of crying, like masses of people mourning & weeping. It is most depressing. Not being able to go to Church these days makes it really hard. It is the sound of the Zakir, telling the story of Moharrum. The month in the Muslim Calendar called Moharram is the commemoration of the death of the Prophet Mohammad’s great grandsons in Karbala in Iraq. Moharram or Ashura is a solemn time when Muslims refrain from listening to music or celebrating, even having weddings is forbidden. However it is by the Shia sect that Moharram is taken most seriously. A groomed horse of special lineage is led out with a procession of devout shias & this is called the Zuljana procession. Not only do Zakirs, specially trained teachers who recount the story of Karbala’s battle, tell the story, they are trained to do it to stir up the people at these gatherings. These gatherings are called Majlis. And within moments of commencing the Zakir is able to get the masses to weep and wail loudly. So loudly that the loudspeaker of the mosque picks up the weeping and I get to hear it. At college when we get back after the two main days of Ashura, the 8th & 9th of Moharram, some of the Shia guys will not return & some will come back sporting marks on their backs and chest where as part of their processions they would beat themselves until they bled with chains & little knives as a sign of their mourning for the deaths of Hassan & Hussain. The more marks they could show off the more faithful they thought they appeared. This was a regular feature among the Shia students not only to weigh up their faithfulness among their community but also to show the Sunni students that they were Shias & that they were not afraid of their actions. All this because Sunnis are desperately against these violent actions, labeling it almost as idolatry. They believe that the body is created by Allah & must not be violated in this way. I can understand that but the theological battle goes on making this the one of the most dangerous time of the year. Well, I am a little tired. I've been trying to write this blog since Sunday afternoon when I sat in my room, while everyone was at Church & Abba stayed with me to pray. While we were praying the sound of weeping & mourning filled the air. Bless you all.