Urgent prayers requested for Christians in Iraq ... Thx Ramey H!

This is an urgent request.  Please pray for these people.  We cannot ignore this.  I got this forward from a friend.

A friend just got a text message from her brother asking her to shower him and his parish in prayer.  He is part of a mission and ISIS has taken over the town they are in today.  He said ISIS is systematically going house to house to all the Christians and asking the children to renounce Jesus.  He said so far not one child has.  And so far all have consequently been killed.  But not the parents.  The UN has withdrawn and the missionaries are on their own.  They are determined to stick it out for the sake of the families - even if it means their own deaths.  He is very afraid, has no idea how to even begin ministering to these families who have seen their children martyred.  Yet he says he knows God has called him for some reason to be his voice and hands at this place at this time.  Even so, he is begging prayers for his courage to live out his vocation in such dire circumstances.  And like the children accept martyrdom if he is called to do so.  She asked me to ask everyone we know to please pray for them.  These brave parents instilled such a fervent faith in their children that they chose martyrdom.  Please surround them in their loss with your prayers for hope and perseverance. She was able to talk to her brother briefly by phone.  She didn't say it but I believe she believes it will be their last conversation.  Pray for her, too.  She said he just kept asking her to help him know what to do and do it.  She told him to tell the families we ARE praying for them and they are not alone or forgotten -- no matter what.  Her email broke my heart.  Please keep all in your prayers.  Thanks This came this morning... Just a few minutes ago I received the following text message on my phone from Sean Malone who leads Crisis Relief International (CRI).  We then spoke briefly on the phone and I assured him that we would share this urgent prayer need with all of our contacts. "We lost the city of Queragosh (Qaraqosh).  It fell to ISIS and they are beheading children systematically.  This is the city we have been smuggling food too.  ISIS has pushed back Peshmerga (Kurdish forces) and is within 10 minutes of where our CRI team is working. Thousands more fled into the city of Erbil last night.  The UN evacuated it's staff in Erbil.  Our team is unmoved and will stay.  Prayer cover needed!" Please pray sincerely for the deliverance of the people of Northern Iraq from the terrible advancement of ISIS and its extreme Islamic goals for mass conversion or death for Christians across this region.  May I plead with you not to ignore this email.  Do not forward it before you have prayed through it.  Then send it to as many people as possible.  Send it to friends and Christians you may know.  Send it to your prayer group.  Send it to your pastor and phone him/her to pray during your church service - making a special time of prayer for this.  We need to stand in the gap for our fellow Christians.

obama praises Muslim cleric before the UN ... Unbelievable! ... Thx Ramey H!

Obama Praises Muslim Cleric Who Backed Fatwa on Killing of U.S. Soldiers

Controversial cleric gets nod in Obama’s speech at the United Nations

Share

Tweet

Email

President Barack Obama addresses the United Nations General Assembly / AP

BY: Adam Kredo
September 24, 2014 1:40 pm
President Barack Obama favorably quoted and praised on Wednesday in his speech before the United Nations a controversial Muslim cleric whose organization has reportedly endorsed the terror group Hamas and supported a fatwa condoning the murder of U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
Obama in his remarks offered praise to controversial cleric Sheikh Abdallah Bin Bayyah and referred to him as a moderate Muslim leader who can help combat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s (ISIL or ISIS) radical ideology.
However, Bin Bayyah himself has long been engulfed in controversy for many of his views, including the reported backing of a 2004 fatwa that advocated violent resistance against Americans fighting in Iraq.
This is not the first time that the Obama administration has extoled Bin Bayyah, who also has served as the vice president of a Muslim scholars group founded by a radical Muslim Brotherhood leader who has called “for the death of Jews and Americans,” according to Fox News and other reports.
The State Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau (CT) was forced to issue multiple apologies earlier this year after the Washington Free Beacon reported on its promotion of Bin Bayyah on Twitter.
“This should not have been tweeted and has since been deleted,” the CT Bureau tweeted at the time after many expressed anger over the original endorsement of Bin Bayyah.
However, it appears that Obama and the White House are still supportive of Bin Bayyah, who, despite his past statements, is still hailed by some as a moderate alternative to ISIL and al Qaeda.
“The ideology of ISIL or al Qaeda or Boko Haram will wilt and die if it is consistently exposed, confronted, and refuted in the light of day,” Obama said before the U.N., according to a White House transcript of his remarks.
“Look at the new Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies—Sheikh bin Bayyah described its purpose: ‘We must declare war on war, so the outcome will be peace upon peace,’” Obama said, quoting the controversial cleric.
Concern over the administration’s relationship with Bin Bayyah started as early as 2013, when outrage ensued after he was reported to have met with Obama’s National Security Council staff at the White House.
While Bin Bayyah has condemned the actions of groups such as Boko Haram and ISIL, he also has taken controversial positions against Israel.
He issued in 2009 a fatwa “barring ‘all forms of normalization’ with Israel,” according to a Fox report on the White House meeting.
Additionally, the notorious 2004 fatwa permitting armed resistance against U.S. military personnel in Iraq reportedly stated that “resisting occupation troops” is a “duty” for all Muslims, according to reports about the edict.
Patrick Poole, a reporter and terrorism analyst who has long tracked Bin Bayyah, expressed shock that the Obama administration would endorse the cleric on the world stage.
“It is simply amazing that just a few months ago the State Department had to publicly apologize for tweeting out it’s support for Bin Bayyah, only to have Barack Obama go before the leaders of the entire world and publicly endorse Bin Bayyah’s efforts,” Poole said.
“It seems that nothing can stop this administration’s determination to rehabilitate Bin Bayyah’s image, transforming him from the Islamic cleric who issued the fatwa to kill Americans in Iraq and calling for the death of Jews to the de facto White House Islamic mufti,” he said.
This type of mentality has contributed to the administration’s foreign policy failures in the region,” Poole said.
“This is a snapshot of why this administration’s foreign policy in the Middle East is a complete catastrophe,” he said. “The keystone of their policy has been that so-called ‘moderate Islamists’ were going to be the great counter to al Qaeda. But if you take less than 30 seconds to do a Google search on any of these ‘moderate Islamists,’ you immediately find they are just a degree or two from the most hardcore jihadis and have little to no difference when it comes to condoning violence.”
A White House official said that the president’s remarks speak for themselves and declined to add anything further.

This entry was posted in National Security and tagged Al Qaeda, Barack Obama, Iraq, ISIL, Syria, terrorism, United Nations, White House. Bookmark the permalink.