The team in Fucecchio, near Pisa puts on their first English Sports camp after a year of local ministry through an after school programme.

Ride2Transform allows teams on two wheels to pedal far and wide, praying and sharing the love of Christ in least reached areas in Europe and Africa.

A Turkish believer remains strong in his faith through persecution.

Ministries in Turkey experience acceleration through wide sowing, building projects, and church planting.

Two OM workers share the gospel while riding on buses in Turkey.

OM Turkey helps the local church to minister to the 2.6 million refugees in their country.

Through the ups and downs of starting a new team, millennial workers see fruit when they start asking the right question.

OM teaches East London youth about the persecuted Christians in the world, as well as trains them in street ministry.

Engage, OM South Africa’s bi-annual conference, provides a challenge and a channel for joining missions with OM.

Participants of a poverty simulation activity hosted by AIDSLink International discover that it’s very different to minister to the poor than to be the poor.

Missions Discipleship Training in South Africa is not a wasted six months--it's a springboard into your calling, preparing and equipping you for the real deal.

OM has trained thousands of young people into a stronger relationship with Christ and prepared them for the mission field.

Ride2Transform allows teams on two wheels to pedal far and wide, praying and sharing the love of Christ in least reached areas in Europe and Africa.

How OM Founder George Verwer's visit to Siberia impacted local churches.

A young couple who met on the Internet answers God’s call to missions to help others find Christ using their IT and web design skills.

OM Russia leader Colin Cleaver discusses why he values the involvement of families in OM Russia’s ministry and encourages other families to consider missions.

The church in Russia is facing a new threat-HIV/AIDS. OM Russia works in rehab-centres to show God's love and compassion.

A group of Russians participates in an OM Moldova summer outreach for children.

A woman from a least-reached group of people accepted Christ during Discipleship Centre student outreach.

Although a flash flood inundated most of Metro Manila, Central and North Luzon in the Philippines, recent earthquakes have shaken up the nation even more.

OM Ships’ vessel Logos Hope welcomes her three millionth visitor on board while in Puerto Princesa, Philippines.

After taking inventory of the relief effort, OM Philippines workers, in partnership with churches, distribute relief necessities to some of the least-reached disaster sites.

As local markets begin to re-establish themselves, the OM Philippines crisis response team takes steps towards reconstruction in Tacloban, Bohol and Northern Cebu.

OM Philippines hosts camps for children affected by recent trauma that facilitate emotional restoration through dance, songs, crafts, Bible stories and more.

OM Philippines’ Alternative Learning System teachers visit the homes of students in an effort to connect with their parents and encourage further education.

20 A-frame houses and a Sunday School building destroyed by Typhoon Haiyan have been built by OM Philippines these past three months.

Three boys who sell fish become “men of peace” for the DreamAsia+ team in three of the poorest Muslim communities in the Philippines.

OM Philippines helps train and provide school drop-outs with the opportunity to earn their elementary or high school diploma.

Jemina (Finland) joined the Transform team in Athens. Changes in travel plans meant she used the metro system—between stations with very special names.

How OM is partnering with Greek churches to address the growing immigrant and trafficking situation

A shepherd from a Muslim background comes to Jesus thanks to a goat ministry started by OM Mozambique.

"...if they don’t believe you, you have to keep on talking and talking and talking until it gets stuck in their head," said Lansipe.

Lima, Peru, May 9, 2020 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- Peruvian congresswoman Luz Milagros Cayguaray Gambini has demanded the country’s health minister provide the legal and scientific basis for a directive that would allow abortion when a pregnant woman is infected with the novel coronavirus.

Abortion is illegal in Peru except when pregnancy would cause death or permanent harm to a pregnant woman.

On April 22, Peru’s Minister of Health Victor Zamora issued a directive calling for provision of emergency contraception in the country, and allowing abortion for pregnant women who test positive for the coronavirus.

In a May 5 letter, Cayguaray demanded Zamora to “Indicate what the legal basis” is for the directive that allows doctors to “end the pregnancy,” if the mother has contracted COVID-19.

The legislator also challenged Zamora to indicate “the scientific and medical basis the norm is based upon.”

At issue is whether a positive test for coronavirus is sufficient to establish that a pregnancy threatens the life of a woman. Gambini says that assertion is unproven and unfounded.

Cayguaray has also written to Dr. Enrique Guevara Ríos, director of the country’s Perinatal Maternal Institute, asking him to report how many pregnant women with COVID-19 have been treated to date, “how many have had their pregnancies terminated,” “on what grounds,” and “what current regulation has been applied to carry out the interruption of those pregnancies.”

The Arequipa Doctors for Life Association has criticized the health directive in a statement.

"At this time in which all our efforts as a nation should be aimed at improving our precarious health system to mitigate the serious impact of the pandemic, the circumstances are being used to dictate measures that threaten the lives of Peruvians in their most vulnerable stage, life in the womb,” the group said.

Regarding the “morning after pill,” the group expressed surprise and concern “that the Ministry of Health promotes the irresponsible and reckless use of this drug in the general population and particularly for minors, and even worse, dispenses with obtaining the person’s medical history, which is an essential tool for the responsible practice of medicine, thus seriously exposing the users to danger."

Aborting a child because the mother has COVID-19, the doctors said “is contrary to the principles that govern medical practice, which must always be based on the application of therapies that are based on rigorous scientific studies and with respect to elementary ethical principles” which guide medical science in providing the best strategies to protect patients.

When a woman is pregnant “we have two patients to take care of, the mother and the unborn child," the doctors association stressed.

Concerning the babies themselves, five newborns whose mothers have COVID-19 were recently discharged from a government hospital in Peru. A sixth, also born of a coronavirus patient who is in serious condition in the intensive care unit, was born prematurely and remains hospitalized. None of the babies have tested positive for COVID-19.

In a May 5 interview with the El Comercio daily, Dr. César García Aste, who heads the hospital’s neonatology department, explained that there are strict protocols as to how the baby is to be fed in order to avoid infecting it.

A doctor from the hospital is assigned to follow up daily by phone on the baby’s condition for an average of 14 days, and “so far we haven’t had a problem with any of the five babies,” Garcia said.

 

A version of this story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA's Spanish-language news agency. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

 

“This publication is a tool to help those who will join Goran in sharing the gospel among Gurbet-speaking Roma, and lays the foundation for future Christian materials.”

Work of OM Romania, partnering with the church

A Roma man’s cry to God for mercy to spare his son’s life transforms his future and the future of his small town.

Europe short-term mission coordinators gather in Sibiu, Romania, to increase vision, gain training and share resources for greater impact in Europe.

Faith is strengthened when OMers learn how the Lord watches over them, not allowing harm to come to the people or the ministry.

Transform staff Esther Banzi (South Africa) loves to share the needs in Europe with people from the Global South and see them moving into missions.

By visiting a local park in Catalonia regularly, to get to know the youth, and handing out little bags of toasted corn, the OM team are able to make friendships and share seeds of faith

Transform mission conference one year, outreach team in France the following year, the sisters from Mexico are eager to share the love of Christ, realising the audience was different from what they expected.

A group from the Sharing Lives Course visits a mosque in Lausanne, Switzerland, and learns that greater awareness can lead to greater sensitivity.

Lawrence and Susan Tong encourage the OM Switzerland team during their annual retreat.

The second batch of Timothy Trekkers met for the first time in Seremban, Malaysia, on 1 July to begin the 12-month leadership development course.

Seventeen participants from nine churches gather for OM Malaysia and OM Singapore's Life Direction Weekend in Port Dickson, Malaysia, from 21-23 March.

In June, 162 people from 28 countries participate in Out of the Comfort Zone Asia 2014, followed by outreaches to 12 countries.

Young believers among the indigenous people in the rural areas of Sabah, Malaysia are impacted through discipleship.

From 8-12 July, 135 Out of the Comfort Zone participants and staff gathered for practical missions training in Malaysia, before dispersing for outreaches in nine Asian countries.

Traders have discovered the benefits of coordinating option expirations with the release of economic data focusing on the impact of certain indicators.

It started with one ball and grew to become a garden.