A small Black Country, UK, church were blessed by the efforts of five young missionaries from different parts of the world.

When Rev Graham Clay, Pastor of Stratford-Upon-Avon Baptist Church, decided to have an OM ministry team work with his church, he didn’t hesitate to take action.

Dominic Notegen, a 27-year-old English Language Community Outreach student at OM Lifehope, feels called to spread the Gospel.

Three communications interns serving with OM Lifehope in the UK share their experiences and why people should consider using their God-given gifts in missions.

OM worker Janice uses art to create conversations about the gospel on the streets of England.

An art exhibition hosted in a church helps believers invite the community to come in and talk about faith.

Historically, the Netherlands has sent missionaries around the world to share about Jesus. Now, the Netherlands is a mission field.

An OM training conference equips a local pastor with tools to transform his Sunday service for Syrian refugees.

Workers from the Middle East North Africa Area share how they use strategic prayer to prepare the way for God to move across the region.

Amidst ongoing unrest, OM supports IDP communities by sponsoring food distribution through local partners.

Since the Syrian war began, OM workers have served alongside locals, including Muslim background believers, to spread hope amongst desperate people.

Ofentse Mokwena discusses what's needed for opening transport markets and unbundling transport SOEs.

Ian Bell, the award-winning Herald and Sunday Herald writer and columnist, died last week aged 59. Here are excerpts from 10 of his finest pieces of writing.

NICOLA Sturgeon was at her best during the new, extended First Minister's Questions on Thursday when she spoke about the sickening murder of Liam Fee.

SOMETIMES I appal myself. But I cannot deny that a small, reprehensible part of me will regret the lifting of the coronavirus lockdown.

What if the lockdown was lifted and nobody came? A lot of people seem quite happy with life under Covid, especially educated middle-class people on social media who are happily swapping Spotify playlists and recipes for sourdough bread.

Source: www.washingtontimes.com - Saturday, May 09, 2020
BEIJING (AP) - Yao Ming, the former Houston Rockets star and now president of the Chinese Basketball Association, says the league has three options for resuming the season that has been on hold since Feb. 1 over the coronavirus pandemic. Yao said the league might play out the full schedule; ...

Source: www.wellingtondailynews.com - Saturday, May 09, 2020
The Freewill Baptist Church will be giving away food and other items to people in the community, starting at 9 a.m. Saturday, May 16, but you have to make an appointment by calling the church office at 326-5521.Non-perishable food items and brand new items, such as fashion accessories, swimwear and home decor has been donated, Charlotte Brooks, church administrative assistant said. Shelter Insurance donated $1,000 worth of food.“Every donation is by the community [...]

Source: spectator.org - Saturday, May 09, 2020
You have to give it to the enemies of the Constitution. They are clever as hell and they never stop trying. In the three plus years of the Trump administration, the left has made up the most outlandish, insane allegations against Mr. Trump. He’s a Russian agent. He’s a rapist. He takes bribes. He conspires to thwart the FBI. They libel and slander him in the one party media endlessly. When they took the House, they made up literally screaming schizoid paranoid accusations against him to try to impeach and convict him. They have utterly corrupted the FBI. They are well on their way to corrupting all of the “Intelligence” gatherings of the government. None of it worked. The truth saved Mr. Trump and the Constitution. The truth and Fox News and Rush and our own beloved American Spectator and the GOP Senate kept America whole and lawful. Now comes the latest challenge: the use of Covid-19 to demolish the Bill of Rights. This time it has worked. Yes, the virus is real and it’s truly horrible. Just gory and awful. But it’s being used to destroy Freedom of Worship, the right to assemble, the right to travel, the right to bear arms. In most states, the right to worship in groups has been killed dead while the “right” to go to Walmart remains intact. We, the people, cannot go to rallies for getting our rights back. But we can go to immense drug stores to buy eyeshadow. We cannot see our children and parents. But we can have unlimited rig

Teens attending TeenStreet Europe in July will raise money for a project to bring reconciliation to the ethnically divided youth of Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Providing disadvantaged children with backpacks brings the gospel into homes in remote Muslim villages of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

OM's work in Finland began 50 years ago in 1965. Since then, approximately 3,000 Finns have participated in OM’s work.

An Iranian refugee surprises a long-term worker by stating his desire to become a Christian.

Teemu Laitinen (Finland) serves as the Bus4Life driver in Ukraine, Hungary, Moldova and Romania.

Recently, a team of 32 OM volunteers from the UK, Canada, Costa Rica, Guatemala and El Salvador worked together in an outreach to bring gifts and the Gospel to La Ceiba, Corozal in Honduras. For a week, they ministered in a community with a high percentage of people infected with HIV and a high mortality rate due to the consequences of AIDS. Many families in the area have suffered the loss of a father or mother. OM El Salvador took the initiative to respond to the needs of many kids and share about the love of Jesus in the outreach ´Changing gifts for smiles´.

A team of 38 from El Salvador and Guatemala visited the Salvadoran city of Perquín to spread the message of the Saviour.

A team from Guatemala, El Salvador and the US build a church for a new congregation and share the gospel in San Marcos, Honduras.

OM El Salvador sets out to redeem a rough neighbourhood.

A pastor of a small community church was about to resign when God brought new hope through the work of OM El Salvador.

A team mobilised by OM El Salvador walked for hours to show God’s love to the people of Cabañas. With actions rather than words.

Prayer and fasting have been part of the Algerian Church's lifestyle since its beginning. Unity among believers has contributed to ongoing spiritual strength amidst persecution.

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.

Algeria could transform missions in the Middle East, with a new ministry seeking to send 1,000 Algerian missionaries by 2025.

Bahia Blanca, Argentina :: A missionary couple teaches church members about serving God as a family.

Hearts owner Ann Budge has described the decision by Ladbrokes Premiership clubs to scrap league reconstruction as "shameful" and vowed the Tynecastle club will "formally challenge" any decision to end the top flight prematurely if they are relegated.

IT should really be remembered as one of Danny McGrain’s finest hours, not Scottish football’s darkest days.

Twenty-three people from Czech Republic attend an OM missions weekend held at the team base in České Budějovice in April.

OM Arts and a local Russian-language church in Czech Republic partner to build bridges with the community through art.

OM Czech Republic participates in Mission Weekend, an annual event to encourage Czech Christians to engage in missions.

OM Czech Republic engaged in a medical mission outreach and evangelism ministry to villages in northern Ghana.

Prayer and fasting have been part of the Algerian Church's lifestyle since its beginning. Unity among believers has contributed to ongoing spiritual strength amidst persecution.

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.

Algeria could transform missions in the Middle East, with a new ministry seeking to send 1,000 Algerian missionaries by 2025.

Bahia Blanca, Argentina :: A missionary couple teaches church members about serving God as a family.

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.

 

THERE is a new altar to worship at: all hail the mighty god of DIY. If you're not sitting down to a Zoom call on Monday morning with plaster-streaked hair, singed eyebrows and muscles aching from hard graft, what on earth have you been doing with your weekend?

PREPARATIONS to give out millions of coronavirus vaccines must start now or Scotland risks compounding the economic damage caused by the pandemic, a leading expert has warned.

The government's new public slogan for the next phase in the fight against coronavirus has fallen flat ahead of its proposed reveal tonight.

The Herald is bringing live coronavirus updates and breaking news from Scotland, the UK and the world.

Source: www.businessinsider.com - Saturday, May 09, 2020
Mother's Day is the single most important holiday for flower shops, with many businesses relying on strong holiday sales to survive the summertime slowdown in demand for flowers. Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, spring 2020 got off to an ominous start for florists across the United States. 1-800-Flowers.com, Inc. CEO Chris McCann and BloomNation CEO and cofounder Farbod Shoraka told Business Insider that their florist partners are seeing a major uptick in spending in the run-up to Mother's Day. The National Retail Federation is projecting that flower sales on Mother's Day will increase from $2.01 billion to $2.1 billion in 2020. Despite the good news, there remain major challenges to florists and the flower industry as a whole during COVID-19, including a major downturn for growers and wholesalers, reduced staffing, and even figuring out distribution capabilities. But Society of American Florists CEO Kate Penn told Busines Insider that florists are some of the "resourceful" and scrappy business owners out there: "Come rain, sleet, or social distancing they'll figure out how to get it delivered." Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories . For flower shops across the United States, Mother's Day is the most important date on the calendar. Millions of Americans setting out to make their moms feel special with a bright bouquet consistently ensure that the second Sunday of May is the biggest holiday in the flower business