OM Director's Update from Lawrence Tong, International Director

A single mother finds hope through a Self Help Group and is sharing the good news.

OM Director's Update from Lawrence Tong

In 2019, OM Ireland hosted its largest St. Patrick's outreach.

Workers Berni and Carla are passionate about reaching the East of Turkey and encouraged by spiritual growth happening there.

Saskia perseveres through language learning and connects with a young Albanian girl who becomes a follower of Jesus.

Rosario, Argentina :: When their programme for the day gets cancelled, crew take to the streets to share their faith with those they meet.

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.

ESTABLISHING a consensus to maintain the peace has never been trickier. Being stuck at home for 23 hours a day has taken the already onerous challenge of preserving civil relations and lifted to it a new level altogether.

Gerechtigkeit zu den Unterdrückten zu bringen ist ein Auftrag für jeden Christen, sagt Natasha Shoultz, die unter Frauen in Prostitution in Prag arbeitet.

Pason lost his family when he fled Myanmar. By playing football with OM team members, he finds friendship and hope.

"How could God use someone from the jungle to go to another country?" Agustinus once wondered. 

OM Director's Update from Lawrence Tong

OM Director's Update from Lawrence Tong, International Director

A single mother finds hope through a Self Help Group and is sharing the good news.

OM Director's Update from Lawrence Tong

In 2019, OM Ireland hosted its largest St. Patrick's outreach.

Workers Berni and Carla are passionate about reaching the East of Turkey and encouraged by spiritual growth happening there.

Saskia perseveres through language learning and connects with a young Albanian girl who becomes a follower of Jesus.

Rosario, Argentina :: When their programme for the day gets cancelled, crew take to the streets to share their faith with those they meet.

Barack Obama has criticised Donald Trump's handling of the coronavirus pabndemic, and described it as an 'absolute chaotic disaster', according to reports.

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.

Source: www.businessinsider.com - Friday, May 08, 2020
The US Navy sent two ships into the middle of a South China Sea dispute on Thursday as the commander of US Pacific Fleet warned China to stop "bullying" other countries in the region. A US Navy littoral combat ship and a cargo vessel conducted "presence operations" near the West Capella, a Malaysia-contracted drillship at the heart of a standoff with China and, to some extent, Vietnam. Adm. John Aquilino, commander of US Pacific Fleet, said in a statement Thursday that China "must end its pattern of bullying Southeast Asians out of offshore oil, gas, and fisheries." Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories . The US Navy warned China to stop "bullying" other countries in the South China Sea as two Navy ships sailed into the middle of a dispute in the contested waterway. The Independence-variant littoral combat ship USS Montgomery and the Lewis and Clark-class dry cargo ship USNS Cesar Chavez conducted "presence operations" near the West Capella, showing apparent support for the Malaysia-contracted drillship that has been hassled by Chinese ships in recent months. Adm. John Aquilino, commander of US Pacific Fleet, said in a statement Thursday that the US is "committed to a rules-based order in the South China Sea and we will continue to champion freedom of the seas and the rule of law." He continued: "The Chinese Communist Party must end its pattern of bullying Southeast Asians out of offshore oil, gas, and fisheries. Mi

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

Pason lost his family when he fled Myanmar. By playing football with OM team members, he finds friendship and hope.

"How could God use someone from the jungle to go to another country?" Agustinus once wondered. 

OM Director's Update from Lawrence Tong

OM Director's Update from Lawrence Tong, International Director

A single mother finds hope through a Self Help Group and is sharing the good news.

OM Director's Update from Lawrence Tong

In 2019, OM Ireland hosted its largest St. Patrick's outreach.

Workers Berni and Carla are passionate about reaching the East of Turkey and encouraged by spiritual growth happening there.

Saskia perseveres through language learning and connects with a young Albanian girl who becomes a follower of Jesus.

Rosario, Argentina :: When their programme for the day gets cancelled, crew take to the streets to share their faith with those they meet.

College sports won't begin until schools reopen, NCAA president says

Parks testing public access at several parks with limited offerings and services

Deputy will be charged with trespassing and breaking and entering.

More U.S. employers seem to be recognizing a growing possibility.

A poem by Erin Murphy, professor of English, has been selected for the Pennsylvania Center for the Book’s Public Poetry Project.

With the digital business landscape ever-changing due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, the North Central PA LaunchBox is teaming up with the Altoona LaunchBox to offer the webinar “Cyber Security for Business” from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday, May 6.

As part of Penn State’s 2020 spring commencement activities, Clara Miller will represent the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies in the College of the Liberal Arts as its student marshal.

This blog is a another great response-to-intervention resource; the last several posts have focused specifically on what researchers know about best practices for response to intervention at the secondary level. It was a good resource for me as I was writing my latest RTI article, published just thi

With a lot of moving parts, schools often struggle to make response-to-intervention and positive-behavior-interventions-and-support systems effective in the long run, but an early focus on school teaming and data can improve their odds, according to a new study.

OM Ecuador team members work with people living with HIV and AIDS in a children's hospital in Guayaquil.

“Jesus really died for me?” asks one child during a recent outreach in Cañar, where OM witnesses God impact many through sports and Bible study.

Jean Pierre's prayer was answered during a Christmas celebration with OM in La Estancia/Simón Bolívar which was impacted by the 2016 earthquake.

The Catholic Church remembers St. Damien of Molokai on May 10. The Belgian priest sacrificed his life and health to become a spiritual father to the victims of leprosy quarantined on a Hawaiian island.Joseph de Veuser, who later took the name Damien in religious life, was born into a farming family in the Belgian town of Tremlo in 1840. During his youth he felt a calling to become a Catholic missionary, an urge that prompted him to join the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.Damien's final vows to the congregation involved a dramatic ceremony in which his superiors draped him in the cloth that would be used to cover his coffin after death. The custom was meant to symbolize the young man's solemn commitment, and his identification with Christ's own death. For Damien, the event would become more significant, as he would go on to lay down his life for the lepers of Molokai.His superiors originally intended to send Damien's brother, a member of the same congregation, to Hawaii. But he became sick, and Damien arranged to take his place. Damien arrived in Honolulu in 1864, less than a century after Europeans had begun to establish a presence in Hawaii. He was ordained a priest the same year.During his ninth year of the priesthood, Father Damien responded to his bishop's call for priests to serve on the leper colony of Molokai. A lack of previous exposure to leprosy, which had no treatment at the time, made the Hawaiian natives especially susceptible to the infection. Molokai became a quarantine center for the victims, who became disfigured and debilitated as the disease progressed.The island had become a wasteland in human terms, despite its natural beauty. The leprosy victims of Molokai faced hopeless conditions and extreme deprivation, sometimes lacking not only basic palliative care but even the means of survival.Inwardly, Fr. Damien was terrified by the prospect of contracting leprosy himself. However, he knew that he would have to set aside this fear in order to convey God's love to the lepers in the most authentic way. Other missionaries had kept the lepers at arms' length, but Fr. Damien chose to immerse himself in their common life and leave the outcome to God.The inhabitants of Molokai saw the difference in the new priest's approach, and embraced his efforts to improve their living conditions. A strong man, accustomed to physical labor, he performed the Church's traditional works of mercy – such as feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, and giving proper burial to the dead – in the face of suffering that others could hardly even bear to see.Fr. Damien's work helped to raise the lepers up from their physical sufferings, while also making them aware of their worth as beloved children of God. Although he could not take away the constant presence of death in the leper colony, he could change its meaning and inspire hope. The death-sentence of leprosy could, and often did, become a painful yet redemptive path toward eternal life.The priest's devotion to his people, and his activism on their behalf, sometimes alienated him from officials of the Hawaiian kingdom and from his religious superiors in Europe. His mission was not only fateful, but also lonely. He drew strength from Eucharistic adoration and the celebration of the Mass, but longed for another priest to arrive so that he could receive the sacrament of confession regularly.In December of 1884, Fr. Damien discovered that he had lost all feeling in his feet. It was an early, but unmistakable sign that he had contracted leprosy. The priest knew that his time was short. He undertook to finish whatever accomplishments he could, on behalf of his fellow colony residents, before the diseased robbed him of his eyesight, speech and mobility.Fr. Damien suffered humiliations and personal trials during his final years. An American Protestant minister accused him of scandalous behavior, based on the contemporary belief that leprosy was a sexually transmitted disease. He ran into disagreements with his religious superiors, and felt psychologically tormented by the notion that his work had been a failure.In the end, priests of his congregation arrived to administer the last sacraments to the dying priest. During the Spring of 1889, Fr. Damien told his friends that he believed it was God's will for him to spend the upcoming Easter not on Molokai, but in heaven. He died of leprosy during Holy Week, on April 15, 1889.St. Damien of Molokai was beatified in 1995. Pope Benedict XVI canonized him in 2009.

OM Belgium and OM Arts creatively connect with the local community through drawings, song, poetry and flowers.