Bridge of Grace

In Middle East nations from Egypt, to Pakistan, to Indonesia it's been an ongoing practice for women of religious minorities to be kidnapped by Islamists and forcibly converted and married to their kidnapper.  The victims include Christians, Hindus, Yazidis, even Muslim women who belong to a different sect from that of their kidnapper.  In Nov. of 2019, another young girl fell victim to this practice.  Her name is Humma, and she is a 14-year-old girl from the city of Karachi in Pakistan.  One month ago, she was kidnapped from her school, and just recently, a video was released on social media in which she confessed that she accepted Islam and is now happily married to her Muslim husband.  This is a lie.  No 14-year-old child willingly agrees to marriage and conversion after disappearing for a month.  Unfortunately, the Pakistani authorities, like many others in the Middle East, are blinded by their prejudice and corruption.  Once a girl is recorded making a statement like this, t

It is part of our fallen nature to scapegoat other people whenever something goes wrong.  It is human nature to blame someone else for personal and societal problems.  Sadly, it's easier to blame, hold grudges, and even seek revenge than to demonstrate the lessons of forgiveness and compassion that we preach.  This is the same with the church, who fell prey to Satan's lure and turned against the very people through which our salvation came from.   In the early centuries of the church, the disagreement between Jewish and Gentile Christians who accepted Jesus as the promised Messiah and the Jewish people who did not eventually created a tragic schism that was solidified after the Bar Kockhba Jewish revolt (A.D. 132-135).  The church leaders began to forget that our salvation came through the Jews (John 4:22), that Jesus was a Jewish Messiah, born of a Jewish family, with Jewish Disciples.  They even began to forget that most of the New Testament was written by Jewish believer

Tombstones of Dead Afghan Children Buried in Iran For years the Iranian Revolutionary Guard have recruited anywhere from 10,000-12,0000 young Afghan men and boys (some as young as 14) to fight in the Syrian Civil War, many of which serve in the terrorist group Hezbollah.  Recruiting children under the age of 15 violates International Law and is considered a War Crime.  Most of the Afghan recruited are war refugees, but some are migrant workers, or they're from ethnic Hazara and Shiite communities that live around the Iran/Afghanistan border.   According to researchers, by the year 2018 at least 840 Afghan recruits have died in fighting in the Syrian Civil War, and that number is very likely to be higher.  These Afghan refugees, motivated by lack of economic opportunity and religious zeal, have been deceived by the Iranian regime into a fighting for a cause that is not theirs and a land that is not their own.   Experts estimate that Iran has sent approximately 80,000 fig

In the nation of Iran, fighting for the rights of women can be dangerous, even fatal.  Women who dare to stand up for their rights risk everything, even their lives.  Here are some of the courageous women who dared to stand for their rights, against one of the most oppressive regimes on the entire planet.  Shaparak Shajarizadeh : Shaparak is a women's rights activist who removed her hijab in protest of Iran's "mandatory hijab" law.  Shaparak's actions led her to be arrested along with 37 other women.   Shaparak's recent act of defiance earned her a sentence of 20 years in prison.  Fortunately, she was able to flee to Turkey.  Unfortunately, her attorney, Nasrin Sotoudeh, was not so lucky.  Nasrin was also arrested for speaking out on behalf and Shaparak and others female protesters and sentenced to 38 years in prison.  Today, Nasrin remains behind bars.   Maryam Faraji : Maryam was a 33-year-old women's rights activist.  Maryam started the "W

In November of 2019 I attended an anti-Human Trafficking conference at Georgetown University.  The event was hosted by a number of journalists, human rights activists, and law enforcement officials from across the nation.  The conference taught me quite a bit, and one thing in particular that caught my attention was how the revealed the sinister organization NAMBLA (North American Men Boys Love Association).   During the panel discussion, former FBI agent Bob Hamer infiltrated this organization.  Mr. Hamer, an experienced undercover agent, confessed that this organization's "Inner Circle" was so secretive that infiltrating it was more difficult than infiltrating any criminal syndicate in America.  Mr. Hamer revealed that the doctors and lawyers in the organization are working to push education facilities and government officials to declare pedophilia as a "natural sexual orientation."  They want pedophilia to be "decriminalized" and "normali

On Oct. 31 2019, 11-year-old Afsana, who resides in the Pakistani city of Karachi, went to her local Mosque to read the Qur'an.  It was in the mosque that she was raped by one of the religious instructors, Imam Masjid.  Her outraged family immediately reported the incident to the local police, but unfortunately, the police have not yet pressed charges against Imam Masjid.  Pakistani society is very discriminatory toward women.  Typically in a rape case, the man's word is taken in higher regard than that of the woman.  The reason being is that under Sharia Law, a woman's testimony is worth half that of a man's ( Surah 2:282 &  Bukhari Volume 3, Book 48, Number 826 ).   This Orthodox Islamic teachings was steadily introduced into becoming the law of the state of Pakistan after General Zia took over the nation in a military coup in 1977, and in many regards is still the law in Pakistan today.   The passage and enforcement of this law by General Zia has had devest

The evils of human trafficking knows no limits.  In the Nigerian city of Lagos, local police recently freed 19 pregnant women and four infants from a human trafficking ring.  This ring was created specifically for the purpose of breeding and selling infant children.  These women, ages 15-28, were lured into believing that they were being offered jobs as domestic help.  Once in the traffickers hands, they were taken away, imprisoned, and repeatedly raped.   The traffickers used female accomplices to lure women with the promise of employment.  Once meeting them, these women took their victims to a breeding center, where they were kept under lock & key and were repeatedly raped by different men in order to be impregnated.  Once these victims gave birth their children were taken away and sold off.    Police report that infant boys were sold for $1630 and girls for $980.  Some of the women were induced to go into labor when they were only seven months pregnant so their infant