A recent “reconciliation meeting” between members of a Muslim mob that attacked a Christian-owned school in Egypt and school administrators was nothing less than an attempt at legalized extortion, the director of the school said.

In exchange for peace, members of the sword-wielding mob that stormed the school last month without provocation –

and held two nuns hostage for several hours – initially demanded in the meetings that the school sign over parcels of land that include the guesthouse the Muslim extremists attacked.

Magdy Melad, manager of the Notre Dame Language Schools in Aswan Province, told Compass that despite the risk of more attacks, he refused the assailants’ demand. Doing so, he said, would set a precedent in Aswan of Muslims attacking and seizing Christian-owned property and then using reconciliation councils to give the appearance of legitimacy.

“If we give in to that, they will take everything,” Melad said.

He conceded that although he escaped with the property, and the victims escaped with their lives, he may have given away something more precious – he agreed not to prosecute any of the hundreds of people who attacked his school.

“The only thing we had to give away was our rights,” Melad said sardonically, adding that the threat of future violence forced him to make the agreement. “This was all against the law.”

“Reconciliation meetings” are held throughout Egypt after incidents of “sectarian” violence in order to restore calm. Increasingly used during the administration of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, the meetings are loosely based on traditional Arabic tribal councils. Supporters of the reconciliation process, mainly government and Islamic leaders, say the meetings offer a way to defuse tensions. Those who oppose the process, including numerous human rights groups and Coptic rights activists, say the meetings are just a way to pressure powerless groups and people into giving away what little rights they have.

On March 4, about 1,500 villagers chanting Islamic slogans and brandishing swords and knives surrounded a guesthouse at the privately run, public language school in the village of Abu Al-Reesh. The mob accused nuns trapped inside of building a church in the guesthouse and threatened to burn them out unless they surrendered. The situation lasted for eight hours until police were finally able to bring the nuns to safety.

The women faced “unimaginable fear,” Melad said, adding, “No matter what I say, I cannot give a picture of the fear and the worry they had.”

During the attack, Muslims began shouting over loudspeakers from three nearby mosques, summoning more villagers to surround the guesthouse.

“People of Abu Al-Reesh, get down [there] – the Christians are building a church and building a monastery; the Christians took our ancestors’ land and are building a church,” the Muslim leaders demanded, according to Melad Kamel Garas, owner of the school.

The mob ransacked the building, stealing security cameras, electrical equipment and a satellite dish on top of the guesthouse, among other items, Melad confirmed.

The attack continued into the next day. According to Melad, at least one member of the mob told parents, “If you care for the safety of your sons, you will stop bringing them [to school].”

In the days that followed, one of the members of the mob hung a huge “closed” sign on the main school building. When a policeman told the villagers to take down the sign, they attacked him with knives, Melad said. The officer recovered after basic first-aid treatment.

“It’s a very hard time in Egypt,” Melad said.

The formal reconciliation meeting took place on March 25, with the local governor, members of the national intelligence service and representatives of the national police force in attendance, Melad said. People representing the group of villagers went in first and met with the governor for almost an hour. When they emerged, the governor assured Melad he would “never have any problems again.”

Melad acknowledged that when the governor asked him to shake hands with one of the Muslims, he thought to himself, “Shake hands for what?”

The school still owns the guesthouse, but it has essentially been stripped bare – and government officials have ordered Melad not to use it. Ignoring the order could cost Melad more than a criminal charge, he said; it could cost him or one of his family members their life at the hands of a vindictive villager.

“Someone could stab you when you are walking down the street,” he said.

Possible Danger
Melad said that Abu Al-Reesh is peaceful now, “but you can’t tell what’s going on under the surface.” Villagers are “distracted” by the political situation in the country, and Islamist groups have started quarreling with each other enough to care less about Christians in the community.

Attendance at the school is down by 30 percent, but Melad said it is hard to determine how much of the decline can be attributed to the attack. The school term is about to end, he said, and many parents traditionally keep their children home to make sure they study for upcoming examinations. Also, it is a holiday season in Egypt.

He added, however, that, “Some parents are afraid it may happen again.”

Two of the nuns are back at school, albeit in a reduced role. They only teach religious classes to Christian children. One of the nuns, however, could not come back to the school; she remains in Cairo, still suffering from the effects of a nervous breakdown caused by the attack.

As for how the children are faring, Melad said they have been resilient.

“They’re kids – they fight with each other, and 10 minutes later they are playing again,” he said.

END

Islamic extremists in India attacked a Christian prayer meeting in West Bengal state, beating a 65-year-old widow and other women less than a month after they helped drive a young woman out of her home and village for her faith.

Islamists in Nutangram, Murshidabad district forced their way into the home of Gaffar Shaike on March 30 at around 2 p.m., as 11 Christians from Believers’ Church were gathered for lunch and worship. In the same area of Nutangram on March 9, Islamic extremists drove 22-year-old Rekha Khatoon out of her village because she dared to give thanks for healing in Christ’s name in the predominantly Muslim village; her parents helped the Islamists to beat her nearly unconscious.

Initially seven extremists led by Mohammed Aanu Shaike stormed into the home of Gaffar Shaike and ordered the Christians to stop the meeting, said Pastor Bashir Pal, founder and pastor of the village Believer’s Church.

Gaffar Shaike said the extremists called them pagans as they kicked, slapped and pushed the Christians, adding that they reprimanded him and his wife for dismissing several warnings from them to stop leading prayer meetings in their house. A year ago, the extremists had burned Shaike’s crops for his faith in Christ, he said.

“I asked the radicals why they barged into my house and why they were not allowing us to pray in my own home,” Shaike said, adding that the extremists were so blinded by fury that they only continued beating them, calling them pagans and threatening to continue doing so until they returned to Islam.

“We want freedom to worship Jesus in our home,” he said.

As the extremists mocked and otherwise verbally abused the Christians, a mob of about 100 Islamists gathered and charged into the house entryway, which is 72 feet long and eight feet wide, shouting anti-Christian slogans and threatening to murder them as they pushed, kicked and slapped them.

When the Christians tried to flee, the extremists blocked their way. The son of Muslim extremist Ahammed Shaike, Mohammed Kuran, beat 65-year-old widow Moyazan Bewa, Christians present said. While Ahammed Shaike’s wife was called in from the front porch to beat a Christian woman at the meeting named Selina Bibi, Mohammed Aanu Shaike beat Gaffar Shaike’ wife, Aimazan Bibi, kicking her head and stomach and leaving a deep cut on her hand, they said.

Other Christians present received minor injuries. Two Christian children present at the meeting were crying in fear, the Christians said.

The Christians somehow made their way out and scattered, but Mohammed Aanu Shaike, brandishing a sickle, chased many of them, “hurling all kinds of insults and attempting to murder them all, but God saved the Christians at that moment,” said Pastor Pal.

By then about 500 Muslims had gathered and were watching in amusement as the extremists chased and harassed the Christians for about 90 minutes, the pastor said.

“The Christians were running in all directions for their lives, including the children who were crying in fear, but the [adult Christians] were stopped at every corner by the radicals who thrashed, bashed and verbally abused them,” Pastor Pal said; no children were attacked.

Aimazan Bibi said spectators took up many positions.

“Some were standing on the house roofs, some stood in front of their houses and on the road,” she said. “There was a huge number of people who were mocking, pushing and shouting at us while some were also just spectators.”

Pastor Pal added that at one point the extremists had trapped many from the Christian group.

“The Christians were cornered at one place, where they all stood petrified in fear, but somehow the almighty God saved them,” he said.

“We pleaded with the radicals to let us go, and eventually they freed us while they were still shouting at us to leave Jesus or face more sufferings,” said one of the trapped Christians, Moyazan Bibi.

The Christians fled to the outskirts of the village about two kilometers away and took refuge in the home of one of the participants in the prayer meeting, Nasima Bibi, meeting police en route and informing them of the attack.

Area Christian leaders also informed the station officer of Nutangram Thana, who immediately sent police force to the site.

“After realizing that the police had reached the village, I urged Moyazan Bewa to go out and meet the police,” Pastor Pal said. “She asked the police why the Islamic radicals were constantly attacking them.”

Assuring her that they would take action against the assailants, police took the 65-year-old widow to her home, where a furious mob of Islamic extremists had gathered, said the pastor.

Officers warned the Islamic extremists not to disturb the Christians again, but they continued to taunt and mock them, he said, treating them as criminals.

“The extremists were always passing insulting remarks against them even while they were simply walking on the road,” Pastor Pal said.

On April 5, Mohammed Aanu Shaike threatened to kill Aimazan Bibi after he found her talking to a Muslim woman on the street, he said.

“Some extremists soon gathered, and they were calling her pagan and they threatened to murder her if they ever find her talking to any Muslim again,” the pastor said.

The Muslims have since ostracized the Christians, prohibiting them to buy and sell in the area and keeping them from using the public bathroom and water well, he said. The extremists have sternly told all shopkeepers not to sell anything to the Christians, and at press time they were all complying with the order.

The Christians filed a police complaint against the assailants, but no arrests have been made.

Some of the victims have been attacked earlier. Last year Selina Bibi was beaten for her faith and, as the Muslims assumed she would have some mark on her body indicating her faith, they stripped her naked to search for one. They beat her in spite of finding no mark (see www.compassdirect.org, “Muslim Extremists in India Attack, Threaten Women,” Aug. 5, 2011.)

“Even though the radicals have beaten me many times and want to kill me, I will not leave Jesus,” she said. “I will worship Him as long as I live on this earth.”

The mother of a 6-month-old girl has been wrongly jailed for more than a month, as Pakistani authorities have failed to file a charge sheet within the mandatory 14-day period against the young Christian woman falsely accused of “blaspheming” the prophet of Islam, her attorney said.

Shamim Bibi, 26, of village Chak No. 170/7R Colony, in the Fort Abbas area of Bahawalpur district, was charged under Section 295-C of Pakistan’s “blasphemy” statutes after neighbors accused her of uttering remarks against Muhammad. She was arrested on Feb. 28.

Speaking ill of Muhammad in Pakistan is punishable by life imprisonment or death under Pakistan’s internationally condemned blasphemy laws.

“Shamim has been implicated in a completely baseless case,” said her husband, Bashir Masih. “I was present with her at the time of the alleged incident … nothing of the sort happened. The Muslims cooked up a false story, though it’s still not clear who provoked them into leveling this accusation.”

After visiting his wife in jail today, Bashir told Compass by phone that she was holding fast to her Christian faith and firmly believed that God would rescue her soon from the false charge.

“She is alright otherwise, but she especially misses her daughter,” Masih said. “We are not sure when Shamim will be able to come back home, although our lawyer is quite hopeful of securing her release very soon.”

One of the two witnesses named in the First Information Report (FIR), Abdul Qayyum, has already denied hearing anything from her that supports the charge.

“The police just did not listen to our pleas and went ahead and registered a case against my innocent wife,” he said. “It’s been over a month now, but the police haven’t filed a charge sheet against her. Who will compensate for the agony that my wife and family are suffering for no fault of ours?”

Shamim Bib’s lawyer, Mahboob A. Khan, told Compass that he had filed a bail application on March 17, but the court has not taken it up.

“The complainant party has changed their lawyer, and their new counsel filed his papers in court at today’s [Tuesday] hearing,” Khan said. “The bail application will now most likely be heard at the next hearing.”

On the delay in completing the charge sheet, Khan said that police were supposed to register it within 14 days of filing the FIR under the Code of Criminal Procedure. Police say that they have forwarded the charge sheet to the prosecution department, but there has been nothing from them either, he said.

“The judicial process is painfully slow, and it’s even slower in such sensitive matters,” Khan said. “I just hope the judge realizes the gaps in the case, and even if he does not muster enough courage to quash the case, he should at least set her free on bail.”

Shamim Bibi’s family had earlier told Compass that she had been accused because she had resisted pressure to convert to Islam four days before her arrest. Three relatives had become Muslims on Feb. 24 and urged her to do the same, and when she refused, neighbors on Feb. 27 accused her of making derogatory remarks – as yet unknown – about Muhammad (see www.compassdirect.org, “Pakistani Woman Charged with ‘Blasphemy’ for Refusing Islam,” March 12).

Ansar Ali Shah, a local prayer leader in Chak 170/7R Colony, claimed that Shamim Bibi’s neighbors, Hamad Ahmed Hashmi and Abdul Qayyum, told him and other Muslims that they had heard the Christian woman making derogatory remarks about Muhammad in her courtyard, according to the First Information Report (FIR No. 30/12) registered by the Khichiwala police station. But there is no indication in the FIR of what, exactly, Shamim Bibi was alleged to have said.

As word of the allegation spread, a large crowd of villagers besieged her house and demanded “severe punishment for the infidel,” claiming she had hurt their religious sentiments, sources said.

Shahbaz Masih, her brother-in-law, told Compass that Qayyum told police that he wasn’t even present in his house at the time of the alleged incident and had come to know about it from Hashmi, the other witness. Hashmi, a motorized-rickshaw driver, also was not present at his house at 3 p.m., the time of the alleged remark, Shahbaz Masih said, based on information gathered from Shamim Bibi’s neighborhood.

Bahawalnagar Superintendent of Police Investigation Irfan Ullah has acknowledged that one of the two witnesses had admitted to not being present at the alleged “crime” scene at the time of the alleged remark.

END

KADUNA, Nigeria— Churches celebrating Easter services were the targets of a suicide bomber who killed at least 38 people yesterday in Kaduna city in northern Nigeria, sources said.

Security personnel at one of the church buildings blocked the bomber, believed to belong to the Boko Haram Islamic sect, who then decided to detonate his explosives in the street at a nearby motorcycle taxi center, the sources said. Dozens of people were injured in addition to those killed.

The bombs damaged the buildings of the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) Good News church and the All Nations Christian Assembly, besides blasting off roofs from homes and hotels and destroying vehicles. Located on the same street, Gwari Road, are the Redeemed Christian Church of God and an Assemblies of God church.

Luka Binniyat, a Christian resident of the city, told Compass that law enforcement agents believed the ECWA Good News church was the primary target.

“Richard Markus, a detective, mentioned that the bomber’s main target was the ECWA Good News church a few meters from the scene of the bomb blast,” Binniyat said.

Binniyat said that he saw the explosion at about 9:30 a.m., and shortly afterwards spoke with Markus.

“The bomber, described as dark, lean-looking and in his mid-30s, approached the ECWA Good News church at around 9:30 a.m., a plainclothes policeman informed us on Gwari road beside a roadblock set up to safeguard the church about 100 meters from its entrance,” Binniyat said.

Markus described the suicide bomber as wearing shorts and a T-shirt; he said he had an army uniform in the back of the Honda Academy car he was driving, according to Binniyat.

“He tried forcing his way past, but the security man stood in between him and the blockade,” Binniyat said. “He even pushed him a ways before some policemen manning the gate of the church rushed down to the scene.”

According to Binniyat, Markus said, “When we saw the uniform, I told him that he was a disgrace to the force. I said he should have been here to help with security instead of trying to be such a nuisance. Anyway, the police, fully armed, told him to move away. He drove away in a reckless manner.

“As we were regretting not searching his car, in about four to five minutes, we heard an earth- shaking explosion. The car that exploded was the same car that wanted to enter here.”

Residents of Kaduna who witnessed the attack told Compass some of the church buildings were affected. John Shiklam, a Kaduna-based Christian journalist, said the explosion shattered windows of church buildings and nearby establishments.

“A suicide bomber attempted to bomb the ECWA church and the All Nations Christian Assembly, both located at Gwari Road by Junction Road, but security agents repelled him,” Shiklam said. “However, on his way out the bomb exploded at Junction Road, near the Stadium Roundabout, killing the bomber and damaging some commercial vehicles at the junction.”

Blessing Audu, who witnessed the explosion, confirmed that parts of the Assemblies of God church building were also damaged.

Emergency rescue workers from the National Emergency Management Authority and the Red Cross removed bodies and evacuated the injured to four hospitals in Kaduna and Zaria. At St. Gerard’s Hospital, staff members told Compass that they had received five bodies and 10 wounded persons. Other hospitals receiving corpses and treating the wounded were Barau Dikko Hospital, Military Hospital and the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital.

Boko Haram (literally “Forbidden Book,” translated as “Western education is forbidden”) has targeted state offices, law enforcement sites and some moderate mosques in its effort to destabilize the government and impose a strict version of sharia (Islamic law) on all of Nigeria, but Kaduna resident Stanley Yakubu said that Christians are one of its main targets.

“The truth is that there is a deliberate effort to silence or eliminate the Christians in the north,” he said. “Otherwise, why have churches suddenly become the target of suicide bombers? Are there no mosques and Islamic centers in the north? Let the world accept the fact that there is no ‘Boko Haram,’ but ‘Christianity Haram.’”

Another resident, Malachy Gwatiyap, told Compass that attacks on Christians must stop. The bomber detonated the bomb in order to kill Christians disembarking from motorcycle taxis heading to their churches, he said.

“It appears from this heinous incident that Boko Haram is changing tactics – if they can’t get Christians in the churches, it would still serve their purpose to get them either on their way to or from church,” he said. “Shall we continue to suffer in silence? Shall we continue to be the sacrificial lambs on the altar of bigotry of these Islamists? We have suffered enough.”

CAIRO (CDN) — In a show of partiality to Muslims who go unprosecuted for like offenses against Christianity, a juvenile court in Egypt on Wednesday (April 4) sentenced a Coptic Christian teenager to three years in prison for allegedly insulting Islam.

Gamal Abdou Massoud, 17, denies the charges. The court claimed that he posted cartoons on his Facebook account in December that mocked the Islamic religion and its prophet, Muhammad. The court also claimed that he distributed the pictures to other students.

After the incident came to light, Muslims in Assuit, where Massoud lives, rioted. They fire-bombed his home and burned down at least five other Christian-owned homes in several Assuit villages. Massoud’s family left their village. It is uncertain if they were ordered out, left from fear or left because they had no home.

The sentencing was considered significant not only because violates the free speech clauses of the U.N.’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, of which Egypt is a signatory, but also shows another area where justice is executed unequally between Muslims and Christians in Egypt. The sentencing also shows that rights are given to the Christian minority in Egypt only when Islamic sensitivities are not involved.

When Muslim public figures violate Egyptian laws related to insulting Christianity, which happens often, the laws are ignored, Coptic Christians said. But when Christians are accused of violating the same laws against Islam, they pointed out, even a minor is usually punished to the full extent of the law.

The court also held Massoud responsible for inciting the riots. No one responsible for burning down any of the homes has been charged.

Samia Sidhom, managing editor at  Watani newspaper in Cairo, said the sentencing was a clear example of the double standard. When Coptic lawyers bring cases before the court about alleged instances of inflammatory speech broadcast publicly by Islamic or government leaders against Christianity, the Bible or Christians, the charges “are simply sidelined,” with cases going on for years with no outcome.

“They never get any sentences,” Sidhom said.

The three-year sentence was the maximum Massoud could have received.

Sidhom also called into question the veracity of the charges. She said her reporters could find no evidence that Massoud had even had a Facebook page, calling him “almost computer illiterate.”

This is the third high-profile case of “insulting Islam” to be brought to court against Copts in Egypt in roughly a month. On March 3, a Cairo court dismissed a case against Naguib Sawaris, a Copt and telecommunications tycoon, who was accused of insulting Islam for placing a cartoon of Minnie Mouse in a veil on his Facebook site as a satirical comment on what Egypt would look like if Islamists gained political power in the country.

Two weeks later, on March 16, a group of Muslim lawyers blocked off a courtroom where Makram Diab, a Coptic Christian, was trying to launch an appeal against a six-year prison term levied against him for insulting Islam. A Salafi Muslim brought the accusations against him after the two had a quarrel at a school where the two worked. Salafists claim to practice the Islam of the first three generations after Muhammad.

Sentenced six days after authorities arrested him, Diab was not allowed to have a defense attorney present at his original court hearing. His appeal is pending.

END

(RNS) Bruce Boling will celebrate Easter Sunday this weekend among Southern Baptists, just as he did when he prayed at a tiny Kentucky church where his family filled half the pews.

After decades away from faith, “I slowly began to see what I was missing was the relationship with God that I could find in my church,” said Boling, 45, who has settled in with a little Baptist congregation in Hendersonville, Tenn.

Lydia Scrafano’s heart will again thrill to hear Catholic hymns sounding on a great pipe organ, just as she did as a child in Detroit.

“I missed it all. I missed taking Communion with a priest. I missed the stained glass. I missed the Virgin Mary,” says Scrafano, 55, who has reconnected with her faith through a Catholic church in Williamsburg, Va.

Like many Christians and Jews, Boling and Scrafano drifted — or marched — away from the religion of their childhood. Then, unlike most, they came back.

And they came back to stay, not just to parachute in for the Easter service this Sunday or a Passover seder on Friday night.

According to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, more than half of Americans say they’ve switched religions at least once, but just 9 percent of U.S. adults say they’ve returned to the pews, practices and prayers that shaped them.

They’re not converts; they’re reverts. And religious denominations are stepping up efforts to reclaim, re-energize — and sometimes re-educate — these fallen-away faithful.

Catholic churches are adding adult programs to focus on returnees who often fear their actions or choices will keep them from the sacraments, the essential rites of Catholicism. Evangelical churches steer reverts to Bible study groups to help them establish stronger religious roots.

Rabbis reach out to young adults through a program called “Next Dor” (dor is Hebrew for generation). It’s promoted by Synagogue 3000, a consortium of leaders from Reform and Conservative movements, the two largest branches of Judaism in the U.S.

Several Catholic dioceses have reported post-Christmas or post-Easter attendance bumps after major advertising efforts, such as a “Catholics Come Home” media campaign launched in Phoenix in 2008.

The Archdiocese of Washington pushed to increase confessions during Lent (the 40 days preceding Easter) by opening church and chapel doors on Wednesday evenings. Their advertising slogan: “The Light is ON for You.” Within five years, the campaign spread across the country as more bishops adapted the idea for their dioceses.

But are they staying?

It’s not clear if these coaxed-back Catholics stick around, said Mark Gray, a political scientist with Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, which collects and studies statistics related to the Catholic Church.

Gray said some must be back for the long haul because the Catholic share of the U.S. population has held steady at about 25 percent for several years.

“There is not enough immigration to keep it at that if our ‘leavers’ estimates are correct. Some must be ‘coming home.’ The match just does not work otherwise,” Gray said.

At St. Bede’s, a Catholic megachurch of 3,700 families in Williamsburg, Va., Deacon Dominic Cerrato leads a seven-week “Welcome Home” class designed to answer the questions and calm the concerns that kept lapsed believers from church. More than that, the course seeks to draw them into parish life, not just “punching your ticket at Mass,” as he put it.

St. Bede’s was just awarded a grant from Our Sunday Visitor Institute, a Huntington, Ind.-based foundation that supports Catholic education and evangelizing. The church will use the money to produce a multimedia DVD package on its program, so other parishes around the country can emulate it.

The class stresses the joy of following Catholic doctrine. Some of those teachings — on morality, marriage, sexuality and other thorny topics — may have been confusing or difficult for adults who last studied Catholicism when they were children.

“We take a very personal, non-judgmental approach, without ever undercutting church teachings,” Cerrato said. “We put things in context of real life.”

About 250 people have participated in the classes, about 95 percent of which have gone to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, as confession is now called. Often — as Scrafano can attest — they emerge with tears of joy and relief.

Her mother led her out of Catholicism to an evangelical Bible church years ago, Scrafano said. She married a deacon in a non-denominational Christian congregation. “But it never felt right. It never felt the same,” said Scrafano, now divorced. Ten years later, while driving around for her job selling produce to area restaurants, Scrafano spotted a “Welcome Home” banner promoting the class at St. Bede’s.

“Three weeks into the class, my mom started coming with me. Now she’s back to the Catholic Church,” said Scrafano, who is sure she’s home to stay.

Synagogue 3000 is looking for similar results. Its research on synagogue life found 70 percent of young Jews are either not affiliated or not engaged with their religion. “And they’re not coming back in significant numbers when they have children,” said CEO Rabbi Aaron Spiegel.

Rabbi Esther Lederman of Temple Micah in Washington finds 20- and 30-something Jews who are curious about exploring meaning in Jewish terms and engaging more in religious practice.

Through enhanced programs and lower initial membership fees in 2009, Temple Micah has seen young adult membership jump from three to 30 in a year. Free services for the autumn High Holy Days— when members typically donate their annual support to the synagogue — prompted a surge of 350 people attending the evening worship for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in 2010 and 2011.

One is Jocelyn Roberts. Roberts’ mother is the daughter of a rabbi, and her father is an atheist ex-Catholic. As a child, Roberts never attended synagogue or church. Yet Roberts, 36, fondly recalled the family lighting Hanukkah candles and singing together.

After doing graduate work in Asian studies — learning about Hinduism, Shintoism and many kinds of Buddhism — “I came home and found myself more curious about Judaism. I felt like I was Jewish, but I didn’t know what being Jewish meant,” she said.

She found Next Dor while living in Seattle and began attending synagogue there. After moving to the nation’s capital for a job as a consultant, Roberts joined Temple Micah’s class for adults who want a Bat or Bar Mitzvah, a life cycle event traditionally marked by a 13-year-old girl or boy. Her Passover Seder Friday night will be at the home of her Jewish boyfriend’s parents.

Bruce Boling was driven away from his family’s small-town Southern Baptist church by his mother’s insistence that he go every Sunday. “Once I grew up and didn’t have to go anymore, I just quit,” he said.

Years of moving between cities and careers didn’t give him any incentive to return, said Boling, a project manager for a contracting company.

His wife, Elizabeth, is Catholic, and though a priest married them, he never converted. The birth of their two children prompted him to rethink his choices.

“I thought if I went back, it would make me a better father,” Boling said. “What I found was it made me a better me.” Now, Bruce and Elizabeth worship on Sunday mornings at Grace Baptist Church in Hendersonville, Tenn. On Sunday nights, they delve into Bible study in a small church group.

His Bible once belonged to his late grandfather. After he’d returned to church and stuck with it for six months, he says, “my mother mailed it to me for my Christmas present.”

DSB/KRE END GROSSMAN

Al Shabaab Islamic extremists suspected of throwing grenade into open-air evangelistic event.

NAIROBI, Kenya, April 3 (CDN) — An 8-year-old boy died today from injuries after suspected Islamic extremists on Saturday (March 31) threw a grenade into a Christian revival meeting near Kenya’s coastal town of Mombasa that instantly killed a woman and injured at least 30 people.

Kenyan Internal Security Minister George Saitoti said Islamic extremists from the rebel al Shabaab militia in Somalia were suspected of carrying out the deadly blast, although the group has not claimed responsibility. The government, which began military operations against al Shabaab in Somalia last October, today issued a warning of a possible attack by al Shabaab during Easter celebrations in Kenya this weekend.

The names of the boy and the woman who died after the suspected Islamic extremist threw a grenade into the open air meeting in Mtwapa have not been released.

Christians in coastal areas of Kenya were gripped with fear after the attack, which took place between 7 and 7:30 p.m., according to an eyewitness. The meeting, organized by the Mtwapa Pastors’ Fellowship, brought together 500 Christians from 16 denominations at the Kandara event site in Kilifi County, 16 kilometers (10 miles) from Mombasa. It began on Friday and would have continued through Sunday were it not for the attack.

“Someone inside a moving Nissan vehicle threw a hand grenade towards the podium where the preaching pastor, the Rev. Daniel Mwendwa of the Miracle in the Village Church, was ministering, and there was a group of singers close by,” said eyewitness Harrison Tembo Chome, pastor of the Holy Jerusalem Church. “Everything came to a standstill. There was wailing and immediately the police, the army and ambulances arrived.”

More than 30 people were seriously injured, mostly singers leading worship, he said.

Three people have been arrested in relation to the explosion, but it was not clear what relation they had with al Shabaab, if any.

“What we as the church are almost certain of at the moment is that the incident seemed to be a religious fight against Christians,” said another pastor who asked to remain unnamed.

About 300 meters from the Christian evangelistic meeting, a Muslim gathering near Kipingo Pharmacy Road took place throughout the week and continued during and after the blast, Christian sources said.

“Why were only the Christians affected and not the Muslim gathering, which had been going on for a longer period of time?” said one Christian. “On Sunday we the Christians could not continue with our meeting, but the Muslims continued. Why did they continue when they knew that such a terrible incident had happened close to where they were holding their religious meeting?”

A police investigation is continuing.

The attack comes after attacks and kidnappings in the area and elsewhere last year prompted the Kenyan military to strike at al Shabaab targets in Somalia. At press time Kenyan soldiers were moving towards Kismayo, an al Shabaab stronghold not far from Mombasa.

With estimates of al Shabaab’s size ranging from 3,000 to 7,000, the insurgents seek to impose a strict version of sharia (Islamic law) on Somalia, but the government in Mogadishu fighting to retain control of the country treats Christians little better than the al Shabaab extremists do. While proclaiming himself a moderate, President Sheikh Sharif Sheik Ahmed has embraced a version of sharia that mandates the death penalty for those who leave Islam.

END