A Christian aid group will not be deterred from its work despite the recent massacre of nine of its members and one nonreligious sympathizer on a mountain in northern Afghanistan.

Dirk Frans, executive director of International Assistance Mission said the murders of six Americans, one nonreligious Briton, one German and two Afghans were “devastating.”

Still, after 44 years of working openly as a Christian aid group in this traditionalist Muslim nation they will not be daunted by the tragic deaths, The Washington Post said.

Among the deceased were team leader Tom Little, a New York optometrist who had been in Afghanistan for decades, and Karen Woo, a nonreligious British surgeon who only joined the group last year and planned to leave within two weeks to get married, The Washington Post said.

Woo, a humanist, went with the group because she had a personal desire to “make a difference.” Her close friend, BBC World Service journalist Firuz Rahimi said she felt confident because she was going with an experienced group, The Guardian said.

Rahimi said on the night Woo was going on the trip she expressed more concern about the physical challenge of travelling through the mountains, but was confident because they were taking a safe route, The Guardian said.

The lone survivor of the attack was the group’s Afghan driver Saifullah who is currently with the Interior Ministry for questioning, The Washington Post said.

The Taliban, who has claimed responsibility for the murders, said the aid workers did not obey an order to stop, and they were shot while attempting to flee. They claimed that the group’s belongings revealed a bible in Dari (the local language) and maps that pinpointed Taliban hideouts indicating they were spies who planned to convert Muslims, The Guardian said.

Dr. Tom Little was an IAM aid worker killed in Afghanistan.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said, “We are heartbroken by the loss of these heroic, generous people. We condemn in the strongest possible terms this senseless act. We also condemn the Taliban’s transparent attempt to justify the unjustifiable by making false accusations about their activities in Afghanistan,” The Washington Post said.

Frans denied the medical team was proselytizing. A press release on the IAM website addressed these claims:

“IAM is a Christian organization – we have never hidden this.  Indeed, we are registered as such with the Afghan government. Our faith motivates and inspires us – but we do not proselytize.  We abide by the laws of Afghanistan.  We are signatures of the Conduct for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and NGOs Disaster Response Programmes, in other words, that, “aid will not be used to further a particular political or religious standpoint.”

“But more than that, our record speaks for itself.  IAM would not be invited back to villages if we were using aid as a cover for preaching.  And in particular, this specific camp led by Tom Little, a man with four decades experience in Afghanistan, has led eye camps for many years to Nuristan – and was welcomed back every time.”

Frans said the group chose the safest route and had been to the area six times before. They also had documents from Nurestan’s health directorate endorsing the group’s visit. Two members among the deceased had worked in the country for decades.

IAM has 50 foreign volunteers and 500 Afghan staff. The group’s members work in seven provinces in the country. They have a mental health education program, an English school and minor hydroelectric projects in depressed rural areas, The Washington Post said.

The organization’s main focus of work is its National Organization for Ophthalmic Rehabilitation project which last year treated some 180,000 patients in blindness prevention, no small feat in a country where one is considered blind if one has only a single cataract.

Saifullah said they were attacked by 10 bearded gunmen who covered the relief worker’s faces and who communicated only with hand gestures. The gunmen lined the team up and executed the members of the group as they pleaded for mercy, The Washington Post said.

Saifullah survived because he recited a verse from the Koran, “There is no god but god and Muhammad is the messenger of god,” and said he was Muslim, according to The Washington Post.

As the gunmen led him uphill he continued to recite from the Koran and swore he was a devout Muslim, The Guardian reported.

Saifullah said he was beaten and kept overnight and that the men spoke in code or languages that he did not understand. He was set free the following day.

More information about those murdered:

Mahram Ali, 50, Afghanistan
Mahram Ali worked as a watchman at NOOR’s maintenance workshop since the end of 2007. He stayed guarding the vehicles in Nawa when the rest of the team walked over the pass into Nuristan. He leaves behind a wife and three children, at secondary school age and below.

Cheryl Beckett, 32, U.S.
Cheryl Beckett was working as an aid worker in Afghanistan since 2005 and had been involved in community development with a focus on nutritional gardening and mother-child health. She had been asked to assist the IAM medical team as a translator for women patients. Cheryl was a Pashto speaker who worked in a clinic in Pul-e Charkhi on the outskirts of Kabul. She is survived by her parents and 3 siblings.

Daniela Beyer, 35, Germany
Daniela was a linguist and a translator in German, English, and Russian. She also spoke Dari and was learning Pashto. She worked for IAM from 2007-2009 doing linguistic research and joined the eye camp so that she could translate for women patients. She is survived by her parents and 3 siblings.

Brian Carderelli, 25, Pennsylvania
Brian Carderelli was a professional freelance videographer.  Brian served a number of other organizations in Afghanistan active in development and humanitarian efforts throughout the nation.  Brian quickly fell in love with the Afghan people and culture and hoped to stay within the country for another year.

Jawed, 24, Afghanistan
Jawed was employed as cook at the Ministry of Public Health’s Eye Hospital in Kabul and had been released from there in order to attend the Eye Camp. He leaves behind a wife and three children below school age. Besides being the team’s cook, he also assisted with the dispensing of eyeglasses. Jawed had been on several eye camps into Nuristan in the past, and was well loved for his sense of humor.

Dr. Tom Grams, U.S.
Dr. Tom Grams was a dentist and personal friend of Dr. Tom Little and had come to Afghanistan specifically for this trip to Nuristan.

Glen Lapp, 40, U.S.
Glen trained as an intensive-care nurse and worked in Lancaster, New York City and Supai, Arizona, and had previously worked in the responses to hurricanes Katrina and Rita. He came to Kabul in 2008, and initially worked in the IAM HQ. Then after five months of Dari language training he began his work with NOOR, he was responsible for organizing the mobile eye camps that reached the remote areas of Afghanistan.

Dr. Tom Little, 61, U.S.
Tom was affectionately known as “Mister Tom” amongst the many staff at the National Organization for Ophthalmic Rehabilitation (NOOR). He arrived in 1976, with his family, and worked as an Optometrist and Manager at NOOR, setting up clinics and ophthalmic workshops. He was much loved by both foreigners and Afghans, and was the inspiration for other IAM team members coming to Afghanistan. Tom leaves behind his wife and three daughters.

Dan Terry, 63, U.S.
Dan came to Afghanistan in 1971; he had a heart for the rural areas of Afghanistan and worked for many years in Lal-wa Sarjangal. Dan specialized in relating to local communities and liaising with aid organizations and the government to improve services in remote areas. Dan is survived by his wife, three daughters, and one granddaughter.

Dr. Karen Woo, U.K.
Karen was a General Surgeon who came on the Nuristan Eye Camp to be the team doctor and to bring maternal health care to the communities in Nuristan.

Chelsea Clinton, a Methodist, married investor Marc Mezvinsky, a Jew, recently in an interfaith wedding ceremony in Rhinebeck, N.Y. Both a Rabbi and a Methodist Reverend performed the wedding ceremony and traditions from both faiths were included.

Billed as “America’s Wedding,” the ceremony was concelebrated by Rev. William Shillady, executive director of The United Methodist City Society in New York, and Rabbi James Ponet ’68, Yale’s Jewish chaplain and director of the Joseph Slifka Center, Yale Daily News said.

The couple expressed vows and exchanged rings, and family and friends read the Jewish Seven Blessings, Yale Daily News said. Another friend read Leo Marks’ poem, “The Life That I Have,” The New York Times said.

The wedding is viewed as a reflection of the religious shifts that characterize America. Fifty years ago the pressure to marry within one’s faith was so strong that Clinton and Mezvinsky might have never married, Fox News said.

A 1988 General Social Survey indicated that 15 percent of U.S. families were mixed faith. By 2006, it rose to 25 percent. Attitude change was reflected in a 2001 National Study of Youth and Religion where over three-quarters of 18 to 23 year olds did not think marrying in the same faith was important, Fox News said.

Attitudes notwithstanding, interfaith marriages still call for work. Experts agree that divorce rates are higher with interfaith marriages, Fox News said. A 2009 paper by scholars Christopher Ellison, Daniel Powers and Margaret Vaaler of the University of Texas in Austin found that there were higher divorce rates even in same faith marriages if a husband goes to service more frequently, or if a wife is more theologically conservative, the Washington Post said.

Noting that religion does not simply involve Sunday service, but even involves how children are raised, how time and money is spent, friends, networks and sometimes, even residences, the possibilities for disagreement are upped, the Washington Post said.

Oftentimes couples don’t discuss religion before marriage. However, psychologist Joshua Coleman who co-chairs the Council on Contemporary Families says that even as they marry with the best intentions, it is likely that later on religion will become a serious source of contention, noting, “They have no idea how powerfully unconscious religion can be,” the Washington Post said.

In short, love does not conquer all. Adding to the contention is that the National Study of Youth and Religion revealed that most respondents said they plan on becoming more religious after they marry, the Washington Post said.

Interfaith expert Sheila Gordon said Clinton and Mezvinsky will have to be prepared for the challenges of interfaith marriage. She adds, “My first advice would be for them to think both separately and together the role religion plays in their lives,” Fox News said.

Rabbi Irwin Kula of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership said that he thinks that Clinton and Mezvinsky are on track. “She’s done the Passover Seder and Yom Kippur with him, and I’m assuming he’s done Christmas as well. It seems like they have it together,” Fox News said.

British columnist and former atheist, Peter Hitchens, has written a book about his conversion to Christianity.

Hitchens, a London Mail political columnist and former Marxist revolutionary, has penned “The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me to Faith.” The book has a different subtitle in the U.K., namely Why Faith is the Foundation of Civilization, the Washington Times said.

A Cain and Abel scenario has unfolded with Hitchens’ new faith. His older brother Christopher, who remains an atheist, and he have had heated public debates. Christopher has authored the tome God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, CBN News said.

Both brothers were raised in a Christian home with a devoutly Baptist grandfather. Their paternal grandmother, whom they never met, was Anglican. Peter said they had “an extremely religiously conscious household,” CBN News said.

Both brothers became Marxists but today Peter considers himself a conservative member of the Church of England. He attends a small church that still uses an “old prayer book,” the Washington Times said.

The brothers are estranged. Peter suggests that his brother is a “repressed seeker”. He hopes his brother “might one day arrive at some sort of acceptance that belief in God is not necessarily a character fault – and that religion does not poison everything,” the Washington Times said.

Peter said that when he was an atheist, “We were full of our own righteousness. We knew what was right. We knew we were right. We knew we were good. We defined our own goodness,” CBN News said.

He had no Christian friends at the time. “There is a lot of scorn in revolutionary socialism.  There’s a lot of scorn for the people who aren’t up for it. There is a lot of scorn for the people who are opposed to it. There’s a feeling that you are the vanguard and you know best, and everyone else is ignorant and stupid,” CBN News said.

“You see that scorn in the new atheists, in the way they treat their opponents – not with any kind of respect at all. They still act as if Christianity is a kind of stupid aberration that only an idiot could follow,”    CBN News said.

Peter’s return to Christian faith took place in stages through the years. There was a time he remembers distinctly when he genuinely felt a fear of God though he was still an atheist. He was looking at Rogier van der Weyden’s painting, The Last Judgment, depicting the terror of Hell. ”One of them was actually vomiting with fright,” Hitchens told CBN News.

At that point, Peter feared for himself. “One of my reasons for my change is that I am scared. But then again, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Ironically, after the CBN interview it was learned that Christopher Hitchens had been diagnosed with cancer, CBN News said.

The Washington Times has speculated, “If Christopher turns out to be right, he won’t be able to tell his brother, “I told you so.” And if he’s wrong, well, he probably won’t be in any mood to admit it.”

Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of a founder of Hamas, will not be deported and may now apply for U.S. asylum.

Yousef was stunned when he found out in the immigration court that the Department of Homeland Security had changed their minds and withdrew their case, Fox News said.

Yousef’s father, Sheik Hassan Yousef, is a founder of Hamas, a Palestinian terror group that wants a strict Islamic law to be imposed in Palestine and Israel, the Washington Times said.

The elder Hamas is now in prison in Israel. Yousef converted to Christianity and spied for Israel’s Shin Bet for 10 years before moving to the U.S., the Washington Times said.

His Shin Bet handler, Gonen Ben-Itzhak went to San Diego to testify on Yousef’s behalf and said that Yousef saved Israeli and American lives as an informant, the Washington Times said.

The U.S. Jewish community backed Yousef, as did members of Israel’s parliament and some members from the U.S. Congress. Letters were sent to Attorney General Eric H. Holder noting that if Yousef were deported to the Middle East, his conversion to Christianity and work with Shin Bet would put him in grave danger, The Washington Times said.

The DHS did not give a reason for withdrawing their case. However it is believed that congressional support, public pressure, media and testimony from Yousef’s handler were the reasons, Fox News said.

Fox noted that they had aired their exclusive interview with Itzhak the day before the DHS withdrawal.

Yousef said he was pleased with the court’s decision, and he plans to continue to speak publicly against terrorism and Islam. He also said he would like to expose the ideological dimension of terrorists, and raise the security awareness of Americans, The Washington Times said.

He also said he felt he had a “responsibility to my own people,” noting, “They are deceived because they think they have the right to kill innocent people or kill anyone,” The Washington Times said.

Of his Christian faith Yousef said, “When we talk about God’s grace and unconditional love, I believe that if people believe in these concepts, the world will be better. You don’t have to believe in Christianity to believe in love and God’s grace. But it is good to share with others something that I believe has been good for my life,” The Washington Times said.

Ergun Caner will no longer be dean of Liberty University’s theological seminary.

Caner, a Baptist minister, gained fame as a Muslim-turned-Christian who spoke across the country and on television of his conversion, and was considered an expert on Islam. When he joined Rev. Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University in 2005 enrollment trebled, the AP said.

However the university’s board of trustees concluded after an investigation that Caner made contradictory statements, fabrications and embellishments in a number of public speeches and in his book, particularly with reference to names, places he claimed to have lived in and dates, the AP said.

The story of Caner has led to a rise in skepticism about other ex-Muslims turned Christian, some of whom claimed to be former terrorists and who found welcome among Christian fundamentalists, the Washington Post said.

Other Muslims turned Christian who claim to have formerly been terrorists are U.S. citizens Walid Shoebat who wrote the book, “Why We Want to Kill You,” and Kamal Saleem, author of “The Blood of Lambs,” the Washington Post said.

Concern has been raised that some are even accepted as experts on terrorism by the media, Congress and the military. They have delivered speeches at Harvard Law School and made appearances at Fox News and CNN, the Washington Post said.

They have also given talks at a terrorism conference and the findings were sent to Capitol Hill and the Pentagon. Mikey Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, has called this a national security threat, the Washington Post said.

Weinstein expressed concern that they were spreading fear of Islam and fomenting prejudice, the Washington Post said.

According to the AP, Caner will still be part of the faculty of the Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary. The school has cited his cooperation with the investigation and issued an apology for misstatements.

The investigation of Caner came about when Muslim and Christian bloggers cited irregularities in Caner’s claims on YouTube. This led other apologists and pastors to raise questions about the contradictions, the AP said.

When the issues arose, Caner changed the biography on his website and asked some groups to remove damaging video clips from their own websites. Nonetheless the questions remained, and Liberty University conducted their investigation, the AP said.

The time and expense spent on rescuing and rehabilitating animals amid the Gulf oil spill has given rise to the issue of animal rights, and the question of whether animals have souls.

At the same time, the topic of theology and animal law will be covered in a summer course at Harvard University, taught by Paul Waldau, president of Harvard’s Religion and Animals Institute, The Washington Post said.

In a piece he wrote for The Washington Post, Waldau said that animal law was first taught in Harvard Law School in the year 2000. A decade later, over 120 out of 196 law schools in the United States have picked it up and also give a course on animal law, with some giving more than a dozen courses in this area.

Harvard’s Divinity School taught courses on “religion and animals” before 2000, but it has not picked up as quickly nor as largely among theological seminaries. However Waldau notes in the article he wrote for The Washington Post that both religion and law are fundamental components of human life.

Waldau also cited faith leaders who exemplified kindness and feeling for animals, such as St. Francis of Assisi and Gandhi. He contends in his piece in The Washington Post that currently religious institutions have lost this sensibility and tend instead to teach a “traditional” religious view that man has a right to harm animals.

Valerie Elverton Dixon, founder of JustPeace Theory.com contends in a separate piece that she authored for the Washington Post that humanity was created to be vegetarian–though she admits that she herself is not.

In her Washington Post article, Dixon cites Genesis 1:29, “And God said, ‘See I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the land and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food,’” and says that eating animals came after—not before–the fall.

Dixon differentiates rights from moral duty.  She says in her Washington Post piece that rights come with responsibilities, while moral duty is an offspring of rights. She adds that one should be able to think about the consequences of what they do to be able to have rights.

Dixon says in her Washington Post article that there is a reflexive quality too such that even people who are comatose, those born with disabilities and babies have rights, because they are human.

Dixon further describes rights as the human prerogative to act, or to inhibit certain acts from being done to humans. She contends in her Washington Post article that animals should benefit from our moral consideration.

Citing the disaster in the gulf, Dixon says humans have a larger duty to consider animal wellbeing, including the regulation of factory farms and methods of slaughtering animals, she writes in The Washington Post.

Extrapolating further, she says having greater conscience toward animal rights may indirectly resolve human problems of obesity and health; and will make us more excellent people, she writes in The Washington Post.

A 62-feet tall, 40-feet wide statue of Jesus in Ohio has attracted media attention because of the irony attached to the fact that a faith structure burst into flames when it was struck by lightning.

But for Darlene Bishop, co-pastor of Solid Rock Church, it was a blessing in disguise, the Washington Post says.

Bishop said she was grateful that the bolt of lightning hit the $300,000 statue, and not the adjacent building where at-risk women are staying. “I told them, ‘It looks like Jesus took a hit for you last night,’” the Washington Post reported.

The statue, called “King of Kings” was built in 2004 at the Solid Rock Church, a nondenominational evangelical church which Bishop and her husband, Lawrence Bishop started, the Associated Press said.

The statue was often called Touchdown Jesus because the upraised arms resembled those of a referee. Its material, plastic foam and fiberglass, are highly flammable, the AP said.

Touchdown Jesus had become a major landmark in southwest Ohio, and is the latest of many tall structures that have been struck by lightning, and many religious icons that have been built in sizeable proportions, the Washington Post said.

Examples of the latter are the 130-foot Christ the Redeemer statue, a popular tourist landmark in Rio de Janeiro, which was struck by lightning in 2008. The 33-foot Jesus statue at Mother Cabrini Shrine in Golden, Ohio was struck the year before, the Washington Post said.

Other tall religious statues that have been struck by lightning are The Notre Dame de Chicago’s Virgin Mary which stood on top of the church’s dome, and a statue of St. Joan of Arc in New Orleans.  The Angel Moroni which is usually put at the top of Mormon churches has also been struck by lightning many times, The Washington Post said.

Touchdown Jesus was struck at about 11:15 p.m. Monday. The blaze swelled and reached the attic area of the adjacent amphitheater, but no one was injured. Damage to the theatre is estimated at $400,000 the AP said.

The fire halted traffic as people stopped to take pictures. Others retrieved some of the foam from the statue to bring home, the AP said.

Many bystanders felt America needs more symbols like it. Bishop said, “This meant a lot to a lot of people,” the AP reported.

Faith progressive democrats expressed apprehension recently that the party may be missing the boat by giving less emphasis to their faith outreach—more so with democratic control of Congress at stake in this fall’s general elections, the Washington Post reported.

The Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) faith staff of six has now dwindled to one part-time slot–a huge difference from the 2008 elections when the democrats hired faith consultants, advertised regularly on Christian radio and featured candidates, including President Obama, who spoke openly about their relationship with God, the Washington Post said.

Faith progressives are apprehensive after high-profile losses in the November Virginia gubernatorial race, and in a special election to fill the US Senate seat of the late Edward M. Kennedy in Massachusetts in January.  In last week’s Democratic Senate primaries, there was little visible new faith outreach, to the dismay of party religious activists, the Washington Post reported.

New strategy

When Obama took office he expanded the faith office that was established by President George W. Bush, which includes branches in a dozen federal agencies and a core staff that communicates with faith leaders about policy issues, according to the Washington Post.

Office director Joshua DuBois declined to comment on Democratic political outreach, but did say the White House is in frequent contact with faith leaders.

However, Timothy M. Kaine, chair of the DNC, and other party leaders attribute the decrease in paid faith staff to a new strategy in how the party does outreach, the Washington Post said.

The White House has opted to expand its network of grass-roots volunteers and shrink its national staff of organizers who were in the past broken down by race and religion, the Washington Post reported.

Patrick McKenna, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, said that the current economic climate has led to more focus on issues of recession rather than on faith based issues such as abortion, according to the Washington Post.

Faith vote

In the past many major democratic wins were credited in part to spending by national democratic organizations on faith outreach and by recruiting candidates who framed policy positions in terms of religious morality, the Washington Post said.

Notable among these were the 2005 victory of Kaine as governor of Virginia in 2005, a number of anti-abortion congressional Democrats in 2006, and Obama, who won more churchgoing voters in 2008 than any other Democratic presidential candidate in a decade, the Washington Post reported.

The Republican Party has a far more extensive infrastructure to connect with religious voters, especially evangelical Christians.  It has databases filled with tens of millions of e-mail addresses as well as long-standing ties to religious broadcasters and conservative religious groups such as the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family, according to the Washington Post.

According to Kaine, a staff mem

Are Democrats bungling their faith outreach?

ber who also does African American outreach has been assigned to oversee faith as well, but had been on medical leave.  Kaine said the party will be hiring more faith staff and crafting a faith outreach plan as the fall election season gets close, the Washington Post said.

Brian Jones, a strategist and former communications director for the Republican National Committee said, “It’s not done in one or two or three political cycles.”  The Republican party’s faith outreach dates as far back as the presidency of Ronald Reagan, the Washington Post reported.

The owner of the Be With Me, The Children’s Playseum in Bethesda, Md. was told recently that no Montgomery public school would send children to her facility because her website mentioned the words “God,” “life,” and “family,” according to The Washington Post.

From her website:

“We Value

LIFE-Every child is God’s gift to this earth.

FAMILY-The most vital part of our community. We treasure the opportunity to offer you a place to create family moments and memories while using our proceeds to help a family far away.

GOD-Giver of breathe and we endeavor to honor Him in all of our affairs.”

Be With Me, The Children’s Playseum is an indoor space that mixes creative play and education.

Geina Seebachan, owner of the children’s activity center, was told however that if she edited her website, schools would send children to the playseum.

Sean Bulson, an acting community superintendent for the county system, said he was “not aware” of any countywide decision about the playseum.  He did say that many parents expressed discomfort with their children going to the facility, The Washington Post reported.

The issue came to Seebachan’s attention when Westbrook Elementary School canceled a scheduled trip to the center.

All four of Seebachan’s children had attended Westbrook Elementary School.

However, according to Seebachan, Jeff Ewald, principle, told her that parents expressed concern that the Playseum was overtly or covertly religious, The Washington Post said.

Seebachan, an evangelical Christian, has among her teaching staff one from Peru, one from Sri Lanka, one vegan, one kosher Jew, a fellow from Trinidad and a woman from Congo, according to The Washington Post.

According to the play calendar on their website, there will be activities to celebrate Jerusalem Day, Waisak Day in Indonesia, Corpus Christi in Chile, and Memorial Day in the United States.

Seebachan, who studied international relations in college, also has activities at Pthe activity center that celebrate Thai and Shinto holidays, the prophet Muhammad’s birthday, Chinese New Year and Jewish holidays.

But on her Web site, she also advertises a Christian youth group she runs, according to the Washington Post.

Seebachan had experience in leading after school clubs and daycamps, has taught in China, and lived and visited over 22 nations.  The playseum’s on-hands activities are diverse, sensitive in spirit and reflect what she has gained from her travels, according to their website.

However now the Be With Me Playseum is being sabotaged through a whisper campaign and Seebachan has been receiving threats.

Anonymous Web postings saying Seebachan handed out antiabortion literature at the Playseum, accepts support from right-wing Christian groups and plays Christian rock music at the play space, according to The Washington Post.

One anonymous post from someone who claimed to be Jewish said that Seebachan told her that unless she accepted Jesus as her personal savior, the client and her children would go to hell, The Washington Post reported.

Seebachan said she has no literature about abortion, her sponsors are all secular, including Safeway and Strosniders hardware store, and if she knew anyone of her staff who told a client that she and her family might go to hell, she would fire them on the spot, according to The Washington Post.

“I’m not marketing to Christians,” Seebachan says.  “I imagined this place like a big, refreshing swimming pool for anybody to come to and be together with their children in a different way, without computers, TVs or cellphones,”  Seebachan told The Washington Post.

After five months of living in the jungle 48 Lao Christians who were expelled at gunpoint from their homes are contracting critical illnesses, and one has already died, according to Compass Direct News (CDN).

The Christians were expelled from Katin village for refusing to renounce their faith.  In the jungle they contracted diarrhea, dehydration, eye and skin infections, fainting and general weakness due to prolonged lack of adequate food and water, CDN reported.

One Christian, Ampheng, died suddenly in April while praying for one of two other Christians who were hospitalized for illnesses caused by their living conditions.  However the exact cause and date of Ampheng’s death is not known, and local officials did not permit the deceased’s remains to be laid to rest at the local burial ground, according to CDN.

After the Christians were driven away they built temporary shelters at the edge of the jungle some four miles from the village.  They survived on food found in the jungle and water from a hand-dug well that is unfit for cooking or drinking, CDN reported.

The registration papers of the homes of the Christians were confiscated along with their water buffaloes, which are essential for their work in the fields.  Katin’s village chief recently warned other residents not to make contact with any of the Christians, otherwise their personal possessions would be confiscated and their homes torn down, CDN reported.

Meanwhile in Washington DC a demonstration was held at the Lao Embassy recently to call for the release of hundreds of political and religious dissidents and thousands of Lao-Hmong refugees currently held in detention in Laos, according to the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO).

The demonstration followed a one-week series of policy events held with American policymakers, members of congress and non-governmental organizations, the UNPO said.

“Many Laotians and Hmong have been persecuted, tortured, have disappeared, or been killed … in Laos for merely expressing their political or religious views, peacefully protesting or practicing their faith,”  said Bounthanh Rathigna, President of the United League for Democracy in Laos, Inc. (ULDL), according to the UNPO report.

Laos is a communist country where the populace is 1.5 percent Christian, 67 percent Buddhist, and the remainder unspecified.  Article 6 and Article 30 of the Lao Constitution guarantees the right of Christians and other religious minorities to practice the religion of their choice without discrimination or penalty, CDN reported.