Can airstrikes protect civillians?

http://www.ploughshares.ca/sites/default/files/2011summer.pdf

From Ploughshares which is a Christian Peacemaking agency of The Canadian Council of Churches.

Human Trafficking in Canada

The Truth Isn't Sexy

Pray for the end of human trafficking

Human Trafficking: The following information is adapted slightly from The Salvation Army Anti-Human Trafficking Resources.

  

What is human trafficking? Human trafficking is slavery. Human beings are bought and sold for a number of purposes: sexual exploitation, forced labour, or organ removal.. Human trafficking exploits human beings (mostly women and girls) for profit. Individuals may be trafficked across international borders or within them. Traffickers – ranging from sophisticated international criminal cartels to local pimps, boyfriends and even family members – use force, the threat of force, or other forms of coercion to gain control over their victims. Throughout the world, in rural and urban settings, victims are trapped in a myriad of exploitive situations including the commercial sex industry, factory sweat shops, domestic servitude, and agricultural work. Human trafficking is a form of modern day slavery proliferated in Canada and around the world.

It is estimated that up to 4 million people are trafficked annually worldwide. Hundreds to thousands of people are trafficked within Canada each year. It is a $12 billion (USD) annual business. Profits from human trafficking also fuel other criminal activities.

According to the 2011 US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report, Canada is a source, transit, and destination country for people trafficked for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced labour. When it comes to forced labour, Canada is considered a destination country. Trafficking for the purpose of forced labour is more common in Canada than most people realize. Men, women and children are brought to Canada for the purposes of forced or bonded labour. They can be trafficked into commercial or private service. Typically, they are recruited with the promise of work that will make use of their skills and qualifications but find themselves doing menial labour. Often they make little or no pay and work very long hours. Their freedoms are usually limited; they may be confined, living in their place of work, and they may have their communications cut off. I am working with Captain Ed at the present time actually to help some victims of human trafficking in Maple Creek. The province of Alberta especially has high numbers of forced workers.

Re. prostituted peoples and sexual human trafficking: Canada’s Aboriginal female population is sexually trafficked in disproportionate levels. Aboriginal youth make up only 3 - 5% of the Canadian population, and yet in some cities they make up 90% of the visible sex trade.

Human trafficking was added as a crime in November 2005. Michael Ng was the first to be charged with human trafficking. These charges were later dropped, however, and Ng was convicted on other related charges.

It remains difficult to obtain a conviction based on trafficking charges because of the clandestine nature of the crime. Victims and witnesses are often too intimidated or too embarrassed to testify. Further, evidence may need to be collected abroad, and this presents its own difficulties. Laws relating to human trafficking are new; it takes time for authorities to become familiar with them in order to implement them effectively. Another problem is simply that law enforcement officers have limited resources to monitor bawdy houses and other suspect areas. Let us pray this responsive prayer on the overhead.

HumanTrafficking Prayer

Creator God, each person on this earth was made in your image – full of dignity and deserving of respect, honour and compassion. We pray for victims of trafficking who have been bought, sold and exploited – that they would be set free and that their dignity and honour would be restored. Lord have mercy.

Father God, we pray for your daughters and sons who are vulnerable to sexual trafficking. We pray for women and children. We pray for the poor. We pray for orphans and abandoned children; widows and abandoned wives. We pray for those who have already been sexually abused. Father God, protect them and prevent them from being trafficked. Lord, have mercy.

Jesus Christ, you are the suffering servant who has experienced violence, humiliation and rejection. Comfort victims of trafficking who have gone through the same. May they never feel alone. Pour out your love, giving strength, grace and wisdom. Lord, have mercy.

Son of Man, purify the hearts and minds of traffickers and all those involved in the sex industry. We pray for repentance and change; justice and restoration. Lord, show your power.

All-knowing God, may we not ignore injustice. May our eyes be ever seeing, our ears be ever hearing and our hearts be ever searching. Give feet to our prayers so that we might stamp out oppression and walk towards truth. Lord, show your power.

Omnipotent God, we ask that you break the chains of injustice and set the captives free! Release the prisoners of trafficking and deliver them from all evil. Redeemer, we pray for restoration, healing and hope. Lord, show your power.

Lord of lords and King of kings, may your justice and righteousness reign supremely in this world and in our lives. May your kingdom come and your will be done. May human trafficking be abolished, and its victims be set free. Lord, show your power.

more information: http://salvationist.ca/action-support/human-trafficking/weekend-of-prayer/

Human Trafficking Q&A

What is human trafficking?

 Human trafficking is slavery. Human beings are bought and sold for a number of purposes: sexual exploitation, forced or bonded labour, or forced or coerced organ removal. While the purposes of human trafficking vary, they all have a common element: exploitation. Human trafficking exploits human beings (mostly women and girls) for profit. Individuals may be trafficked across international borders or within them. Traffickers – ranging from sophisticated international criminal cartels to local pimps, boyfriends and even family members – use force, the threat of force, or other forms of coercion to gain control over their victims. Human trafficking is always involuntary because even when consent is achieved it is through some form of fraud, deception, abduction/kidnapping, or abuse of power/vulnerability. Throughout the world, in rural and urban settings, victims are trapped in a myriad of exploitive situations including the commercial sex industry, factory sweat shops, construction work, domestic servitude, and agricultural work. Human trafficking is a global tragedy that robs people of basic human rights and demeans their human dignity. It is a form of modern day slavery proliferated in Canada and around the world.

read more of the FAQ, Q&A from the TSA: http://salvationist.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Human-Trafficking-in-Canada-FAQs.pdf

Justice in Swift Current, Salvation Army Style.

The Prairie Post
Tuesday, 20 September 2011 20:48
http://www.prairiepost.com/commentary/opinions/3331-justice-swift-current-salvation-army-style.html 

Recently the Federal Government has announced some new ‘law and order’ initiatives. The Correctional and Justice Services of The Salvation Army in Regina is having a grand re-opening at 10:30 on September 30^th. With so much going on in the way of justice these days, I thought I would take this opportunity to share some of what we are doing in Swift Current to provide justice for those in need in our community.

At our Swift Current, Saskatchewan Salvation Army we are actively involved in justice ministries.

We provide the Alternative Measures / Justice Services for all of South West Saskatchewan. We provide mediations between victims and offenders with a goal of reconciling people to our community. This programme has met with great success and, in my opinion, has greatly contributed to a drop in rates of recidivism. We have been providing this service for many years and have a number of mediators working under the supervision of Harvey Lomax to help victims and to reconcile both youth and adult offenders to the community.

We have been hosting the Free Legal Clinic since its arrival in the South West. Last year we were among the busiest free legal clinics in the province helping those in need. The Swift Current Free Legal Clinic offers free legal advice in areas of Family Law, Criminal Law, and Civil Law and its services are provided to those who do not qualify for legal aid but are unable to afford legal Council.  

We often appear with people in court. Court can be a scary place whether you are the accused, a victim, or a witness. We often have people in court who can provide comfort, support, help you understand the process, and say a prayer with you when it is so desired. We also have visited many people in the cells here either when they are awaiting trial or transfer to a correctional facility.

William Booth, The Salvation Army’s founder, said that he hopes that some day whenever people are released from prison that there would be Salvation Army personnel to meet them and help them reintegrate into society so that they don’t re-offend and immediately return to prison for committing some other crime.  Canada’s first Dominion Parole Officer was The Salvation Army's Brigadier Walter Archibald. Here in Swift Current we are actively working with people returning to the community who were sent to a correctional facility from here. We help them find food, lodging, employment and other much needed services in order to help them reintegrate into the community and avoid the temptations that often facilitate a return to prison. We are in the process of expanding this programme significantly so that we can help more youth and adults in the area and do our part to help keep our community safe.

 

Here in Swift Current, we at the Salvation Army are doing our best to provide safety, security and justice to those in need in our community and we couldn’t do it without your help.

For more information or to see how you can help, please fell free to contact us at justice@sheepspeak.com  

Sincerely,

 

Captain Michael Ramsay

Commanding Officer,

The Salvation Army:

Swift Current

 

Comics and daily Bible readings: http://drwas.blogspot.com

Commentary : http://renewnetwork.blogspot.com/

My book, Praise the Lord for Covenants, is available from Supplies and Purchasing as well as on-line at www.sheepspeak.com

Pat Robertson says Alzheimer's justifies divorce - The Bible, JAC and I disagree

The Associated Press
Posted: Sep 16, 2011 11:03 AM ET
Last Updated: Sep 16, 2011 10:44 AM ET

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson told his 700 Club viewers that divorcing a spouse with Alzheimer's is justifiable because the disease is "a kind of death."
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During the portion of the show where the one-time Republican presidential candidate takes questions from viewers, Robertson was asked what advice a man should give to a friend who began seeing another woman after his wife started suffering from the incurable neurological disorder.
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"I know it sounds cruel, but if he's going to do something, he should divorce her and start all over again, but make sure she has custodial care and somebody looking after her," Robertson said
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from: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/09/16/robertson-alzheimers-divorce.html
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Roberson is wrong, of course: Covenant oaths are very significant to Christianity. If you throw them out you in essence throw out the bulk of the Canon. Jesus' whole death and resurrection relates to a covenant oath God made to Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3; 15:17-21): http://www.sheepspeak.com./ptl4covenants.htm
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See 'Rights and Responsibilities of Covenant - a look at Judges 2' in the Journal of Aggressive Christianity Issue 56: http://www.armybarmy.com/JAC/article10-56.html and 'When God is Bound' in the Journal of Aggressive Christianity Issue 52, pages 5-10: http://www.armybarmy.com/pdf/JAC_Issue_052.pdf

Top Ten Reasons Why Men Shouldn’t Be Ordained.

Hat Tip: http://www.armybarmy.com/

 

The cut-out below can add good food for thought to the Women-in-Ministry debate that occurs to no end outside The Salvation Army, and is often avoided within The Salvation Army, because “we’ve had women in ministry from the beginning…” Yes we have, but…

So as Nathan Hobby says, few arguments are as engaging as humour. Maybe taking a look at the humour in it can help us to look at ourselves more closely! And btw, replace the word “Ordained” with “Commissioned”, or similar for the sake of the context; because ordination in The Salvation Army is a whole other issue!

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Top Ten Reasons Why Men Should Not Be Ordained

10. A man’s place is in the army.
9. For men who have children, their duties might distract them from the responsibilities of being a parent.
8. Their physical build indicates that men are more suited to tasks such as chopping down trees and wrestling mountain lions. It would be “unnatural” for them to do other forms of work.
7. Man was created before woman. It is therefore obvious that man was a prototype. Thus, they represent an experiment, rather than the crowning achievement of creation.
6. Men are too emotional to be priests or pastors. This is easily demonstrated by their conduct at football games and watching basketball tournaments.
5. Some men are handsome; they will distract women worshipers.
4. To be ordained pastor is to nurture the congregation. But this is not a traditional male role. Rather, throughout history, women have been considered to be not only more skilled than men at nurturing, but also more frequently attracted to it. This makes them the obvious choice for ordination.
3. Men are overly prone to violence. No really manly man wants to settle disputes by any means other than by fighting about it. Thus, they would be poor role models, as well as being dangerously unstable in positions of leadership.
2. Men can still be involved in church activities, even without being ordained. They can sweep paths, repair the church roof, and maybe even lead the singing on Father’s Day. By confining themselves to such traditional male roles, they can still be vitally important in the life of the Church.
1. In the New Testament account, the person who betrayed Jesus was a man. Thus, his lack of faith and ensuing punishment stands as a symbol of the subordinated position that all men should take.

EDIT: Apparently the top ten list was presented by David M. Scholer on February 20, 1998, at the Fuller Follies at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA. David’s version was taken, with small modifications, from a November 24, 1997 internet communication from W. Ward and Laurel Gasque, who have long been champions of Biblical equality.

read more: http://salvokat.wordpress.com/2008/11/01/top-ten-reasons-why-men-shouldnt-be-ordained/

Say it! Know it! Do it!

Presented to Swift Current Corps of The Salvation Army, 11 Sept. 2011 by Captain Michael Ramsay

Today we are speaking about Romans 10:9: “That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” And, Romans 10:13, “For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” These are some of the basics of the whole Christian faith (cf. TSA doc. 7). Therefore as we launch into our time today, along these lines I thought that I would share this piece of wisdom that was presented to us at Officer Camp by Major David Ivany – he is in charge of Spiritual Direction for all of Canada in The Salvation Army. He shared this story with us about a kind elderly lady, who in her heart upon a public confession of faith is experiencing the pure joys of Christian love.

This lady, Emma, she goes into a local Christian bookstore and sees a “Honk if you love Jesus” bumper sticker. Feeling particularly good that day because she has just come from a great choir practice and prayer meeting, she buys the bumper sticker and she put it on her car – professing her faith publicly. She recalls, “Boy, I’m glad I did! What an uplifting experience followed!” and then she launches into this story. She remembers stopping at a red light at a busy intersection just when she first had on her new ‘Honk if you love Jesus’ sticker. Lost in thought about the Lord and how good He had been to her, she didn’t notice the light had changed.

“It is a good thing someone else loves Jesus,” she said, “because if he hadn’t honked, I’d never have noticed that the light had changed!” She then noted that indeed, lots of people actually love Jesus because while she sat unmoving, blocking the lane of traffic, the guy behind her also honked like crazy before leaning out of his window and screaming, “For the love of God! Go! Go! Jesus Christ, Go!” She remembers thinking, “What an exuberant cheerleader he was for the Lord!”

Suddenly, it seemed as though she had started an epidemic and everyone started honking. Impressed by such a response, she leaned out of her window and started waving and smiling at all these loving people – while she was still parked in front of the intersection. “I even honked my horn a few times to share in the love!” she recited. Then she realized the mix of celebrants. “There must have been a man from Florida back there because I heard him yelling something about a “sunny beach… I saw another guy waving in a funny way with only his middle finger in the air. I asked my teenage grandson in the back seat what that meant, and he suggested that it was probably an Hawaiian good luck sign or something…”

The woman admitted that she had never met anyone from Hawaii before and was unaware of their customs. “I leaned out the window and gave him the good luck sign right back,” she reminisced.

She also remembers that a few persons were so caught up in the joy of the moment that they got out of their cars and started walking towards her. “I’ll bet they wanted to pray or ask what church I attended but that was when I noticed that the light had changed. So, I waved to all my loving sisters and brothers in Christ, grinned joyously, and drove on through the intersection. I noticed that I was the only car that made it through the intersection before the light changed again and I felt kind of sad that I had to leave them after all the love we had shared, so I slowed the car down, leaned out of the window and gave them all the Hawaiian good luck sign one last time before I sped away.”
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Romans 10:9: “That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” And, Romans 10:13, “For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
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Read the whole message: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2011/09/romans-109-say-it-know-it-do-it.html

Exerpt from the Obedience Company

Presented to Swift Current Corps of The Salvation Army, 04 Sept. 2011 by Captain Michael Ramsay
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Today the verse we are speaking about, Romans 6:23, is looking at wages from a different source. 6:23a records that, “the wages of sin is death.” Before we get into this too much, we should all know what sin is. Literally, the word here in Romans comes from an archery term meaning, ‘to miss the target’ or ‘to miss the mark’.[1] The word as it is applied in this context here refers to more of a status than a process.[2] Sin here is the already fired arrow having missed the mark. We have all sinned as we have missed the righteousness mark (Romans 6:16; cf. Romans 3:22-23). Righteousness for our purposes today we will simply define as being right with God.[3] Sin is having fallen short of this mark (this status).

We know also what wages are, right? Wages are what we are paid for what we do – often times in our culture this is represented by a paycheque. So then relating to our scripture today, what we earn by having missed the righteousness mark is death. The wages of sin is death. Doctrine 5 of The Salvation Army reads, ‘We believe that our first parents were created in a state of innocency, but by their disobedience [their sin] they lost their purity and happiness; and that in consequence of their fall all men have become sinners, totally depraved, and as such are justly exposed to the wrath of God.’ The wages of sin is death.

The Apostle Paul expresses this idea in a number of different ways (cf. Romans 6:1-14, Romans 6:15-23, Romans 7:1-6).[4] Pertaining to the wages, which we are looking at today, he says in this analogy (Romans 6:15-23) that being neutral is not an option. Like a CFL (professional football) game that is already underway, you are either in the uniform of the Blue Bombers or of the Roughriders. The game is underway; no other players are on the field. You can play for one team or you can play for the other. No player on the field in neutral.

Expressed another way: unemployment is not an option. There are two competing companies in town and we have to work for one or the other of them. We can be employees (slaves/servants) of the Sin Company of which Adam, as the first to sin, is the CEO  (Romans 6:21); or we can be employees of the Obedience Company, of which Christ, as the first fruits of the Resurrection, is the CEO (Romans 6:22). We can be employees (slaves/servants) of the Sin Company and receive as our pay, death (Romans 6:21); or we can be employees of the Obedience Company and receive as our pay, sanctification (NRSV, NIV: holiness; Romans 6:22; cf. TSA doc. 10). We can either choose sin and death or we can choose obedience and sanctification.
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read more: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2011/09/romans-623-obedience-company.html

Julie Arnold, a missionary from Swift Current Corps, visited today

Julie Arnold: Enroute to Oceana with NTMC                                 Summer 2011

Recent Happenings

After three years of working at Millar College of the Bible (SK), I drove away on July 1st, laden with whatever earthly goods would fit in my car. I have enjoyed my time at Millar, working in the kitchen & doing some painting, but now I'm heading into the next state of this adventure!

Summer at Bible Camp

I plan to spend most of July & August at Round Lake Bible Camp (ON), which my parents direct. I am very excited to spend the whole summer there this year! July 3-29 are four weeks of girls' camps, during which I am slated to be a cabin leader for three weeks and chapel speaker for the week of July 10-15. Then we have three weeks of boys' camps from July 31-August 20, for which I plan to work in the kitchen. It will be a busy summer, but should be lots of fun and is definitely a great chance to impact kids & teens for Christ.

Preparations

This spring, I took a first aid course in preparation for a short medical module I plan to attend in October. I was also given the opportunity to share in my local church. It was really encouraging to see the interest the congregation is taking in my plans. In recent months, I have also had several financial gifts come in. This evidence of God's provision has also been a big encouragement!

Fall Travel & Share Plans

After camp is over, I plan to spend some time reconnecting with family & friends and sharing my vision for the future. I plan to head to Saskatchewan & Alberta in September, then southern Ontario in October. My goals during these months are to do some visiting before leaving the country, to raise support as I prepare to go, and to spread interest & enthusiasm for missions.

In the next few months I'll be setting up an itinerary, so if you would like to have me share with your church, Sunday School, Youth Group, Small Group, or family, please let me know--the sooner the better!

Praise God for...

- encouragement I have received!

- an excellent first week of camp!

Please Pray for...

- effective ministry at camp this summer: for joy, strength, wisdom & love

- details to come together for fall travels & speaking engagements

Thank you so much for your care & prayers!

Julie Arnold

New Contact Information: Julie Arnold   RR 2    Kakabeka Falls, ON    P0T 1W0    phone 807-475-9369

New Tribes Mission of Canada: NTMC    Box 707    Durham, ON    N0G 1R0

(cheques should be made out to NTMC with a separate note stating: "for the ministry of Julie Arnold")