information lowdown
get ready for a concentration of "news"
The weblog "ask about Jesus" has been terminated. However, the Forum which it housed has been integrated into this headpage Pen of Iron, as you can see by the buttons between every post. Click on the flashing "Enter my Forum" button. Once there ANYONE can either start his own post\theme, or click on any such post and reply.
We still have the problem of unwanted adds, which we disposed of in the Guestbook. But this should be taken care of in the coming fortnight.
This saturday was to be my first day of training with the boss for work. Yet as I was leaving the house, I received a call from a frantic Dipendra, a brother in the Lord Jesus (having been saved from a pagan religion), whose apartment was burning down before his eyes. I rushed to the scene. The firefighters were present, surveying the damage having overcome the fire. Dipendra, Aimee (also a sister in the Lord), and Hem all lost their belongings. Aimee had stored her stuff there having lived out her stay at another apartment the very same day! Dipendra worried most about his papers, being a foreignor in the country.
Dipendra, Hem and myself proceeded to the office of the Darak (a rough police equivalent only more military-like) after their papers, Hem's originals and Dipendra's copies had been confiscated. We spent an anxious three hours. They were treated more like criminals than victims. I signed on as official interpreter; trepidly. A report was made, the papers were returned. They were told to return on this monday the 14th for a copy of the report, which, following submittal, would permit them to replace their lost papers.
We proceeded to meet Aimee and attend the youth meeting. Dipendra's tears were turned to gratefulness unto the Lord who once before had blessed him following a total loss of property and shelter. Aimee's faith also was unshaken. She was laughing and praising God, but losing not the ponderous sense that God had somehow sent a message through this fire. An admonishment. Hem saw the power of faith.
Later on that night the youth commuted to the port of Beirut to board the Doulos missionary ship and came out with Bibles, devotional books and tracts. Many people of many faiths had the opportunity to witness the message of the Gospel.
Our two friends however, did not recover their papers today. Why?
Because a bomb blast literally flattened down-town Beirut, about an hour past noon:
The assassination of business Tycoon and former Lebanese Prime Minister Raffic el Harriri. The nation is in shock, though a little few had seen it coming. I was with a little group of friends on the steps of the American University of Beirut's Maingate Plaza. I felt the sound-wave against my eardrums as the air was ripped. There was a mixture of reactions, from panic to absolute impassability. But most knew very well that this wasn’t just another sonic boom. When one female friend asked what had just happened, Wael answered with the stoicism of a war-tried people “somebody just died”
Nor was it of similar magnitude to the bomb that had targeted Marwan Hmede just a couple of months ago, also near AUB. This time some windows were broken. A significant sign of the power of the blast, given that, what we first believed an intra-mural explosion, had taken place some hundreds of meters outside the campus near the St-George and Pheonicia hotels. Billowing black smoke thickly ascended. Students at first even rushed to the site, when it was still thought to be on campus. In Lebanon, people rush to, rather than away from explosions. We’re idiosyncratic this way. Despite millions of dollars spent on security payments, body-guards, anti-bomb radars and convoys, the targeted man met his fate. A large crater had bitten out the soil. The scene is that of a flattened forest. The mobile phone network was sporadically shut off or jammed. Families panicked to obtain information on loved ones. T.V. stations relayed images of death and destruction. Riots erupted in the streets. Some shops were vandalized, others forced to shutdown. Roads were closed. (shows you how much the Lord God thinks of the world's February the 14th love fest)
We pray for security and the free-flow of the Word of God. He rules in the kingdom of men. Have mercy Lord, spare us another war. The heart of kings is in your hands. You raise and raze.
Proverbs 11:4 Riches profit not in the day of wrath: but righteousness delivereth from death.
When asked by a friend from abroad how I was doing, I told her to read Psalm 91 to find out.
