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2025 FEDERAL ELECTION MEET THE CANDIDATE FORUMS

AUSTRALIA: An increasing number of churches are signing up to 2025 Federal Election Meet the Candidate Forums. Initiated by Freedom for Faith, candidate forums are designed to provide “respectful, nonpartisan opportunities” for Christians and churches to ask questions and raise concerns about what is important to them. Mike Southon, Freedom for Faith founder, told The Daily Declaration that his organisation is the catalyst for these forums, but churches are the real drivers. Christian voters can hear directly from the candidates on a variety of issues, so that they can make a wise choice, he s ays. Organised events are listed on the Freedom for Faith website. [Source: The Daily Declaration]

FOCUS ON SPARKING CHRISTIAN REVIVAL AMONG STUDENTS IN EUROPE
Revive Europe is training 100 emerging leaders ahead of the upcoming Awakening Project gathering in London. The evangelistic initiative is focussed on sparking Christian revival among students across the continent. According to reports, the three-day event will bring together student leaders for worship, prayer, teaching and fellowship. Organizers describe the Awakening Project as a unifying network aimed at mobilizing and equipping young leaders with a passion for spiritual renewal across Europe.
Sarah Breuel, Executive Director of Revive Europe, says during a New Year Celebration in Poland, that hundreds of students from 75 countries publicly committed to take responsibility for evangelism. The result is that 100 “purposefully selected” leaders from across Europe have now been mobilized for the Gospel. The London event will culminate in an all-night prayer event with an expected 1,000 young adults coming to pray for a spiritual revival among students of their generation across Europe. [Source: Christian Daily International]

EVANGELISTS SERIOUSLY WOUNDED
In Eastern Uganda, two Christians were in critical condition after hardline Muslims beat and stabbed them during an open-air evangelistic effort, one of the evangelists said. Ephraim Idube, 32, and Tefiiro Mwanani, 40, left Buseesa town to preach the gospel to Muslims in Iganga on March 14. After setting up small portable speakers, they proclaimed the gospel. “Muslims came in a big number and started shouting….and one of the Muslims grabbed their portable speaker, plucked out wiring and hit it with a hammer while others beat them, he said. Having sustained deep wounds, they were in critical condition at Iganga Hospital, said a Morning Star News contact who visited them. The attacks were the latest of many instances of persecution of Christians in Uganda that have been reported.
Uganda’s constitution and other laws provide for religious freedom, including the right to propagate one’s faith and convert from one faith to another. Muslims make up no more than 12 percent of Uganda’s population, with high concentrations in eastern areas of the country.

BECOMING A CHRISTIAN, A MOTHER OF THREE IN SOMALIA LOSES ALL RELATIVES

Morning Star News  – The Muslim husband of a woman in Somalia sent her back to her parents for accepting Christ – without their three young children – and then her parents drove her away for sharing the gospel with her sister. Fatuma Hussein, 30, was beaten and then ostracized by her birth family on Saturday for sharing her new faith in Christ with her sister in Lower Juba Region, said the leader of a Christian team who first visited her on March 15. Driven from both families, Hussein is lonely and praying for them to receive what she has received, the leader said. His team has connected her with a nearby underground Christian family, a stop-gap measure that he does not regard as safe in the long term. Hussein said she was trusting God to take her to a safe place where she can have freedom to worship God. “I have lost my children, but the peace of God will continue comforting my heart,” she told the leader. “Please tell Christian families wherever they are to continue praying for me and support me with money to buy food to sustain me wherever I will be staying, so that I do not become a burden, and more so that God will sustain and meet all my physical and spiritual needs. I am lonely, but Issa (Jesus) is with me.”
Somalia’s constitution establishes Islam as the state religion and prohibits the propagation of any other religion, according to the US State Department. It also requires that laws comply with sharia (Islamic law) principles, with no exceptions in application for non-Muslims. The death penalty for apostasy is part of Islamic law according to mainstream schools of Islamic jurisprudence. An Islamic extremist group in Somalia, Al Shabaab, is allied with Al Qaeda and adheres to the teaching. Al Shabaab or Al Shabaab sympathizers also have killed several non-local people in northern Kenya since 2011, when Kenyan forces led an African coalition into Somalia against the rebels in response to terrorist attacks on tourists and others on Kenya’s coast. Somalia is ranked 2nd on Christian support group Open Doors’ 2025 World Watch List of the 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian. [Source: Open Doors]

STRIFE-TORN LEBANON
About one-third of the people of Lebanon identify as Christians and they are suffering from an armed conflict they did not start and have no way of ending. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced, many of them seeking safety in refugee camps in north-western Lebanon. They have left behind homes, farmlands, church buildings and schools. Some, however, have chosen to stay behind, determined to protect properties that have been theirs for generations. Christian initiatives are helping with daily necessities so that life can go on and troubled citizens can learn about the one true God in whom they can trust. One Christian said, ‘These crises always represent open doors for spiritual impact. We do not miss any opportunity to share the gospel in a way they can understand and that shows genuine love.’ [Source: Mission Network News}

– compiled by Guido Kettniss