News items from missionaries working in the UNITED STATES, KENYA, UNITED KINGDOM, AUSTRALIA and THE INTERNET

From: "Jesus Christians"
g...@godstuffcomix.com
www.jesuschristians.com

Sat, 28 May 2005

UNITED STATES

Barry successfully donated a kidney at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore on May 15. The operation was one of six performed simultaneously. This is an exciting new approach to transplants, which will help the type O recipients, who can only accept kidneys from people with type O blood. Because type Os are "universal donors", relatives often give a type O kidney to someone who could actually get by with a type A or type B kidney. Similarly, type AB recipients can accept a kidney from anyone, and sometimes they are offered type A, B, or O kidneys by friends or relatives.

In this case, Barry donated to a type AB, whose relative donated to an unrelated type A, whose relative donated to an unrelated type O. The three donors and three recipients were all operated on at the same time, and a camera crew from CNN was there to cover it all. Their documentary is scheduled for air in September.

At a press conference three days after the operation, Barry was interviewed by a reporter from AAP (American Associated Press), who should be releasing a story on the Jesus Christians this weekend. We expect that there will be more media interest as a result of this.

Note: Barry's immediate recipient had been on dialysis for sixteen years. This is the third ever three-way transplant, and the first one involving an anonymous donor. All patients are recovering well, without any complications.

Fran and Reinhard arrived in Baltimore at the end of April, to take Ezra and Barry's place. Ezra and Barry are booked to fly to England this weekend.

Meanwhile, back in California, one of the vehicles has been give an engine transplant, and is now able to climb hills without panting!

Rene has been leading the L.A. team, with assistance from Paul.

KENYA

Dave and Cherry left Kenya on the April 27th, after a quick visit to the United Nations Refugee Camp in Kakuma, near the Sudanese border.

Casey arrived from the U.S. a week before they left, and is now working with the team in Nairobi.

Books (both novels and the Easy English dictionary and series) are going out well, with 20,000 of them distributed during May alone.

Crime in Nairobi is an every present fact of life. The week before we moved into the house, a security guard was killed in the alley behind our house. We were put into an ethical dilemma when neighbours met to seek agreement on hiring Maasai warriors to patrol the area - complete with bows and arrows! (We agreed to support them in this.)

Sue and Roland were led to intervene in stopping a local 'lynching' one day when they were distributing on the streets. An angry mob attacked a man who had been caught stealing a car part, and a passerby defended the man long enough for the mob to be distracted. At this point, the man being attacked tossed the stolen light to his defender and raced off. As a result, the mob became convinced that the passerby was an accomplice and they turned on him. The bystander was being stoned and severely beaten when Rols and Sue intervened and convinced the crowd that they should take him to the police instead. He was, however, already badly injured by that stage.

On another occasion, some of us took shelter in a shop when police fired tear gas into the street to dispel people protesting against the favourable treatment given to a wealthy colonialist's grandson during a murder trial.

Simon and Kim took another trip to Tanzania during May, to renew (yet again) their visas. They went deep into Maasai territory and were thrilled to catch a view of Mount Kilimanjaro on the way.

Some exciting news in regard to our work with the schools is that we have received official permission to promote our Easy English program in the public schools in Nairobi. This will make a huge difference in getting the schools to use our material.

UNITED KINGDOM

The team has returned to the practice of rotational leadership to inspire individuals to take more initiative.

We have been assisting a family in making improvements on an abandoned house in the London area. It started out as a "squat", but the owner has agreed to an arrangement where we get free rent in return for improvements to the house. We have each been learning new things from this experience.

Alf had a pleasant visit with Rob and Lancy, his father and his step- mum, in Kent. Also, on their way through to Australia from Kenya, Dave and Cherry were able to spend a night with Alf's mother, and a very good friendship has blossomed from that.

There has been continual interest from the public about our lifestyle and teachings. We visited a small home fellowship in North London who expressed interest in distributing 'Survivors'. They bought a box from us. We encourage others who have been touched by the message in the book to order boxes to distribute also, at £40 a box (136 books).

AUSTRALIA

Martin and Ash have returned from their visit to Tasmania, where they covered just about every town between Davenport, Launceston, and Hobart.

Martin distributed 770 books in one week, which we think is a community record.

Vicki and the girls stayed with friends from the Rainbow Church, in Narre Warren, while repairs were being done to the blue bus in Melbourne.

Ross saw Israel off to Chennai at the end of April. Israel is hoping to return to Australia sometime next year.

We have visited with a few families who home school their children, and that has given Rochelle and Sarah great opportunities to play with kids their own age.

Ross has been diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome, and has begun medical treatment for it.

The latest (very disappointing) news on Peter Qasim, who has been held prisoner in Australian detention centres for six years, is that the Minister for Immigration has refused to make use of her new powers to let him out, on the grounds that he hid information from the authorities at sometime during his appeal process. A letter from Peter to Ross has stated that he is in deep depression, refusing all visitors, and sleeping all day.

Meanwhile, it has come to light that over 200 innocent Australians have, in recent years, been erroneously charged with being illegal refugees. The Minister for Immigration has promised a complete cleanup of her department as a result, but the reckless disregard for due process is pandemic in the department, which almost prides itself on its harsh treatment of anyone it suspects of being a refugee.

THE INTERNET

Several new articles have been placed on our web site, including a couple which were written some time ago, but were left off the web site by mistake. They include two articles about besetting sins, some frank revelations about our financial dealings in an article called "Charities and Other Money Matters", an article called "Infallibility" and another called "Embarrassing Eschatology". Something for everyone!

You can visit our site at: www.jesuschristians.com