Cybermissions: Using computer and internet technologies to impact lives for Christ

Imagine packing 500 hours of Bible college training on a $13 chip that plays from a cell phone. Add speakers to the cell phone for only $20 and a group of pastors can be trained in places far-removed or unreachable by conventional means.

Cybermissions training in the Amazon River basin

“I don’t need a visa to get into these countries,” says John Edmiston, founder of Cybermissions. (www.cybermissions.org) “We tunnel in and then we blast away.”

Edmiston started Cybermissions in 2001 to serve the church in Southeast Asia, especially pastors who had no training. Now their reach is global, with more than a million people each year making use of training materials they provide.

Through one of their contacts in Bhutan –- a country governed by a Buddhist-dominated monarchy hostile to the Gospel, Cybermissions materials are training dozens of pastors. “We’re reaching underground Christians,” Edmiston notes. “Through one man we’ve reached Bhutan.” Read more of this post

Christian council will return torture documents to Brazil

On 14 June, three boxes containing records of brutal torture and repression suffered under two decades of Brazilian military rule will be returned to the South American country from peaceful Switzerland, where the material has resided at the World Council of Churches (WCC) archives.

Religious and political leaders, including WCC general secretary the Rev. Olav Fyske Tveit and Brazilian Senator Pedro Taques, will hand over the documents in a ceremony in São Paulo at the Public Prosecution Office. The information was collected by dissident lawyers and church leaders from 1979 to 1985, surreptitiously copied and sent to the WCC. Brazil was under a military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985.

In an interview at WCC’s headquarters in Geneva on 10 June, Tveit said the delivery of the material will add more documentation for people seeking compensation for their sufferings. It also manifests, he said, the role of the WCC, supported by denominations, in documentation of the abuses and torture that happened under military rule. Read more of this post

Devastating floods in jungle areas of Peru

It’s not just the Mississippi that’s in a dangerous flood stage! Right now, the jungle areas of Peru are receiving lots of rain, causing devastating floods.

Shipibo flooding (Photo: villageearth.org)

“The rivers are overflowing their banks,” said Dr. Dale W. Kietman, founder of Latin American Indian Ministries (www.laim.org). “The Ucayali River is so high that it is cutting into its banks; whole communities are reported being washed downstream. We have a call for help from fifteen Shipibo/Conibo communities that have borne the brunt of the flooding. Read more of this post

Foster Family Program Launches in Peru


Feb 24, 2011
LIMA, Peru—Living in the heart of a home not their own, with parents that aren’t biologically theirs who are ready to offer love, moral values, education and, above all, a future of opportunities, is something that José, 12, and Junior, 11, never imagined until they met the Staub-Gonzales family, who now makes up part of the Familias Acogedoras (Foster Families) program that was launched today by the Ministry of Women and Social Development (MIMDES).

The boys aren’t brothers; they have different biological parents, but after living with the Swiss-Peruvian pair Hans Staub and Gabriela Gonzáles for two years, they have become inseparable. Read more of this post

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.