Pray for freedom for women in Saudi Arabia

The ruling House of Saud is a Sunni Muslim family, and Sunni Islam is the state religion of Islam. Sunnis comprise the vast majority of Muslims in Saudi Arabia, while Shiite Muslims make up a minority

Women cannot travel abroad or open their own bank account without permission from a male.

While Saudi Arabia does allow non-Muslims to live in Saudi Arabia to work, they may not practice religion publicly. According to the government of the United Kingdom: The public practice of any form of religion other than Islam is illegal; as is an intention to convert others.

Unrelated men and women cannot interact in public.

The legal system of Saudi Arabia is based on Sharia, Islamic law derived from the Qur'an and the Sunnah (the traditions) of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

Women cannot go to the hospital without permission from a male guardian.

Source http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/05/middleeast/saudi-arabia-anti-corruption-list/index.html

A modern hero in the pursuit of God: Nabeel Qureshi

One of my modern heroes is Nabeel Qureshi. At all costs he pursued and stood up for seeking truth. I'm looking forward to meeting him someday.

Nabeel Qureshi's message: https://youtu.be/GKSuGHXUY_0

The Good Neighbor program

The Good Neighbor program focuses on making friends with refugees. Because of the influx of refugees worldwide, one of the best ways to obey Jesus is to love these new neighbors. Refugees are our neighbors and God has brought them to our city for one reason: Life.

God has kept these families alive according to his purpose. He has brought them to St. Louis according to his purpose. And now an invitation has been extended to the church: love these neighbors. Jesus said: "Love your neighbor." And the Good Neighbor program is an excellent, way to go about meeting, connecting with, and developing friendships with people from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Burma, and many countries in Africa.

Every year families arrive in St. Louis from refugee camps and war ravaged locations. As Westerners we cannot comprehend the struggle of their journey, the fear for their children, the sadness and loneliness they've faced. But we want to obey the words of Jesus to love them.

The Good Neighbor program has approximately 100 volunteer families that have signed up to become friends with a refugee family. THERE ARE 400 REFUGEE FAMILIES still wanting and waiting for an American family to come alongside them. They have been asked if they would like an American friend to contact them and they're waiting!

To learn more visit : www.goodneighborstl.com

Refugee Assimilation Involves the church

Thousands of refugees in Germany are converting from Islam to Christianity, although it could carry a huge personal risk for them. Independent churches are especially seeing many new converts.

The conversion itself, however, carries many risks. Converts to Christianity are exposed to hostility - in Iran and Afghanistan they face religious persecution. In some instances they could be dealt the death penalty. In the past years there have been more and more reports about converts being attacked in Germany.

"Right now we have five people with us who have been assaulted. One has lost some of his teeth and one of the others has a wound that had to be sewn up. " The authorities, according to [Pastor] Martens, haven't reacted. The security personnel are mostly on the side of the attackers and even though the police are involved "they are not looking further into the matter."

It's gone so far that the converts are secretly sneaking out of the refugee homes to attend the church services and are hiding their cross necklaces which they receive after baptism. One refugee convert who was attacked and filed a complaint then received 10 complaints from the other residents saying that he assaulted Muslim women. These claims were made up and served as a way to intimidate him.

The aggression towards converts is not new, the Pastor confirmed, but has become normalized. The attacks are partly the other people of the same nationalities of the converts but also "radical Muslims from different countries." Although he knows the change of faith represents a danger for people
Source: http://www.dw.com/en/german-churches-see-rise-in-baptisms-for-refugees/a-38771600

Refugee Assimilation in Germany: Education Part II

This, of course, is a drop in the bucket compared to the estimated 50,000 refugees who are reportedly interested in pursuing a degree in Germany. And the number who have successfully registered in degree programs at regular universities is even smaller. In the 2016 winter semester, a total of 1,140 refugees were matriculated at German universities, the majority of whom were from Syria.

Asylees can generally attend German universities without restrictions. The lack of German language proficiency and other hurdles, however, deter refugee enrollment at public universities. At the undergraduate level, where degree programs are almost exclusively offered in German, all international students, including refugees, must present a qualification equivalent to the German university-preparatory high school diploma, and demonstrate advanced German language abilities, at minimum at level C1, CEFR. For English-language programs, which exist primarily at the graduate level, a comparable certification of English skills, such as the TOEFL test, may be required.

Source: http://wenr.wes.org/2017/05/lessons-germanys-refugee-crisis-integration-costs-benefits

Refugee Assimilation Germany: Education Part I

Among the many efforts to facilitate refugee access to higher education, one of the most groundbreaking is provided by Kiron University, a non-profit, crowd-funded online university that was founded in 2015 with the exclusive goal of educating refugees. The institution partners with online education platforms like coursera or edx to provide free online courses, using existing online course offerings by world-class universities including Harvard University, the University of Cambridge, or MIT. The service offered by Kiron University is remarkable: Not only does the institution not have academic admission requirements, language, passport and residency requirements, or, for that matter, any other forms of bureaucratic hurdles; it even provides each student with a free laptop and internet access.

Kiron is not a recognized university in Germany and does not award degrees. But 22 partner universities in Germany and other countries currently allow Kiron students to transfer into their degree programs, usually after completion of four semesters of study at Kiron University. The large number of donations and applications that Kiron has received since its foundation are testament to the fact that many refugees are seeking a less bureaucratic and more immediate alternative to the comparatively hurdled long-term pathways available at German brick-and-mortar universities. In its first semester alone, Kiron received 5,000 applications, 80 percent of them from Syrian refugees. The institution currently enrolls 2,300 refugees.

Source: http://wenr.wes.org/2017/05/lessons-germanys-refugee-crisis-integration-costs-benefits

Refugee Assimilation in Germany: Employment Part II

In addition to government programs, there are numerous private sector initiatives in Germany to help refugees into the workforce. Like the public sector programs, these private initiatives have not yet done much to boost refugee employment. One problem with the current private initiatives is that they often focus on low-skilled jobs, internships and temporary positions that, as of now, rarely lead to fulltime employment. For instance, some 300 companies included in a so-called “Network of Businesses Integrating Refugees” employed a total of 2,500 refugees in October 2016. This figure, however, also included temporary employment contracts, internships, and training programs. German businesses tend to be careful when hiring refugees and often use internships to evaluate the suitability of refugees for subsequent vocational training programs. This means that refugees on this track are often still years away from actual fulltime wage jobs.


Source:http://wenr.wes.org/2017/05/lessons-germanys-refugee-crisis-integration-costs-benefits