SAUDI ARABIA – President George W. Bush has proclaimed January 16, 2008, Religious Freedom Day.

“I lost all my friends at school. Now that I’ve begun to ‘walk my talk,’ they make fun of me.” Rachel’s journal entries showed her disappointment that the very people to whom she wanted to show Christ’s love turned away from her. But she wouldn’t give in.

In hour 3 of Janet Parshall's America today, our very own Todd Nettleton from The Voice of the Martyrs joins Janet to talk about Christian persecution in China and around the world. You can listen LIVE to the interview at www.wava.com or visit www.jpamerica.com to listen to the show archived after 6 PM EST.

Normally I wouldn't be promoting a Christian band on this blog, but in this case I made an exception because this Christian band Re:Zound recently joined me to talk about their first debut album Abandoned to God and their ministry work in communist Vietnam.

ISTANBUL, January 7 (Compass Direct News) – Four Iraqi churches and three convents were damaged in coordinated bomb blasts yesterday morning, the day many Iraqi Christians celebrate either Epiphany or Christmas Eve according to some Eastern liturgical calendars. At least six people were injured, one seriously.

The following news is courtesy of our friends at Compass Direct. Please visit here to see the full story, which is extremely fascinating. (Compass Direct News) – A Turkish judge in the Black Sea coastal city of Samsun on Sunday (January 6) set free a teenager who confessed to making death threats against a pastor and his church, a day after authorities arrested the minor. Judge Sinan Sonmez of Samsun’s First Minor Petty Offenses Court ruled that 17-year-old Semih Seymen be freed “because of his youth.” Seymen told police he called pastor Orhan Picaklar of Samsun Agape Church several times starting December 29, threatening to kill him. In an official protest filed today at the Samsun court, Picaklar objected to the decision to release the defendant. “The defendant openly confessed,” Picaklar told today’s daily Taraf newspaper. “He said he was going to do a massacre tomorrow, the police heard him say this over the telephone, but because he is ‘underage’ he is set free?”

Brother Ho was sick and running a fever when he and his friend stepped into the icy waters of the Mekong River. They were Bible students in Laos before the Communist soldiers overran their college.