OM Philippines sees signs of hope in the midst of tragic loss while extending help to churches wrecked by Typhoon Pablo (Bopha).

Forty new students registered for OM Philippines-Cebu’s Alternative Learning System (ALS) programme in June, and by faith, their financial needs have been met.

Students from OM Philippines-Cebu's Alternative Learning System bring children joy through a Christmas party, following the trauma caused by Bohol earthquake and Typhoon Haiyan.

On 24 December, OM Philippines-Cebu witnessed the overflowing joy of about 135 families during Christmas parties they hosted in two typhoon-affected areas.

From Leyte Island to Northern Cebu to Bohol Island, the Christmas season brought overwhelming joy to many who received provision and care from OM Philippines.

How OM Philippines is making a long-term difference in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan.

OM Philippines send staff to assess the earthquake damages in Surigao City and provide needed disaster relief training.

Testimony of a Greek woman.

A Greek woman embarks on a lonely journey to the Transform 2013 conference in Rome, a journey that began when she accepted Christ at 19.

OM Greece's involvement with refugees is always evolving. This summer the team is able to work in more camps and connect with more people.

Lima, Peru, May 9, 2020 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- Peruvian congresswoman Luz Milagros Cayguaray Gambini has demanded the country’s health minister provide the legal and scientific basis for a directive that would allow abortion when a pregnant woman is infected with the novel coronavirus.

Abortion is illegal in Peru except when pregnancy would cause death or permanent harm to a pregnant woman.

On April 22, Peru’s Minister of Health Victor Zamora issued a directive calling for provision of emergency contraception in the country, and allowing abortion for pregnant women who test positive for the coronavirus.

In a May 5 letter, Cayguaray demanded Zamora to “Indicate what the legal basis” is for the directive that allows doctors to “end the pregnancy,” if the mother has contracted COVID-19.

The legislator also challenged Zamora to indicate “the scientific and medical basis the norm is based upon.”

At issue is whether a positive test for coronavirus is sufficient to establish that a pregnancy threatens the life of a woman. Gambini says that assertion is unproven and unfounded.

Cayguaray has also written to Dr. Enrique Guevara Ríos, director of the country’s Perinatal Maternal Institute, asking him to report how many pregnant women with COVID-19 have been treated to date, “how many have had their pregnancies terminated,” “on what grounds,” and “what current regulation has been applied to carry out the interruption of those pregnancies.”

The Arequipa Doctors for Life Association has criticized the health directive in a statement.

"At this time in which all our efforts as a nation should be aimed at improving our precarious health system to mitigate the serious impact of the pandemic, the circumstances are being used to dictate measures that threaten the lives of Peruvians in their most vulnerable stage, life in the womb,” the group said.

Regarding the “morning after pill,” the group expressed surprise and concern “that the Ministry of Health promotes the irresponsible and reckless use of this drug in the general population and particularly for minors, and even worse, dispenses with obtaining the person’s medical history, which is an essential tool for the responsible practice of medicine, thus seriously exposing the users to danger."

Aborting a child because the mother has COVID-19, the doctors said “is contrary to the principles that govern medical practice, which must always be based on the application of therapies that are based on rigorous scientific studies and with respect to elementary ethical principles” which guide medical science in providing the best strategies to protect patients.

When a woman is pregnant “we have two patients to take care of, the mother and the unborn child," the doctors association stressed.

Concerning the babies themselves, five newborns whose mothers have COVID-19 were recently discharged from a government hospital in Peru. A sixth, also born of a coronavirus patient who is in serious condition in the intensive care unit, was born prematurely and remains hospitalized. None of the babies have tested positive for COVID-19.

In a May 5 interview with the El Comercio daily, Dr. César García Aste, who heads the hospital’s neonatology department, explained that there are strict protocols as to how the baby is to be fed in order to avoid infecting it.

A doctor from the hospital is assigned to follow up daily by phone on the baby’s condition for an average of 14 days, and “so far we haven’t had a problem with any of the five babies,” Garcia said.

 

A version of this story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA's Spanish-language news agency. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

 

Slobodan never thought he could be free, but Jesus gave him a new start. Now Slobodan urges Roma in Croatia and Serbia that there is a better way.

Jude, project coordinator of OM's Refugee Relief Serbia describes her busy role, and how OM’s service can be a powerful practical witness of the love of Jesus to hundreds of refugees.

In January 2013, OM Norway and Norwegian Naval Training Agency agreed on internship programme for deckhands and motormen on board MV Logos Hope.

Work of OM Romania, partnering with the church

Catherine, from the UK, joined an OM team in July to host a dental clinic and outreach for the residents of Pădureni.

OM founder George Verwer speaks at the Romanian Brethren Assembly about living a pure life and standing against the issue of abortion.

Since 2007, the Bus4Life has visited 150 locations, welcomed 10,000 visitors and touched many lives, including one Romanian teen who comes back to God.

Surprises await Bus4Life coordinator Esko when visiting a Romanian village: Meeting orphaned girls saved on a visit 26 years ago, and the former Chief of Police from the Communist era.

In an effort to respond to the growing need, OM partner organisation AIDSLink International conducts Channels of Hope training in Malaysia and Myanmar.

On 9 August 2014, OM Malaysia held an open house to celebrate 30 years of ministry, with OM International Director Lawrence Tong as the guest of honour.

TeenStreet Malaysia 2015 was attended by over 350 teenagers wanting to draw closer to God.

A young refugee hears about Christmas.

Teenstreet Malaysia 2016 begins, and teens there are studying "The Art of Living".

The varied teaching styles at Teenstreet Malaysia 2016 helped teens to connect with the theme of discovering their identity.

Two lifelong friends from the US bring a message of hope, friendship and a future to marginalised locals during OM Zambia’s first-ever wheelchair camp.

In Tongwa village husbands and wives don't know how to love each other. A young couple is working to change that.

It started with one ball and grew to become a garden.

“Seeing how these boys lived…put my own life into perspective,” said Anne Davidson, after spending time with youth living on the streets of Lusaka.

Dimas, the headman of a small village along the shores of Lake Tanganyika, shares about the challenges of being a headman and Christian.

A young man with a disability finds help at Mercy House and his grandmother finds a way to serve.

With OM Lifehope, Andrea works with a local church and growing church plant, providing her with many opportunities to build relationships with locals.

At Manna House, in the Greater London Area, guests from all over the world come for accommodation and a place to rest.

For the Kurdish people, the future is uncertain. But the gospel message that believers want to share with them is one of overwhelming hope.

With a cultural theme on Latin America, 231 participants from 40 countries have come together for the September GO conference in the Netherlands.

God is moving the Europe Riverboat Project on as a captain is found, a boat contracted, and volunteer crew begin to board.

A community of believers from across the world come together to establish houses of prayer along what has been called the Isaiah 19 Highway.

Ten years ago, Lydia* arrived on the field as a single woman. Now married and with two kids, her method of ministry has changed entirely.

An OM training conference equips a local pastor with tools to transform his Sunday service for Syrian refugees.

Global crises provide unprecedented opportunities for OM workers to share truth with least-reached people from Syria, Somalia and Sudan.

Minister of Health Zweli Mkhize has won such praise for his handling of the coronavirus crisis that he’s being touted as a possible successor to President Cyril Ramaphosa.

By James Campbell

Glasgow City Council has a keen sense, it seems, of what is or might be controversial. When the rest of us imagine that a handful of words to mark a long-distant historical event could never be more than anodyne, the council is alert to the affliction of controversy. It is a condition to be avoided at all costs.

IT isn’t often that a rousing speech on socialist internationalism is rewarded with a full transcript in the Spectator. In fact, it never happens. The Tory Party’s newsletter is funny like that.

If modern lives were measured in unprecedented weather events, we would all be 200 years old. Defences against floods that were supposed to happen every other century are being overtopped in the space of a few winters. The victims surveying ruined homes and businesses are ageing fast.

If modern lives were measured in unprecedented weather events, we would all be 200 years old. Defences against floods that were supposed to happen every other century are being overtopped in the space of a few winters. The victims surveying ruined homes and businesses are ageing fast.

RUTH Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader, will take on Boris Johnson in the BBC's final EU debate, grandly entitled The Great Debate, which will be broadcast at 8pm tonight.

It didn't take long for the list of warnings about Brexit to start coming true.

Nicola Sturgeon has promised to exhaust all options in an effort to keep Scotland in the EU after the country voted by 62 per cent to 38 per cent against Brexit.

When Theresa May declared "Brexit means Brexit," Nicola Sturgeon's response was pithy and to the point. "Remain means Remain," she said, making an apparently all-or-nothing commitment to securing Scotland's place in the EU after the country voted decisively to stay.