(Lalogi Camp, Uganda) HIV/AIDS is rife in the camp, fuelled by alcohol abuse and promiscuity. “When people have nothing, they are left with only sex and drinking,” Omaro said. “Immorality is now very high. These people have given up on life.”

Wallis, Daniel. Uganda refugees ‘give up on life’
October 22, 2004. Reuters - World

Comment: Would we be any better than these people? We might think so, but consider their loss, the bloodshed they witnessed, the poverty. We might be more susceptible to the same temptations than we think. But we do have a safeguard. There certainly would be temptations, but Christ went in the desert to suffer through fasting and want, so that he could provide people of deep need and temptation with help, sympathy, and strength. He promises the same to us. (cf. I Cor. 10:13 & Heb. 4:15)

A Navy chaplain says God answered his prayers this weekend when his superior officers permitted him to wear his uniform while publicly praying in a manner in accordance with his Christian faith. For 18 days Lieutenant Gordon James Klingenschmitt conducted a hunger strike to protest the U.S. Navy’s policy of not permitting Christian chaplains to pray in the name of Jesus in public.

…[T]wo weeks and four days during which he ate nothing at all and drank only water, ultimately losing 14 pounds but gaining a moral victory. “The victory is that they let me pray publicly in Jesus name,” he says, “and they even gave me a brand new three-year contract to let me stay in the Navy.”

But the Naval chaplain understands that what he has won was only a battle, not the war. He insists that President George W. Bush still needs to intervene to protect every U.S. military chaplain’s right to pray according to his or her own religious tradition.

“There are still 65 chaplains who are in a lawsuit because of this,” Klingenschmitt points out. “They couldn’t get promoted because they preached the wrong way when the government was trying to censor their prayers and sermons. So we still need the president to act.”

Groening, Chad and Jenni Parker. Chaplain Ends Fast,
Continues Call for Religious Freedom in Military
January 10, 2006. Agape Press

Comment: Man certainly does not live on bread alone; may we all be willing to fast, if someone would demand that we stopped praying in Jesus’ name.

(Jerusalem) Jesus may have died from a blood clot that reached his lungs, an Israeli physician said Wednesday, challenging the popular conception that he died of asphyxiation and blood loss during his crucifixion.

Rabinowitz, Gavin. Israeli Doctor: Clot May Have Killed Jesus
June 8, 2005. Associated Press

Comment: A blood clot may be powerful enough to kill a man, but not the God-man. Jesus laid down his own life, when our salvation was accomplished.

Caesar Augustus snaps his fingers, and Joseph and Mary have to trudge the weary miles to Bethlehem when she’s nine-months pregnant. “This is the way God comes into the world?” we think, “That can’t be right!”

It gets worse. David’s town is so full of people, apparently, that no one can be bothered with the predicament of a woman whose time has come. They don’t care at all about what God might be doing here through her. They don’t even seem to have the kind of human decency anyone might show to a pregnant woman in need of some help. A more graphic portrayal of human sin and our utter lost condition could not be found.

…Caesar Augustus snaps his fingers? Well, that may be, but the Messiah is born in David’s town just as God’s ancient Word said he would be. Are humans self-centered and uncaring by nature? That’s okay. God doesn’t need them to set his love in motion in this world. His Son can have a stall for a bed and a humble mother to take care of him as best she can. God will break open the angel chorus for the benefit of a few shepherds.

Wendland, Paul O. Good news that turns the world upside down, pp. 10,11
December 2005. Forward in Christ – feature, Vol. 92, No. 12

Comment: I realize that it's not Christmas yet; it just happens to be the category I'm up to. Anyways, every day is a good day to consider what God did through that little babe of Bethlehem.

(London) A British hotel chain is offering couples called Mary and Joseph a free night’s stay over Christmas. “We are trying to make up for the hotel industry not having any rooms left on Christmas Eve 2004 years ago,” said Sandy Leckie, manager of the Travelodge hotel in London’s Covent Garden.

But the offer has just one proviso -- the couples have to produce identification showing their names.

Plenty of Room at Inn for Mary and Joseph
November 26, 2004. Reuters – Oddly Enough