The story of 17-year-old Christian (formerly Muslim) convert Fathima Rifqa Bary is far from over according to the Orlando Sentinel, as she is getting surgery for cancer and will need several rounds of chemotherapy afterwards.

Rifqa Bary

Last year Bary converted to Christianity, then fled to Florida because she was afraid her parents or people from their mosque would kill her.

Now she is back in Ohio due to a court order, but lives with a foster family.

Even as her parents continue the court battle over how she should be raised, Bary has had two surgeries for cancer, and will undergo a third operation on Thursday, the Orlando Sentinel said.

While she was in the hospital, Bary’s estranged Muslim parents Mohamed and Aysha Bary were allowed to go to her hospital room without her permission, according to OneNewsNow.

“I don’t know if it was her attorney, her case worker, [but] somebody made the decision to bring her parents into the room to see her without her permission,” said Jamal Jivanjee, director of the Florida-based ministry, Illuminate, “and that caused her a lot of emotional turmoil and stress, and she objected to that and they had to get them out of there,” according to OneNewsNow.

In August last year Bary said, “If I had stayed in Ohio, I wouldn’t be alive. In 150 generations in my family, no one has known Jesus.  I am the first — imagine the honor in killing me,” FoxNews.com reported.

Bary fled to Florida on a bus last July after her parents learned that she was baptized in early 2009 without their knowledge. Weeks later, using cell phone and computer records, police tracked her to the home of Rev. Blake Lorenz, pastor of the Orlando-based Global Revolution Church, and his wife Beverly.  An Orange-Osceola judge ordered Bary back to Ohio in October last year, according to FoxNews.com.

Bary suffers from an aggressive form of uterine cancer.  Her doctors initially considered a complete hysterectomy, but are hoping that won’t be necessary.  The full extent of her condition will be known after her operation on Thursday, FoxNews.com said.

Fathima said that she would like to continue to stay with her foster family in Columbus.  She turns 18 on August 10 and as an adult, her court battles with her father should end, according to the Orlando Sentinel.

However, when she turns 18 she will lose her health care and may face problems with her immigration status for being in the United States illegally.  She may be deported back to Sri Lanka, FoxNews.com said.

Jivanjee said, “We’re praying that somehow she’ll be granted asylum.”  He added that with Bary’s immigration status still up in the air, and the prospect of extensive medical treatment, she is obviously scared right now, OneNewsNow reported.

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The owner of the Be With Me, The Children’s Playseum in Bethesda, Md. was told recently that no Montgomery public school would send children to her facility because her website mentioned the words “God,” “life,” and “family,” according to The Washington Post.

From her website:

“We Value

LIFE-Every child is God’s gift to this earth.

FAMILY-The most vital part of our community. We treasure the opportunity to offer you a place to create family moments and memories while using our proceeds to help a family far away.

GOD-Giver of breathe and we endeavor to honor Him in all of our affairs.”

Be With Me, The Children’s Playseum is an indoor space that mixes creative play and education.

Geina Seebachan, owner of the children’s activity center, was told however that if she edited her website, schools would send children to the playseum.

Sean Bulson, an acting community superintendent for the county system, said he was “not aware” of any countywide decision about the playseum.  He did say that many parents expressed discomfort with their children going to the facility, The Washington Post reported.

The issue came to Seebachan’s attention when Westbrook Elementary School canceled a scheduled trip to the center.

All four of Seebachan’s children had attended Westbrook Elementary School.

However, according to Seebachan, Jeff Ewald, principle, told her that parents expressed concern that the Playseum was overtly or covertly religious, The Washington Post said.

Seebachan, an evangelical Christian, has among her teaching staff one from Peru, one from Sri Lanka, one vegan, one kosher Jew, a fellow from Trinidad and a woman from Congo, according to The Washington Post.

According to the play calendar on their website, there will be activities to celebrate Jerusalem Day, Waisak Day in Indonesia, Corpus Christi in Chile, and Memorial Day in the United States.

Seebachan, who studied international relations in college, also has activities at Pthe activity center that celebrate Thai and Shinto holidays, the prophet Muhammad’s birthday, Chinese New Year and Jewish holidays.

But on her Web site, she also advertises a Christian youth group she runs, according to the Washington Post.

Seebachan had experience in leading after school clubs and daycamps, has taught in China, and lived and visited over 22 nations.  The playseum’s on-hands activities are diverse, sensitive in spirit and reflect what she has gained from her travels, according to their website.

However now the Be With Me Playseum is being sabotaged through a whisper campaign and Seebachan has been receiving threats.

Anonymous Web postings saying Seebachan handed out antiabortion literature at the Playseum, accepts support from right-wing Christian groups and plays Christian rock music at the play space, according to The Washington Post.

One anonymous post from someone who claimed to be Jewish said that Seebachan told her that unless she accepted Jesus as her personal savior, the client and her children would go to hell, The Washington Post reported.

Seebachan said she has no literature about abortion, her sponsors are all secular, including Safeway and Strosniders hardware store, and if she knew anyone of her staff who told a client that she and her family might go to hell, she would fire them on the spot, according to The Washington Post.

“I’m not marketing to Christians,” Seebachan says.  “I imagined this place like a big, refreshing swimming pool for anybody to come to and be together with their children in a different way, without computers, TVs or cellphones,”  Seebachan told The Washington Post.

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The U.S. Commision on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) noted in its recent 2010 annual report that President Obama has fallen short of doing what he can to lobby for the protection of religious freedom in the world.

The report noted that until now, President Obama has failed to appoint an Ambassador-At-Large for International Religious Freedom, a request that was made to him last month in a petition signed by lawmakers, scholars and human rights groups.

The same petition requested that the position be given equal level to other Ambassadors-At-Large who report directly to the Secretary of State, according to The Christian Post.

The USCIRF also noted that under Obama’s watch, no countries have been rated CPC, or “countries of particular concern” for having the worst religious violations.

Such a rating can prompt government action including trade restrictions, sanctions, embargoes, and withholding of military or financial aid, among others, The Christian Post said.

The same report said that the USCIRF, an independent US government commission, made these observations even as it said that with every year the issue becomes less and less important to the White House and the State Department.

The position of Ambassador-At-Large for International Religious Freedom, for example, was created in 1998, but it had only been filled in its initial year, and has remained vacant since 1999.

The commission warned Obama that failure to fill the position sent a message to the international community that religious freedom is not an important issue to the American government, the Christian Post said.

The same report noted that USCIRF took issue with the fact that Obama rarely mentioned religious freedom when he visited Ankara and Cairo last year.

Furthermore, Obama and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton replaced the words religious freedom with “freedom of worship.”

The commission said authoritarian governments could skirt the issue by noting that faiths that are okay with them can freely worship.

Credit:svilen001/sxc.hu

They could also permit only token houses of worship for minority faiths.

According to CNN, the USCIRF also reported that:

* Over 24 countries are religious freedom offenders and practice religious persecution.

* Forms of religious persecution may include imprisonment, murder, being fired from jobs, and being kicked out of universities; being forbidden to have bank accounts, driver’s licenses and even birth certificates, among others.

* 13 countries should be rated CPC or “countries of particular concern” because they have the worst religious violations. These countries include Myanmar (Burma), China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Suda, Uzbekistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Vietnam.

* 12 countries on the watch list are Afghanistan, Belarus, Cuba, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Laos, Russia, Somalia, Tajikistan, Turkey and Venezuela.

* The report has five more countries under CPC rating than does the State Department’s 2009 report, which did not include Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkmenistan or Vietnam.

* 3 countries, Bangladesh, Kazakhstan and Sri Lanka, should be closely monitored.

Specific Countries

* Egypt. Members of the Baha’I faith and minority Muslim sects are imprisoned, fired from jobs, kicked out of universities, and barred from having bank accounts, birth certificates and driver’s licenses.

* Nigeria. A decade of violence between Muslims and Christians in the Jos state recently culminated in 500 men, women and children hacked to death with machetes and dumped into wells.

* China. Cracked down on Uyghur Muslims in the west.

* Iran. Labeled domestic political opponents “enemies of God” which is a capital offense and can merit severing of the head.

* Eritrea. Harassment of Orthodox Church members and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

* Vietnam. Imprisonment of Buddhists and Protestants.

The USCIRF report urged the government to double its efforts to protect international religious freedom and to raise issues of abuse to the highest levels of the world community, the Christian Post said.

“Anything less betrays our history and values, and fails to leverage the extraordinary capacity we have as a nation to promote religious freedom and related human rights for all,” the report said.

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Tens of thousands died in the fighting, and many more thousands fled in search of peace. Now, hundreds of thousands survive in refugee camps not far from the places they once called home.

After 26 years of bitter civil war in Sri Lanka, this island nation’s militarized minority, the Tamil Tigers, laid down their weapons. This transition has opened the door for the Good News to come into areas once cut-off from the world.

"Conditions in Sri Lanka are difficult right now — closed roads, unsanitary living conditions and lack of resources," said Doug Harstine, Faith Comes By Hearing regional manager.

"There is great need, especially for food. Relief organizations and Faith Comes By Hearing partners, like the Ceylon Bible Society, are assessing which regions have the most damage," said Harstine.

"The rebel-held areas, which were once closed and heavily guarded, will be open again soon."

During this time of rebuilding comes a rebuilding of faith.

"The people are ready for the message of hope that comes from God’s Word," he said. "We’re working with the Ceylon Bible Society to distribute Audio Bibles in those refugee camps."

Harstine said Faith Comes By Hearing is expanding their impact in the region by forming a new outreach team and sending out a recording team.

"Our new Faith Comes By Hearing outreach team is made up of Ceylon Bible Society staff. These dedicated believers will go into these areas and camps, come alongside churches and ministries and start Audio Bible listening groups," said Harstine.

As people hear God’s Word, they are discipled and transformed; they respond by planting churches.

"The recording team will re-record the Tamil Audio Bible using indigenous voices," said Harstine. "The current recording was voiced by Indians because of the lack of access to the Tamil region. Now, the Word of God will be in their dialect, and Tamil people will be more open to the Scriptures."

After finishing the Tamil New Testament, this team will record other languages in South Asia.

Faith Comes By Hearing’s mission is to record the New Testament in 2,000 languages and to implement two million Bible listening groups by 2016 to reach the 50 percent of the world who cannot read and are poor. Faith Comes By Hearing now has 439 Audio Scripture recordings in 371 languages. All are available for free download at www.FaithComesByHearing.com.

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