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There is a joke about what would have happened if three wise women had shown up at Jesus’ birth instead of three wise men. It goes, “Three wise women would have asked directions, arrived on time, helped deliver the baby, cleaned the stable, made a casserole, and brought practical gifts.” (My
theory, for what it's worth: Mary's midwife was her cousin
Elizabeth, who lived in the vicinity. Elizabeth helped Mary, just as Mary
had helped Elizabeth at the birth of John the Baptist) (Comments welcome here) |
Vatican II & Renewal (1) 16
Documents of Vatican II Excellent
articles on Mission
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The
age of internet empires
- an important summary of how we are influenced by Google, Apple, Amazon
and Facebook (English note: "empires" contains "spies"!) |
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Today is the anniversary of Lottie Moon, a small woman with a huge heart who served as a missionary in China for nearly forty years in very difficult conditions | ||||||
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May 25, 26
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Israeli press give details of Pope’s visit to Holy Land
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(good timing for Christmas ... sheep) 24. Evangelizers thus take on the “smell of the sheep” and the sheep are willing to hear their voice. An evangelizing community is also supportive, standing by people at every step of the way, no matter how difficult or lengthy this may prove to be. It is familiar with patient expectation and apostolic endurance. Evangelization consists mostly of patience and disregard for constraints of time |
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Yesterday I saw a large nativity banner ....as a backdrop for a happy group of people who were singing Christmas carols at the Star Ferry entrance on Hong Kong Island. First time I've ever seen Mary, Joseph and the Magi wearing glasses! (...in HK even tiny children are put in glasses to enhance their academic whatever). Maybe next year Baby Jesus will have specs? | ||||||
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The war on drugs "a holocaust in slow motion" (with video) This website's Tanzania
File (stopping Africans from
being tricked into bringing drugs to HK) South
America file (stopping S. Americans
from being tricked into bringing drugs to HK) |
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Francis wishes to release Vatican II's bold vision from captivity |
Vatican II Reflection - 307
"All
right, I'll do it. Tell me where you need me and when" |
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John W mini-Blog |
Visit to Matteo Ricci Centre by Deacon Edwin Ng and Fr Sebastian (Asian delegate of Prison Pastoral Care) - Fr Sebastian working towards an Asian meeting of Catholic prison chaplains (..encouraged by Pope Francis' desire to do more for the poor) | |||||
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Sun:
Africa
Mon:
Europe & Russia Tues:
South Asia Wed:
East Asia On this 24th
of the month, Jesus
please bless the
prisoners of Inner
Mongolia |
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Click to enlarge |
Bethlehem ought to develop in us a sensitivity to what is authentic and simple, starting with asking ourselves whether it might not be possible to celebrate and be happy with fewer things .... that our ethics become enriched with criteria of authenticity, simplicity of life, and caring for others |
Pope
Francis Dec 22: |
Appeal for homeless families The Poor Cannot Wait! I call on everyone: individuals, organs of society, authorities, to do everything possible to assure that every family has a place to live |
This website's kind
bloggers Bakhita
John
W: |
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Look at the figures in the Christmas crib. Notice how all of them, animals included, are leaning in towards the child in the manger. Each of them is an icon of God leaning into us |
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South Sudan edges towards civil war A cycle of revenge and fear is building momentum.
Large-scale mobilisation among different ethnic communities intent on
revenge for what they see as targeted killings. The leaders have got to
come together and do so on television or this is going to get much
worse |
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More photos of that small boy holding the Pope's cap! |
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2011 Prize-winning Palestinian documentary 5 Broken Cameras - free here on YouTube Amazon
- see reviews, one of which
says: |
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Australia's asylum seeker policy is breaking people In the land of the fair go, is this really what most Australians want? Do Australians who want asylum boats to stop also support the indefinite and prolonged detention of children, pregnant women and vulnerable men or women? Do we really want to ''break people''? c.f. Authorities took 2 days before launching search for doomed boat |
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Readers of this website know of my medical concern about homosexual behaviour - see my file "Same-sex marriage": two elephants in the men's room, but I regard this new Tanzanian law as barbaric: Gays, lesbians to spend life in jail as new Bill passed |
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Yesterday someone told me about Cao
Dai, a new religion in Vietnam. Google "cao dai" for Wikipedia and other articles |
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Interactive
Bible Quiz - Philippians |
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24. The Church which “goes forth” is a community of missionary disciples who take the first step, who are involved and supportive, who bear fruit and rejoice. An evangelizing community knows that the Lord has taken the initiative, he has loved us first , and therefore we can move forward, boldly take the initiative, go out to others, seek those who have fallen away, stand at the crossroads and welcome the outcast. Such a community has an endless desire to show mercy,
the fruit of its own experience of the power of the Father’s infinite
mercy. Let us try a little harder to take the first
step and to become involved. Jesus washed the feet of his
disciples. The Lord gets involved and he involves his own, as he kneels to
wash their feet. He tells his disciples: “You will be blessed if you do
this” . |
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Just before Christmas, an honest politician, a generous loan shark and Santa Claus were riding in the elevator of a very posh hotel. Just before the doors opened they all noticed a $20 bill lying on the floor. Which one picked it up? Santa of course, because the two other two don't exist! |
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This website's Tanzania
File (stopping Africans from
being tricked into bringing drugs to HK) - with links to all letters from Tanzanian inmates in Hong Kong prisons South
America file (stopping S.
Americans from being tricked into bringing drugs to HK) |
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Francis wishes to release Vatican II's bold vision from captivity |
Vatican II Reflection - 306
Educated lay Catholics are no longer "sheeple" |
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John W mini-Blog |
Visit
yesterday to Matteo Ricci Centre by former Zhaoqing CAS teacher Liam and Hao. Liam now works as an English teacher in Vietnam, at a campus of RMIT |
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Sun:
Africa
Mon:
Europe & Russia Tues:
South Asia Wed:
East Asia On this 23rd
of the month, Jesus
please bless the
prisoners of Guangxi |
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Sunday December 22 The readings of today's Mass for the Fourth Sunday of Advent Reflection on
today's Mass readings by Daniel Daring: |
Today in Northern Hemisphere: the Winter Solstice I wish all Chinese readers a Happy Winter Festival!
David
Timbs (Melbourne) |
Immanuel:
God – with – us This Christmas we could have no greater gift than to be assured that we live, breathe and glory in the ultimate comforting truth that, in Jesus, born in Bethlehem, God is truly with us |
Pope
Francis:
Many
thanks for checking
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Low-cost internet on smartphones altering way Somalis stay connected to world | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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Controversial
mine in Australia to provide coal for China
New jobs in Australia will cost lives in China: see Power Crazed |
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A
conspiracy of suppression
Philippines typhoon relief and rebuilding effort a sham corruption feast of inflated costing. (The further down you read this article, the more you shake your head ....and pray: Jesus, please give the Philippines better leaders!) |
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Beautiful Christmas story |
During the 2010 Christmas season, the Benedictine sisters of Baltimore found themselves in the midst of a modern-day Christmas story. The sisters were asked to provide shelter to an eight-month-pregnant Muslim woman seeking asylum in the United States |
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Pope to Curia: | "Don't turn into a bureaucratic customs house" | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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The reflection by Fr Des O'Donnell OMI posted on
this website on Dec 20 has now also been posted on the website of Ireland's Association of Catholic Priests: Francis is ‘a modern Christmas’ to the confused world |
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A
man found himself in terrible financial difficulties. He is so desperate
that for the first time in his life he gets down on his knees and prays to
God for help. 'Dear God, I desperately need your help. I have no money to
spend on Christmas presents for my family. Could you possibly arrange it
so that I win the Lottery?' |
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New
letter from a Tanzanian inmate in a Hong Kong prison This website's Tanzania
File (stopping Africans
from being tricked into bringing drugs to HK) South
America file (stopping S.
Americans from being tricked into bringing drugs to HK) |
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Francis wishes to release Vatican II's bold vision from captivity |
Vatican
II Reflection
305
"May everyone learn from childhood to have compassion for others and to be generous in helping those in need" |
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John W mini-Blog |
Last night as I was waiting to cross Nathan
Road at the corner of Nathan and Jordan Roads ....I saw the same sight as
I've seen on this night for the past few years: Christmas carolers
on the top deck of a double-decker bus, singing carols, wishing everyone a
Merry Christmas. God bless them! 2011 photo 2009 2009 And in Australia, as elsewhere, many homes are specially decorated for Christmas, like these homes in Melbourne |
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Sun:
Africa
Mon:
Europe & Russia Tues:
South Asia Wed:
East Asia Thurs: S.E. Asia & Pacific Frid: South America Sat: Central & North America Please join me in praying for one part of the world each day of the week: Jesus, today, Sunday, please bless the people of Africa On this 22nd
of the month, Jesus
please bless the
prisoners of Zhejiang |
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Pope
Francis: |
Growing
threat of ransom-ware CryptoLocker Wikipedia: CryptoLocker |
----------------------- Please
encourage more people to see 1-10 After
reading 1-10, check the "Pravda" report of CNA
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Is it the Francis effect? Bishops across England and Wales focus on poverty this Christmas |
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(Overdue) Good news: Obama commutes sentences of eight crack cocaine offenders - using his power of clemency to make statement about what the administration believes is an overly punitive criminal justice system |
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Bishop Pat Power: Bethlehem now To make the journey from Nazareth in Israel to Bethlehem in Palestine today, Mary and Joseph would have to cross through approximately 70 Israeli barriers |
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Middle East deteriorating relationship of Muslims and Christians: Bridge that needs rebuilding |
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Questions from a Ewe: The survey I wish the Vatican would have conducted... Emotional abuse of women in the Church |
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Central African Republic atrocities escalate amid rampaging rival militias | ||||||
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-------------------------- Highly recommended: This Power Point of The Joy of the Gospel |
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Yesterday at a detention centre, an inmate asked me to pray for his ankle. But when I crouched down and put my right hand gently on his ankle and said a prayer, the inmate said "what are you doing?". I said "you asked me to pray for your ankle". "No I didn't", he replied, "I asked you to pray for my uncle". (Using English in Hong Kong is a clear and present danger) |
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My
post on Jamii Forums has had 150 hits
This website's Tanzania
File (stopping Africans
from being tricked into bringing drugs to HK) |
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Francis wishes to release Vatican II's bold vision from captivity |
Vatican
II Reflection 304
Children should have a taste for the apostolate from their earliest days, helped by an apostolic spirit in their families and schools |
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John W mini-Blog |
One of the most prestigious and expensive
schools in Australia is The Southport
School (TSS) on Queensland's Gold Coast. It's current website shows a
former student who is now attending Harvard University in the US. In the past week I've met two graduates from the school .... now attending a Hong Kong detention centre. One is a HK citizen, the other from Korea |
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Sun:
Africa
Mon:
Europe & Russia Tues:
South Asia Wed:
East Asia Thurs: S.E. Asia & Pacific Frid: South America Sat: Central & North America Please join me in praying for one part of the world each day of the week: Jesus, today, Saturday, please bless the people of Central & North America On this 21st
of the month, Jesus
please bless the
prisoners of Yunnan |
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The ecclesial explosion called Pope Francis has revived my sagging adhesion to Rome, as he speaks about, writes about and witnesses to, ‘the joy of the Gospel’. Francis is a modern Christmas to the confused world |
This
has to be one of the photos of the year!
(child destined to be a Capuchin?) |
Liturgy - New Translation 1998
ICEL Sacramentary Ron
Schmit: ------------------------------------------ Spirituality Sacred
Space
Pray-as-you-go.org Whole
text of 1966 Jerusalem Bible
Previous Smiles file |
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Extremist Catholic (?) groups continue to criticise Pope Francis e.g. one e.g. two |
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Vatican’s
representative seeks immunity over sex abuse inquiry
Royal Commission hears Vatican told priest to offer a Mass every Friday for his victims |
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Holiday | |||
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This website's Tanzania
File (stopping Africans
from being tricked into bringing drugs to HK) - with links to all letters from Tanzanian inmates in Hong Kong prisons South
America file
(stopping S. Americans from being tricked
into bringing drugs to HK) |
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YouTube: Kindergarten children talking about Christmas |
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Francis wishes to release Vatican II's bold vision from captivity | Holiday | |||
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John W mini-Blog |
Very fruitful meeting last night with
kind editor of V2catholic's Facebook
page who is in HK on holidays from Australia. Editor has shown
me how to put replies on the page ...hope to start soon.
Meeting last night ...so a slim menu today |
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Sun: Africa
Mon:
Europe & Russia Tues:
South Asia Wed:
East Asia |
Thursday December 19
|
Pope
Francis:
(the original English of this text
needs to see a doctor) |
The world's hard-hearted airline (Comments welcome here) I
have loved Qantas ever since I was young. In 1984 I visited Winton in
Queensland, the birth-place of Qantas. In 1996 I
won a Qantas competition prize in HK. Twice I have taken groups of
more than 20 people from HK/China to Australia on Qantas. Qantas has been
good to me. And I understand how Qantas, like any business, has to
manage its finances responsibly. See: a list of privatisation deals in Australia over the past 20 years Yesterday
I came away from the HK Qantas office thinking that the world needs a good
dose of socialism to make up for the harm that extreme capitalism has
caused and
see second half of this
article in its treatment of capitalism, and last part of this
article re privatisation |
This
site's full statistics
To publish an article on this site please contact Fr John Wotherspoon omi: jdwomi@gmail.com
Why I collect rubbish for Pope "Same-sex
marriage": two elephants
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Tablet report |
Prince
Charles highlights plight of Christians in Middle East The Prince of Wales addresses an audience of religious leaders at a reception for Middle East Christians at Clarence House on Tuesday. The archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, chief rabbi Ephraim Mirvis and archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols were at the event (Video) |
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Child sex abuse | Church plays part of Christmas villain | |||||
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Pope canonizes Peter Faber, SJ ....and by-passes Vatican procedure (hope he'll do same for Romero and Ricci) Pope
calls for humility: Preparing a generation of 'Francis bishops'
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China
government-Church standoff over bishop's burial (outcome remains to be seen) |
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This joy is a sign that the Gospel has been proclaimed and is bearing fruit. And the drive to go forth and give, to go out from ourselves, to keep pressing forward in our sowing of the good seed, remains ever present. The Lord says: “Let us go on to the next towns that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out”. Once the seed has been sown in one place, Jesus does not stay behind to explain things or to perform more signs; the Spirit moves him to go forth to other towns. |
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Tourist
walks off pier while browsing on Facebook (be careful of what appears on Facebook...) |
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British women drug mules jailed for more than six years in Peru Tanzanian man with 83 heroin capsules in stomach arrested at Dar es Salaam airport (...Drug Lords still trying to send drug mules to HK/China...) This website's Tanzania
File (stopping Africans
from being tricked into bringing drugs to HK) South
America file
(stopping S. Americans from being tricked
into bringing drugs to HK) |
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Francis wishes to release Vatican II's bold vision from captivity |
Vatican II Reflection 303 Christians
should become involved in their local community |
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John W mini-Blog |
"Profits before people" leads to lower standards of service, lower standards of safety, mistaken economic decisions etc etc. The more you think about it, the more urgent and timely is Pope Francis' call for an end to rampant capitalism whereby the rich get richer and the poor get poorer | |||||
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Sun:
Africa
Mon:
Europe & Russia Tues:
South Asia Wed:
East Asia On this 19th
of the month, Jesus
please bless the
prisoners of Shanxi |
Wednesday December 18
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Pope Francis marks birthday (Dec 17) with online card and meal with homeless |
Vatican II - Renewal (2) Hans
Küng: Robert
Mickens: Robert
McNally: Priests
9 Masses a day
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Japan increases defence budget amid tensions with China Tokyo announces plans to buy drones, jet fighters and destroyers (May wise heads in China and Japan soon put a stop to this madness) |
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ABC | Islam's forgotten animal welfare tradition | ||||||
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Check the amazing photo! |
Chinese surgeons reattach a man's severed hand after keeping it alive on his leg for a month (brilliant ...and sure convenient for scratching itchy foot!) |
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Major US academic body backs boycott of Israeli educational institutions |
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Power Crazed A quarter of a million deaths a year could be avoided in China if coal power there were shut down |
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In our day Jesus’ command to “go and make disciples” echoes in the changing scenarios and ever new challenges to the Church’s mission of evangelization, and all of us are called to take part in this new missionary “going forth”. Each Christian and every community must discern the path that the Lord points out, but all of us are asked to obey his call to go forth from our own comfort zone in order to reach all the “peripheries” in need of the light of the Gospel. |
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Click to enlarge (charged with breaking and entering??) |
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This website's Tanzania
File (stopping Africans from
being tricked into bringing drugs to HK) South
America file
(stopping S. Americans from being tricked
into bringing drugs to HK) |
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Francis wishes to release Vatican II's bold vision from captivity |
Vatican
II Reflection 302
Hoping and praying that the present-day ecumenical winter of decreased interest and commitment will not last |
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John W mini-Blog |
A hope that came to me after Mass yesterday morning: China will make Christmas Day a public holiday, as one of the "international" holidays (like January 1). Please God! | ||||||
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Sun:
Africa
Mon:
Europe & Russia Tues:
South Asia Wed:
East Asia Thurs: S.E. Asia & Pacific Frid: South America Sat: Central & North America Please join me in praying for one part of the world each day of the week: Jesus, today, Wednesday, please bless the people of East Asia On this 18th
of the month, Jesus
please bless the
prisoners of Shandong |
This website was launched
in construction mode in Hong Kong on November 20, 2011
- the Feast of Christ the King.
The official launching
was
held on the Gold Coast, Australia,
on January 20, 2012
Map and Flag Counter began Feb 11, 2012. Previous visits 4,932.
Note: counter on this page + Map & Flag Counter record visits only to this
main/index page.
Visits to other pages are not recorded.
This site's November 2013
statistics
Thank you for checking this website each day. God bless all readers!
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