Thursday, July 22, 2004
AMERICAN CHURCH PREPARED TO ORGANIZE EVANGELISTIC FESTIVAL
IN IRAQ
News comes after Poland's Festival of Life answered ancient prayers,
official says
By Stefan J. Bos
Special Correspondent, ASSIST News Service reporting from Poland
 WISLA, POLAND (ANS) -- An official of the 20,000
strong Horizon Christian Fellowship church in San Diego, California,
has said his congregation is prepared to organize an evangelistic
festival in Iraq if and when the time is right. (Pictured: Some of the hundreds responding
to the gospel in Wisla, Poland).
Horizon International Ministries Director, Victor Najor, told ASSIST
News Service (ANS) the church will go “anywhere God leads us,” as it
did in the last two decades. It comes at a time of ongoing persecution
of Christians in Iraq, despite the recent handover of authority by the
United States-led coalition to the interim government. (pictured:
Festival of Life outreach)
 At the same time, churches in Iraq have reported
spectacular growth and interest among Muslims in Christianity, ANS
learned. (Pictured: Victor Najor).
Najor, a Chaldean Christian whose parents and brothers came from Iraq,
spoke after his church helped organize Poland’s first ever evangelistic
Festival of Life, which he claimed was a result of prayers by Polish
Christians, at least 350 years ago.
CHRISTIAN MOUNTAIN
“I just climbed a nearby mountain where Christians were hiding and held
secret church meetings,” said Najor, who is now in his early fifties
but still looks like the Rambo-type bouncer persecuted believers may
have welcomed to provide security in those troubled days.
They met underground “not to get killed, and prayed for a spiritual
breakthrough,” he explained. “You can still see the benches and other
signs of assembly.” He added that hundreds of years later people “in
especially Poland” are receptive to the Gospel.
“The Eastern European mind and culture seems more open than in Western
Europe,” Najor claimed. “Maybe because of the oppression that was here
before, people seem more ready to receive the Good News,” he said.
CULTURAL CHRISTIANITY
Najor warned that in mainly Catholic Poland “there seems to be a lot of
‘cultural Christianity’”, a reference to religious rituals present
within traditional churches, without emphasize on what evangelicals
call “a personal relationship with Christ.”
“One of the things that seem to be lacking is the joy of the Lord,”
Najor noted. “So I think that the Festival gave a lot of joy to people
and opened a lot of people up (for the Gospel),” he stressed.
Organizers say roughly 500 people accepted Christ in their lives during
the five-day Festival of Life, which ended Sunday, July 18.
“My family is from Iraq where is not such a thing as a Baptist or a
Catholic, you are just a Christian. So I think the walls of tradition
and denominationalisms have to be broken down. Obviously they can be
very restrictive to allow the (Holy) Spirit to work.”
FIRST CHURCHES
The Chaldean Christians are believed to be among the first churches
that were founded by Christ’s followers. Najor recalled how Apostle
Thomas on his way to India preached the Gospel to the Chaldean people
in Babylon,” and that they became born again believers and “preached
the Gospel to different parts of the world” including Mongolia, China
and India.
“In Madras, India, there is still to this day a very large Chaldean
church. We hope that this Festival has helped to ignite other people to
become like Thomas and use their gifts for the kingdom of God.”, Najor
said.
Among the visible talents given to Najor is his love for cooking, which
he found difficult to hide during Poland’s Festival of Life. “When I
was about five years old I used to help my mother in the kitchen. She
got married at the age of twelve in a pre-arranged Middle East
marriage. Helping her was needed because I had seven other brothers and
sisters and over a hundred first cousins. So we had a lot of parties.”
COOKING EVANGELICAL
He later used his cooking experience not only to make his own wife and
four children happy, but also thousands of other people during
evangelistic outreaches of Horizon Christian Fellowship.
Najor said he started cooking meals for large crowds after concluding
in the Bible that “Jesus barbecued on the beach.” “So I thought: ‘okay
if He barbecued, I am going to barbecue some time.’” He played a key
role in the “Foods from Biblical Times” events that accompanied his
church’s Festival of Life meetings around the world in the last decade.
“These are foods that are very similar to those they eat in the Middle
East today, for example vegetarian type things and barbecue items. In
some cases we have seen thousands of people breaking bread (like Jesus
and his followers did).” In Poland, a similar food meeting was held,
uniting at one point 200 Catholics and Protestants, Najor said.
“Let’s all start fresh on a different page of music,” said Najor,
smiling. “We learned it from Jesus who fed the five thousand. He broke
bread with people in Mathews Gospel, so I think this is a wonderful
labor of love.”
UNITING CHURCHES
He hopes it will also encourage different churches in post-Communist
Poland to work harder and closer together after the Festival of Life.
“I remember when I was a little boy my parents would make Middle East
pastries together, which took us three or four days. Later my mom said
why we just don’t buy these pastries in a Middle East store already
made. And I believe that’s how a lot of Christians are. They want to
buy other people’s experiences; they don’t want to labor together.”
However several evangelical leaders in Poland say the Festival of Life
was a clear sign that Catholics and Protestants are now prepared to
unite in missions and evangelistic outreaches at a time of concern
about social tensions in the nation, which joined the European Union,
May 1, this year.
DEATH CAMP
The Festival of Life was held in Wisla, about 60 kilometers (37) miles
from what was the Nazi death camp Auschwitz.
Last week Jewish youngsters carrying Israeli flags were seen praying
and singing Hebrew songs at Auschwitz II-Birkenau, where up to one and
a half million mainly Jewish people were massacred in gas chambers, or
otherwise tortured or shot to death.
"It's a long story" said one elderly lady who came to explain the
youngsters what happened with their people in the 1940's. The Jewish
people were seen embracing each other after viewing horrific images of
extermination. (Pictured: Jews comforting each other in Auschwitz).
Evangelicals said it was another reason to hold the Festifal of Life
and encourage people to move away from what they call "demonic powers"
who they say inspired Nazis and others willing to cooperate with them
to carry out the world's worst atrocities. "There is not one family in
Poland that did not lose someone they loved in the war," said Jerzy
Marcol, Director of the Biblical Mission Association, who hopes the
Festival encouraged people to choose "New Life" over death.
Read more on these and other news stories on news agency BosNewsLife at
website http://www.bosnewslife.com
Award winning Journalist Stefan J. Bos
was born on the 19th of September 1967 in a small home in downtown
Amsterdam, in the Netherlands not far from the typewriter of his
father, who was (and still is) a Reporter and ghostwriter. Already at a
very young age Bos decided to become journalist and finally arrived in
Hungary, the same country where his parents had smuggled Bibles during
Communism.
Bos has traveled extensively to cover wars and
revolutions throughout the region and received the Annual Press Award
of Merit from the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for his
coverage about foreign policy affairs including Hungary's relationship
with NATO and the European Union. Stefan J. Bos can be reached at: stefan@bosnewslife.com.
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