"Without the hostages there is no Independence," said organizers who invited the public to join them watching the ceremony's live stream from home or from screenings around the country.

This year, we can look within and see the bravery and heroism in the hearts of each and every one of us.

There is a lot of television and movie programming this year that honors them and those they left behind, as well as Independence Day-themed content.

In the past year, an additional 322 fallen and murdered from among the Kibbutzim Movements were added - most of them were victims of the October 7 Massacre and casualties of the war that followed.

Local churches across southern Brazil have opened their doors to provide shelter and aid to residents in areas of the country that have been devastated by catastrophic floods? that have claimed the lives of at least 136 people and left around 537,000 displaced.?

IDF Kills Terrorists, Destroys Hamas Infrastructure In Rafah Israel Defense Forces ground troops on Wednesday (8th) continued the offensive against Hamas in the Gaza terrorist bastion of Rafah. Soldiers killed ... Read MoreThe post News Digest — 5/9/24 appeared first on The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry.

A Break Down Of Israel's Population On The Country's 76th Independence Day With Israel's Independence Day coming up next Tuesday (14th), the Central Bureau of Statistics has released new data ... Read MoreThe post News Digest — 5/10/24 appeared first on The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry.

The IDF is making progress in its offensive in Rafah, Hamas's last major stronghold in Gaza. Knowing that rooting out Hamas in Rafah is crucial to its goal of erasing ... Read MoreThe post Could Israel's Rafah Offensive End the War Soon? appeared first on The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry.

Today's category: AnimalsCross-eyed Rottweiler? ? ? ? ? ? A man took his Rottweiler to the vet and said to the vet: "My dog's cross-eyed, is there anything you can do for it?"? ? ? ? ? ? "Well" said the vet "lets have a look at him"? ? ? ? ? ? So he picks the dog up and has a good look at it's eyes.? ? ? ? ? ? "Well" says the vet "I'm going to have to put him down"? ? ? ? ? ? "Just because he's cross-eyed?" says the man.? ? ? ? ? ? "No, because he's heavy" says the vet.View hundreds more jokes online.Email this joke to a friend

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently seemed to suggest he supports allowing abortion up until the moment of birth, prompting outrage from pro-life groups and concerns of insincerity among progressives in light of his previous moderate rhetoric on the issue.?

Advocates of physician-assisted suicide lobbied lawmakers in New York Tuesday to pass legislation that would make it legal for terminally ill patients to request and use medication to end their lives but many local leaders in the Catholic Church and health experts oppose the idea.

The effort to place a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot in New York that would establish a right to abortion has been put on hold following a judge's ruling.

A massive crowd of people turned out to greet President Trump Saturday afternoon in Wildwood, New Jersey. the announced attendance […]

The first story is from 2012, the second this year, 2024. The first by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the Second by The New American. Oh, what a difference a decade (or so) makes.? In 2012, while Agenda 21 (now 2030) had been around...

A United Nations watchdog organization published a series of chat room posts by Palestinians purportedly accusing U.N. Relief and Works Agency staff members of stealing humanitarian aid intended for civilians and selling it or hoarding it in their homes.

By Michael Boldin Gold and Silver, CBDC, Biometric Surveillance and 2nd Amendment Financial Privacy. We break down the bills and new laws & what they...Nullification News: Key Wins on Sound Money, Firearms and Privacy

Today's category: BibleBiblical Songs? ? ? ? ? ? Noah: "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head"? ? ? ? ? ? Adam and Eve: "Strangers in Paradise"? ? ? ? ? ? Lazarus: "The Second Time Around"? ? ? ? ? ? Esther: "I Feel Pretty"? ? ? ? ? ? Job: "I've Got a Right to Sing the Blues"? ? ? ? ? ? Moses: "The Wanderer"? ? ? ? ? ? Jezebel: "The Lady is a Tramp"? ? ? ? ? ? Samson: "Hair"? ? ? ? ? ? Salome: "I Could Have Danced All Night"? ? ? ? ? ? Daniel: "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"? ? ? ? ? ? Joshua: "Good Vibrations"? ? ? ? ? ? Peter: "I'm Sorry"? ? ? ? ? ? Esau: "Born To Be Wild"? ? ? ? ? ? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego: "Great Balls of Fire!"? ? ? ? ? ? The Three Kings: "When You Wish Upon a Star"? ? ? ? ? ? Jonah: "Got a Whale of a Tale"? ? ? ? ? ? Elijah: "Up, Up, and Away"? ? ? ? ? ? Methuselah: "Stayin' Alive"? ? ? ? ? ? Nebuchadnezzar: "Crazy"View hundreds more jokes online.Email this joke to a friend

In the country's most secular state, tiny congregations have made a big impact by their disaster response.For weeks, Tárik Rodriguez had been working on bringing a guest preacher and worship leader from across the country to help his church celebrate its third anniversary. In 2021, Rodriguez and a small team launched Viela da Graça Igreja in Novo Hamburgo, a small city in Brazil’s most southern province, Rio Grande do Sul.Then, it started raining.The floods have done more than interrupt the small Reformed congregation’s celebratory plans. They’ve devastated the community. The storms that began at the end of April struck Rio Grande do Sul’s most densely populated areas and have killed at least 116 people. Around 130 people are still missing. The high water has closed roads and even the airport, which has grounded flights until May 30. As of Friday, May 10, nearly 400,000 people have been displaced from their homes and 70,772 are in public shelters.Some of those have found their way to Viela da Graça, which is located on higher ground and has been largely protected from a water breach. Since May 4, Rodriguez and members of the 75-person congregation have been hosting around 50 people in a two-bathroom, 3,500-square-foot building.“As Christians, we needed to open our doors,” Rodriguez says. “And that’s what we did.”Beyond the bathroom constraints, the situation has been less than ideal. There are frequent power cuts (1.2 million people have been affected by outages) and the building has lost access to both running and potable water because the sanitation company cannot treat the dirty floodwaters. A nearby residential condominium, which gets its water from a well, has provided drinking water and showers.Continue reading...

Matthew Warner, who had tweeted about gay marriage, is the latest in a string of Christian college faculty who have lost their jobs after being accused of theological misalignment.With glowing performance reviews and above-average student evaluations, by most measures Matthew Warner’s first year as a communications professor at Grace College was a triumph.But he spent most of that first year knowing it could be his last. After four months on the job, Warner was informed by the school’s president, Drew Flamm, that the board had “come to the conclusion that we don’t think it works out to move forward,” according to a recording obtained by Religion News Service.Warner’s termination is the latest in a string of professor terminations at Christian colleges seemingly tied to clashes over narrowing and often unspoken political and theological criteria.While Flamm didn’t specify the reasons for Warner’s dismissal, it was preceded by an online termination campaign clear about its goals. Launched by conservative influencers and Grace College stakeholders, the campaign demanded Warner’s removal due to his social media posts about LGBTQ rights, Black Lives Matter, and critiques of the GOP. Almost all the posts predated Warner’s employment at the college.Grace College declined to answer questions about Warner, saying it was a personnel matter. “Dr. Matt Warner fulfilled his agreement for the year. Grace College wishes Dr. Warner well in his future endeavors,” Norm Bakhit, Grace College’s chief officer of human resources, told RNS in a statement. Flamm did not offer further comment.Warner and his wife said they both left behind jobs and sold their home in metro Detroit to move with their three kids to Warsaw, Indiana, for Warner’s job at Grace. It was his dream position, they said, and noted that they gave up 60 percent of their ...Continue reading...

One of the founding leaders of Victory megachurch, he never stopped running to share the gospel.Ferdinand “Ferdie” Cabiling, a bishop at one of the Philippines’ largest megachurches who ran across the Philippines to raise money for disadvantaged students, died April 1, the day after Easter. He was 58 years old.Dubbed “the Running Pastor,” the moniker describes not only Cabiling’s epic race but how he lived his life and served as an evangelist. For 38 years, he was a vocational minister of Victory Christian Fellowship of the Philippines, which has nearly 150 locations in the country. The branch he led, Victory Metro Manila, averaged more than 75,000 people each Sunday. [Note: The author is a member of Victory Church and was a part of the late pastor's small group in 2014.]In the past two years, his focus was on teaching evangelism to Victory leaders. Every time he received a teaching invitation, his answer was always yes, said his assistant, Faye Bonifacio.“He was a maximizer,” Bonifacio said, noting that Cabiling developed a habit of taking short naps while parked at a gas station between long drives. “Because he liked to drive, he did a lot in a day.”Hours before his death, Cabiling had visited a church member at a hospital an hour away from his hometown of Cuyapo before parking his car at a gas station, likely for a break before heading to his next destination. It was there that an attendant found his lifeless body and rushed him to the hospital he had just visited. Cabiling had died of a heart attack.“He was a serious man of passion, action, and conviction,” wrote Steve Murrell, the founding pastor of Victory, the flagship church for the charismatic-leaning Every Nation Churches and Ministries, which has churches and campus ministries in ...Continue reading...

The champion of “native missions” trained more than 100,000 evangelists but got in trouble for financial mismanagement.Athanasius Yohannan, who built one of the world’s largest mission organizations on the idea that Western Christians should support “native missionaries” but got in trouble for financial irregularities and dishonest fundraising, died on May 8. He was 74 and got hit by a car while walking along the road near his ministry headquarters in Texas.Born Kadapilaril Punnoose Yohannan and known for most of his ministry as K. P., Yohannan founded Gospel for Asia in 1979. Over the next 45 years, the organization trained more than 100,000 people to preach the gospel and plant and pastor churches in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and other places in Southeast Asia, according to a recent ministry report. Gospel for Asia raised as much as $93 million in a year and in 2005 reported it was supporting about 14,500 indigenous evangelists and pastors in same-culture and near-culture ministry. Christians in the US were asked to give $30 per month to support them.“If we evangelize the world’s lost billions … it will be through native missions,” Yohannan wrote for CT. “The native missionary is far more effective than the expatriate. The national already knows the language and is already part of the culture. In many instances, he or she can go places where outsiders cannot go.”Yohannan’s death was mourned by Gospel for Asia, the church that he started and served as metropolitan bishop, and prominent political leaders in India.“He will be remembered for his service to society and emphasis on improving the quality of life of the downtrodden,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote on social media. “May his soul rest in peace.”Both the governor of Kerala and the ...Continue reading...

Joshua Sutcliffe, who has been banned from his profession in the U.K. for allegedly misgendering a trans-identifying student, said that God has sustained him through his ordeal and that he remains hopeful.

In the country's most secular state, tiny congregations have made a big impact by their disaster response.For weeks, Tárik Rodriguez had been working on bringing a guest preacher and worship leader from across the country to help his church celebrate its third anniversary. In 2021, Rodriguez and a small team launched Viela da Graça Igreja in Novo Hamburgo, a small city in Brazil’s most southern province, Rio Grande do Sul.Then, it started raining.The floods have done more than interrupt the small Reformed congregation’s celebratory plans. They’ve devastated the community. The storms that began at the end of April struck Rio Grande do Sul’s most densely populated areas and have killed at least 116 people. Around 130 people are still missing. The high water has closed roads and even the airport, which has grounded flights until May 30. As of Friday, May 10, nearly 400,000 people have been displaced from their homes and 70,772 are in public shelters.Some of those have found their way to Viela da Graça, which is located on higher ground and has been largely protected from a water breach. Since May 4, Rodriguez and members of the 75-person congregation have been hosting around 50 people in a two-bathroom, 3,500-square-foot building.“As Christians, we needed to open our doors,” Rodriguez says. “And that’s what we did.”Beyond the bathroom constraints, the situation has been less than ideal. There are frequent power cuts (1.2 million people have been affected by outages) and the building has lost access to both running and potable water because the sanitation company cannot treat the dirty floodwaters. A nearby residential condominium, which gets its water from a well, has provided drinking water and showers.Continue reading...

The controversial iPad ad proves that technology can indeed flatten—or crush—what is real.A recent advertisement from Apple for the new iPad Pro has somehow managed to existentially disturb me. Titled “Crush!” it shows an ominous hydraulic press above a platform filled with symbols of humanity, creativity, and joy: a metronome, guitar, classical statue, piano, analog cameras, books, paint, and more.The metronome starts, and the press descends to Sonny & Cher’s “All I Need Is You,” slowly obliterating everything in high-def slow motion, before rising again to reveal only a “thinner than ever” iPad Pro. “Just imagine all the things it’ll be used to create,” Apple CEO Tim Cook posted on the social platform X.I am not alone in my revulsion. Actors Hugh Grant and Justine Bateman join me, as do apparently thousands of vocal people on the Internet and what appears to be the entire nation of Japan. The backlash, particularly from the “creatives” that Apple was courting for their product, was so pronounced that the company issued a rare apology, saying they had “missed the mark.”But what mark did they miss? More than missing just the tastes of their buyers, they missed the mark of reality—both of the creative process and of the goodness of the embodied nature that is essential to our humanity.I see why Apple produced the ad. There is tremendous economic incentive for tech corporations to replace previous, more embodied experiences and tools. Apple Music will never scratch like the fragile grooves of a vinyl record (also, it contains most of the recorded music in the world). GarageBand can’t go out of tune (and its digital “instruments” can mimic the entire orchestra). One can “paint” all day on ...Continue reading...

In November, Colorado voters will decide whether the “right” to abortion gets added to our constitution or not. If passed, you'll have to start paying for abortions with your tax dollars. After months of deceptively collecting signatures for this ballot initiative, on April 18th, Colorado's coalition of radical pro-abortion groups submitted petition signatures to the […]The post Colorado Amendment Would Create a “Right” to Kill Babies in Abortions appeared first on LifeNews.com.