By Christy Barritt
Man Wants Ministry to Return Donations
A man who donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to a mission organization is suing to get his money back.
Florida businessman Craig Mateer donated $117,000 to World Hope Inc., a ministry run by a Baptist church in Orlando, Florida. He specifically donated the funds to start chicken farms in Kenya.
He asked his accountant to look into how the ministry was spending contributions. That’s when supposed problems came to light. Mateer claims the money he donated was diverted from his chosen cause to help the poor and instead went to pay the World Hope director. According to what he discovered, the money paid for the director’s phone bills, credit cards, and life insurance.
An attorney for the mission organization said the issue is an accounting problem and not fraud.
A hearing for the case is scheduled for February 20, 2014.
Pastor Saeed Abedini Remains in Danger
American minister Saeed Abedini is no closer to freedom months after being arrested in Iran. In fact, his situation has grown more and more dangerous with time.
Abedini is a U.S. citizen who was born in Iran. He was visiting his family in the Middle East and overseeing the building of an orphanage when he was arrested more than a year ago. He was charged with compromising national security and sentenced to eight years in prison.
After brutal treatment in one prison, he was transferred to another prison that houses the country’s most violent criminals. People are known to disappear there, never to be seen again.
The American Center for Law and Justice has been urging President Barack Obama to take diplomatic action. Iran has rising anti-American sentiment, according to the ACLJ, and they believe Abedini is being used as a pawn by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
Subway Photo Bridges Race and Religion Gaps
A Jewish man made the news in November after a passenger on the New York City subway snapped a picture of him that went viral.
Isaac Theil was riding the subway home when the passenger beside him fell asleep. The man’s head ended up on Theil’s shoulder. Instead of waking him up, Theil let the man sleep there.
Theil, in an interview with Tablet Magazine, said, “Maybe the photo wouldn’t have become so popular if people weren’t seeing a Jewish man with a yarmulke and a black man in a hood, because they might not necessarily correlate the two.”
Theil said his act of kindness had nothing to do with the color of anyone’s skin.
“There is only one reason that I didn’t move, and let him continue sleeping, and that has nothing to do with race,” said Theil. “He was simply a human being who was exhausted, and I knew it and happened to be there and have a big shoulder to offer him.”
National Physician Group Backs Texas Pro-Life Law
The American Association of Physicians & Surgeons filed legal paperwork to support a Texas law that requires higher standards for doctors who perform abortions.
The controversy around the new Texas abortion law, known as HB2, is because of a component that requires doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges to a hospital within 30 miles.
The medical organization said in a public release that “good, ethical surgeons take responsibility for handling complications of their operations. Many abortions are performed by practitioners who do not have and likely would not qualify for medical staff privileges at a hospital.”
Challengers have said the law is unconstitutional and that if it goes into effect as many as one-third of all abortion clinics in Texas will shut down.
Supporters of the law say that not having medically-licensed professionals performing these abortions puts the lives of mothers at risk.
The Supreme Court is considering hearing this case.
Christy Barritt is an award-winning author, freelance writer, and speaker living in Chesapeake, Virginia. She and her husband Scott have two sons.
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