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Topics - PippaJane

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91
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11681899/Stumbling-death-LSU-student-seen-surveillance-footage-leaving-bar.html

Led to her death: LSU student Madi Brooks is seen on surveillance footage leaving bar and catching up to four men who 'raped her and then threw her out of car' before she was killed by another vehicle an hour later

    Madi Brooks, a 19-year-old student at Louisiana State University, was raped then hit by a car and killed in the early hours of January 15
    The teenager had left the bar so intoxicated she may have lost consciousness: four men have been charged with her rape
    On Thursday new footage emerged showing Brooks leaving the bar and running towards the four men

By Harriet Alexander and Greg Woodfield In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, For Dailymail.Com

Published: 01:01, 27 January 2023 | Updated: 10:56, 27 January 2023

Footage has emerged showing a 19-year-old student leaving a Baton Rouge bar and running across the parking lot to get into a car with four men two of whom would allegedly rape her, before she was hit and killed by a car.  Madi Brooks, who was studying at Louisiana State University, died in the early hours of January 15.  She had been drinking from 10pm at Reggie's bar in the Tigerland district of Baton Rouge an area named for the large student population and the university's tiger mascot.  Surveillance footage, seemingly taken from across the road, showed Brooks leaving the bar at 1.50am.  She runs across the parking lot behind four men and appears to hug one of them. The five then walk out of sight of the cameras.  The bar where she was drinking is a notorious spot for underage drinking and violence, and on Tuesday had its liquor license suspended.  On Thursday they said she entered the bar with a fake ID, and insisted they did not serve her alcohol in the last hour.  'Even though she entered the bar with false identification, she wasn't served nor did she consume any drinks at least during the last hour she was at Reggie's,' said Kris Perrett, an attorney for the bar owner Darin Adams.

'Reggie's has voluntarily turned over all video surveillance footage to EBRSO [East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office] and has fully cooperated with EBRSO investigators since they were first contacted and requested to assist on Sunday, January 15.  'Also, Reggie's has reached out directly to LSU President Tate in response to his call for action and look forward to meeting with him and his team soon to work together to address the issues raised in his recent press release.'

A 17-year-old boy, who has not been identified, has been charged with third-degree rape, along with Kaivon Washington, 18.  Washington's uncle, Everett Lee, 28, and his friend Casen Carver, 18, were also arrested and charged as accomplices to third-degree rape.  All three adults have now been released from jail: the 17-year-old remains in custody and his bond has been postponed to February.  Washington was released late on Wednesday after having his bond set in court the day before at $150,000.  He is charged with third-degree rape, which in Louisiana is often used when a victim is too drunk to say no.  Lee and Carver were released on Tuesday, with $75,000 and $50,000 bonds respectively.  Prosecutor Stuart Theirort said at a hearing on Tuesday that the state would be seeking upgraded charges of first-degree rape and plan to convene a grand jury in the case.  Louisiana's first-degree rape statute carries a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole.  All three adult suspects appeared in court via a video link and were ordered to remain under house arrest and wear ankle monitors.  The surveillance footage from Reggie's and nearby businesses shows Brooks arriving at the bar at 10.06pm.  Carver, Lee, Washington and the teenage boy arrived at 10.18pm.  Officers say in their affidavit that at 1am Brooks was seen sitting on a stool by the counter at the bar before stumbling, and getting back to her feet with the help of the men.  At 1.34am she was seen sitting on a bench by the entrance door before falling again, with the teenager approaching her, removing her cap and helping her to get to her feet.  The group was seen leaving the bar at 1.49am, with the vehicle last seen at 1.59am.  Carver told police that the 17-year-old and Washington both had sex with the victim in the back seat of the car.  Brooks was dumped less than a ten-minute car journey from the bar before being hit by the ride-share car at 2:50am.  The coroner confirmed that Brooks's cause of death was 'multiple traumatic injuries, 2nd motor vehicle collision vs pedestrian' meaning she was left incapacitated at the scene but died at the hospital.  A post-mortem revealed that Brooks had 'injuries consistent with previous sexual assault anally' as well as her injuries from the crash.  No further information is being released at this time, with police confirming that the driver of the vehicle will not be charged as he was not impaired and contacted emergency services immediately.  Carver, who was driving the vehicle, told officers that he asked Brooks where her friends were, but she said she did not know and appeared 'drunk'.  He added that Brooks gave 'verbal consent five times' to the 17-year-old before having sex with her in the rear of the car.  Washington, 18, then exited the vehicle, before swapping with the teenager to also have sex with her.  Carver said he felt 'uncomfortable' during the sex acts and he 'hated it.'  He said that he thought she was too drunk to consent.  Both Carver and Lee remained in the front of the car while the sex acts were being performed, with Carver telling them to 'stop' before dropping Brooks off.  Lee refused to speak to police, while Washington denied that he witnessed the teenager having sex with Brooks and denied that he had sex with her.  He told officers: 'When I tell you drunk, drunk, she was drunk.'

He requested an attorney when asked for an oral DNA swab.  The mother of the 17-year-old refused to allow her son to give a statement.  They claim that she was in a 'drunken state' but was able to consent and willingly got in the car with them before they dumped her at the side of the road.  Legal documents seen by DailyMail.com reveal that Madi had 0.319g percent of alcohol in her system so high that toxicologists said she could have suffered from alcohol poisoning or loss of consciousness.  An autopsy also revealed that there were traces of THC, or cannabis, in her system at the time she died.  Police say that she was so drunk that she would not have been able to consent to the sexual activity, and Carver told cops he 'hated' what his friends did to Brooks because she was 'drunker' and 'impaired.'  Third-degree rape charges in Louisiana relate to a victim being unable to consent because they are under the influence of alcohol or drugs and the offender 'knew or should have known of the victim's incapacity'.  A lawyer representing all of the defendants claims that he has video proof that they are innocent, and that she willingly participated in the sexual activity.  He claimed that Brooks was in a 'coherent state' and 'knew what was happening' arguing that the footage would prove this.  Ron Haley told WAFB9: 'She willfully got into the car, said that her rides had left her, and she got in.  This is absolutely not a rape. Listen this is a tragedy, definitely not a crime.  Can you tell that she was intoxicated? Yes.   To the point under the law that you say you're in a drunken stupor, to the point that you cannot lawfully give consent or answer questions? Absolutely that was not the case.  Based on a disagreement, she got out of the vehicle. She indicated she was getting an Uber.  I want the public to know, these young men or really the driver of the vehicle and the young men that were in there, did not put her off on the side of the road.'

It is unclear if the footage has yet been handed over to the authorities, with Haley saying he would turn it over to investigators and the District Attorney's office.  A spokeswoman for the DA's office could not confirm if the video was handed over to authorities.  Brooks' death has focused attention again on the notorious bar, and on Tuesday the Louisiana Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control issued an emergency suspension of Reggie's alcohol license, effective immediately. The bureau will hold a hearing next month to decide what penalties if any, should be imposed based on the evidence presented.  The bar owner, Darin Adams, whose sports bar is known for its taxidermy animal heads and confederate flag décor, has refused to comment.  Adams has been in hot water before, with Baton Rouge police raiding the bar in July 2017 and suspending its license for 45 days, after 37 people were arrested many of them for underage drinking.  In September 2015 a drunk 21-year-old was arrested for waving a loaded firearm at people, threatening to open fire.  The following month, a 19-year-old man was charged with rape after attacking an intoxicated woman who had become separated from her sister at the bar and was trying to find her way home.  And in January 2016, a star of the LSU football team, Dillon Gordon, 22, was stabbed multiple times in the bar.  In May 2022, 16-year-old Carltez Tucker was shot dead outside Reggie's, and a 24-year-old woman was injured. Detectives arrested three and said they believed the shooting stemmed from a stolen firearm that Tucker had taken.  Adams, the bar owner, told The Baton Rouge Advocate in January 2016 that the student population had decreased, and they had been replaced by 'a lot of undesirables.'  He told the paper:  'It's the people that don't get into the bars that are causing the problems.'

Adams responded by introducing a 'dress code', and publishing a list of 13 prohibited items including 'overly' baggy clothing and long T-shirts, all-white tennis shoes, hoodies, and jean shorts, according to LSU Reveille newspaper.  Students said the dress code was intentionally racist, with neck chains and bandanas also banned.  Adams said it had been around since the 1990s.   William Tate, the LSU president, said Brooks' death emphasized the need to clamp down on bars where underage drinking is permitted.  'She should not have been taken from us in this way. What happened to her was evil, and our legal system will parcel out justice,' he said.

'Our collective grief and outrage cannot be put into mere words. So what can we do? It is time for action. One place to target our attention is the very place where this encounter began.  All but one of the suspects involved in this horrific scenario were underage yet were able to consume alcohol at a local bar.  As such, our action plan starts with a deep and relentless focus on any establishment that profits off our students by providing alcohol to underage individuals.  In the coming days, we will call a meeting with these business owners to discuss how their responsibilities directly impact the safety of our students.  We will work openly against any business that doesn't join us in efforts toward creating a safer environment for our students. Enough is enough.'

92
General Discussion / YOU WILL NEVER BE SORRY...
« on: January 27, 2023, 11:02:30 AM »
YOU WILL NEVER BE SORRY...

..for thinking before acting.

..for hearing before judging.

..for forgiving your enemies.

..for being candid and frank.

..for helping a fallen brother.

..for being honest in business.

..for thinking before speaking.

..for being loyal to your church.

..for standing by your principles.

..for closing your ears to gossip.

..for bridling a slanderous tongue.

..for harboring pure thoughts.

..for sympathizing with the afflicted.

..for being courteous and kind to all.

93
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11673149/Gallbladder-surgeon-admits-leaving-two-patients-life-changing-injuries-botched-operations.html

Gallbladder surgeon admits leaving two patients with life-changing injuries after botching operations

    Dr Camilo Valero 'severed his victims’ bile ducts while removing gallbladders'
    Patients Lucy Wilson, 35, and Paul Tooth, 65, both required corrective surgery
    Dr Valero’s fitness is being considered by Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service

By Shaun Wooller Health Editor

Published: 00:13, 25 January 2023 | Updated: 09:28, 25 January 2023

A surgeon has admitted botching operations on two patients that left them with ‘life-changing’ injuries.  Dr Camilo Valero, believed to be in his 40s, severed his victims’ bile ducts while removing their gallbladders, a tribunal heard.  Lucy Wilson, 35, and Paul Tooth, 65, both required corrective surgery. Dr Valero’s fitness to work is now being considered by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service.  Mrs Wilson went to Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital in 2020 for a routine operation to remove her gallbladder. But Bob Sastry, for the General Medical Council, said Dr Valero ‘misunderstood the anatomy’.  She was transferred to Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge for 11-hour corrective surgery, the tribunal in Manchester heard, but has continued to suffer complications. In a 2021 interview she said she was receiving treatment for PTSD.  Charles Foster, representing the doctor, apologised on his behalf. Mr Tooth suffered ‘avoidable’ injuries following ‘similar failings’ days after Mrs Wilson, Mr Sastry said. He will need reconstructive surgery and a liver transplant in the future.  Dr Valero, who trained in Colombia and faces eight charges in total, is still allowed to perform gallbladder surgery under supervision after an interim tribunal in 2021.  Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has admitted liability for the errors in both cases. The tribunal continues.

94
General Discussion / Confession
« on: January 25, 2023, 10:36:15 AM »
Ducking into confession with a turkey in his arms, Brian said, "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I stole this turkey to feed my family. Would you take it and settle my guilt?"

"Certainly not," said the Priest. "As penance, you must return it to the one from whom you stole it."

"I tried," Brian sobbed, "but he refused. Oh, Father, what should I do?"

"If what you say is true, then it is all right for you to keep it for your family."

Thanking the Priest, Brian hurried off.  When confession was over, the Priest returned to his residence. When he walked into the kitchen, he found that someone had stolen his turkey.

95
General Discussion / Be Thankful
« on: January 25, 2023, 10:34:12 AM »
Be thankful for the difficult times.
  During those times you grow.

Be thankful for your limitations,
  because they give you opportunities for improvement.

Be thankful for each new challenge,
  because it will build your strength and character.

Be thankful for your mistakes.
  They will teach you valuable lessons.

Be thankful when you're tired and weary,
  because it means you've made a difference.

It's easy to be thankful for the good things. A life of rich fulfillment comes to those who are also thankful for the setbacks.

Gratitude can turn a negative into a positive. Find a way to be thankful for your troubles, and they can become your blessings.

96
Faith / Evangelism Reimagined
« on: January 19, 2023, 05:24:23 PM »
https://outreachmagazine.com/features/evangelism/70357-evangelism-reimagined.html?utm_source=omag-om-weekly-nl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=button&utm_campaign=om-daily-nl&maropost_id=714607821&mpweb=256-9635253-714607821

Evangelism Reimagined

For Christians, sharing our faith is supposed to be something that happens naturally and with enthusiasm. After all, it is the good news. For some believers, evangelism is what wakes us up in the morning. For others, it can sometimes feel inauthentic or unnatural.  I’ve been actively sharing my faith for about 20 years. For the first 10 years, my motivation was simple: I was concerned with what happened to people after they die. For the last 10 years, though, my motivation shifted to being concerned about how people live. Both are legitimate motivations, but what matters most is what the person I am sharing with cares about.  Cru recently reported that, using a mixed-method study, 84% of the U.S. population is ready and willing to have conversations about Jesus—as long as these five postures exist in the conversation: 

1. Be present and listen. Follow the conversation and not your agenda.

2. Find common ground. Build a relational bridge.

3. Walk in their shoes. Understand their story.

4. Talk like a real person. Use words meant for real people and not the pews.

5. Create a better story than the one they’ve heard.

Let that sink in for a moment. Four out of five people are ready and willing to talk about Jesus. We just need to change how we talk about faith. So let’s reimagine what evangelism could look like. 

Meet People’s Unique Needs

One of the things Jesus does so well when he talks to people is to identify what they’re longing for and meet that longing. Whether it is the woman at the well (John 4) who longed for intimacy and belonging, the rich young ruler (Matt. 19:16–22) who wanted to know if he was good enough or the paralytic being dropped through a roof who just wanted to walk (Mark 2), Jesus met every person in their unique needs. In the same way, we must listen to people, ask good questions and invite the Holy Spirit to help us discern what their core longings are. Similar to people in the Bible who met Jesus, many people will have smokescreens in place to hide what they truly long for, so we have to look beyond the superficial and into the longings of their hearts.  Longings exist because we were created for something different. We were created for the Garden of Eden in the beginning when God created everything and we were created for what life will be like when God brings the new creation. The gap between our present reality and our future hope in heaven creates a longing (Romans 8:18-23).The greater the gap, the greater the longing.  “We need to be able to listen to people, ask good questions and invite the Holy Spirit to help us discern what their core longings are.”

Everything Jesus does, from his teachings to miracles to interactions with people, shows us something of the kingdom of God. Jesus teaches his disciples to see the world through the lens of the kingdom, and by doing so, they become kingdom citizens. As they become kingdom citizens and teach others to follow Jesus, the kingdom of God breaks through into this world just like Jesus’ prayer: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10).

The more we can see ourselves, other people, this world and God through this kingdom lens, the more we are transformed into who we were created to be and who we will one day be.  So what does all this have to do with evangelism?

Evangelism is all about sharing the gospel, the good news. But good news about what?

There is some debate about this, but in my opinion, it is the good news of the kingdom of God. Jesus’ life, death and resurrection inaugurate the breaking through of the kingdom into this world, and we get to participate in that. The kingdom and the king are all that we long for, so it really is good news for every person who believes, because not only do we get to experience eternity in the kingdom, but the kingdom can meet us in our longings here on earth in significant ways.  Think of evangelism as someone’s entry point into the kingdom, the conversation that piques their curiosity and makes them want to know more. Different people have different longings, so I want to listen for what they are longing for and communicate how the kingdom meets them there. Missiologists call this contextualizing the gospel. This doesn’t change the message of the gospel; it simply meets people where they are. 

Address the Lies

Humanity’s downfall started with believing a lie, or more accurately, a perversion of the truth. This lie created an unholy longing in our hearts. For Adam and Eve, they wanted to be like God, not realizing that they were already made in God’s image. Cain believed in a lie that produced a jealousy ending in murder. This pattern of people believing in lies continues to this day in each of our hearts. The lies lead to longings which lead to us seeking life where there is no life.  Think of sin like a tree. The fruit is sinful behavior, the branches are our longings or where we seek life where there is no life, the trunk is the lies we believe and the roots are what we worship. What we worship determines how we understand reality. Worshiping the wrong thing produces longings that lead to unhealthy behavior. For example, if we worship money, we will see other people as ways to get more money (objectification), we will see our own value based on how much money we have or our earning potential and we will see God as a way to get more money. But if we worship God, we see other people as inherently valuable, we see our own value as inherent and we see God as good because while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.  “Think of evangelism as someone’s entry point to the kingdom, the conversation that piques their curiosity and makes them want to know more.”

This tree concept is really important as we think about evangelism because we need to know what to listen for and what questions to ask. Often conversations will be around the fruit, or sin behavior, and end there. We tell people to stop the behavior, or that we will pray for them, or (if we’re bold) that they need Jesus. But they don’t see the connection between Jesus and their behavior because no one is connecting the dots and telling them a better story. What we need to do is journey and discover with them. As we journey with them by asking questions, we may discover what they are really longing for, what lie they believe and ultimately what they are worshiping.  In high school, I used to cheat all the time. The reason I did this was because I had ADHD and struggled to focus on my schoolwork. What I was longing for was to be viewed as smart. That’s because I believed to be valuable, I had to be smart. But because I wasn’t smart, I thought I was worthless. Ultimately, it was because I worshiped other people and what they thought of me. It wasn’t until someone said, “It doesn’t matter how smart you are or how good at sports you are or how popular you are, God loves and values you regardless of all that because you are made in his image” that the gospel resonated with me for the first time.

What I was longing for was value, and in that moment the kingdom met me in my longing. This was my entry point to seeking the King and the kingdom.   I still have to do the hard work to address the lies I believe and dig down deep to discover and tackle the false things I’m worshiping. The process of addressing the lies and replacing them with kingdom truth is repentance. Alan Hirsch talks about how the word for repentance in the Greek is metanoia, which he defines as paradigm shift. Those experiences in which we have a paradigm shift in how we understand reality are when we experience true transformation rather than simply trying harder to stop sinning. This is where evangelism, discipleship and repentance converge. 

Shift Paradigms

The day I discovered something true about God’s love and something about my own inherent value, my paradigm shifted. As I walk with Jesus, I find that every once in a while God changes my paradigm as I better understand something that is true about his kingdom, and I choose to trust that truth above my own perception of truth. Through the years, God has addressed my longing for significance, for security, for power and a whole host of other things and the lies that correspond with those longings. The more I am aware of those longings in my heart and how God has helped me work through them, the more I am able to see similar longings in other people and walk with them through those longings.  A while back, a woman shared with me that she was stressed out at work, to which I responded, “Six months ago I had a ton of anxiety at work.” She asked, “Did your job get easier?” I said, “No, a Bible verse popped into my head, and as I thought of the implications of the verse, it completely changed my perception of my situation.” She paused for a few moments and said, “What was the verse?”

“Not only do we get to experience eternity in the kingdom, but the kingdom can meet us in our longings here on earth in significant ways.”

“‘But God demonstrates his own love for us in this, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us,’” I replied. “As I thought about that passage, I extrapolated this idea that I am inherently valuable. As I thought of the implications of that, it crossed my mind that my anxiety came from what other people thought of me. If I’m inherently valuable, why do I allow other people to assign value to me? The more that truth sank in, the more my anxiety melted away.”

This is what happens when we experience the kingdom of God—it makes such a difference in our lives that we share with others because we want them to experience the same thing. One way we can do this is by sharing micro-testimonies, stories about how the kingdom of God has met you in your longing and the difference it has made for you. They include, but are not limited to, your conversion testimony.  Here are some prompts to help you process your story and how you might share it with someone else. 

1. Spend a few minutes in prayer and ask God to help you identify a significant moment that he met you in a time of pain, fear or longing. Describe what you experienced. 

2. What lies about God, yourself and/or the situation influenced your thinking? Try to think of the lie behind the lie. 

3. Describe the ways you tried to cope with your pain, fear or longings.

4. How did God address those lies to bring about a change in your perspective? What is the truth about God and/or yourself that he showed you?

5. How does believing that truth affect how you walk through fear, pain or longing today?

What is important when we share our micro-testimonies is that we listen to what the person we are talking to is longing for. Don’t use a lot of Christian lingo; just talk normally. Lastly, give priority to saying what would be good news to them.  These conversations can happen whether a person is Christian or not. We all have longings and believe in lies, so there is no need to approach a Christian with a discipleship strategy and a non-Christian with an evangelism strategy; you can disciple a non-Christian toward following Jesus.  It is helpful to note that the Bible never differentiates evangelism and discipleship. The Great Commission simply calls us to make disciples of all nations. Therefore, it can sometimes be unhelpful to speak differently to Christians than to people who don’t profess to follow Jesus.  Typically, if we are ministering to a person we think of as a Christian, we apply a discipleship strategy whereas if we are talking to someone we think of as a non-Christian, we apply an evangelism strategy. Here’s the problem: Jesus says in Matthew 7:21–23:  “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, â€˜Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’   Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!” 

We don’t actually know who a true follower is and who is not, so rather than applying one strategy or another, we use a singular approach regardless of whom we are talking to. This singular approach is an invitation to repentance—a kingdom paradigm shift.  One way to think about evangelism/discipleship is as a “centered set” versus a “bounded set” as proposed by missiologist Paul Hiebert. A bounded set is like a square with a line down the middle and the goal is to move someone from one side to the other, from unsaved to saved, from lost to found. A centered set is like a dot with a circle around it, except we don’t know where the circle actually is, and the goal is to move people toward that dot, which represents Jesus and his kingdom. With a centered-set view, we can have conversations with anyone without trying to discern whether the person is a Christian. 

Refresh Definitions

When I began approaching evangelism and discipleship from this framework, I realized I had to learn how to talk like a real person again. In 2012, I conducted research on how to have gospel conversations with young people. My hypothesis was that Christianity (at least how we were communicating it) was trying to answer questions that young people were no longer asking. So I set out to discover what questions older generations were asking and the questions younger generations were asking when it came to faith. It appeared young people didn’t even seem to care about what happens after they die. So I dug a little into why that is, and what I found was fascinating.  Elizabeth Nesbit Wagner did some research on anxiety among millennials and Gen Z. In her book, Effective Generational Ministry (Baker Academic), she found that they have a higher average level of anxiety than older generations. These high and consistent levels of anxiety put people into a constant state of fight or flight. She shares the example of standing in front of a bear: your mind focuses on surviving the moment. The project you have due next week is totally forgotten about. This is why younger generations don’t seem to care about heaven or hell. They aren’t thinking about the future. 

“What we worship leads to how we understand reality.”

So, what questions are they asking? They appear to be asking questions like, “What does it mean for me to thrive as a human being and for the world to flourish?”

I realized that I wasn’t prepared to share the gospel in a way that answered that question, at least not in a satisfying way. I spent the next two years studying the book of Matthew to see what Jesus said about thriving.  An example of this is how we understand the word “saved.” I grew up believing that to be saved was basically entry into heaven. The Greek word for saved is sozo, which does mean to save, but it also means to be made whole. Jesus uses the word sozo when he says, “Your faith has saved you” and when he says, “Your faith has made you well.”

It makes sense when you realize that sozo is about becoming more like who we were created to be (in the garden of Eden) and who we will one day be in the new heavens and the new earth. This blew my mind the first time I discovered this, because my faith had always been so focused on the afterlife, but God is in fact in the business of making people whole again, not just spiritually, but mentally, emotionally and physically too.  I started understanding that each Christianese word was so much more nuanced than how I originally understood it. Sin went from a behavior I felt guilty for to seeking life where there is not life. Repentance went from feeling horrible about myself and begging God for forgiveness to acknowledging lies I believe in my heart and trusting what God says is true instead. The good news was becoming even better news that I was excited to share because it was resonating within my heart in a fresh way.  With all these new definitions, I went out and tested some ideas I had around language. I used words like sin, faith, repentance and salvation—not to see if people received them positively or negatively, but to determine if they understood the words in the way I intended to convey them. You could probably guess that they did not.  I then stripped my vocab of Christian lingo and shared how after a hard day, I would self-medicate by bingeing Netflix, and in doing so I realized that I was seeking life where there was no life. People would often share how they did the same thing, except by drinking or by some other means, and that they realized there was no life in it. We were finally having conversations that weren’t us versus them, but us journeying together, learning what it meant to have the fullness of life. I also changed the way I talked about my job. For example, in the past if I were asked what I did for a living, I would say college ministry or something along those lines. Now I say, “My job is to walk alongside people and help them figure out what it means to thrive.”

Usually this response interests the person who asked and leads to a conversation.  This new approach gave me permission to redefine evangelism for myself as seeking the thriving or wholeness of others. The conversation moved from wondering whether  the person was going to heaven or not to what the person needed in order to be more whole.  I believe that the more we surrender our lives to Jesus and his kingdom, the more whole we become. In the Bible, when Jesus interacts with someone, he creates a space of belonging. He restores their dignity and humanity in the way that he treats them.   For me this is what evangelism is drawing out the image of God within a person and restoring them to what he created them for.

97
Faith / When You’re Looking for Belonging
« on: January 19, 2023, 05:08:29 PM »
https://proverbs31.org/read/devotions/full-post/2022/01/12/when-youre-looking-for-belonging?utm_campaign=Daily%20Devotions&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=200183029&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--OxcdCPbSisZu08nIBx4IpHynuTD7EcFLFOBQoyJbarC3r1ZmRnsUiUzGJdkG7f9VDvWOl1POnUrW-ZkoB_0_y0TVgvQ&utm_content=200183029&utm_source=hs_email#disqus_thread

When You’re Looking for Belonging
January 12, 2022

by Ruth Chou Simons

“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (ESV)

It was 1981, and my newly immigrated parents trusted my kindergarten sense of awareness enough to concede to a Strawberry Shortcake metal lunchbox.  With that lunchbox in hand, I felt prepared for anything but I wasn’t prepared for the lunchroom.  My parents didn’t know about Rainbo white bread, peanut butter and jelly, or bologna and American cheese. They showed their love by packing a cleaned-out Dannon yogurt container with the previous night’s dinner of fried rice. Let’s just say it didn’t go over well with my peers. Leftover fried rice effectively declared me an outsider. I did not belong.  It’s funny now and of course we know lunchroom conformity isn’t true belonging.  Or do we?

If only bringing the right lunch secured the belonging we’re all looking for! We know it doesn’t. But truth is, we live as though it might.  These days, it sometimes feels like the entire world is marked by angst and heartache. Like everyone on the internet is yelling at the same time about a variety of issues and ideologies. At times, we probably all navigate the fear of being misjudged, misunderstood or mislabeled.  Belonging is our current society’s commodity of choice banding together with like-minded people and finding safety in arenas of common thought.  To be known and loved: That’s what we are longing for when we look for belonging. But what if belonging isn’t meant to be found within yourself or others?

What if it is so much more than lunchroom conformity?

The Bible has a lot to say about our belonging as Christ-followers:

    I am not my own. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)
    I belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God. (1 Corinthians 3:23)
    I am purchased and paid for. (1 Peter 1:18-19)
    I am safe and secure. (John 10:27-30)

According to God’s Word, our self-acceptance isn’t something we’ll discover with enough self-love. Rather, it’s an extension of the work of redemption in our lives when we discover how much God loves us. We were made to belong to Jesus first. Not church denominations, political parties, justice movements or social circles.  In Christ, belonging isn’t mere affection, camaraderie or membership in the same club.  It is so much more. The price of our belonging was set and met through the sacrifice of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, our Redeemer. That’s why Paul tells us we are “not [our] own” in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. God loves us so much that He rescued us from the grip of anything else that promises to satisfy but won’t. And instead, He made us belong to Him alone.  When we don’t remember that we were made to be God’s possessions, and what it cost for us to be His, we end up longing for belonging everywhere else. Through the clothes we wear, the people we engage, the work we do we look for home in identifiers rather than in our identities in Christ.  We must know who we belong to! In Christ, we are fit and fashioned for the belonging we were always made for. So, friend, let go of all the world tells you to do in order to belong. In Jesus, you are already seen, known, rescued and loved.

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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11643463/Henry-VIII-disabled-National-Trust-says.html

Henry VIII was disabled, National Trust says: Tudor king used walking sticks and a wheelchair because he was plagued with leg ulcers after his horse landed on top of him while jousting

    Henry was athletic as a young man but was crippled in jousting accident in 1536
    Armoured horse landed on him, crushing his legs and later causing ulcers
    Used a wheelchair and walking sticks and needed pulley system to get up stairs

By Harry Howard, History Correspondent For Mailonline

Published: 09:12, 17 January 2023 | Updated: 10:04, 17 January 2023

When we think of King Henry VIII, words such as imposing, powerful and frightening might spring to mind to describe him.  The fearsome monarch infamously had two of his six wives beheaded and was known for his athletic physique as a younger man.  But, according to a new video put together by the National Trust in conjunction with the University of Leicester, Henry was disabled.  The clip highlights the severe injuries the King suffered in a jousting accident in 1536, which saw an armoured horse land on him and crush his legs.  Afterwards, he began gaining weight and was plagued with ulcers, whilst some historians believe the accident may have influenced his behaviour and decisions.  When he died in 1547, he may have weighed more than 28 stone (397lbs), whilst his waist ballooned from 32 inches to 52 inches after his accident.  The new video explains the lives of disabled historical figures and their connections with National Trust properties.  On the section about Henry, it shows a portrait of the King that hangs at Charlecote Park in Warwickshire.  It mentions how in later life he needed a walking stick and wheelchair to move and had a pulley system to get him up the stairs at Whitehall Palace.  But the King suppressed his mobility problems in his public image, with officially commissioned portraits giving no hint of his physical impairments.  Disabled artist Christopher Samuel says in the video: 'We all recognise Henry VII and the Trust holds multiple portraits, including this one at Charlecote Park in Warwickshire.  But how many of us know that he sustained two injuries in 1536 which resulted in his use of a series of mobility aids?  As he got older, he used a walking stick, a wheelchair and pulley mechanism installed at Whitehall Palace to lift him up and down the stairs.  Henry VIII crafted his image carefully, hiding his impairments to present a highly constructed image of power and kingship.  But what does that say about the relationship between disability and power throughout history?  Whose interests are we protecting when we shy away from discussing disability today?'

Others mentioned in the video include British climber Geoffrey Winthrop Young and Sir Jeffrey Hudson, the court dwarf of King Charles I.  Winthrop Young had to have one of his legs amputated after being injured in the First World War.  So he could carry on climbing, he designed and made a prosthetic leg that could be adjusted to allow him to scale different types of rock.  Overall, there are ten people mentioned in the video, with eighty having been supplied by curators.  Dr Sarah Plumb, Senior Research Associate at the Research Centre for Museums and Galleries, University of Leicester, said: 'We're thrilled to spotlight ten little known and previously unexplored histories of disability through Everywhere and Nowhere.  'Behind the film lies a year-long research collaboration although a complex endeavour, our research to date suggests that connections to disability are indeed everywhere, threaded through our heritage buildings and landscapes, the lives, collections and archival material attached to them.  Disabled people from the past can often be presented in reductive or stereotypical ways; in some cases we found taking a fresh look at historical records revealed those same lives filled with opportunity and autonomy, influence and adventure, love and joy.' 

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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11618491/Did-know-illegal-flush-toilet-10pm-Switzerland.html

Did you know it's illegal to flush the toilet after 10pm in Switzerland? Or ride a cow while drunk in Scotland? 21 of the world's most bizarre laws

    In Alaska, it is illegal to give alcoholic drinks to a moose, while in parts of Spain it is illegal to make sandcastles on the beach
    And in Scotland, you could face jail time if you ride a cow while intoxicated 
    These are some of the world's most bizarre laws that could land you in trouble

By Rachael Bunyan For Mailonline

Published: 09:07, 15 January 2023 | Updated: 09:19, 15 January 2023

You might not think that flushing the toilet after 10pm in Switzerland, giving alcohol to a moose in Alaska or swearing in the United Arab Emirates have anything in common.  But, in fact, they make up some some of the world's most bizarre laws that could land you with a hefty fine, or even jail time in some countries.  In some parts of Spain, for instance, it is illegal to make sandcastles, while in Scotland it is illegal to ride a cow while drunk.  Here, MailOnline highlights 21 of the world's most baffling laws.
 
1. You cannot give alcoholic drinks to moose in Alaska

In a bizarre law, it is illegal to serve alcohol to moose in Fairbanks, Alaska. Moose can become aggressive if they drink alcohol or fermented fruits.  In 2007, a moose, who was later named by locals as Buzzwinkle, went on a drunken rampage after drinking a local brewery's supply.  Buzzwinkle became tangled in Christmas lights and was found in a drunken stupor by locals in the town square and officials later introduced a law to try to prevent the moose's drunken escapades. 

2. Flushing the toilet after 10pm is illegal in Switzerland. 

It is illegal to flush the toilet after 10pm in an apartment building in Switzerland as the government considers it noise pollution.  It is common for landlords to impose house rules whereby residents are not allowed to flush their toilet between the hours of 10pm and 7am as it may disturb their neighbours. 

3. Illegal to fall asleep in a meeting with Kim Jong Un

If you dare to fall asleep while the North Korean dictator is speaking, the consequences could be fatal.  General Hyon Yong Chol, a defence minister, was reportedly executed with an anti-aircraft gun in 2014 after he fell asleep during a meeting with Kim.  Meanwhile, in 2016, a North Korean firing squad shot and killed Kim Yong-Jin, a vice premier for education, for falling asleep during a meeting with the dictator.   Kim Yong-Jin was interrogated by investigators and labelled an 'anti-party, anti-revolutionary agitator' and sentenced to death.

4. You cannot drunkenly ride a cow in Scotland

It is an offence in Scotland to be drunkenly in charge of a cow and horse, according to the Licensing Act 1872, which means riding a cow while intoxicated is out of the question.  If found guilty, one could be jailed for up to 51 weeks.

5. Illegal to swear in UAE

In the United Arab Emirates, if you are caught swearing, you could face a fine, jail or deportation.  The country's penal code states that 'swearing disgraces the honour or the modesty of a person'.  The law does not just include a spoken word, it extends to text messages and social media, including 'indecent' emojis.

6. Illegal to pass wind in a public place in Florida after 6pm

In Florida, US, it is illegal to pass wind in a public place after 6pm as you would be deemed to be causing a public nuisance.  It's not clear how this law would be enforced but it might be best to rush home to avoid passing wind in public.

7. Illegal to build sandcastles on some beaches in Spain

In some areas of Spain, it is illegal for children and adults alike to build sandcastles on beaches in a bizarre law.  In 2016, Benidorm's Town Hall voted to ban sandcastles from Levante beach and if you are caught building them, you could face a fine of up to €150 (£130).  The same rule applies for Arona and Arica in Tenerife, with members of the public being required to apply for a municipal permit before building a sand castle.

8. Illegal for women to wear a bikini or for men to go topless in Barcelona

In Barcelona, it is illegal to go bare-chested or wear a bikini except at the city's beaches.  Walking along the city's streets while wearing only swimwear could land you with a £250 fine.  Locals have become frustrated in recent years with tourists and they are often outnumbered by the throngs of foreign visitors that flood Spain's top tourist destination each summer.  Officials introduced the ban on the public wearing swimwear in Barcelona's streets in 2011 after becoming frustrated with the number of tourists walking around restaurants and shops while in bikinis or topless.

9. Setting off fireworks in Norway is illegal apart from New Year's Eve

In Norway, it is illegal to set off fireworks apart from on New Year's Eve from 6pm to 3am on January 1 each year.  Any fireworks that are lit at any other time are illegal under Norwegian law.  There are also strict laws about when and where the public can buy fireworks from in Norway. They can only be bought in the days running up to New Year's Eve.

10. Dog owners must walk their dogs at least three times a day in Turin, Italy

Dog owners in Turin, Italy, will be fined up to 500 euros if they don't walk their dogs at least three times a day under a law from the city's council.  Italians can already be fined up to 10,000 euros and spend a year in prison if found guilty of torturing or abandoning their pets.

11. Russia makes it illegal for shops to sell lacy underwear for women

In Russia, lacy underwear is effectively banned in Russia under regulations that were introduced in 2014.  A customs union made up of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan introduced a regulation which requires clothing to contain at least 6% cotton for 'health and safety' reasons.  Underwear that does not meet this requirement which includes lacy lingerie is not available in those countries. The production and importation of the underwear has also stopped.

12. Illegal for married women to have more than glass of wine at restaurants in La Paz, Bolivia

In La Paz, Bolivia, a bizarre law makes it illegal for restaurants or bars to serve married women more than one glass of wine.  The law is to reportedly to prevent women from getting 'morally and sexually lax' and flirting with other men while under the influence of alcohol. The law does not apply to married men.

13. People are not allowed to mow their lawns on a Sunday in Norway

In Norway, Sunday is a day of rest and by law, you are not allowed to carry out any activity that makes a lot of noise and that includes mowing your lawn.  If your neighbours do call the police after they catch you mowing your lawn on a Sunday, officers could tell you stop. And if you don't they could visit your home and hand out a fine.

14. Illegal to litter in Singapore 

In Singapore, it is illegal to litter and first time-offenders can be fined up to 1,000 Singaporean dollars (£640).  Repeat offenders will be fined 2,000 Singaporean dollars (£1,241) and have to carry out community work.  The litterers, by law, must spend a few hours cleaning a public place, such as a public park, while wearing bright jackets. On occasion, local media are invited to cover the event.

15. Illegal to be overweight in Japan

Save for Sumo wrestlers, people in Japan will be fined if their waistline is too big in a national attempt to slim down citizens.  Under the 'Metabo' law, people between the ages of 40 and 74, have their waistlines measured against state-prescribed limits.  Those exceeding government limits 33.5 inches for men and 35.4 inches for women may face fines.

16. Illegal to neuter dogs in Norway

Pet owners are not allowed to neuter their dogs without a good medical reason  is illegal in Norway.  Vets in the country will not neuter the pets unless there is a cause to including tumours in the reproductive organs as part of an animal welfare law which stipulates that no animal can undergo the risk of surgery unless for medical reasons.  Regular neutering is also illegal in Norway, meaning that dogs are given a hormone implant that acts as a chemical neutering.

17. Illegal for chickens to cross the road in Georgia

If you own any chickens in Quitman, a city in Georgia, it is illegal to let them cross the road.  The law stipulates that owners must have their chickens under control at all times.

18. Illegal to leave your house in Thailand if you are not wearing underwear

In Thailand, it is illegal to leave the house without any underwear on as part of a law on public indecency. It is not clear how the police enforce this law.  

19. Illegal to eat or drink on public transport in UAE

Eating and drinking is banned on all forms of public transport and their stations in the UAE.  If you are caught doing either on the train or bus, you will be fined £21 (Dhs 100).  

20. Illegal to spit in public in Singapore 

In Singapore, it is illegal to spit in a public place. Those who are caught spitting can be fined 1,000 Singaporean dollars (£640) for the first offence.  If you are caught a second time, you can be fined up to 2,000 Singaporean dollars (£1,241). For a third time and subsequent offences, you can be fined up to 5,000 Singaporean dollars (£3,100). 

21. You are not allowed to kiss on train platforms in France

It is illegal for couples to kiss in French train stations on a platform.  The bizarre law was introduced in 1910 in attempt to avoid costly delays to train services and overcrowding in stations. But since 1910, the law has become more lax and people do not face a formal penalty today. 

100
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-11615097/DAN-WOOTTON-Ive-Harrys-deranged-campaign-against-media-devils-royals.html

DAN WOOTTON: I've had enough of snivelling Harry's deranged campaign against media 'devils' and the royals. He's trying to destroy Charles, Camilla and William over leaks and briefings when I KNOW those spinning for him and Meghan did just the same

By Dan Wootton for MailOnline

Published: 14:53, 9 January 2023 | Updated: 15:23, 9 January 2023

If the Queen Consort Camilla is 'dangerous' and a 'dragon' for working with the British free Press to improve her reputation, then Prince Harry and Meghan are themselves dragon slayers.  We've now had to sit through hours of a grim fantasy created by the embittered Sussexes, most recently outlined in painful softball interviews by their BFF Tom Bradby on ITV in the UK and woke US media allies Anderson Cooper on CBS and Michael Strahan on ABC.  The fairy tale goes that this selfless and altruistic couple were forced to smash relations with their British royal relatives and flee the country because of a vicious briefing campaign launched against them, even seeing the Press conspire with the institution and senior members of the Royal Family to drive out such a popular pair.  That narrative is deranged.  It's a hypocritical invented account designed by snivelling Harry and fake Meghan to avoid taking any account for their own behaviour, including credible claims of bullying against staff by the American diva.  Well, I've had enough of media figures tiptoeing around what we all know are falsehoods.  If Harry and Meghan claim briefing the tabloid Press is some sort of unforgivable 'crime' undertaken by Charles, Camilla, William and Kate, then they are just as guilty.  How do I know?

Well, I was on the receiving end of such briefings by the Sussexes' own communications team during my years covering Meghan's time in the Royal Family as I broke a series of now infamous scoops, from Tiaragate, the bitter rivalry between Kate and Meghan, and, ultimately, Megxit.  That won't surprise anyone in the media; it's literally the job of some courtiers to work with journalists who have discovered legitimate stories in the public interest about the monarchy, a publicly funded institution that should be held accountable by the fourth estate.  In fact, this shouldn't even be a story.  But Harry has criminalised these so-called 'briefings and leaks' in his words 'getting in bed with the devil' to such an extent that he's prepared to blow up his own relationship with his loyal brother in such a vicious fashion that it feels highly relevant that he was just as 'guilty'.  I had loads of phone conversations with staff of the Sussexes, where I was provided with their side of the story in order to balance revelations that, let's be honest about it, usually made them look bad.  For example, when I revealed the couple had hired their third nanny in just six weeks, their team explained to me the 'first nanny was a night nurse' and they didn't want to 'take any risks getting this decision right'.

Or when I told how Meghan had made the highly unusual decision to sign a big money book deal while still a working member of the Royal Family, the couple's team told me her first tome would 'absolutely not be some sort of tell-all about her life in the royal family.'

 Oh, how times change.  I even worked closely with Harry and Meghan's staff before revealing their controversial decision to Megxit in January 2020, giving the couple a week's notice before publication and including their official briefing expressing frustration they were 'not central to the future plan' of the monarchy following the release of an official picture of the Queen with Charles, William and George.  That's the professional way of working as a journalist; seeking both sides of the story as you ascertain the truth.  We don't like talking about this sort of thing no one wants to know how the sausage is made and protecting our confidential sources is something I'm prepared to go to jail to do.  But my profession and Britain's free Press itself is now under attack.  Prince Harry wants to paint the media as an evil force stoking culture wars and trying to divide Britain.  I'd argue he's far more responsible for that.  Like the farcical suggestion to Bradby last night that he and Meghan hadn't used their Oprah Winfrey interview to suggest the Royal Family was racist, despite the fact they did just that with incendiary and unproven claims about a so-called 'royal racist' asking about their unborn baby's skin colour.  Meanwhile, thanks to their Netflix reality show, we now know that Meghan's team of Hollywood advisers and close friends were working with the US tabloid media, including People magazine, to brief and leak positive stories about the couple exactly the thing they say they're so angry about the royals doing in the UK.  And in the new TV interviews and the painfully personal book Spare, which is finally released tomorrow after a torrent of TMI headlines, Harry invades the privacy of his relatives in ways the British media would never be able to justify.  He has proudly leaked the words that a grief-stricken and devastated King Charles uttered to his sons in private in the moments after burying his father Prince Philip and even grossly commented on speculation about whether his brother William is circumcised.  It feels like Harry and Meghan would much rather live in a country like North Korea, Russia or China where journalists are not free to hold public figures accountable.  Harry's underlying threat that his relationship with Charles and William is over unless they apologise and pledge to never work with journalists again is both unrealistic, naïve and somewhat chilling.  It's also worth looking at how Harry's argument blaming the media for influencing how senior royals, especially William, felt about Meghan simply doesn't add up.  In last night's interviews, the Duke has now admitted that William and Kate simply never got on with Meghan from the start, thanks to a personality clash that he hinted could be down to their different backgrounds.  Well, the media, and therefore the public too, had no idea about those ructions until I first revealed Meghan and Kate had fallen out about the way the actress was said to be rudely speaking to staff at Kensington Palace in an exclusive in November 2018.  By the way, at the time courtiers working for William and Kate strongly denied the story to try and keep the peace with the Sussexes, making a mockery of Harry's claim they were negatively briefing against Meghan.  Harry's suggestion that William and Kate's opinion was dictated by negative tabloid headlines about Meghan is therefore ridiculous because at the time when they got to know each other the coverage was almost universally positive.  As Harry has now himself confirmed, the couples had already fallen out.  While it may be hard for Harry to accept, the Prince and Princess of Wales made their own judgements about Meghan being 'difficult, rude and abrasive' after countless personal meetings and apparently seeing first-hand the way the Duchess of Sussex reduced staff to tears.  They didn't have to wait months for the media reports to emerge; rightly or wrongly, their mind was seemingly already made up.  These are just some of the many inconvenient truths that have been exposed during Harry and Meghan's pitiful and spiteful campaign against their own flesh and blood, which has ironically made them unpopular public figures on both sides of the Atlantic.  Harry claims his ultimate goal is to reform the Press. It's not; he wants to control it.  Because the bloke is more than happy to share the most intimate details of his family's life to favoured outlets or organisations like Netflix or Random House for multi-million dollar paydays.  But when a newspaper or broadcaster questions the rank hypocrisy of his climate change campaigning, for example, while being regular users of carbon spewing private jets, he wants them silenced and shut down.  Enough is enough it's time for even the woke media to stop giving the Duke of Delusion an easy ride and realise the damage he is causing to democracy with his falsehoods, distortions and deranged attacks designed to cause further damage to freedom of the Press in Britain.

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Faith / Rebecca McLaughlin: A Curious Faith Part 1
« on: January 09, 2023, 04:05:11 PM »
https://outreachmagazine.com/interviews/70281-rebecca-mclaughlin-a-curious-faith-part-1.html?utm_source=omag-om-daily-nl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=button&utm_campaign=om-daily-nl&maropost_id=714607821&mpweb=256-9625597-714607821

Rebecca McLaughlin: A Curious Faith Part 1

But all the activity has a purpose, and it’s a powerful one. “I love exploring the message of Jesus with broken people (all of us),” she writes, “and I long to be part of the rediscovery of the Christian faith as an intellectual movement.”

Outreach Editor-at-Large Paul J. Pastor caught up with McLaughlin to hear more about her story of faith and intellectual pursuit, what Christian leaders can do to better prepare themselves and their congregations for the concerns and confrontation of non-Christians, and why our advocacy for our faith must begin with listening and center on love.

Sketch your story for us.

I was born into a mixed-Christian family, my mum coming from a Catholic background and my dad from the Church of England. During the course of my childhood, my parents were very much finding their own faith as well. One of the advantages of that has been that I’ve always felt my faith was truly my own. I was able to receive the Lord and grow in faith independently, in some sense, even though we were a “Christian” family.  I attended secular schools, so I never felt as if I were in the majority in any room as a Christian. Most of my friends were not Christians at all. I grew up sort of naturally contending for my faith in academic and somewhat hostile environments. From the age of nine onward, I was totally defined by Jesus and trying to engage with hard and legitimate questions or the overarching feeling from my classroom environments that Christianity was irrelevant and untrue.  So in one sense, I feel as if I’ve been doing what I’m doing now for as long as I can remember trying to better understand my own faith and speak with people who aren’t even considering Jesus. Trying to help them to see that not only is he worth considering, but that faith in Jesus might be the most compelling way to understand the world.  Cambridge was more of the same for me. Fortunately, I was able to find my feet in a strong Bible-teaching church. In the early 2000s, we Christians felt we were in a curious minority. Our friends were not only skeptical of our faith, they were bemused by it. But our Christian community was vibrant and focused on outreach every year we would go and give the gospel to every undergraduate student, if possible, in a weeklong mission and outreach event.  Alongside all this, another important piece of my story is that while as long as I can remember I’ve been a Christian, also for as long as I can remember I’ve been attracted to other women. That was something that, growing up as a Christian, I didn’t really talk to people about and didn‘t have a category for. I knew that same-sex romance was off-limits for Christians, and I thought I would just grow out of it. It wasn’t until I got to grad school that I thought, Once you’re in grad school, it’s hard to convince yourself you’re going to grow out of something. You’re a proper grown-up at that point, wouldn’t you say?

“There are a lot of things that look like roadblocks to faith, but if you look more closely, they become signposts to Jesus.”

So that reality was a significant part of my experience, and it has strongly played into the kind of thinking and work that I’m doing now. Because I think to paint with a very broad brush churches have done a pretty poor job of loving and caring for Christians who experience same-sex attraction, and at the same time, churches have done a poor job or increasingly a poor job of upholding Christian sexual ethics. I don’t think it’s an either/or; those are actually two things that we can and should do in tandem. But that conversation should be part of a much larger understanding of what sexuality means from a Christian perspective and the gospel logic behind why the Bible so clearly limits sex to male-female marriage and prohibits same-sex sexual relationships. Too often, we’ve missed the big picture of what the Bible is trying to tell us that the primary purpose of marriage is to point us to Jesus’ love for his church. And so many casualties have risen from that failure.  One interesting development during that time was that I began dating Bryan, a guy from Oklahoma who was doing his Ph.D. in engineering. I always joke it’s very hard to find a good evangelical Christian in England, so we have to import them from abroad. He found himself suddenly in a highly secular environment, which was both a little unsettling and quite refreshing. He’d go to church on a Sunday and think, Nobody is here because it’s the cool thing to do. Everyone is here because they’ve counted the cost. 

Tell us about your decision to go to seminary.

The reason I went partly sprang from a conversation I had with a friend who was also doing a Ph.D. She was one of my sort of “scariest” non-Christian friends in the sense that where other friends would politely make an excuse as to why they couldn‘t come to an outreach event at my church, this particular friend would explain to me why she was ideologically opposed to everything that I was going to hear at my church.  As we were talking about what we would do after our doctorates, she said she was planning on continuing in her area of study (she is now a history professor). I found myself saying that while I really enjoyed studying Shakespeare, I knew it was not something for which I would want to sacrifice things, that I knew I was not half smart enough to be an English academic without sacrificing basically everything in my life on that altar. She asked, “Well, what are you willing to sacrifice for?”

And I said, “Telling people about Jesus is the thing that I’m most passionate about and would actually want to sacrifice things for.”

And as I said that I thought, You know what?

Maybe I should do that.  Two years into seminary, I married Bryan. The complication there was that the Church of England was paying for my education. And my husband is one of the only Americans I’ve ever met who doesn’t want to live in England. We had some discussions about that in advance of getting engaged, and I decided to leave my homeland, even though I was very committed to gospel witness there. I decided, all other things being equal, you can’t make a sacrifice for another Christian and go far wrong. I decided that I would marry Bryan and move.  Once in the United States, I began working for a ministry called The Veritas Forum, where a big piece of what I ended up doing was identifying Christian professors at leading secular universities. It included helping them think through how to talk about their faith in relation to their work, and giving them a platform for doing that, whether it was through live events on campus, or having them write articles for us, or different formats like that. After nine years, I felt I had a road map for where the conversations really are in terms of all sorts of apologetics questions, in terms of Christianity and philosophy, physics, psychology, whatever, from talking with these people and understanding a little more of their research and how they saw it. So I wrote Confronting Christianity to share that road map with the broader church and with nonbelievers who were curious about Christianity. 

It strikes me that many people likely have a story similar to yours, yet at some point in the process of growing up and getting an education, they lose their faith. What do you feel held you to your faith during those formative years?

I think there were a number of factors. One was that my parents gave me such a strong sense growing up that Christians should be the most intellectually curious people in town. I was not in any way raised with the anti-intellectualism that can be characteristic of American evangelicalism. My dad in particular is extremely broadly read and always interested in how Christianity relates to everything, from science and history to art and music. So I was not given a false dichotomy between growing intellectually and growing spiritually.  I also wasn’t raised being taught things as gospel truth that weren’t necessarily gospel truth. Some folks are taught early on very specific and rigid views perhaps, for example, not just that God created the universe but precisely how he did. Actually, Christians have always disagreed about exactly how to put together the discoveries of science with the Scriptures. If you look at any of the major sort of science versus Christianity controversies in history, you usually find Christians on both sides of the question. I didn’t have the baggage of those paradigms, which can be troubling to people. If they’ve been told they can’t have Jesus and believe this, well, what will happen when, later in their education, they become convinced by believable evidence of what they were taught was incompatible with their faith? 

So you do not see honest intellectual inquiry as a threat to belief?

People sometimes ask if I find that reading atheist or agnostic thinkers is a challenge to my faith. I find it is the opposite. The more that I read of today‘s intellectuals, the more persuasive Jesus becomes.  One thing I’ve noticed especially within the New Atheists is they don’t actually believe in human beings any more than they believe in God, if you scratch the surface. They may present themselves as humanists, saying the essence of humanity is central to that whole framework, but in a real sense they don’t have a model that can persist beyond this present moment. Increasingly folks are open about that, whether it’s Richard Dawkins saying that moral beliefs depend on “something in the air” and change from year to year, or someone like Yuval Noah Harari, who says in Sapiens: A Brief History of Human Kind that human beings have no natural rights, just as chimpanzees, hyenas and spiders have no natural rights. He says that human rights are a figment of our fertile imagination.

“The basic moral beliefs even of the most secular folk today actually came from Christianity.” 

It’s easy to think you’re comparing Christianity to a perfectly coherent secular worldview that does all the work Christianity does for us except without having to believe in any crazy things like the resurrection. But in fact you’re not you’re comparing the seemingly crazy beliefs of Christianity with even more craziness. And when you look closely, you’ll find that the basic moral beliefs even of the most secular folk in the West today actually came from Christianity and don’t have a solid foundation without it.  At the same time, we Christians can’t just assume the moral high ground. For example, something that I’m writing and thinking about a lot is the history of sin among white evangelicals (like me) when it comes to the treatment of our Black brothers and sisters. This is something that has very legitimately caused many people to be shaken in their faith. Because when you realize that your tribe has sinned grievously, and in many instances not actually repented, certainly not in a public and meaningful way, you can start to think that Christianity is inherently a white, Western religion that has enabled people to wield power over others in horrible, destructive ways.  Now, as with every other area of research, the more you look into that question, the more you realize that Christianity started in the Middle East, and the New Testament explicitly calls us into multiethnic, multiracial, multicultural community. Today, Christianity globally is the most diverse belief system in the world and, objectively speaking, both the largest and the most diverse belief system.  I think it’s easy for people to only anchor Christianity to one particular group, i.e. white American evangelicals, then to become disillusioned by the ways in which that group has at times acted, then throw Christianity out with that. They fail to recognize that actually Black Americans, and Black women in particular, are demographically most likely to identify as Christians, and are far more likely to go to church, pray, read the Bible and hold to what we would otherwise call evangelical beliefs, even if they don’t normally identify with that label.   There are a lot of things that look like roadblocks to faith in Jesus, but if you look more closely, they stop being roadblocks and become signposts to Jesus. 

102
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11607545/Artist-took-life-drinking-hallucinogenic-tea-shamanic-healing-ritual-inquest-hears.html

Artist, 32, took her own life after drinking hallucinogenic 'tea' in trendy shamanic healing ritual at £620-a-head retreat, inquest hears

    Kate Hyatt drank the tea during a retreat at a farmhouse in rural Worcestershire
    The 32-year-old attended the three-night retreat near Malvern in June 2021
    It is believed she took wachuma, which contains illegal hallucinogenic mescaline
    Her family believe she ingested ayahuasca, another Class A drug, at the retreat 
    Miss Hyatt became convinced she was dying, before taking her life months later
    Call the Samaritans to talk to someone anonymously for free on 116 123 

By James Tozer for the Daily Mail

Published: 18:14, 6 January 2023 | Updated: 18:14, 6 January 2023

A coroner has warned of the potentially deadly consequences of trendy shamanic 'healing' rituals after hearing how a young artist suffered a mental breakdown and took her own life.  Kate Hyatt, 32, attended a £620-a-head retreat at a Tudor farmhouse in rural Worcestershire where she drank a hallucinogenic plant-based 'tea' used in South American rituals, an inquest heard.  Championed by celebrities such as Sting and Lindsay Lohan, ceremonies revolving around psychoactive potions are claimed to broaden participants' consciousness and tackle negative feelings.  Miss Hyatt had to leave a masters course for which she was studying in San Francisco when coronavirus struck California and returned to live with her parents in Yorkshire and began exploring alternative medicine.  In June 2021 she attended a three-night retreat near Malvern after being put in contact with the organisers by a registered midwife, the inquest heard.  According to emails sent to Miss Hyatt and seen by the Daily Mail, the retreat was to feature wachuma, described as a 'teacher plant' allowing participants to 'dive deeply into ourselves'.

As well as wachuma, which is made from a 'sacred' cactus and contains illegal hallucinogenic mescaline, Miss Hyatt's parents told the inquest they believe she also ingested ayahuasca another Class A drug at the retreat.  On her return to the fashionable arts town of Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire, her mental health deteriorated and she became convinced she was dying.  Miss Hyatt pleaded with organisers of the retreat for help, saying she was scared and 'losing my grip'.

Despite a referral by doctors to a mental health crisis team, she attempted suicide on one occasion, before taking her life in October 2021.  Now Bradford assistant coroner Crispin Oliver has written a 'prevention of future deaths' report, saying there is a risk of other participants on courses organised by the 'Hands of Light Academy' dying due to a lack of medical supervision.  Marianne Willis, who founded the academy with her husband Clive, responded to the coroner by denying Miss Hyatt attended a course it organised or that it dispenses illegal psychedelics.  However, Mr Oliver has concluded that the evidence he heard to the contrary is 'credible'.  Now Miss Hyatt's parents want to warn others attracted to alternative medicine to avoid the mind-altering drinks.  'These are not innocent drugs they need to be used in the context of carefully controlled trials,' said her father Ray, a retired hospital consultant. 

'The kind of advice she got from the organisers of the retreat when she realised she was deteriorating was useless, frankly.  We wouldn't want anybody else's health to deteriorate in the way that Kate did.'

The family – who are keen to stress that Miss Hyatt took the substances for medicinal rather than recreational reasons – have also lodged a formal complaint with the Nursing and Midwifery Council about the midwife's alleged role.  After leaving school, Miss Hyatt studied drama and American theatre at Rose Bruford College in Kent before pursuing a multimedia arts career under the name Kit Radford.  In 2019 she began an MA in fine arts at San Francisco Arts Institute, but after Covid struck the following year, foreign students were advised to return home.  By this time, she was suffering from fatigue and low mood symptoms of undiagnosed long Covid, her family now believe and began exploring alternative medicine.  An email inviting her to the summer solstice retreat shows participants were told it would boost their 'cosmic duty' and 'collective vibration'.  It was signed by 'Kerryn' and 'Marianne' believed to be retreat host Kerryn Coetzee and Marianne Willis.  The 'crew' were experienced in 'shamanic practice' and 'Peruvian healing techniques'.  Participants were sent a health questionnaire, naming Mrs Willis and Miss Coetzee on behalf of 'Touched Heart Healing'.  Miss Hyatt filled it in, saying she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic fatigue syndrome and a 'phantom illness'.  While she never told her parents exactly what she took at the retreat, one message she sent says she had ayahuasca in June 2021.  After her death they also discovered her internet history shows that she searched for 'Can ayahuasca cause psychosis?' at the end of August.  In September she sent Mrs Willis an anguished message saying 'my nervous system is on fire as well as my brain'.

One of her responses reads: 'Angels surround and bless you.' Mrs Willis added that she hoped Miss Hyatt was 'finding you way home to yourself'.

In response to a voice message from Miss Hyatt saying she felt like she was dying, a woman called 'Kes' believed to be Miss Coetzee informed her that she was experiencing a 'shamanic death process'.  Saying she and Mrs Willis were too busy to speak by phone, 'Kes' added that 'parts of you are dying' but her 'essence' was 'stronger than ever'.

After Miss Hyatt told 'Kes' she would value someone who 'really hears me', she replied apologising that 'things have been hectic'.

No one from the retreat ever shared concerns with her family and Miss Hyatt took her own life on October 31.  At an inquest last November, the coroner Mr Oliver said she had begun suffering 'delusional anxieties' after 'exposure to unregulated plant-based drugs'.  He wrote a prevention of future deaths report expressing concern that 'hallucinogenic substances are being dispensed by the Hands of Light Academy' to people who may have mental health problems 'without proper, or any, consideration of the impact that they may have on them'.

In her response to the coroner, Mrs Willis denied Miss Hyatt had attended a Hands of Light Academy course or that it dispensed wachuma.  She added that 'students' were 'screened' in advance for mental health issues but promised to 'educate' staff about 'hallucinogens and their potential dangers'.  The website for Hands of Light Academy was taken down after the coroner's report and it does not appear to have a physical base.  The website for Hands of Light Academy was taken down after the coroner's report and it does not appear to have a physical base.  However, it has previously claimed to be 'one of the UK's top energy training schools' as part of a mission to 'create a new paradigm'.  Mrs Willis was approached for comment.  When the Daily Mail visited the farmhouse at the location Miss Hyatt was given for the retreat, a reporter was told that Miss Coetzee lived there and that she was known as 'Kez'.  Approached by the Daily Mail, Miss Coetzee said she had been 'deeply saddened to hear of Kit's tragic passing'.

She reiterated that Miss Hyatt had never done an 'energy healing' course at the Hands of Light Academy but did not deny that she took part in a 'gathering' she helped organise.  Miss Coetzee insisted none of the ceremonies held at the 'gatherings' were 'contraindicated' to the medical conditions Miss Hyatt cited when completing the questionnaire.  She added that Touched Heart Healing had subsequently closed down but she was 'unable to comment further, due to confidentiality and to minimise further pain and suffering to Kit's family'.

If you are affected by any of the issues raised by this article, you can call the Samaritans anonymously for free on 116 123, or go online at samaritans.org. 

Traditional psychoactive plants that can trigger health problems 

For thousands of years before the arrival of European explorers, native American tribes harnessed the psychoactive properties of plants for magic and ritual.  Since the 1960s hippy trail reached South America, Western visitors have been tempted to 'broaden their consciousness' by consuming hallucinogenic drinks mixed by local shamen traditional healers and spiritual guides.  While substances such as ayahuasca are illegal to possess or supply in the UK, overseas retreats where people can sample them are widely promoted online, and many users have reported trying them in this country as well.  Actress Lindsay Lohan credited drinking ayahuasca which is created by pounding vine stems in boiling water with helping to free her from 'the wreckage of my past'.

Musician Sting is also a proponent, saying ayahuasca had convinced him a 'higher intelligence' was at work.  Users experience hours of illusions and flashbacks. It is illegal in the UK as it contains the Class A drug DMT.  Experts warn ayahuasca and similar potions could trigger underlying mental health conditions or heart problems.  There are reports that tourists in South America have been robbed after being drugged by bogus shamen.  After the death of backpacker Henry Miller, 19, from Bristol, who paid £13 to try ayahuasca during his gap year trip to Colombia in 2014, a coroner warned against taking part in such rituals.  Wachuma brewed from the mescaline-producing San Pedro cactus and known as 'the doorway' causes vomiting and 12-hour hallucinations, risking exacerbating underlying mental illness.  The cacti are legal to own but only if not intended for human consumption.

103
Faith / Doing Hard Things Afraid
« on: January 05, 2023, 01:58:43 PM »
https://proverbs31.org/read/devotions/full-post/2021/12/31/doing-hard-things-afraid?utm_campaign=Daily%20Devotions&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=197941612&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_pO1aoRVVutYNclojFn55XN0f5NGiDzAZ2kRxQtRLlnJAOhL7QfQJaYB3d8TQeX8tqVeCJMOgmSgOrleKI_T5RbaU1NQ&utm_content=197941612&utm_source=hs_email#disqus_thread

Doing Hard Things Afraid
by Shala W. Graham December 31, 2021

“We also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy …” Colossians 1:11 (NLT) ‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

As I stood with my hands raised and one foot forward, the floor looked so far away. I was nervous. I was paralyzed. I had already done it successfully once that morning, but fear gripped me. Each time I tried again, fear foiled my follow-through.  At my gym that morning, we were working on skills for handstand push-ups, starting with kick-ups. I know.  Why would I ever want to do that?!

But there I was, doing a front handspring into a wall so that I would end in a handstand against the wall.  Kick-ups were not new to me. When I had done my first kick-up since returning to the gym back in April 2021, I’d gone upside down with surprising ease and held great form against the wall. Ya girl still has it!  But it was the coming out of the handstand where the pandemic pounds had gotten me. I had not prepared for the speed at which gravity would pull my now heavier leg out of the handstand. Practically doing the splits in the air, I’d pulled a muscle in my derrière. Classy, just classy, Shala!  The muscle wasn’t fully healed even several months later. So now, when I came out of my first kick-up that morning, I reinjured the muscle. I felt the pull. It hurt. I had a reason to be afraid. But the pain wasn’t too terrible, so I continued my workout. My coach came over to help me, but she just made me more nervous. Now someone is going to watch me fail?

No ma’am!  I stood there staring at the wall as I prayed. God, why am I so afraid?

Why can’t I do this?

I know I can do it. Come on, Jesus! Let’s go!  After a pep talk with the Lord, inviting Jesus to join me in my upside-down battle, I regained my confidence. I completed three beautiful kick-ups despite the fear and the pain. I endured and walked away from the wall, feeling like a champ.  When I choose a word for the year, I add it, alongside my memory verse, to the wallpaper on my computer and phone. “Endure” was the word I chose for 2021. I had no idea what I was walking into in 2021, but I sensed it would require endurance. And this year, I’ve repeatedly leaned into my verse for the year, whether working out in the gym or fighting for God’s will in my home.  2021 has been a year where I felt like every day was a new opportunity to patiently endure and do hard things. I still feel the fear and the pain, but I decide to do it anyway. I do it afraid. I do it because God is with me, and He strengthens me with all His glorious power. When I ask, He shows up. And every time He shows up, my confidence and joy grow.  As Paul says in Colossians 1:11, “We also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy …” (emphasis added).

As the year comes to a close tonight, I hope you take inventory of all the ways you have been strengthened and how you have endured. And I hope you look forward to the new year with an indescribable joy because, despite all the things that came against you in 2021, you are still here. And when that hard thing that you know you can do that God is calling you to do stares you down do it, even if you are doing it afraid.

104
Faith / What Love Is: Choosing To Love All Year Long
« on: January 05, 2023, 01:52:44 PM »
https://proverbs31.org/read/devotions/full-post/2021/12/29/what-love-is-choosing-to-love-all-year-long?utm_campaign=Daily%20Devotions&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=197939635&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--mX11ozn6JLj63AIQAWabZomHmHQPmSSq0wWkCEIJYg-R7NugriX7roaqPs7PzjlSXRCoT0Agw7K4kOltHTBxf9hwxTw&utm_content=197939635&utm_source=hs_email#disqus_thread

What Love Is: Choosing To Love All Year Long
by Kim Sorrelle December 29, 2021

“Let all that you do be done in love.” 1 Corinthians 16:14 (NASB1995)

I am a sucker for New Year’s resolutions. And every year, I pick my resolutions in threes.

Two have hung around for a long time. I pledge to eat nutritiously and exercise intentionally, more than just taking the garbage to the end of the driveway once a week. For my third resolution, though, I go deeper beyond working on my outside and choose something to transform my inside.  Yet reflecting on 2021 and, frankly, all other years, I realize I have missed so much. It’s like life is a movie, and I’m just a prop in the corner, an extra at best, mostly hanging in the back lot. I don’t take enough time for people. Instead, I’m just playing a scripted role with lines that rarely change.

“Hi, how are you?”
“Fine. And you?”
“Fine.”
“Have a good day.”

Why am I asking a question if I don’t want to hear the answer?

Maybe it’s because the answer might take too much of my very valuable and extremely limited time. There are things to be done, after all. Emails to return, laundry to wash, errands to run, bills to pay, and if I don’t hit the grocery store on my way home from work, I won’t be eating leafy vegetables for dinner.  But God.  God is love, and God tells us to love one another. In fact, God commands us through Paul in 1 Corinthians 16:14 to “Let all that you do be done in love.”

That’s why my big resolution challenge for 2022 is to love really love.  But how am I loving when I value my personal agenda above people?

Surely it’s not love to ignore the person in front of me while thinking of everything ahead of me. When a friend calls, I’m not showing love by saying “uh-huh” as I watch the last few minutes of my favorite TV show.

Does love take so little interest?

Real love, the way God loves, cares more about people than tasks … no matter the size of Mount Laundry. Relationships loving and caring for people eclipse TV and to-dos all day long.  I’ve overlooked opportunities to connect, to give love, to live love. I’m sure there have been many times when I asked the “how are you?” question, and the person who I am supposed to love wanted or needed me to hear the answer.

Maybe she received a tough diagnosis, or he lost his job, or she was going through a hard time in her marriage and needed someone to care and pray, but my face said, Gotta run. No time for you.  What would love do?

Love would stick around. Love would want to hear the answer. Then love would really listen.  Undistracted, giving full attention, right there, at that moment loving the person like God does, not seeing them as an obstacle to my plans. Without thinking about the turmoil of this morning’s carpool or the meeting later tonight just patiently listening. Fully engaged, no distractions, really hearing, caring, putting feet on love.  Sure, there are deadlines and moments when there really is no time, at least not right then. But later, love sets a time to get back in touch. Love follows up, follows through.  In 2022, let’s choose to love. To listen intently. To live love and show love to the ones we’re with. Let’s ask “how are you?” with our hearts and ears wide open.

Because that is what love would do, and I resolve to love. Will you join me?

105
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11595365/Murder-probe-launched-human-remains-woodland-pond-body-weeks.html

Police launch murder probe after human remains were found floating in woodland pond: Officers say body may have been there for 'several weeks' before it was discovered

    Body parts were found in Oakwood Pond in Harlow, Essex on New Year's Eve
    A murder investigation is launched and police believe the death is suspicious 
    Officers have cordoned off the wooded area and are conducting searches  

By Danya Bazaraa For Mailonline

Published: 16:04, 3 January 2023 | Updated: 16:04, 3 January 2023

A murder investigation has been launched after human remains were found in a woodland pond beside an NHS hospital on New Year's Eve.  The remains were found in Oakwood Pond, Harlow, on Saturday after a member of the public reported a suspicious object in the water shortly before 2pm and it has now emerged the body could have been there for several weeks.  At a press conference on Tuesday, Detective Superintendent Rob Kirby said it was 'too early' to establish the identity of the person found, but that officers were working 'relentlessly' to establish the circumstances around the discovery.  'Due to the circumstances in which these remains were found, we believe the person's death is suspicious,' he said.

'Our investigation is in the early stages and we have a large team of dedicated officers working around the clock on it.  This person is someone's loved one, someone's family member, and they will have questions about how and why they were killed.  We are committed to finding out what happened, and who is responsible, and will work relentlessly to bring those responsible to justice.'

Mr Kirby declined to disclose what body parts had been found.  Forensic tests are due to take place this week, which will determine characteristics such as the age, gender and ethnicity of the victim.  He said: 'At this stage, it is too early to be able to identify who the victim is, and that includes things such as the sex and ethnicity of the victim. Some witnesses have indicated that the human remains have been there for some time.'

Pressed on if this meant days, weeks or months, he said: 'I think the indication is several weeks, currently.'

A cordon has been in place around the pond since the remains were found, with the investigation being led by Essex and Kent Serious Crime Directorate.  Searches around the area in Fourth Avenue may include draining a pond as specialist officers search for 'potentially crucial' evidence, Mr Kirby said.  There will be an increased police presence in the area 'for several days to come' due to the 'complex' operation of draining the pond.  The detective said police are unsure at this stage if the human remains are linked to a missing person's case.  'We will always contact organisations particularly those responsible for managing missing persons,' he said, adding: 'We are keeping a really open mind as to how the remains ended up there.'

Asked in what time frame police expect to get forensic results back, he said: 'Hopefully we should get some forensic test results by the end of the week.  As soon as we've identified the victim then we are in a much better place.'

'We are working relentlessly to make sure those responsible are brought to justice,' he added.

December 31 was the first time Essex Police received a call from a worried member of public about the remains in the water next to Princess Alexandra Hospital.  But a local dog walker claimed that he had seen something in the water next to Princess Alexandra Hospital around two days earlier.  The man, who asked not to be named, said: 'Who knows how long they were there for. We had a lot of snow here before Christmas and the pond was completely frozen over so the remains could have been hidden under the ice and then come to the surface.'

The man explained he did not report it because he believed it must have been 'a couple of old bags'. Then the alarm was raised to police on Saturday.  Another local resident added: 'It is shocking news. This area is a beautiful spot and there are always people walking around.'

The pond, fed by an underground spring, is believed to date back to the 12th century when it supplied fish for a local monastery.  It is now a popular spot for fishermen and has jetties and wooden platforms for the use of anglers.  Anyone with information or footage relating to the incident is urged to contact Essex Police, quoting incident 582 of December 31. 

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