The Forgotten Hostages<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
By Jan Markell
www.olivetreeviews.org 
 
I scrapped a half-dozen other topic ideas today to send a clarion call for the missionary hostages in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Afghanistan. The story is not making major news other than on Fox and the Internet.  Additionally, the story is played down or not at all among human rights outfits.  Why does most of the world watch and yawn?  Even the United Nations only expresses "concern."  The State Department is pretty silent, as well as presidents and heads of most nations.
 
Shouldn't there be international condemnation from every possible source?  These are Koreans who went to Afghanistan to be of help.  They are Christians and are the largest group of foreign hostages taken in Afghanistan since Operation Enduring Freedom began in 2001. 
 
What is their offense?  They are peaceful believers in Christ on short-term medical and humanitarian missions. Many are nurses in Afghanistan to provide social services.  None of this means anything to the head-choppers who feel Allah loves to see people tormented.
 
The root of the problem appears to be that over the past days, the jihadists have demanded that South Korea immediately withdraw troops from the Middle East, pay a ransom, and trade the civilian missionaries for imprisoned Taliban fighters. As of this writing, two of the men have already been killed.  Without some kind of intervention, it is possible there could be a slow slaughter of the innocents.
 
As Michele Malkin states, "Across Asia, media coverage is 24/7. Strangers have held nightly prayer vigils. But the human rights crowd in America has been largely AWOL.  And so has most of our media.  Among some of the secular elite, no doubt, there is a blame-the-victim apathy: The missionaries deserved what they got. What were they thinking bringing their message of faith into a war zone? Didn't they know they were sitting ducks for jihadists whose only idea of evangelism is 'convert or die'"?
 
Without a miracle this story could end in utter tragedy.  Since so many are AWOL, how about having your church pray for these dear souls this Sunday if the situation has not changed?  And how about those Israeli soldier hostages captured over a year ago, which caused the Israeli-Hezbollah war?  They are still in captivity so keep them in prayer as well.  I suspect they also feel they are forgotten.
 
Visit our "Christian Persecution" category at the Web site here http://www.olivetreeviews.org/topics/christian_persecution.shtml and keep updated on our suffering fellow believers.
 
"But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear Him and on those whose hope is in His unfailing love" (Ps.33:18).