28 March 2016 | St Albans, UK [Victor Hulbert] Leaders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Trans-European Division (TED) have said special prayers for those affected by the Lahore bombing on Sunday, 27 March.
The bombing, targeting a park frequented by Christians during the end of Easter celebrations, killed at least 72 people, both Muslim and Christian, the majority of them children. Around a further 200 were injured as the suicide bomber blew himself up close to a children’s play area at the Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park. Pakistan has declared three days of mourning in the Punjab province and government officials are among the many leaders world-wide who condemned the attack.
The TED has had a long standing connection with Pakistan, the country being a part of the Division until as recently as December 2011 when it was transferred to the Southern Asia-Pacific Division during an Adventist World Church realignment. Nevertheless, the bonds go deep with many European missionaries having served in Pakistan and with ADRA offices within the TED having invested heavily in education, health and disaster response – building schools, supporting hospital development in Karachi, establishing health systems in rural Pakistan by training health professionals, and in applying large scale vaccination programmes.
Retired UK pastor, Patrick Boyle, has run evangelistic activities among Christian people groups in Pakistan, while as recently as last year youth in the North East of England used Skype and social media to share faith and Bible teaching with a Christian group in Pakistan, even raising money to provide them with Urdu Bibles.
Seventh-day Adventists are people of peace. The humanitarian programmes they run world-wide are open to all communities without regard to religion or ethnicity. As such, the pain is intensified when an attack takes place both aiming at children and focusing on a festival of religious significance to much of the Christian world.
“Our church members and leaders in Pakistan are very much in our prayers,” TED President, Raafat Kamal stated shortly after news of the bombing reached Europe. “We can only imagine the emotions and fears they are going through, but we also know they are children of our Heavenly King and that he will support them both in their own lives and in the encouragement they can give to the communities where they have influence.”
As with the recent attacks in Brussels, Paris, Turkey, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, and so many other parts of the world, as well as ongoing war situations in so many places, our hearts go out to all who are affected. With this latest atrocity taking place during a time when minds and hearts reflect on the events and meaning of Jesus death and resurrection we can maybe do no better than repeat the words of Jesus on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
As of February 2015 there are 10,153 Adventist members in Pakistan worshipping in 112 churches. The church operates Karachi Adventist hospital, a secondary school, college and seminary, and a dental clinic in Peshawar. Christians make up 1.6 percent of the entire population of 200 million. [tedNEWS]
tedNEWS Staff: Victor Hulbert, director; Esti Pujic, editor
119 St Peter’s Street, St Albans, Herts, AL1 3EY, England
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.ted-adventist.org
tedNEWS is an information bulletin issued by the communication department of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Trans-European Division.
You are free to re-print any portion of the bulletin without need for special permission. However, we kindly request that you identify tedNEWS whenever you publish these materials.
