All Things New

I recently received a distressing email from Javed Irshad, who, with his family, runs a Christian ministry in Pakistan, reaching out to Pakistani children. Here is what Javed shared:

Dear Brother Nate,

Christians in Pakistan are in “grievous distress” as large swathes of Pakistan are once again submerged in water. Serious flooding has forced thousands of people into emergency camps where facilities are poor and they are at risk of catching diseases such as malaria, dysentery and dengue fever. It comes exactly one year after flood waters covered vast swathes of Pakistan last summer.

Some areas were seeing worse flooding than last year, with the equivalent of an entire monsoon season’s worth of rain falling in just a few days. It warned that Christians were particularly vulnerable because they already live in poverty and is often overlooked in the distribution of aid. We are terribly sad to see the destruction and poor condition of the people affected by heavy rains.

We have noticed and seen that Christians are being deprived of the help, relief and support that other people are getting.

Our Ministry has launched an emergency appeal to provide food, clean water and hygiene products to Pakistani Christians caught up in the floods and as I shared with you that many of Christian families are staying with us.

In this latest calamity our brothers and sisters in Pakistan have no way to help themselves, and other organisations may never come to their aid.

“They are crying out to us for their very lives. Will you please help us help them to survive?”

You can learn more about Javed and his ministry by visiting  http://newlife.id.au/little-disciples-of-jesus/. Photos of the flood relief team can be found here. Oxfam America has additional information about the crisis in Pakistan. At the bottom of this post is a video with further information.

When I spoke with Javed recently, he had 27 people living with him and they were in dire need of funds to purchase food and will soon be in need of warm clothing as well. Please join with me in helping Pakistani flood victims. You can email Javed at thelittledisciples@msn.com or find him on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Javypk to learn more about how to help. A little bit of help can go a long way.

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Well, I think that the title says it all. Chris Dilts emailed me yesterday to let MaineChristian.com members in on an awesome deal: tickets to the October 2 Chasen concert in Rockland are 2 for 1 today through this Friday, September 23. Get your tickets at:

http://www.itickets.com/events/272161.html

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Due to some suspicious activity, we have had to close the forums temporarily. We apologize for the strange/spammy forum postings that you may have seen recently and look forward to restoring the forums as soon as possible.

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Good news! We’ve added four new radio stations to the MaineChristian.com Toolbar:

• God’s Country 88.9 FM
• Solution FM 105.7
• The Word AM 1340
• Worship FM

This brings the number of Maine’s Christian radio stations that you can listen to from your web browser using the MaineChristian.com Toolbar to 7. Check out the toolbar today and see what you’ve been missing!

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It’s a pleasure to finally have the opportunity to tell you about MaineChristian.com’s Music Blog and to welcome the newest member of MaineChristian.com’s team of volunteer writers. The Music blog will primarily feature CD reviews written by Chris Dilts. Chris is a partner in The Lighthouse Events, a ministry business that brings contemporary Christian music artists to New England and Eastern Canada. The mission of TLE is to share the love of Christ through music to strengthen the body of Christ, break down barriers, and reach the lost. Chris shares his passion for a God given gift of music, knowing how Christian music has helped him maintain his faith during all different times of life. Chris has been blessed to see the impact God can make on people through His gift.

I would like to welcome Chris to the team and thank him for his ministry. Please visit the Music blog today to see what Chris has written so far and to give your own feedback on the CDs that he discusses!

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Note: the following was taken from an email sent to MaineChristian.com users on February 27, 2010.

Dear User,

I want to thank you for being a MaineChristian.com user. It’s hard to believe that the site will soon be celebrating its twelfth birthday! After several site designs, many slight changes in direction and services, and even two changes in name, the site continues to operate with the mission of connecting and edifying Christians in the state of Maine using the Internet. During the site’s twelve years we’ve seen many changes in how people use the Internet, and specifically the Web, and MaineChristian.com has not always kept up with those changes, despite the fact that we were talking about connecting people online long before the advent of online social networks. We’ve made strides over the past several months to catch up with the way people use the Web today and are looking forward to many more improvements in the months ahead. One such improvement is our integration with Facebook, which now allows those who choose to do so to sign in to MaineChristian.com using their Facebook accounts. It’s completely optional, but we’ll be adding even deeper social interaction in the coming months, some of which will make use of this integration. If you’re interested, go to www.MaineChristian.com and click Sign In with Facebook to begin the process of connecting your Facebook account to your MaineChristian.com account, or register for a new account if you don’t have one. Once it’s set up, any time you log in to your Facebook account you will automatically be recognized at MaineChristian.com as well (and clicking Sign Out on MaineChristian.com will automatically log you out of your Facebook account as well).

Thanks to some important individuals, interest in MaineChristian.com has recently been reignited. One such individual is Bob S., who now writes MaineChristian.com’s Politics Blog. I encourage you to read – and participate in – his blog, where he covers political issues from a Christian context. Another individual is Chris Dilts of The Lighthouse Events, who has been a tremendous encouragement to me personally and has been spreading the word about MaineChristian.com among the people he comes in contact with. MaineChristian.com has recently partnered with The Lighthouse Events to promote and support each other’s ministries. TLE is a fantastic ministry that is bringing Christian concerts and other Christian performances to Maine and the surrounding region. Please see the posters below for information about two such concerts that will be in Maine in March and May (with additional performances in Massachusetts and New Brunswick, respectively).

I encourage you to contact The Lighthouse Events for more information about the concerts soon, as tickets are going fast (Jeremy Camp’s Lewiston concert is already more than 50% sold!). When you do, let them know that you heard about them from MaineChristian.com and thank Jeff, Wayne, Chris, Brett, and the many volunteers who make these concerts possible for their ministry.

Thanks for using MaineChristian.com. As always, I love to hear your thoughts. Please feel free to contact me anytime at nate@mainechristian.com with your questions, thoughts, suggestions, and concerns.

God bless,

Nate LaClaire
Founder and webmaster
MaineChristian.com

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Tonight something new is coming our way: the MaineChristian.com Community Toolbar. It’s something I’ve been contemplating for a long time and, thanks to a company called Conduit, it has now become a reality. The toolbar installs easily in the Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari web browsers and is completely free. Once installed, the toolbar provides easy access to search Google and MaineChristian.com’s Church Directory, links to various parts of MaineChristian.com, and a radio player that lets you listen to Positive 89.3, WHCF, and Air 1 while you surf! The toolbar will also notify you of important news about MaineChristian.com as well as other items of interest to our users. I encourage you to download the toolbar today and then let me know what you think!

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I discovered that this morning’s MaineChristian.com Today didn’t include today’s devotions. That has been corrected and the newsletter re-sent. I apologize for the inconvenience.

Have a blessed New Years’ Day!

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Starting December 1, you’ll notice a few improvements in the MaineChristian.com Today daily e-newsletter. First, you’ll notice that posts in the All Things New blog and Politics blog will now appear in Today on the day after they are posted to the site. Such posts were never before included in Today. Second, poll questions (which are updated at most once every two weeks) will only be appearing in Today on Mondays and forum posts will only appear in Today on the day after they are posted. We believe that this will create a leaner, more relevant MaineChristian.com Today. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter! Feel free to post your comments below.

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I would like to introduce you to the newest member of MaineChristian.com’s team of volunteers: Bob S. Bob is a long-time user of MaineChristian.com who has recently agreed to take over the MaineChristian.com Politics blog. You’ve probably noticed that the Politics blog has had several new posts this week and this is thanks to Bob’s hard work. In fact, it was an email from Bob that (without his knowledge) convinced me to launch the Politics blog last spring and you may have seen me reference him as the source of a few Politics blog entries in the past.

When asked for some basic biographical information, Bob begins with, “Follower of Jesus Christ.  Treasuring Him above all else with the saints of First Baptist Church in East Machias.” The 55-year-old husband and father has been married to Joyce for 26 years. His two sons are both in college and one is also training for a commission in the US Marine Corps.  He is a graduate of Husson College and has been employed in banking for the past 25 years.  In addition to serving as a deacon in FBCEM, he also serves on the board of Shekinah House, a women’s shelter being developed in Machias.

Starting last Saturday he is also the editor, comment moderator, and primary author for the Politics blog. Please join me in welcoming him to the team and thanking him for donating his time to the important work of providing our users with news and commentary regarding political action that affects Maine’s Christians. I know he would love to read your comments on his blog posts!

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