Author: Jasu Diaz

By Jasu Diaz — When U.K. authorities released on bail seven terror suspects tied to Iran after they were apprehended in September outside an air force base that housed American B-1 bombers, President Donald Trump was dismayed: “I wouldn’t have done that.” Once the world’s leader, Britain has descended to soft power and then even lower to bungling incompetent. “Everything that we are seeing from politicians to civil servants makes no sense,” U.K. journalist Mayhar Tousi said even prior to the latest plot. “It feels like this country is not just weak. I don’t think it knows what it wants.…

By Jasú Diaz – Trish Chokye’s dad sent her to school dressed as a boy. He beat her, punched her and demeaned her. “You’re stupid, you’re never going to amount to anything,” Dad told her. “I wish you weren’t born.” Eventually, Trish became a man, dressing like one, acting like one and loving women. She had walked away from God and drowned out her fears of going to Hell with an abundance of liquor. Her only relief from her father’s torture was her 26 year old step-brother, Paul, who acted as a protector. But he committed suicide when she was…

By Jasu Diaz — Two kids – both autistic – who lived 5,000 miles away from each other and had never met, not even online, knew each other to their surprise of their parents. They had met at “the hill.” “Oh that’s April,” Cody Nuessle said. His mom had shown him a picture of another autistic kid from Scotland. Cody lives in Arizona. “How do you know her name?” the baffled mom asked. “From the hill,” he responded. “She’s known as a worshiper. She belts out glory to God in the highest. Her dad’s name is …” Cody is non-verbal…

By Jasu Diaz – In October of last year, Chinese authorities executed simultaneous raids in 11 cities, much like a sting operation in the United States when they round up members of a crime syndicate. But the Chinese weren’t arresting traffickers. They were arresting Christian leaders. “Every dictatorial regime fears true conscience liberty, true religious freedom, because people with strong convictions, very often faith-based convictions, will always have a higher authority to which they answer than the state,” says Katrina Lanto Swett, former chair of the U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom. The arrests, part of a tightening stranglehold on…

By Jasu Diaz – Jaqueline Salah thought love transcended boundaries, but then her Yemeni husband kidnapped their three daughters and took them to Yemen. It was not until 15 years later that she saw them again – and Jackie had to travel into a war zone. “I felt I failed as a mother because they were taken by the person who’s supposed to love them, their dad,” Jaqueline says. “My heart just dropped. I knew that I was never getting them back.” What began on the dance floor in Cardiff, Wales, turned into a nightmare. Her daughters wound up in…

By Jasu Diaz — In his school in Ramallah, they told Elias that Jews were monkeys who gorged themselves on the blood of Palestinians, so when he took refuge in a halfway house for runaways, he was afraid to sleep for many nights as his roommate was Jewish. “I couldn’t sleep for one week,” Elias says. “A Jew is a monkey. They are blood-suckers. That’s what they teach us.” After two years in Haifa at the halfway house and in an Israeli school, Elias realized that the Jews looked just like him, so not monkeys. He also realized they don’t…

By Jasu Diaz — The majority of the 333 blasphemy cases registered in the past five years in Pakistan were bogus, a parliamentary committee found last week. “We have seen people weaponize blasphemy allegations to target others over personal disputes, and that is tragic,” said Sen. Samina Mumtaz Zehri. “The laws are not perfect, which is why we have sought recommendations from all stakeholders so that changes can be introduced where necessary. It is our collective responsibility to leave the next generation a safer and freer society.” Blasphemy carries the death penalty in the Qur’an and in Pakistani civil government,…

By Jasu Diaz — Before she married Billy Graham, Ruth Bell grew up on the mission field. Though her parents served in China, they sent her to the best Christian school for missionary kids, the Pyongyang Foreign School. It was located in what is now North Korea. One does not erase, one does not overwrite a spiritual heritage so rich as North Korea’s, as the Kim Jong-un regime is finding out. You can’t undo all the engendering of blessings of what was once called the Jerusalem of the East. In the 1930s, Pyongyang had experienced distinct revival. One in five…

By Jasu Diaz — Five North Korean church leaders in the Younggwang County were, hands tied behind their backs, forced to lie down as a steamroller chugged up right next to them. “Reject Jesus Christ and swear allegiance to Kim Il-sung and his son Kim Jong-il,” barked the commander of the military unit attached to a construction engineer command. “Or you will die!” Their names with 20 others had been discovered in a small notebook found in a wall after demolition for a widened highway to Nampo uncovered the secret church group. “The five leaders remained stoic, showing the irrefutable…

By Jasu Diaz — Kim Jong-il’s birth was announced by a swallow. He was miraculous born in a cabin on the slopes of Paektu Mountain. On the day of his birth, a double rainbow formed in the sky and a new star appeared in the heavens. In fact, the former leader of North Korea’s birthday is celebrated every year as the Day of the Shining Star. Miracles followed Kim Jong-il everywhere he went. Just three weeks after birth, he was walking; after eight weeks, he was talking. He chastised his teachers in Pyongyang for errors in history lessons and wrote…