Tara missed

Tara Teng of Trinity Western University was crowned Miss British Columbia on July 4. This year's competition featured 46 contestants and raised $32,000 for Cops For Cancer. Teng also won the online People's Choice award. Each contestant received professional training in areas such as modelling, stage presence, manners and etiquette, self-esteem, interview skills, public speaking, self-defence and assertiveness. Teng is co-founder of the Undies For Africa campaign, which sends undergarments to women and girls in Zambia, raising their social status and making them less vulnerable to sexual assault and rape. She has also done volunteer work with children of gang members in Harlem and Brooklyn, New York. During the 2010 Olympics, she helped with the Buying Sex is Not a Sport: Vancouver Initiative to Prevent Human Trafficking campaign.

A Kuyt above the rest

Manager Bert van Marwijk of the Netherlands' soccer team said striker Dirk Kuyt has displayed the selflessness which has allowed the Dutch to reach their first World Cup final in 32 years: "Dirk Kuyt . . . is the example of a true and genuine team player. He's so focused; he's working so hard for the team and gives such a positive signal to the rest of the players." Kuyt has had a goal and three assists in the team's first six games of the tournament. Kuyt is also a committed Christian.

Students' union relents

The University of Calgary Students' Union Review Board has formally withdrawn its complaint against the Campus Pro-Life (CPL) group, restoring the group's status as a sanctioned club. The Students' Union took away the status on February 10, 2009 because of the Genocide Awareness Project, a display which CPL has set up on campus nine times since 2006. The display compares abortion to past historical atrocities such as the Rwandan genocide and the Nazi holocaust. The university administration has also tried to shut down the display, charging six students with trespassing in 2009 (the charges were later dismissed) and convicting eight students of non-academic misconduct in 2010 (a case which is now being appealed).

Police chase

More teams of bicyclists have joined the Hot Pursuit. Arvid Loewen will leave White Rock, British Columbia, July 17, hoping to pedal to Winnipeg in five days and raise money for the Mully Children's Family (MCF). He will be chased by two teams leaving White Rock 24 hours later and riding in shifts around the clock. One team includes four Winnipeg police officers raising funds for the Children's Wish Foundation. The other team includes five professors and alumni from Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg, raising money for international students at the university. The riders will be joined by a team of four "grannies" riding from Calgary to Winnipeg to raise more money for MCF, a Christian charity which rescues abandoned children in Africa.

Requiring religious relativism is totalitarian

On June 18, Justice Gérard Dugré of the Quebec Superior Court issued a 63-page decision ruling that Loyola, a private, English-speaking Roman Catholic high school in Montreal, does not have to teach the provincial government's mandatory ethics and morality course. The course teaches students about a variety of religions and ethical positions, but thousands of parents in Quebec have objected to it, arguing that it teaches moral and religious relativism. The judge ruled that requiring Loyola "to teach the ethics and religious culture course in a lay fashion assumes a totalitarian character" which violates the Quebec Charter of Rights.

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A time for peace

With the unanimous support of its 23 members, on June 25, the Canadian Council of Churches sent a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper encouraging him to give "renewed and urgent attention to nuclear disarmament." The letter argues that nuclear weapons offer only "mass, indiscriminate destruction . . . of the human community and the environment that sustains it." The letter declares that the earth "is under both God's love and judgment" and that those signing the letter "cannot conceive how the use of nuclear weapons could be . . .consistent with the will of God.." The letter states that there is a "growing hope and conviction that the international community" is ready to achieve "a world without nuclear weapons." It predicts that nuclear disarmament "will release political, psychological and spiritual resources" which humanity can use to address other challenges, including injustice, poverty, climate change and armed conflict.

Howe lone parents are doing

A C.D. Howe Institute study released in June reveals that the poverty rate among lone-parents families in Canada dropped by more than half from 1996 to 2007. The study credits three things for the change: a booming economy, provincial social assistance reforms that encouraged people to get off welfare and get jobs, and federal programs such as the National Child Benefit and the Working Income Tax Benefit. However, other studies show that lone-parents families are still much more likely than two-parent families to live in poverty and that the children in lone-parent families are more likely to have behavioural problems and get involved in crime. A full discussion of these studies has been posted online (PDF) by the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada.

Mighty women

Jesus of Bethlehem Worship Centre, a small church in Toronto whose members have immigrated from Africa, has organized a Worldwide Mighty Women's Conference to be held at the University of Toronto from July 29 to August 1. "This conference is about empowering women in the Spirit to carry the message of Jesus' return around the world and equipping them to train other women," said Virginie Kasweka, a member of the church. Organizers believe God has called them to hold the conference because of a vision given to Kasweka. The church's senior pastor, Chris Asman, noted that God revealed Jesus' first coming to women first and may do the same regarding his second coming. He added, "That's why it's important for men in the church to respect and release women to minister what God puts on their hearts." Lighthouse Church International in Waterdown, Ontario, is now also supporting the conference. More than 350 women from Africa and Europe have already committed to attend the event.

Turning pew sitters into house sitters

Christian House Sitters is an international non-profit organization based in the United Kingdom that claims to match vacationing members of recognized Christian churches with other vacationing members of recognized Christian churches. It provides home owners with reliable people to look after their homes and pets free of charge while they are away, and it provides house sitters with rent-free accommodations while they are on vacation. The service is free for home owners and costs 20 pounds a year for sitters. All income from the site goes towards supporting starving orphans in Kenya; it is monitored by a registered UK charity and church.

Lepers suffer

Close to five million people in the world are suffering from the permanent effects of leprosy, 90 percent of them in developing countries. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 250,000 new cases were diagnosed in 2007. Close to 50,000 of these cases were detected in centres owned or assisted by The Leprosy Mission.

July 8/2010