—Franklin Graham preached to 208,000 people during six days of South African crusade ministry in April in Cape Town and Johannesburg. It marked the largest turnout at any of the 56 crusades Graham has conducted since he began in 1989.
—Mansour Hussein died April 21 from a gunshot wound to the head at the Christian bookstore where he worked in Arbil, the regional capital of northern Iraq. The 43-year-old Hussein, a convert from Islam, had earlier been threatened for working at the bookstore, one of three in Iraqi Kurdistan.
-Sergio von Helde, a bishop of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in Sao Paulo, Brazil, was sentenced last month to two years in prison for kicking and hitting a statue of a Roman Catholic patron saint on television (CT, Dec. 11, 1995, p. 64). Von Helde, who fled to the United States after an ensuing controversy in the world’s largest Catholic nation, was convicted of public disrespect for a religious symbol.
—The Canadian Christian television program 100 Huntley Street, working with Christian Solidarity International and Sudanese villagers, recently bought and freed 319 women and children slaves in southern Sudan for about $108 each. A television crew videotaped the purchase and release of the slaves for the program, produced by Crossroad Christian Communications.
—Paul E. Kauffman, founder of the Hong Kong-based Asian Outreach, died March 3 at age 89 after a series of strokes.
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