Story number 2 for 31 Dec 2002

(Pakistan)–We turn next to Pakistan where four people are in custody following a deadly Christmas Day church bombing. Pakistani authorities issued extra security measures during the 2002 Christmas season, but on the day of the attack, according to Voice of the Martyr’s Todd Nettleton: “There were no police present at the church in spite of warnings about possible attacks relating to Christmas services and Christmas celebrations and so forth. It demonstrates that there may be warnings at the national level, but at the local level, those warnings never seem to get carried out effectively.” Nettleton says mission workers are now working especially carefully. “I think every Christian in Pakistan understands that there is risk to evangelistic outreach, especially among Muslim people, and I think those risks will continue. We would hope that the police would step up their efforts to provide protection, but we’ve seen in the past that that hasn’t always happened.”