Archive for February 8th, 2021
“No Comments”: Gracious kids in war-torn countries (Congo)
Posted on May 24, 2012
I loved many pictures of kids in war-torn countries such as Cambodia, the Congo, China, Somalia… who exhibit the spirit of joy and hope in Mimo’s blog: 365 from the archive donotreply@wordpress.com and decided to share them with you.
I selected pictures of kids:
1. From Cambodia, a country that experienced three years of internal genocide by the radical Marxist Khmer Rouge power, 2 million and countless injured and handicapped people
2. From the vast Congo that experienced over 20 years of civil wars and fighting against neighboring countries, and had to deal with million of refugees flocking for “safety” in the genocide perpetrated in Rwanda and Uganda…
The first set of pictures are kids from the Congo, in refugee camps.

till we meet again

boys at work~ Goma



human eyes? (girl in Cambodia, just a preview for the next set of pictures)

a tougher life than most

adapting to a new life, refugee from the genocide in Rwanda

Looking ahead

girl in Goma refugee campdepth

boys at work~ Goma
Islam was founded on the dozens “Christian-Jewish” “Heretic sects” in the Near East
When the Byzantine Empire was established in Constantinople and adopted Christianity as an official religion, and later founded the “Orthodox Christian” sect as the religion of the empire in the mid of the 5th century, the hundreds of local based “christian sects” in Syria, Palestine and Lebanon were persecuted and had to transfer east of the Euphrates River (Persian Empire), the Arabian Peninsula, and further toward China.
The Prophet Muhammad was a member of one of those “Jewish-Christian” sect in Mecca and Islam was almost a copy/paste of the local Bible they used in Mecca, mainly most of the Jewish mythical stories, their prophets, and their customs.
The message of Jesus, his parables, his miracles…were barely mentioned in the modified/edited/transformed Koran assembled during the third Caliph Uthman bin Affan (From the Quraysh tribe of Mecca and one of Muhammad son-in-laws).
Many parchemins were discarded, buried, displaced or burned and the verses of the Koran were grouped according to length instead of their chronological order.
While the disciples of Jesus were trapped and huddled in Jerusalem after the crucifixion of Christ, St.Paul was touring Syria, Turkey, Greece, all the way to Rome, and founding “Christian” communities. St.Paul was flexible in the matter of circoncision and considered it was Not necessary for the new converts to be circumcised. The basic condition for St.Paul was that they believe that Jesus was resurrected, otherwise, there was no viable basis to be considered Christian.
The disciples in Jerusalem, and headed and guided by Jacob, the elder brother of Jesus and Not even a disciple, dispatched Peter to follow the trails of St.Paul and pressure the Christian communities to be circumcised…
As the Jews in Jerusalem started to revolt against the Roman Empire, the disciples fled in many directions. The first phase was to return to their hometowns in the Tyr region and Upper Galilee and off to Egypt, Turkey, Arabian Peninsula, Ethiopia, and even to current Pakistan (St.Thomas, Peter, Jacob, Bartholomew, Andrew, Marc… )
The disciples founded their own sect communities, with their own Bibles, customs, traditions and daily antics practised by the conservative Jews. The disciple of the community re-edited the message and stories about Jesus and crammed it with the stories of the Jewish mythologies.
For example, the women had their separate quarters, had to wear the veil, and Not participate with the males in the community events. Many of these communities wore the white robes, were vegetarians and never purchased any food from outside the community.
Basically, Bizantium decided to accept only 4 New Testaments and ordered the burning of the local Bibles used by these “heretic sects”. Essentially, bibles that smacked of plainly a copy/paste of the Torah/Jewish Bibles were burned and the sects persecuted out of the empire.
Consequently, when Islam conquered Syria, Iran, Egypt and expanded its territories, those “heretic” Christian sects didn’t find much variations between the Koran and their teachings. They converted to Islam easily, especially they would Not pay Taxes as Muslims (Jezyi), compared to the other “Orthodox” sects.
At the end of the Umayyad dynasty, the Non-Muslims diminished drastically and taxes collected were Not enough to replenish the treasury. Thus, various kinds of taxes were enacted that galvanized Muslims outside of Damascus to rebel.
The rebellious regions were far away from Damascus such as in Iraq, Iran, North Africa and also in northern Syria such as in Aleppo and Turkey.
Military campaigns were too costly to undertake and re-established the central control.
Note 1: We owe it to the Muslim Shia communities in South Lebanon and Jabal Amel to have maintained the “hometown stories” of Jesus, Mary, Peter, Jacob, Omran, Hanneh (Hanna)… where they were born, raised and buried. For example, the story spread by the Vatican of the martyrdom of St.Peter, crucified upside down, is probably a myth.
For example, The “hometown story ” says that in the year 64, Peter fled Rome after Nero escalated his persecution of the Christian, and settled in Babylon by the River Euphrates for a while.
Peter wrote a letter to the community of Karkisia by the Euphrates River. Peter travelled to Palestine and when the Jewish revolt (66 to 70 AC) started persecuting the Christian, Peter fled to Northern Galilee (Tyr district) in 67, but the Jews followed him to his hometown of Shamaa and killed him by a blow on the head. Peter was 77 year-old, or in the year 67.
The community of his ancestors in Hamoul buried him there by his mother in the town of Shamaa, which is short for Shimon.
Peter was born around 10 BC and lived in the town of 7amoul or (Hamoun) near the village of Naqoura in South Lebanon. Peter’s father was Hamoun Bin Ama in the town still known as Hamoul where he is buried.
Simon, Peter…is also known as Shimon Safa in the town of Shama3 (Shamaa) near the city of Tyr. Safa means the lean stone in Arabic, Kifa in Syriac, and Peter in Greek. Thus, the Rock as Jesus is claimed to have named him to build his Church.
Hamoun had two sisters: Hanneh (Hanna) and Elizabeth. Hanneh married Omran and gave birth to Mary. The mother of Peter is the sister of Omran.
Note 2: If there were many “Christian” martyrs in the first decades, it is mainly because the converts were dead convinced that Jesus will resurrect them after their death, the third day of them passing away.