GEORGE OTIS, FOUNDER OF VOICE OF HOPE RADIO
STATION AND LEBANON AID, CALLS FOR URGENT PRAYER FOR BRUCE BALFOUR WHO HAS BEEN CHARGED
WITH SPYING FOR ISRAEL
By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries
BEVERLY HILLS, CA (ANS)
-- George Otis, the founder of the Voice of Hope radio station that once functioned in
southern Lebanon and was later blown up by terrorists, has called for Christians around
the world to pray for Canadian, Bruce Balfour, 52, who is on trial in Beirut, Lebanon, on
charges of spying for Israel.
Speaking before a special 85th
birthday celebration for charismatic leader, Harald Bredesen at the Beverly Hills Hilton
Hotel, on Saturday, August 23, George Otis told ANS, We have a desperate need for
intercessory prayer for Bruce Balfour at this time. A one-time Nobel Prize winner once
said, Prayer is more powerful than 10,000 Hydrogen bombs. So when you pray great things
happen in the heavenlies.
Bruce Balfour went to Lebanon for the wonderful thing that the Holy Spirit had put in his
heart to replant the Cedar trees around Lebanon because it has been so torn. It's a
beautiful land that has been ravished and all he wanted to do was to restore the land. And
heart been captured by the authorities there and they believe he is a spy.
He went there to do nothing but good, but they have called him a spy and unless we pray
for him, he could be done great harm. Our prayers for Bruce are critical and should be
done urgently over the next few days with great intensity with some fasting to go along
with it.
Bruce is a wonderful man who helped
us with our Lebanon Aid project back in the eighties when we were able to feed 27,000
people there and also do a whole series of humanitarian things to help the people of
Lebanon. He did a great job for us.�
Otis, who has recently launched a new Internet broadcasting project in English, Arabic and
Spanish, called Kings World Ministries, based in Simi Valley, California, was then asked
if he believed that the charges against Balfour that is a spy for Israel -- were true. He
replied firmly, Absolutely not! I know he is not.
Bruce Balfour, a Christian, is the Field Director of Cedars of Lebanon, an interfaith
humanitarian project that was planning to help replenish the mighty Cedars of Lebanon in
the mountains of northern Lebanon.
Now according to sources in Beirut, he is due to be sentenced on Wednesday, August 27,
2003 for what he calls "trumped up" charges of spying for Israel. The sentencing
will come at the end of his trial in front of a military tribunal in the Lebanese capital.
ANS has learned that several human rights advocates, in addition to Canadian Consulate
officials, are endeavoring to assist in freeing Balfour and getting the false charges of
spying for Israel dropped. They are of the opinion that Balfour's false arrest relates to
unresolved issues concerning other human rights violations in the region and Canada's
refusal to diplomatically recognize the Hezbollah group.
A spokesman for Balfour said, "Despite ongoing humanitarian efforts on Balfour's
behalf, he critically needs immediate financial assistance with $5,000 U.S. to $10,000
U.S. in fees for his legal defense." Contributions critically needed for his legal
defense are being handled by the Canadian Consul.
For updates on Bruce Balfour's case, go to www.cedarsoflebanon.ca.
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Dan Wooding is an award winning British journalist now
living in Southern California with his wife Norma. He is the founder and international
director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times). Wooding is also a
syndicated columnist, and was for ten years a commentator on the UPI Radio Network in
Washington, DC. Wooding is the author of some 41 books, one of which is "Blind
Faith" which he co-authored with his 93-year-old mother Anne Wooding, who was a
pioneer missionary to the blind of Nigeria in the 1930s.
Copies of this book are available from the ASSIST USA office at PO Box 2126, Garden Grove,
CA 92842-2126.
His writings are on the ASSIST Website at: www.assistnews.net
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