Addressing the Transgender Movement, Send Relief Helps Sudanese Refugees & Praying for Fellow Believers

More state legislatures have enacted laws this year to protect minors and women, as well as to ensure competitive fairness in sports, in response to the transgender rights movement.

So far in 2023, the legislative effort to address issues regarding particularly children and young people who identity as a gender other than their biological sex include, according to the Movement Advancement Project (MAP):

1. 17 new states have passed laws that prohibit gender-reassignment surgery and hormonal treatment. In all, 20 states have enacted such laws since 2021.

2. Six states have enacted bans on the transgender use of restrooms and other sex-segregated facilities, bringing the total of states with such laws to nine the last three years.

3. Four new states have approved laws that bar young people from competing in sports according to their gender identity instead of their biological sex at birth. A total of 22 states have approved such laws since 2020.
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Send Relief is helping feed refugees fleeing the escalating civil conflict in Sudan that international leaders say threatens a full-scale civil war.

Send Relief is working with Empower One church planting and humanitarian ministries to feed 500 refugees a day through August at the United Nations refugee camp in Malakal, the capital city of Upper Nile, South Sudan, Empower One told Baptist Press.

Send Relief’s $43,500 allocation is a great help, Chad Vandiver, U.S. director of Empower One Network, told Baptist Press.
About 27,000 of the 2.9 million people the United Nations said are displaced by the war have landed at the Malakal camp, Vandiver said, with numbers increasing. The 2.9 million includes others who have fled to Chad, the Central African Republic, Egypt and Ethiopia, and many who are internally displaced in states including the River Nile, Northern, White Nile and West Darfur, the International Organization for Migration reported.
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Good News for Today is made possible through our friends at The Voice of the Martyrs, a nonprofit organization that serves persecuted Christians around the world. Founded in 1967 by Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand, VOM is dedicated to inspiring believers to deepen their commitment to Christ and to fulfill His Great Commission — no matter the cost. Find out more and sign up for their free monthly magazine at vom.org/goodnews.
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The IMB is asking for believers to pray for fellow believers in North Africa and the Middle East where Christian churches are illegal. They say, “In one location, any church gathering is illegal, so followers of Jesus who want to take the Lord’s Supper must do so in secret. There are a small group of believers in that place, and they are passionate about Jesus,” They ask believers to “Pray for the faith of these believers to grow as they seek to take the Lord’s Supper together. May they have greater trust in their Savior, Jesus, as they take the Lord’s Supper together.”