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Anglicans in Burundi aim for ‘one person, one tree’

In the Anglican Province of Burundi, the church has set a goal of planting 10 million trees—one for each person in the country—during the next five years.

Young people who are part of the Green Anglicans initiative in Central and Southern Africa have encouraged planting trees to mark occasions such as baptisms, confirmations, and weddings. The church of Burundi is taking that practice a step further with its effort to promote and maintain forests in its nation.

Army now allows soldiers to wear turbans, beards, and headscarves

New army regulations will allow Sikh and Muslim soldiers to wear turbans, beards, and hijabs—the headscarves worn by some Muslim women—under most circumstances.

“Based on the successful examples of soldiers currently serving with these accommodations, I have determined that brigade-level commanders may approve requests for these accommodations,” wrote Secretary of the Army Eric K. Fanning in a memo.

Christian and Jewish groups form partnerships to care for Holocaust survivors

When Ya’akov Edelstein, an 86-year-old Holocaust survivor, agreed to a bar mitzvah ceremony he never had as a child, he asked that it take place at Haifa’s Home for Holocaust Survivors.

Although Edelstein and his wife live in a comfortable senior citizen residence in this northern Israeli city, he wanted to celebrate this milestone—73 years late—at the survivors’ home: “I wanted to mark this day with people who experienced what I experienced. No one can appreciate this the way they can.”

Chaldean archbishop sees signs of interfaith reconciliation in Iraq

While the Iraqi conflict is not over, Archbishop Yousif Mirkis of Kirkuk is focused on how to heal his deeply divided country.

He called for a Marshall Plan for Iraq, referring to U.S. aid to Western Europe after World War II, during a visit to Paris to raise funds for an educational project he oversees. He is part of the Chaldean Church, which represents Catholics from Iraq and neighboring countries.

Through the project several hundred university students—Christians, Yazidis, and Muslims—study and live together.

In Middle East conflicts, families struggle to care for elderly members

(The Christian Science Monitor) War and its problems are never far from Jafar Ghazi’s family.

One recent night, two bodies were found on a street near the Iraqi family’s Baghdad home; just days before, two children from the neighborhood were kidnapped.

But such violence isn’t Ghazi’s only concern. Living at home is his ailing mother-in-law, who has high medical costs and an ever-increasing need of care.

After 500 years, a new synagogue opens in Sicily

More than 500 years after the Jews were expelled from Sicily, a tiny Jewish community will open its first synagogue in the island’s capital city of Palermo.

The Catholic Archdiocese of Palermo transferred a chapel to the Jewish community. That chapel, the Oratory of Santa Maria al Sabato, was built above the ruins of the Great Synagogue which once stood in the center of Palermo.

The archbishop of Palermo, Corrado Lorefice, described the initiative as a “gesture of hope” designed to build dialogue between Catholics and Jews.

Ibrahim Nseir, pastor in Aleppo, works to be a 'sign of hope'

Ibrahim Nseir was chatting at a Beirut hotel in late November with others attending a gathering of Protestant leaders from around the Middle East and beyond when a call came from his wife in Aleppo, Syria.

She had just heard that one of the families in their Presbyterian congregation had a rocket land in front of their house at midnight. It blew out the windows, covering the sleeping family with shards of glass. The family survived.