At present there are only a handful of Pakistani lawyers in the UK, and many Pakistani Christians desperately need shelter and refuge in Britain. The suffering of Pakistan’s Christian minority is well documented, but people are not aware of the tragic way in which many of those who muster up the courage to seek refuge in the West are turned away at the door. There is a need for the Pakistani church in Britain to work in tandem with the church in Pakistan to ensure that members of their flock know in advance what support is available for them from the church and where they can turn upon arrival in a foreign and bewildering land. For many, their poor English makes receiving guidance from a British advisor a daunting challenge. Even if they are able to find a fellow Pakistani to assist them, the advisors tend to be Muslims and so the problem of distrust arises.

Last week we highlighted Trypraying’s launch of ‘forty days of prayer’ for Lent, and Parliamentary Prayer Scotland’s promotion of a forty-day prayer call prior to the Holyrood elections on 5 May. We continue, with Prayer for Scotland, to pray for David Hill and the Trypraying team as they seek to finalise all the details for Lent, the March bus adverts and the ‘Use it and Lose it’ booklet campaign. Pray for the money needed to place adverts on buses throughout Scotland: may it miraculously come in. Pray that the information meetings for leaders in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen in late January and the launch event on 10 February in Edinburgh will be successful. Pray that many in Scotland will grasp the vision for praying for their family and friends, themselves and the nation through Lent, and that many will take the Trypraying booklet and use it to share their faith.

Libraries face closure around the UK. A week of events and a nationwide celebration of libraries on 6 February is supported by campaigners and writers highlighting the importance of the public service. Bestselling author Ann Cleeves has urged people to go out and join their local library next week. She said that she wouldn’t have been a writer without a library and that lots of authors will tell you the same thing. There should be equal access to books, information and facts for everybody. Campaigners will lobby Parliament on 9 February calling for ‘a port of call’ for books, local information, human contact, internet access, newspapers and magazines; a safe and quiet environment, help with form-filling, advice, and the countless other little things that all add up to bigger things. More than 100 libraries closed last year; the public library service is in the middle of its worst-ever crisis.

A video released by al-Qaeda features a militant with a British accent claiming responsibility for kidnapping Swiss nun Beatrice Stockly in Mali. She was taken on 7 January when armed militants surrounded her home in Timbuktu. Beatrice is accused of ‘declaring war against Islam’. A man with a British accent said, ‘We, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, declare our responsibility for the kidnapping of this Christianising kaffir Beatrice Stockly, who by her work drove out many from the fold of Islam by seducing them with crumbs of this worldly life.’ The sister was previously kidnapped in 2012 but broke her conditions of release by refusing to stop preaching the gospel. Beatrice appears in the video wearing a hijab and next to a flag. The group also claimed responsibility for the terror attacks two weeks ago on a hotel and restaurant in Burkina Faso when thirty people were killed.