It was the biggest bash on Friday night of the 2018 White House Correspondents Dinner weekend, a glam affair at the British ambassadors residence. One of the UKs hottest techno stars DJd. DC VIPs and out-of-town celebs danced beneath the mansions crystal chandeliers and sipped Macallan single-malt in the English gardens. Nancy Pelosi and Sarah Huckabee Sanders posed for pictures. And in the swirl of it all, outfitted in one of his flashy double-breasted suits, hobnobbing with entrepreneur Mark Ein and ousted White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, was the evenings top sponsorTodd Hitt.

In return for bankrolling a large chunk of the tab, the name of Hitts private-equity firm, Kiddar Capital, was everywhere: projected in shimmery white light on the buildings facade, emblazoned on the step-and-repeat, stamped on the cocktail napkins. Hitts PR firm had arranged it: a prestigious piece of marketing for a relatively new brandand the unfamiliar guy behind it.

Though a son of the Hitt Contracting familyone of Washingtons wealthiest construction dynastiesTodd Hitt had only recently forged a profile as a brash and crazy-successful self-made entrepreneur. He was a commentator on Fox Business. He traveled by private jet. By the night of the soiree, he had convinced a long list of locals that he was an alum of the Wharton business school; that he had a personal net worth in the billions; that when he wasnt busy with his own exploits, he quietly helped run the family company, too.

Thanks to Hitts platinum-plated last namethe one that built the new Glenstone museum, part of Nationals Park, the W Hotel downtown, and NASAs headquartersthe persona had been a remarkably easy sell. In reality, though, it was a sordid mirage.

Even as Hitt worked the room during Washingtons most glittery weekend, he had yet to pony up for the partyand he never would. Not two months later, he would become the target of a federal criminal investigation. By fall, the FBI would unmask Kiddar Capital as a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme and rebrand Hitt as a shameless con man.

The society types whod found themselves taken with this charismatic new player were aghast. Hitt had stolen from nearly two dozen victims, including some in the upper echelons of Washingtons real-estate community, and stiffed many others. But he was hardly your typical grifter who had to hustle to make a buck. Not even close. Hitts grandparents had launched the family business from their dining-room table in Arlington in 1937. His father, Russell, helped expand it into one of the highest-earning general contractors in the country. Todd Hitt was born already having it all. He apparently just wanted more.

Todd Hitt the billionaire businessman was incarnated some five years ago when, seemingly overnight, he popped up as a real-estate developerhaving spent much of the prior decade as a soccer coach.

He had been a bit of a wanderer professionally. Unlike his older brother, Brett, whod climbed the ranks at Hitt Contracting, Todd Hitt had never worked for the family company. Hed built spec houses around the same North Arlington neighborhoods where hed grown up, but according to a court document, his homebuilding business had collapsed. Hed been coaching since at least the mid-90s and had founded an elite high-school soccer club in Reston. But now solidly into midlife, Hitt suddenly seemed eager to leave his fingerprints on the Washington landscape, the way his family had.

By the summer of 2014, Hitt, then 49 years old, was putting together his first major real-estate deal, targeting a prime but underdeveloped corner in downtown Falls Church, where an Applebees restaurant stood. The market may have been small, but it was ripe for an ambitious new visionand more to the point, an ambitious new visionary. Hitt attached himself to an impressive partner, Insight Property Group, the developer behind projects such as the Apollo/Whole Foods complex on DCs H Street, Northeast. They imagined building more than 70,000 square feet of trophy office space as well as a state-of-the-art home for the local theater Creative Cauldron. The sleepy site, Hitt said, would turn into a commercial hub by day and a cultural destination by night. It was all very exciting, says Creative Cauldrons founder, Laura Connors Hull.

A lot of peoples eyes rolled through the back of their heads. They were just stunned.

Pivoting from travel-soccer coach to commercial developer might sound like a leap. But Hitt was never known to lack nerve. He always had a self-confidence that, when you dont have it, it irritates you, says Quentin Paquette, who met Hitt in second grade and played soccer with him at Arlingtons Yorktown High School. Their coach, Jean-Pierre Bell, remembers: You had to remind Todd that he was not the bossI was the boss.

Hitt didnt waste time letting folks know hed arrived. He began alerting theFalls Church News-Press to his moves around town; flattering stories would then appear, describing Hitts ideas for more local development. He comes with the name. Everybody was impressed by that, says the newspapers owner and editor, Nicholas Benton. He presented himself as the top dog in Falls Church. Not only thatHitt was also touting purported projects in Denver, Miami, Puerto Rico, and other locales. Im a dealmaker, he said.

Soon, there was a more audacious evolution: He was getting into the clubby private-equity business. In 2016, Hitt launched Kiddar Capital, opened an office in Falls Church, and began courting investors. His pitches, typically aimed at acquaintances and friends, were often done over dinner or drinks. To go out to happy hour with Todd, recalls one former friend, you were probably either an investor or a target.

Hitt would promise he had his own skin in the game, according to court documents, to demonstrate his confidence. Hed also toss around the family name. According to a former Kiddar employee, the bosss messaging boiled down to: Im Todd Hitt. Im a billionaire. My familys got this huge company. Trust me.

Many savvy people did, including Washington real-estate executives such as Insight Propertys CEO, Richard Hausler; William Quinby, vice chairman at the commercial brokerage Savills; and Brendan Owen, a chairman at the real-estate advisory Newmark Knight Frank. The reason I invested is the Hitt name, says a local lobbyist. The signs are all over the city. I thought, How could this be bad?

For one of Kiddars first major plays, Hitt targeted Washingtons expanding tech scene, committing $2 million to a new company called Aquicore. Not long after that, he was raising $6 million to buy nearly five acres at the future site of the Silver Line Metro stop in Herndona potentially transformative project for the region. Take a look at this Herndon deal. Its going to be a home run. He said some version of that to me several times, recalls the former friend.

Within a couple of years, Hitt was operating like a heavy. When the Capitals played in the Eastern Conference finals in 2016, he flew his staff to Pittsburgh on a private jet. There were courtside Wizards seats and invitations to his Nats suite. Some Kiddar employees got new wardrobes worth thousands of dollars. He upgraded from a Chevy Tahoe to a Mercedes-Benz SUV and was often chauffeured by his private driver in a Benz sedan. Around the office, he was rumored to be having a Maybach custom-built.

Its not as if luxury cars have much currency in Washington, though. So to be taken seriously by people who might do business with him, Hitt and his staff became fixtures on the charity circuit. I lived at those events, says the former employee. It was all about building up the image.

Hitt would also jet out of town for paparazzi-attended parties in the Hamptons and Los Angeles, accompanied by his mistress Michelle Dolansky, a childhood friend he knew from the soccer world. (They were photographed together all over the country, their relationship an open secret.) Though small in stature, maybe five and a half feet tall, Hitt knew how to consume a room. He dressed for the spotlight, sporting showy wide-lapel suits, sometimes with his aviator sunglasses on indoors.

One year, he donned a white dinner jacket and threw a glitzy bash of his own, called Kiddar After Hours. The venue was the Georgetown Four Seasons, and the honorees were local arts organizations including the Phillips Collection and Wolf Trap. Models passed Champagne, the bars were stocked with Pappy Van Winkle, and Dominican hand-rolled cigars were free for the taking. Hitt invited tech execs, real-estate types, and philanthropistsor as the ex-employee puts it: Everyone around town who he wanted to think he had a lot of money.

Hitt had a way of making any public gesture flamboyant. Once, for an Alexandria nonprofit that runs preschools for low-income kids, he donated $25,000via tweet. When Steve Messeh, executive director of the youth-focused nonprofit Hope Multiplied, heard from a friend that Hitt was someone who could become a significant donor, Messeh invited him to the groups annual gala and placed him at a VIP table. After one of Hitts high-roller seatmates egged him on, Hitt pledged $50,000 on the spotand informed Messeh that he could broadcast the donation to the crowd. A lot of people that give to the organization give anonymously, says Messeh. He was the opposite.

The showmanship reaped dividends. In 2018,Washington Life magazine put Hitt on the cover of its philanthropy issue alongside Carrie Marriott and Cindy Jones, feting them as some of Washingtons most generous givers. When we showed up to the photo shoot, [Carrie and I] said to each other, Wow, we dont even know Todd, recalls Jones, who was then board president of the National Museum of Women in the Arts. He emerged on the scene quite quickly, donating a lot of money. It was kind of unusual.

After Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, Craft Media, the PR firm that repped Kiddar Capital, suggested that Hitt could use his private jet to help. Crafts CEO contacted Puerto Ricos former governor Luis Fortuo, now a partner in the DC office of Steptoe & Johnson, whod been in the press publicizing the desperate need for aid. Hitt and Fortuo flew to Puerto Rico and visited the Ronald McDonald House and a childrens hospital. At some point, they ran into Jos Andrs, the celebrity chef who became a national hero for feeding thousands after the storm. Within days, Kiddar Capital supplied photos of Andrs, Fortuo, and Hitt to accompany feel-good stories in theWashington Business Journaland theFalls Church News-Press.The latter referred to both Andrs and Fortuo as Hitts longtime friends. Through spokespeople, both told me the trip was the only time theyd ever met him.

As Hitts profile rose, his former business partner Dave Mark watched, awestruck. The two had been neighbors in Arlington and, along with their families, had become close. Sometime around 2011, Mark says Hitt approached him with a proposal that they go in on real estate together. Hitt subsequently formed an investment shop called Kiddar Metz, a blend of their childrens initials.

Over the next few years, Mark says he gave Hitt increasing amounts of money for properties Hitt said he was buying: Todd would say, You need it back in a year? Youll get it back in a year. But the returns never materialized. By 2014, Mark and his wife had grown frustrated, and Mark told Hitt he wanted out. Though disappointed that his investments werent paying off, Mark says he wasnt angry.

Then a couple of years later, Hitt rebranded Kiddar Metz as Kiddar Capital, moved into a real office with a real staff, and seemingly began to enjoy wild success. I thought it was a weakness in me, Mark says. I felt like he was doing amazingly well and I missed the boat on it.

Other people whod known previous incarnations of Hitt had even less charmed experiences. In the early 2000s, Lindsay Bowers played on one of the teams in Hitts Reston Football Club. She lodged a complaint with the Virginia Youth Soccer Association alleging that Hitt was verbally abusive. According to disciplinary documents from the case, then-17-year-old Bowers said shed been joking around with a teammate during practice when Coach Hitt shouted at her: Get off my training field, you fing c!

As part of the same proceeding, a male player, Garrett Patrick, alleged that Hitt mistakenly thought Patrick had rolled his eyes at him during a warmup, then got inches away from Patricks face and screamed: If you roll your eyes at me again, Ill f you up, f your family over, and fing knock the teeth to the back of your throat. Youll be in the hospital for so long you wont even know it. (Patrick could not be reached. During the case, his mother backed up his account.)

When Hitt testified before the league adjudicators in 2005, he admitted to yelling at Bowers but claimed hed said, Get your shit and get the f off my training field! He added that hed then mumbled to himself: Fing twat, what am I doing this for?

Hitt was punished, but only briefly. The league suspended him from coaching for six months. After completing a conflict-resolution program, he was allowed backand continued coaching for several more years.

Bowers, who still lives in Washington and is now 33, has a theory for why her old coach never lost his status among the hypercompetitive parents in the local travel-soccer scene. When Hitt was their kids age, hed been one of the hottest college prospects in the nation, then suited up all four years for UVA. He would talk about how many connections he had, all the people he knew, how helpful he could be, says Bowers. He never let us forget that everybody knew who he was.

By the time Hitt had reinvented himself as a financier and civic patron, many of his lies would have been easy enough to disprovesuch as the one about going to Wharton, which took me less than an hour of e-mailing with the school to debunk. Yet through a combination of cunning, luck, and the credibility that came with his last name, Hitt was able to keep up the illusion.

In 2016, for instance, when Kiddar Capital was supposed to deliver the second half of its $2-million investment in Aquicore, the tech startup, Hitt refused to payunbeknownst to his investors. According to a source within Aquicore, Hitt called just before the money was duepurportedly after disembarking from his private plane in England, where he was seeing a soccer gameand pulled an about-face virtually unheard of in the venture-capital world. Even though he had agreed to the terms, he said hed simply changed his mind about the investment. There had already been an impression around the table that he was not a mature or sophisticated investor, says the source. That validated the suspicion. Yet given the companys then-fledgling status, Aquicore decided it wasnt worth the trouble to chase down the debt. Hitts investors remained in the dark.

Messeh, the leader of the youth charity that Hitt had offered $50,000 on the spot, was stiffed and then strung along in a ten-month game of cat-and-mouse over the money. In the middle of it, a Kiddar employee asked Messeh to participate in a photo shoot for aWashington Life ad the firm was buying to coincide with Hitts philanthropy cover. For the ad, Hitt wanted to assemble a group photo showing off all the nonprofits hed supported. Messeh was blown away by the request. Still, after consulting his board, they all decided he should do it, in hopes that the favor would shake loose the $50,000.

On the day of the shoot, at the Washington Golf and Country Club in North Arlington, Hitt spotted Messeh talking to the other charity executives, Messeh says, and literally made a beeline for me and told me the check is coming any day now. In hindsight, Messeh speculates Hitt was running interference, trying to keep Messeh from telling the others hed yet to receive his donation. It workedMesseh kept quiet, still hoping the check would materialize.

Kiddar employees saw all manner of oddities and didnt speak up, either. The firms website boasted of offices in Houston, London, and Palm Springsnone of which any of the staff had ever seen or communicated with. Their bosss personal life was also mystifying. Theyd seen his wife, Susan, drop by the office, as well as his mistress, Michelle. (During Michelle Dolanskys protracted divorce battle with her ex-husband, she claimed emotional abuse, while he claimed that her years-long affair with Hitt had ruined their family. Dolansky declined to comment for this story. The judge overseeing the case attributed the breakdown of the marriage to Hitt and Dolanskys relationship.)

Most troubling to the staff was that Hitt struggled to make payroll on time. Some months, people would get their checks a few days late. Other times, not at all, so that Hitt wound up having to give them double the next pay period. In times like that, says a former employee, he would just disappear.

Still, they put up with itthey were a small team of mostly twenty- and thirtysomethings, young and relatively inexperienced. About half, including two of Hitts daughters, were focused on marketing. The head of investor relations was an exsuit salesman from Zegna, where Hitt had been one of his best customers.

You cant imagine the sense of betrayal I feel. Its like a burning hole in my gut.

When pay was late, there often wasnt a bookkeeper to talk toKiddar didnt employ one full-time. Even if Hitt was around, staffers werent eager to confront him. A lot of people had a fear of him, says the former employee. For the most part, everyone figured he was good for the money anyway. He was constantly reminding them he was a billionaire. And, they thought, he had a far more established business behind him: Hitt often wouldnt appear at Kiddars offices until lunchtime because, he told them, he spent his mornings working at Hitt Contracting.

Thursday morning, September 20, 2018, some of Kiddars employees were already in the office when a startling goodbye e-mail from the boss popped up in their in-boxes: They were being fired. By that afternoon, Kiddar Capital was dark and locked up.

It had been a strange few months. On the one hand, Hitt had been his usual peacocking self, schmoozing at the White House Correspondents party, sponsoring a black-tie dinner for former General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. Hitt had also just launched a next-level growth strategy for the firm, announcing that he was preparing to size up and go after institutional money.

Yet employees had witnessed an unsettling sequence of events behind the scenes. Hitt had hired a pair of employees to help bring the firm into SEC compliance so it could become the larger operation he was describing. But after only a month, they vanished. Soon, a team of lawyers was in the office, asking for documents and backing up computers, for reasons that were unclear. Around the same time, investors in the Silver Line property were getting anxious, asking for financial updates.

All the employees were like, Oh, my Godwhats going on? says a former staffer. We knew Mr. Hitt was in trouble, but we didnt know exactly the reason Mr. Hitt was in trouble.

Barely two weeks after the mass firing, the explanation was all over the news.

Hitt had surrendered to authorities and was being indicted on eight counts of securities fraud. Throughout the charging documents, the fingerprints of two informants appeared: Employee A and Employee B.

Hitts new hires, it was suddenly clear, had packed up and gone straight to the FBI. Hitt had recruited them to build up the firm, and instead they had taken it down.

According to court documents, what first spooked them was Hitts reluctance to show them the books. Given the nature of their jobs, theyd expected to have access to the firms full financial picture, yet he wouldnt budge. Puzzling together what they could, they realized Hitts boasts that Kiddar had $1.4 billion in assets under management were ludicrously inflated. It looked to them as if the real number was closer to $27 million.

With a little more digging, authorities uncovered a pretty amateur scheme. For instance, with Aquicorethough Hitt had told the tech company he simply didnt want to invest the second million with them, the truth, according to court documents, was that hed blown those investor funds on other costs, including Kiddars overhead and a $2-million house hed built on spec in McLean.

His Herndon Silver Line project became a sort of personal piggy bank. Hitt raised nearly $8 million more than he needed for the deal and then used some of the extra to pay down his staggering credit-card tabs$111,151 in Wizards and Caps charges, $59,220 at the jeweler Bulgari, $11,462 at the Inn at Perry Cabin on the Eastern Shore, $2,897 at the Four Seasons in Georgetown, upward of $86,000 in private-jet rentals and travel, and various other expenses.

And it turned out that for all his talk of skin in the game, he had none of his own money invested. (Hitt declined multiple requests to be interviewed.)

When news of the fraud hit, says Nicholas Benton, the Falls Church newspaper owner, A lot of peoples eyes rolled through the back of their heads. They were just stunned.

Cindy Jones, the philanthropist who had shared theWashington Lifecover with Hitt and Carrie Marriott, felt the same way. I was absolutely shocked, she says. To be honest with you, Carrie and I were both sort of appalled. It was disappointing. You dont even want to be associated with somebody like that.

By the morning of his sentencing, on a blustery day last June, Hitt had already lost both the Arlington home he shared with his wife and daughters and the Mosaic-district townhouse hed kept with his girlfriend. Even so, he still looked the part hed played for years, in an immaculately tailored suit, pumping hands as though hed just arrived at his retirement party. Hey, guys! Thanks for coming, he greeted some friends outside Courtroom 700. Your sister know youre here? You look good!

The wreckage that Hitt wrought is breathtaking: Twenty-one investors say they lost more than $27 million combined. On top of that, Hitts employees, vendors, lenders, and charities hed pledged to support, among others, claim theyre out almost $59 million. The duped include the Washington Ballet, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Halcyon House, the Smithsonian, Hope Multiplied (which never got its $50,000), and Craft Media, the PR firm that helped Hitt cultivate his image.

Other damage is harder to quantify. Such as the stalled revival of Broad and Washington streets, where Hitt made his splashy entre into Falls Church. The corner remains occupied by two rundown office buildings and the Applebeesjust as it was back in 2014 when Hitt was first spinning himself as the areas real-estate savior. It turned out he never really had a personal stake in the property; according to court documents, he covered his share with funds from investors.

I wish I could see inside his brain to understand how somebody could do the things he did, says Dave Mark, Hitts former neighbor and business partner, who claims in court papers that Hitt owes him more than $1 million. You cant imagine the sense of betrayal I feel. Its like a burning hole in my gut.

Before the sentencing, Hitts family sent letters to the judge alluding to reasons why he may have strayed. Hitts sister Tracy Millar told the judge that alcoholism runs in the Hitt family and implied that mental illness was to blame for her brothers actions. His sister Jodi Nash leaned heavily on other family pathologies, describing how tough it had been for Hitt after his college soccer career ended and he didnt find a role in the family company: With my dad, brother Brett, and brother-in-law Jim Millar driving dynamic business growth at Hitt company, and Todds hyper competitiveness in achieving recognition in the business world, he struggled transitioning, she wrote, asking for leniency.

Hitts wife described a fractious dynamic among the Hitt men: I watched how the male members of [Todds] family treated him and have admired how he has dealt with it through the years, despite not receiving proper recognition for his accomplishments. . . . His father and brother were jealous of his talents and sought to undermine him at every turn. (Russell and Brett Hitt wrote brief, generally supportive letters. Through their lawyer, Hitts siblings and parents declined to comment. His wife also declined to comment.)

Or maybe it was soccers fault. In her letter, Hitts wife also wrote that her husband had been diagnosed with a succession of mild traumatic brain injuries from all his years of playing, which she said his doctor had warned could cause erratic behavior.

Would this depiction of Hitt cause the judge to soften? In fact, Hitts lawyers had already cut a deal. He had been unusually cooperative with authoritiesimmediately confessing when he discovered he was under investigation and even volunteering new evidence. Whats more, his family, apparently able to look past how hed dragged their name through more mud than youd find on one of their construction sites, had agreed to give the government $20 million to help repay his victims. As a result, prosecutors had joined Hitts defense in asking the judge to give him six and a half years of jail time for pleading guilty to one count of securities fraud. Not exactly a light penalty, but less than the possible maximum of 20 years.

All that remained was for Judge Leonie Brinkema to hear from Hitt himself, then decide whether to go along with the terms.

Hitt took the podium that morning as a swath of relatives looked on. Im deeply sorry for the pain Ive caused my entire large, loving family, he said, the exuberance drained from his tone. I apologize to the investors, friends, business associates, all my employees, who I cared a great deal about. . . . Its going to take me some time to fully understand how and why I did this, but Ill spend my incarcerated time and probationary time and, in fact, the rest of my life contemplating this and seeking, in my own way, redemption.

By this point, Hitt had racked up a lot of practice convincing smart people to believe in himuseful experience, perhaps. After he finished speaking, Judge Brinkema announced that indeed six and a half years behind bars would do. Youre not the first good person, she said, whos done bad things.

This article appears in theFebruary 2020issue ofWashingtonian.

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Todd Hitt's Shameless Con: How Washington Society Got Scammed by One of Its Own - Washingtonian

General News of Tuesday, 4 February 2020

Source: classfmonline.com

Chairman of The Church of Pentecost, Apostle Eric Nyamekye

The Chairman of The Church of Pentecost, Apostle Eric Nyamekye has bemoaned the level of corruption in the country despite the many churches scattered around every nook and cranny of Ghana.

Our dear nation is full of many churches, yet, corruption has filled the land. This means the Church in this generation is not salty enough to cure the corruption of the land. The church was established to bring a solution to the corruption and not to partake of it, he said.

Apostle Nyamekye, therefore, advised Christians to uphold righteousness, honesty, hard work and faithfulness in their various workplaces and homes so that the fortunes of the nations would be transformed for the better.

Speaking at the Bantama Central Assembly church auditorium during a fundraising event towards the construction of a National Cathedral in Accra, Apostle Nyamekye said the National Cathedral would only meet its intended purpose as a symbol of the Church of God if Christians model righteousness in every sphere of society.

Speaking on the topic: The Church and the National Cathedral, with Ephesians 3:10 as his main scripture reference, Apostle Nyamekye stressed that the church is the most powerful institution in the world established for the transformation of society.

He said that Gods intent for establishing the church is that, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God would be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.

According to the Chairman, these rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms are the forces that govern nations, adding that, political figures are in no capacity to confront such powers; instead, the Church is the only institution equipped to deal with them.

This is why some people come into power with good intentions; however, when they assume office, they fail to live up to expectations. This is because there are forces that govern nations and the ordinary politician has no authority to confront them, he explained.

Among other reasons, Apostle Nyamekye said that the Church is powerful because it possesses the truth, who is Jesus Christ. He said the Church was established by the blood of Jesus Christ and has Jesus Christ as its foundation. Jesus Christ is the Truth that brings liberation, and this Truth can only be found in the Church, he pointed out.

He added that the church is the foundation and pillar of truth; therefore, if the church is immoral, it weakens the truth. The church must, therefore, be the light the shines on darkness.

Touching on the essence of the National Cathedral, Apostle Eric Nyamekye said that the presence of a National Cathedral in the city tells us that God is in the midst of the people. It indicates the true character of the people and reminds the Christian believer who he or she has become in the Lord a temple. It also challenges Christians to live for the truth, and serves as a constant reminder to us that Christ will one day reign in the midst of His people.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has revealed that construction of the national cathedral would officially commence on 5 March this year.

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Ghana full of churches but corruption has filled the land Pentecost Chairman - GhanaWeb

AN HISTORIC Bury church has celebrated its milestone tricentennial birthday.

Bury Unitarian Church recently marked the 300th anniversary of its foundation and of non-conformist worship in the town.

Over the centuries several chapels and buildings have been built and utilised by the church in Bury.

Unitarianism first sprung up in Poland in the 16th century based on the central tenet of rejection of the Trinity God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and instead adhering to a strict monotheistic interpretation of the unity of God.

Within a few decades, various indepedent Unitarian movements emerged in Transylvania, England, Wales and the United States of America, which only later came to be influenced by and shared beliefs, philosophies and practices with one another.

Beyond its repudiation of the Trinity there is no overarching doctrine of Unitarianism, however generally accepted beliefs follow a school of liberal Christianity, such as understanding Jesus as a prophet of God, but not divine, and as one whose life offers the perfect model for emulation.

Followers of Unitarian Churches also believe in human free will, of basing beliefs on rational enquiry, and that the bible was written by human authors and is subject to human error; as well as rejecting concepts of Original Sin, predestination and eternal damnation.

The 17th century saw the continuation of a chronic a period of religious upheaval throughout England and Europe punctuated by devastating wars and oppression as various sects of Protestants and Catholics vied for religious and political supremacy out of which the Unitarian Churches were born.

In 1662, Lancastrian Revered Henry Pendlebury of Holcombe became one of hundreds of Church of England clergymen to be ejected from their parishes after he refused to accept the revised Book of Common Prayer.

He would go on to spend the next 25 years preaching illegally at various venues around the county, including in a barn owned by Bury man Richard Kay.

Following the moderate relaxation of restraints posed on dissenting protestantism granted by the Toleration Act of 1688, Rev Pendlebury formed a congregation at Kays home at Bast House in Walmersley.

This congregation eventually led to construction of what would become the first Unitarian chapel in the centre of Bury, located in Silver Street.

The church was founded by four members of the dissident Lancastrian congregation, Richard Kay, Samuel Wareing, Robert Wareing and Richard Hampson; and was completed in 1719.

Over the succeeding decades the church moved away from the Trinitarianism preached by Rev Pendlebury, and with Reverend William Allard, appointed in 1803, eventually evolved into a true Unitarian congregation.

A Sunday school housed in a warehouse off Silver Street was added to the church in 1805, and as the congregation grew a new chapel was built in the location now occupied by The Exchange office block. This chapel was shortlived, however, and after being deemed unsafe was demolished to be replaced by a third chapel in Bank Street in 1852.

The second half of the 19th century also saw expansion of the day school and the opening of a sister church in Chesham.

By the turn of the 20th century the church also boasted a lively social community hosting picnics, Whit Walks, parties and bonfires.

The twin churches and Sunday school continued until 1969 when they amalgamated and were sold off for development to fund construction of a fourth church on the area previously used as the Bank Street chapels carpark.

Named Bury Unitarian Church the new building opened in March 1974 and is still in use today.

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LOOKING BACK: 300 years of Unitarian Church movement in Bury - Bury Times

Amateur videos purportedly showing a group of people vandalizing what appears to be a mosque over an alleged permit issue in the predominantly Christian Agape housing complex in Tumaluntung village, North Minahasa regency, North Sulawesi, on Wednesday evening have emerged on social media.

The incident is believed to have taken place on Wednesday night.

In one of the videos uploaded by Twitter user @MohCipto1 a group of individuals can be seen taking apart furniture and fixtures while wearing shoes and sandals inside the building. They appear to be followed by onlookers who record the incident on their smartphones.

Separate footage recorded from a different angle purportedly shows a group of men causing a ruckus while taking apart metal fences surrounding the buildings courtyard and damaging some of its walls, which appear to be made of plywood.

The footage also briefly shows a banner put up in front of the building, which reads, We residents of Tumaluntung village oppose the construction of this mushola/mosque in our area because 95 percent of the residents around the mosque are non-Muslims; we dont want loudspeakers to disrupt our everyday lives; and we dont want to be charged with blasphemy for complaining about the noise.

Another video uploaded by @MT_Reborn purportedly shows North Minahasa Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Grace Krisna D. Rahakbau alongside men in Muslim attire addressing the crowd in front of the mosque. She urges the crowd to calm down as local authorities had secured the scene and promises to swiftly bring those involved in the alleged vandalism to justice.

The news has garnered strong reactions from Muslims on social media, with some calling the act barbaric and uncivilized.

Yusra Alhabsyi, the head of Nadhlatul Ulamas (NU) youth wing GP Ansor in North Sulawesi and member of the provinces legislative council, told local news portal beritamanado.com that he condemned the act of destruction.

Apprehend [the perpetrators] in 24 hours at the latest, Yusra said, while urging the North Minahasa Police to begin a mediation process among local religious figures to defuse tensions.

Lets maintain peaceful diversity in North Sulawesi dont let the actions of a few people ruin our harmony.

The building, identified on Google as Al-Hidayah Mosque, has been thesubject of controversy among local residents in recent years.

A viral video uploaded last year shows a local village figure sealing the building as she claims it lacks an official permit as a place of worship. A local resident in charge of construction of the building, however, claimed that the building was actually a "public meeting hall" for Muslims, according to beritamanado.com.

Building permits for houses of worship remain a contentious issue, with churches across the country being sealed off after failing to obtain permits, even despite years of compromise.

The regent of Bantul in Yogyakarta, Central Jakarta, refused to reconsider his decision to revoke a building permit for the Indonesian Pentecostal Church in Sedayu district in July last year.

In Jambi, local Christians prepared forChristmas in makeshift outdoor spaces as a number of local churches including the Assemblies of God Church (GSJA) remained sealedoff as of last December. (rfa)

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Videos surface purportedly showing vandalization of N. Sulawesi 'mosque' - The Jakarta Post - Jakarta Post

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

Anthropologist Margaret Meads quote still holds true. And nowhere is that more apparent locally than in Sag Harbor, where April Gornik and Eric Fischl have given generously of their time, talent, know-how, and cash to bring the arts and the history of the village even more to the forefront.

While Gornik is currently taking the lead midtown with the Sag Harbor Cinema, Fischl is busy uptown with the new Prime House Writers Retreat at 31 Madison Street, and, diagonally across from that, the old Methodist Church now known simply as The Church which has been gutted in preparation for its new role as an arts and culture center.

If its possible for a space to be both cozy and cavernous at the same time, architect Lee Skolnick has created it. Construction is well-underway; Fischl is hopeful for a late-April, mid-May finish. In anticipation of that, Sara Cochran has been named as the executive director and chief curator of The Church.

But in the meantime, while still in the nuts and bolts phase, the religious past and the art-as-religion future have intersected within the walls of the former house of worship, particularly in the soaring Arts and Crafts Mission-style windows that could have been designed by Gustav Stickley himself.

The center of each of the 20 windows has a large square of glass; it is there, explained Fischl, where the arts saints of Sag Harbor, the dead saints, will be canonized.

And not only the visual artists, but the literary artists are included.

Of course theres Herman Melville. And John Steinbeck. They have to have had, genuinely, national or international impact, Fischl said as he held up his portrait of Melville in front of the window, the light streaming through the authors beard. He acknowledged that, at first, I thought we might be stretching it with 20.

He smiled. So far, were up to 150 who fit the description.

It goes all the way back, he continued, to James Fenimore Cooper in around 1820 who married a DeLancey with Sylvester roots (think Shelter Island), and spent enough time out in Sag Harbor to praise it excitedly 30 years later in his book The Sea Lions. From then on, artists and writers came to the East End in droves, many taking up residence in Sag Harbor village.

Fischl said he would paint the first 20 saints before handing the baton, or brush, to another artist, perhaps one of the artists-in-residence of The Church, which, when complete, incorporates a few simple bedrooms along with a private living area off the main community space.

Fischl sees The Church being an anchor for the old whaling village. Youve got Bay Street down on the wharf, he said. Now youll have the cinema for film and film education, and at this end, the writers retreat and The Church. He spoke about community outreach and arts education in the schools, but also, reinventing Sag Harbor as an arts tourism hub. Instead of coming to town for the restaurants, or the water, people will actually come here for the art.

The exposed beams of the church some of which are inscribed with initials and dates long past vibrate with astounding energy, and why wouldnt they? For over 150 years, hymns resonated throughout the space as church-goers prayed and looked heavenward.

Fischl looked up, at the church bell which can be spied through the beams. The space is sacred, he said reverentially. And art is also sacred.

Then he smiled again and pulled on the bell rope, hard, and the sound that pealed forth sounded like the start of something exhilarating.

For more information on The Church and the Prime House, visit http://www.sagharborchurch.org.

bridget@indyeastend.com

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Eric Fischl And The Saints Of Sag Harbor - Hamptons Independents

A FIERCE dispute is currently raging between a heritage group and an oat drink company.

The Brighton Society claim Oatly have unlawfully unfurled a huge advert on the front of St Peter's Church in Brighton.

The group, which seeks to "promote high standards of planning, architecture and design" in the city, claims planning permission is needed to display the advert.

This follows the brand having painted a large mural on a wall at the corner of Church Street and Gardner Street in November last year.

Brighton and Hove City Council demanded the advert was removed as no permission had been given.

A spokesman for the Brighton Society said: "We understand no permissions were given to Global Street Art Agency, Oatly's media provider.

"Oatly's Church Street ad was unauthorised and now this ad is.

"For an ethical company they seem to acting unethically in the public realm."

But Oatly responded denying any wrongdoing.

A spokesman said: "Weve often used construction sites with scaffolding as ad spaces since we believe this to be both convenient and non-intrusive (as the building more or less would be covered either way).

"There are ongoing conversations between the church and the council and its common practice to allow posting during this time.

"If not, councils may request banners to be removed and theres been no such request."

Brighton and Hove City Council stated that no rules or regulations had been breached in the display of the advert.

A spokesman said: "Consent to display advertisements on the site expired last year.

"However, any advertisement displayed there still benefits from deemed consent under advert regulations.

"We are currently dealing with a new application to renew the temporary consent."

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Brighton Society want Oatly's advert on St Peter's Church removed - The Argus

By Shona Adhikari

New Delhi, Jan 30 (IANSlife): This is about Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu, the gateway to the southern part of India. Like other cities in India Chennai too has had to change but interestingly, this large and undoubtedly splendid city, despite its ever growing population, it always seems to have room for more.

Its 150-foot lighthouse has always been the best view of the city and harbor, from the 150 ft lighthouse on the vast Marina Beach. A beach unlike the beaches in other states it is not always packed with people and filled to over-flowing. In fact at certain times in the day, it may seem almost deserted. But like the sea breeze that cools the city every evening, the beach is busier than before and modernity is bringing in fashions and activities into this normally sedate city these days.

The winds of change blew slowly and differently in sedate Chennai. In a way historically, it happened when the city donned a new name - giving up its old name Madras and was re-christened Chennai. The change in the name meant that it was no longer named after 'Madrasapattinam', which was the British settlement but was named Chennai after the parallel local area known as 'Chennapattinam.

With the past of many decades, the hamlets that had integrated to form Madras have witnessed phenomenal growth but despite this, Chennai continues to be a comparatively laid back city in comparison to other Indian metros. This has much to do with the sense of pride and aesthetics that come naturally to the dignified people of Tamil Nadu.

The erstwhile city of Madras is less than 400 years old, but gives the feeling of having been around for much longer. The British reached the area fairly early in their occupation of India and left traces of their military might at Fort St George and their religious presence at St Mary's Church said to be the oldest Anglican Church.

However Christianity appears to have been in the area many years earlier - in the16th century Portuguese explorers are known to have built a church over the tomb of St Thomas - one of the 12 Apostles of Jesus - which was known as the San Thome Church. In 1893, the British rebuilt it giving it the status of a Cathedral. Designed in the neo-gothic style, this is one of the few known churches in the world, to have been built over the tomb of an apostle of Jesus. The St Thomas Cathedral Basilica located on the hillock St Thomas Mount, is also known as the International Shrine of St Thomas and draws pilgrims from all over the world.

Chennai can be said to have grown from a combination of villages that were gradually added to the original British settlement. These were either annexed or rented from erstwhile rulers, or given as grants, forming the different areas that are part of the Chennai that we see today. The very first village to be added was Triplicane, an area given on rent by the Ruler of Golconda, followed by more areas such as Egmore, Nungambakkam, Vepery, Tiruvottiyur, Tondiarpet, Vyaasarpuri, Ennore, Periapet, Perambur and others - each bringing its own historical and traditional values. Among the newest to be added post the two World Wars, were Adyar, Guindy and Saidapet. Some of the complex history of the growth of Chennai, may be seen at the Museum.

The White Town', was the area where the English settled down and in 1644, built a fortress, which came to be known as Fort St George. It was the very first Fortress built in India by the British and in time became the coastal city of Madras leading up to the modern city of Chennai. The construction of the fort led to further settlements and plenty of trading activity, in a location that had so far been uninhabited land. Needless to say, the Fortress was the centre of all the activity. Even today, Fort St George continues to be part of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly and other official activities.

The East India Company which had entered India in 1600 for trading activities already had a license for trading at Surat. But to secure their trade lines they felt the need of a port closer to the Malaccan Straits to trade in spices. They managed to buy a piece of coastal land originally known as Chennirayarpattinam'(orChannapatnam') where they began construction of a harbor and a fort. The Fort was built at a cost of 3,000 pounds and completed on 23rd April 1644.Coinciding with St George's Day, the patron saint of England, the Fort was named Fort St George, in his honour.

Soon, the Fort became the hub for plenty of activity, with a new settlement known as George Town. It was this area that faced the sea and fishing villages that went on to add villages that grew to form the city of Madras. It was also from here that the English established their influence over Carnatic and kept at bay, the rulers of Arcot and Srirangapatna as well as the French Forces in Pondichery. In 1665, the fort was enlarged and strengthened with an enlarged garrison, after hearing the news of the formation of the French East India Company.

The Fort with its 20ft tall walls the British were able to withstand a number of attacks during the 18th century. However it was briefly in the possession of the French from 1746, but was restored to England under a Treaty in 1749. The Fort now serves as one of the administrative headquarters for Tamil Nadu and still houses a garrison of troops in transit to various locations in South India and the Andamans. The Fort Museum contains many relics of the Colonial era, including portraits of many of the Governors of Madras, maintained by the Archeological Survey of India with the administrative support of the Indian Army.

Actually The St. George Fort has two sections that are worth seeing - the St. Mary's Church and the Fort Museum. St. Mary's Church is the oldest surviving church built by the British in India as well as the oldest Anglican Church in India. St. Mary's Church is said to be the oldest Anglican church - "East of the Suez' and the oldest British building in India. It is said have been built in 1680 when those who lived in the fort needed a place of worship. The church was built with voluntary contributions from the English who lived at the fort. It was planned to be "80 feet long, 50 feet broad and built with 3 aisles arched with brick and stone".

Work on this charming building began on March 25, 1678 and the church was established in 1680. It has certainly stood the test of time very well. The tombstones in its graveyard are said to be the oldest in India. Another interesting structure is a 150 ft tall Flagstaff, made entirely of teakwood. Special in many ways, the St Mary's Church is quite famous and has often been referred to as the 'Westminster Abbey of the East'.

However, one of the most striking buildings here is the Fort St. George Museum. It houses the relics of the British personnel who inhabited this fort. The construction of the building was completed in 1795 and served as the Madras Bank, while the large hallway upstairs served as the venue for public meetings as well as for entertainment. Today, the fort museum showcases a host of artifacts such as coins, medals, paintings, letters, etc, belonging to the colonial period. The banqueting hall Wellesley House is named after Richard Wellesley, the Governor-General of India. The 14.5 ft tall marble statue of Lord Cornwallis (1738-1805) carved by Thomas Banks, is considered a rare masterpiece of art. Carved in England, it managed to survive the rough seas and reached India safely.

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The Gateway to the South - Daijiworld.com

Mikhail Mishustin was struggling. Drenched in sweat and tripping over himself, he wasnt a natural ice hockey player.

I dont know whether hed played before, but it was clearly very hard for him, Dimitri Elkin, CEO of Twelve Seas Investment Company, said of the man just named Russias new prime minister. Hes not the most athletic guy; hes a bit on the heavy side. But he just kept going, and I was like: Wow, this guy has some willpower.

The year was 2009. Like Elkin, Mishustin, now 53, was a managing partner at the Moscow-based investment group UFG Asset Management. Two years earlier, Mishustin had also begun organizing exhibition hockey games that were attended by some of Russias most powerful people.

The games were a precursor to a more formalized league that President Vladimir Putin would create in 2011: the Night Hockey League. In ensuing years, it would become a fraternity for Russias elite, like golf in the U.S. As political analyst Andrei Kolesnikov told AFP last week, the league has become like a masonic lodge.

I have no doubt that him being there being one of the boys was a factor in him getting where he is now, said Elkin. Mikhail is really good at knowing who the right people are.

When Putin appointed Mishustin to head the Russian government earlier this month, after setting into motion what appears to be a succession plan with a raft of proposed changes to the Constitution, the move came as a surprise. Having spent the past decade serving as Russias tax chief without voicing any greater political ambitions, Mishustin was quickly labeled a technocratic placeholder.

If Mishustin has aims beyond the role of prime minister, they have been difficult to tease out. But interviews with nearly two dozen of his acquaintances, business associates, former classmates and colleagues paint a more nuanced picture: one of an ambitious figure who knows how to work the system and has always put himself in position to climb up the next rung on the ladder.

As the dust has settled in recent days, some political analysts are wondering if the little-known systems engineer might be in the running to be the successor to the man who has ruled Russia for the past two decades.

Mishustin is certainly not a placeholder prime minister, but a fully-fledged member of the cast of successors for the role of president, Alexander Baunov of the Carnegie Moscow Center wrote on Facebook. His relative obscurity should not exclude him. Vladimir Putin himself was a little-known official until the moment [Boris] Yeltsin appointed him to three high posts one after another.

Born and raised just outside the Russian capital, Mishustin completed a degree in systems engineering at Moscow State Technological University in 1989. Former classmates remember him as gregarious, someone around whom social life would orbit.

He had many friends and always liked being in a group, said Andrei Morozov, a Moscow-based IT consultant who graduated the same year.

After staying on to complete a graduate degree in 1992, Mishustin found work with the International Computer Club. Formed by a group of Soviet scientists in 1986 with the approval of the KGB, the non-profit organization was the first to bring Western technology to the Soviet Union. When the Iron Curtain fell in 1991, the floodgates opened.

Basically, it was a marketing operation designed to get Western computer companies to invest in Russia which they did to very good effect, said Esther Dyson, a Swiss-born American investor who worked with the group at the time.

The main way the International Computer Club did this was by bringing professionals together through an annual three-day conference called Russkiy Den, or Russia Day, held around the national holiday in mid-June. Originally hosted in Moscow, it moved to the Black Sea resort of Sochi in the late 90s, running annually until 2015.

Photos from early gatherings show what looks like a typical industry convention anywhere at the time: waitresses in skimpy outfits, tables stacked with bottles, men singing karaoke.

The conference brought together around 150 leaders of Russias burgeoning tech industry. Key players included Arkady Volozh, the billionaire founder of Yandex; Anatoly Karachinsky, the founder of the IBS group, Russias largest computer company; and Olga Dergunova, current Deputy President at state bank VTB, among others.

In addition to top business leaders, the conference attracted high-placed government officials.

It was a democratic space, said Yegor Yakovlev, founder of Tvigle, Russias first online streaming service. We dont really have that anymore.

In the early 90s, Mishustin became close with one high-placed government official in particular: Boris Fyodorov, Russias first finance minister.

Its no secret that he was tight with Boris Fyodorov, that he was his guy, said Sergei Aleksashenko, who served as Fyodorovs deputy at the Finance Ministry from 1993 to 1994.

In 1998, Fyodorov, who by then had become Russias tax chief, handed Mishustin his first role in government as his aide in charge of information systems.

Although Mishustin left the private sector for the public sector, he continued attending Russkiy Den until 2012, according to the International Computer Clubs website, and was a keynote speaker in later years. He also invited more government officials, say regular attendees.

It was an opportunity to talk openly behind closed doors about what was affecting the industry, said Rustem Khayretdinov, deputy general director of InfoWatch, who attended the conferences regularly. Problems like the over-reaching of the siloviki officials with ties to law enforcement.

But if Fyodorov was an openly liberal reformer, those who knew Mishustin in those years said he never discussed his politics.

We didnt talk politics back then, said George Pachikov, founder and CEO of Cortona3D and a friend of Mishustins from the time. We had defeated the main enemy, the communists, and we firmly believed we were on the path toward joining Europe and becoming part of civilization.

Pachikov and Mishustin had grown close through another social group: GP Club, named using Pachikovs initials. A more informal gathering of the IT community whos who, the group met on Thursday evenings in an office in central Moscow and at members houses on special occasions.

The group still retains a Facebook page, featuring photos of its events. Mishustin, who has written several songs for popular Russian singer Grigory Leps, is pictured singing, dancing, playing the piano and draping his arms around friends.

It was a small group of progressive like-minded thinkers, said Marat Guriyev, former director of government relations for Samsung in Russia, and a member of the club.

Guriyev, who served for four years in Boris Yelstins presidential administration, described Mishustin as one of the groups leaders and arguably the smartest of our crew.

The mentality of the club was liberal, pro-Western, pro-open internet, Guriyev added. That was the spirit of the time. Those were the days of freedom.

In 2008, Mishustins key connection Fyodorov brought him into another new world: finance. He offered Mishustin a role at UFG Asset Management, a financial firm he had co-founded with Charles Ryan, an American investor.

Mishustin didnt immediately fit in. He would curse like a sailor, one former colleague at the firm recalled, asking to remain anonymous. And, according to Elkin, he sometimes wore a black shirt with a black suit, sticking out among the conventional investors. Still, he played a key role.

He was quite helpful in making various introductions to Russian oligarchs, Elkin said. He was more of a political figure.

In 2008, Fyodorov, who was now living in London, died from a sudden stroke, but Mishustin was already forging out on his own.

A year earlier he had launched a hockey tournament that included members of the political establishment, including Sergei Naryshkin, now the director of Russias Foreign Intelligence Service. Mishustin continued organizing the competition after he moved to UFG Asset Management in 2008, and the firm became its official sponsor the next year.

With each year, the exhibition hockey games attracted increasingly more powerful people. One game, in 2010, included Russias Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu.

That year Mishustin was named Russias tax chief, stepping into his mentors shoes. With several years in finance under his belt, he was counted as one of the top three richest Russian officials.

Over the following decade, Mishustin won plaudits for his transformation of Russias tax system. Last year, the Financial Times published a glowing review of his work with the headline: Russias role in producing the taxman of the future.

Mishustin also started to fashion himself after a Putin-era Russian official by aligning himself with the Orthodox Church. In recent years he has gotten involved with his own local branch in the Moscow suburbs, where many members of Russias business and political establishments are based. Last week, BBC Russian reported that, in 2017, the church presented Mishustin with the Patriarchal medal for church construction.

BBC Russian also reported, however, that the money for the work was donated in his sisters name and that she owns up to 1 billion rubles ($16.1 million) in real estate. Critics like opposition leader Alexei Navalny have seized on what they have taken to be hidden wealth, as they say is the case with many Putin officials.

Some of Mishustins early moves as prime minister have also riled Russian liberals.

Last week, he ordered that salaries of police officers in Moscow and St. Petersburg who maintain order during street protests should be doubled.

Effective manager, updated government? Navalny ally Lyubov Sobol wrote on Twitter. Actually just the same thievery, that hates its own people and despises laws.

In interviews with The Moscow Times, members of Russias IT and business communities welcomed Mishustins appointment. Pointing to his stance in the 90s and early aughts, as well as his work as tax chief reforming an inefficient system, they hope he can do the same with a bigger platform.

The Mishustin of the 90s may no longer exist, however, as his career arc has in some ways hewed to Russias development since the fall of the Soviet Union. If the zeitgeist of that time was an openness to the West, Mishustin might only have embodied that spirit as it was the status quo.

He didnt have an internal doctrine to speak of, Ilya Ponamoryov, an entrepreneur turned exiled former opposition State Duma deputy, who was a member of GP Club, said by phone from Kiev.

And as Russia has grown increasingly isolationist, even developing a so-called sovereign internet that could cut its networks off from the rest of the world, observers may very well wonder what the prime minister, who has not laid out his political views since his appointment, now believes.

A clue could lie in what a former colleague at UFG, who asked not to be named, underscored: that Mishustin is a systems engineer in all senses of the phrase.

Everything else about him is derived from this: He understands systems and how to work in them, the former colleague said.

For now, Mishustins main mandate will be to spur Russias sputtering economy. Described by former colleagues in interviews with The Moscow Times as a tough guy who can be a strict manager when needed, a government source recently told the Financial Times that Mishustin has already axed unwanted officials from the previous government without even giving them time to collect their belongings.

That toughness has left old acquaintances curious as to how Mishustin will approach his new role.

One the one hand, hes very loyal, said Elkin. On the other hand, hes not a lapdog. Its an interesting contradiction.

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How Mishustin Rose to the Top: Old Ties, Savvy and a Knack for Systems - The Moscow Times

January 25, 2020

By: Dustin Comm, Maranatha Volunteers International

The New Testament in the Bible is filled with stories of the apostle Paul and other missionaries traveling by foot, by boat, and any other means of transportation necessary to spread the gospel to the world.

Today, in the Shimukuni district of Zambia, Eddie Himoonde lives out this tradition while pastoring 55 Seventh-day Adventist congregations, spread out over nearly 125 miles, with no transportation.

Sometimes I take maybe a week or two weeks just walking to the furthest church because I dont have a car, I dont have a motorbike I walk, Himoonde says. And sometimes members come and pick me up on their motorcycle. They cycle me to that church. But if no ones having even a bicycle in that area, then I have to walk through, sleep on the way, wake up in the morning, and continue moving until I reach to that church.

Because his territory is vast and he has so many congregations to care for, Himoonde only sees each group once a year. When he visits, he focuses on training the members to carry out the work without him.

The 11,260 members in Himoondes territory love to worship together and praise God, but with limited resources available, most do not have a church building.

Some of them are still worshiping under trees. Some of them just cut the grass and make some shelter around, and they begin to worship from there because they love their Lord, Himoonde says.

Many church members there are passionate about spreading the gospel but are often hindered by the lack of a church building.

[This is] the challenge that I face when such incidences happen where we evangelize, maybe a public campaign, and people give themselves [to God], Himoonde says. But when they come to the actual church, they find that actually where we are worshiping is not conducive. There are no seats. They are worshiping under the tree or maybe on the grass.

Last year, Maranatha Volunteers International, a non-profit organization that works in conjunction with the Seventh-day Adventist Church to provide structures for worship and education around the world, began building churches in Zambia for the second time, after having worked in the country from 2009 to 2015. Recently, Maranatha constructed several churches in Himoondes district, and the members are grateful.

Lilian Naluminoz is a church member at the Lwendge Seventh-day Adventist Church. She has been active in spreading the gospel to her neighbors. This structure will even change many lives of people, because what they were crying for has now come, Naluminoz says. God has answered our prayers through you. And I think next time [you visit], we shall have more members than we have right now.

Having a proper structure in this area is evangelism on its own, Himoonde says. Because like now [what] we are doing here at Lwendge, Maranatha is giving us this structure, it becomes easier for me even to evangelize because just the structure on itself will be preaching to the people around here. Already, people are coming and seeing what is happening. They just heard the noise here, the works that are going on. People are asking, What is happening there? What is happening there? Then they believe that now we are worshiping a true God because they have given us a structure. And then the people will just come on their own.

It might look simple in their eyes, but it is big in this community, Himoonde says. Because it has never happened before. The people have never seen such a structure here. You see, even the houses around [here], there are no iron sheets. You just use the grass and stuff. So when they see just this simple structure, it's not as simple as it may look. It is big. It will go a long way.

Evangelism in Zambia is also strong through Adventist education. In the fourth-largest city of Kabwe lies the only Adventist school in the province, where 65 percent of the 550 students or their families are not church members. Every day, students are taught about Jesus and a God who loves them, and families are eager to have their children enrolled because of the high quality of the education.

But the draw is more than academic; there is a level of care and direction students receive at Kabwe that is unmatched in the area. Mawuse Michello is the school chaplain and provides spiritual direction not only to students and staff but for parents as well.

We do works like counseling for both staff members and pupils, Michello says. And even parents when they do see fit. We do talk to parents when they come to get reports for their children, and they do visit our office as well just to help them understand that we need a balance between the homeschooling and the actual space that we have here, between the teacher and the child.

Yet, even with a great program and support staff, the school is limited in how widely they can share their mission. They have outgrown their capacity classrooms are crowded, and the school cannot accept new students.

Parents, they really want to take their children at Kabwe Adventist School, says parent Chileshe Steward. But there is no space and the staff they have restricted themselves in growing their number. They have put a control measure there. They dont just accept anyone because of their space.

In 2018, Maranatha Volunteers International agreed to build a new elementary campus for the Kabwe school, which will give more space for current students and provide more children with the opportunity for Adventist education. Construction began in 2019, with 132 volunteers helping to construct eight buildings, including an administrative office and bathrooms. When the final structure was complete, volunteers participated in a dedication ceremony, cutting a ribbon for each building and offering prayer for the students who would come through their doors in the future.

This school, it is God Himself that is building it, says school manager Peter Moyo. But He cannot come from heaven to come and mold bricks. But through His agents, Hes able to do that. So the coming of Maranatha International, its not a human dream. No, God Himself puts things in place. He has got a plan for everything, and at every moment, He puts things in place. And they just fit in.

This new campus will do more than expand the school. It has the potential to bring unknown numbers of students to God for years to come. Michello realizes that this new campus is a gift of eternal proportions.

When you go into the new campus, you see the new buildings that are coming up, it actually gives you hope that we have more space and more doors that are open to allow pupils to come through, Michello says. And the beauty of it is, for every child that will go through, theyll have an opportunity to meet Christ in the classroom. So the more blocks you have, the more opportunities for Christ you have to expose Him to the community at large.

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How Churches and Schools in Zambia are Fulfilling the Gospel Commission - Adventist Review

A pair of Indiana union representatives have pleaded guilty to beating a group of McHenry County-based ironworkers at a church in 2016.

Former Ironworkers Union Local 395 President and business agent Jeffrey Veach and his fellow business agent, Thomas Williamson Sr., accepted plea deals Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana in the Hammond division.

Each man pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy to commit extortion, the charges of which stemmed from a January 2016 attack that broke the jaw of an employee of the union-based company D5 Iron Works, court records show.

Sometime before the confrontation, Veach and Williamson learned that D5 was completing a construction job for a Baptist church in Dyer, Indiana, federal plea agreements show. According to Veach and Williamsons plea agreements, the church site was within Local 395s territory, but D5 did not have a labor contract with the union.

On the morning of Jan. 7, 2016, Veach and Williamson visited the church in an attempt to persuade the D5 owner to either sign up with Local 395 or stop work on the job, records show.

When the owner refused, Williamson called the man profanities, grabbed his jacket and threatened to take things back to old school, plea documents show.

Williamson and Veach later returned to the job site with more union members that afternoon and struck several D5 employees with loose pieces of hardwood, kicked and punched them.

One D5 worker was hospitalized as a result of the attack and required several surgeries for a broken jaw, according to the plea deal.

Both Williamson and Veach face between two and 4 years in prison. The U.S. probation office must complete individual pre-sentence investigations into the backgrounds and current circumstances of both men before a sentencing hearing is set.

Neither mans attorney could be reached for comment Friday.

A related federal lawsuit has been on hold since June awaiting the outcome of the criminal proceedings.

According to the 20-count civil complaint, Local 395 employees wore steel-toed boots and shouted This is union work! This is 395s work! This is 395s territory and Dont come back! at D5 employees during the attack.

Robert Hanlon, the attorney representing D5 Iron Workers in the lawsuit, could not be reached for comment Friday on how Veach and Williamsons guilty pleas might affect the federal lawsuit.

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Indiana union reps plead guilty to beating McHenry County-based ironworkers over church job site - Northwest Herald