On July 4th, Americans celebrate life, liberty and the pursuit of hot dogs

Children in costumes march down Main Street during the annual Fourth of July parade in Barnstable Village on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, U.S., July 4, 2018. REUTERS/Mike Segar

By Peter Szekely

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Americans celebrated their nation’s 242nd anniversary of independence on Wednesday, with concerts, parades and a voracious display of hot dog-eating prowess in New York, as many cities and towns prepared for traditional fireworks displays after sundown.

At the White House, President Donald Trump planned to host a picnic for military families on the South Lawn during the afternoon, a few hours before fireworks were scheduled to light up the National Mall.

Independence Day festivities scheduled for Washington featured a concert by the National Symphony Orchestra on the lawn of the Capitol. “Margaritaville” singer Jimmy Buffett, The Temptations, The Beach Boys and Luke Combs will also perform.

The Fourth of July holiday marks the adoption of the Declaration of Independence by congressional delegates in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776.

The document declared the young nation’s independence from Great Britain and advanced the principle “that all men are created equal,” and had “certain unalienable rights” including “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

More than two centuries later, however, it was the pursuit of hot dogs that defined the holiday at Coney Island on the waterfront of New York’s borough of Brooklyn, where Nathan’s Famous held its 46th annual hot dog-eating contest.

Joey Chestnut once again dominated the competitive eating spectacle. The 34-year-old from San Jose, California, won his 11th “Mustard Belt” by downing an astonishing 74 wieners -topping the record of 72 he set last year.

In the women’s division, Miki Sudo, 32, of Las Vegas, won her fifth title by putting away 37 hot dogs.

Heat and humidity hung over the competition, as well as much of the country. The National Weather Service issued heat advisories for the Plains states eastward to the Mid-Altantic region. Temperatures were expected in the 90s with the humidity making it feel like 105 to 110 degrees Fahrenheit (40-43 degrees Celsius).

On a day that features countless patriotic parades nationally, the pro gun control group Moms Demand Action held several marches around the country, including one in Webster Groves, Missouri, where Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill joined them.

“It was hot! But wonderful,” McCaskill said on Twitter.New York is preparing to put on an evening fireworks display that ranks as the country’s largest, according to Macy’s, the retailer that sponsors the annual event.

More than 3 million spectators and 12 million television viewers are expected to watch 75,000 shells illuminate the night sky over the East River to the music of singer Kelly Clarkson.

Bostonians will celebrate with the Boston Pops along the Charles River, joined by pop vocalist Rachel Platten.

Los Angeles is also planning fireworks, as well as a concert and other celebrations at the Hollywood Bowl. Up the coast, San Franciscans can watch fireworks on the bay near the Golden Gate Bridge, if fog does not obscure the show.

In recent years, law enforcement agencies have been on the alert for suspicious activity during the holiday celebrations. Officials said they were taking extra precautions this year, but have not detected any credible security threats.

An Ohio man was arrested on Sunday on suspicion of planning to detonate a bomb at Cleveland’s Fourth of July celebrations.

(Reporting by Peter Szekely in New York; additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; editing by Frank McGurty and G Crosse)

Let the Fireworks begin! Morningside’s Fourth of July celebration begins tonight with Bishop Ron Webb Live stream worship!

Meet and Greet at the Restoration Celebration, July 4th, 2016. Jim and Lori Bakker, Bishop Ron Webb

By Kami Klein

Morningside is excited to Celebrate our Nation’s birthday and the special events begin in full swing on Tuesday night, beginning at 7 pm Central as our special guest Bishop Ron Webb shares a special message celebrating God’s blessing for this nation during our evening worship!  

Tomorrow night, Wednesday July 4th at 7 pm Central, join us again for another live event when Cindy and Mike Jacobs share a special Independence Day worship service on Grace Street.  Join us by tuning in to our Jim Bakker Show website or the PTL Television Network website.

We would love for you to be at Morningside for our annual Fourth of July activities but if you can’t be here,  this is a wonderful way to join us in worship together and share the incredible ministry of both Bishop Ron Webb and Cindy and Mike Jacobs!  

Let us praise God for his anointing upon this country!  We will be praying with you for the leadership of the United States and for the Lord’s wisdom upon them for the many difficult decisions that lie ahead.

Please never forget how important you are to all of us here at Morningside and remember…

God loves you… He really does!  Have an incredible 4th of July!

 

Get Ready for a Big Smiles and a Happy Family 4th of July at Morningside!

Fireworks at Morningside 7-4-17

By Kami Klein

It’s time again for our annual 4th of July Celebrations at Morningside!  On Wednesday July 4th we hope you will join us for this All Day, FREE event celebrating the birth of our Nation!  

Your day at Morningside will be filled with Amazing music, Worship, Giveaways, a Free Picnic Lunch and our beautiful Firework Display to top off the day!  

Beginning at 10:30 am, please join us for our pre-show on Grace Street for incredible gospel music with award winning Tammy Sue Bakker!

Mike and Cindy Jacobs

Mike and Cindy Jacobs

At 11 am We will be celebrating the return of our amazing guests Cindy and Mike Jacobs for a very special taping of The Jim Bakker Show!  Cindy Jacobs is a respected prophet who travels the world ministering not only to crowds of people, but to heads of nations. Perhaps her greatest ministry is to world influencers who seek her prophetic advice. Mike Jacobs is Co-founder of Generals International with his wife, Cindy. Generals International is a prayer-based organization that exists for the purpose of changing lives and transforming nations. Mike and Cindy are passionate about the message that God cares about every individual, He cares about every nation, and He still speaks to us today. Mike and Cindy are the perfect guests to celebrate our 4th of July event!

4th of July on Grace Street, Morningside

4th of July on Grace Street, Morningside

Following the show, around 3pm,  we will board shuttles to head down  to Peaceful Valley for a patriotic picnic lunch and meet and greet with Pastor Jim and Lori Bakker!  They look forward every year to spending this time with you!  

At 7 pm we’ll be back on Grace Street for an inspirational evening service led by Cindy and Mike Jacobs! Coming together for this time of worship means so much to us and every year our hearts fill with the Holy Spirit as we celebrate the love of Christ and for God’s hand on this nation!

Finally, at 9 pm, gather your family and friends together for oohing and aahing at our absolutely stunning Fireworks display!

This is going to be an All American, Family, 4th of July and we hope you don’t miss it!  

Be sure to come early for the best seats.  Remember, it all begins at 10:30 am Wednesday, July 4th!   

We need to know how many will be joining us for the picnic so please ,Don’t forget to follow this link to RSVP!!  

Happy Birthday America!

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA! The Celebration continues at Morningside! Join us Live!!

American Flag - VOTE

By Kami Klein

Today is the Birthday of the United States of America, a country founded on a firm faith in God.  This is a nation born for freedom!  We have been through war and strife, times that would test anywhere in the world, but with our God nothing is impossible! His continuing hand of blessing upon this country can and will give us strength.  Morningside is celebrating and giving thanks all week long for our 4th of July events!  

On Tuesday afternoon please join us live as we picnic on Grace street where we will be listening to the wonderful  Lindley Creek Bluegrass Band at approximately 3:00 pm, CST.  Later, beginning at 7:00 CST, the evening festivities begin with worship led by the talented James Huey, followed by a very special service with Cindy and Mike Jacobs.  A spectacular fireworks display will begin at 9 pm CST   with all of the Morningside family!  If you are in the neighborhood, we would LOVE to have you there with us!

All of this will be Live on Demand on The Jim Bakker Show website, PTL Television Network website, Roku and Apple TV!  Be sure to check our schedule for more inspirational and educational events for the remainder of this week ending on Saturday night, July, 8th!  

God Bless you on this 4th of July Holiday!  We hope you are spending it with your loved ones.  Please join us as we continue to pray for this amazing nation and for the leadership of this country!  

 

We love you!

 

Spectacular 4th of July Week Begins Saturday at Morningside! Catch many events Live!

Fireworks at Morningside

By Kami Klein

Morningside is ready for our 4th of July Celebration!  Not only are we honoring our country, but we are also joyfully observing Pastor Jim Bakker’s 56 years of ministry! Beginning this Saturday, July 1st, we welcome you to a wonderful week of fascinating and informational preparedness and survival seminars, fantastic guest speakers, a partner’s picnic, a spectacular fireworks display on the 4th, uplifting worship, and so much more !

We hope you are able to make plans to be here with us, but for those who are unable to join us in person, we have great news!  All of our seminars, gospel concerts and worship services will be live streamed for YOU! Our show tapings will not be shown live but you can catch all of our amazing seminar broadcasts as well as worship every night with us on Grace Street! You won’t want to miss a moment!

You can view Live Streaming of these events on The Jim Bakker Show website, the PTL Television Network Website,  or on Roku and Apple TV, just look for the PTL Television Network!  

Don’t forget to check out the entire schedule for this truly inspirational week!

Happy 4th of July from all of us at Morningside!   

Countdown to Independence Day Here at Morningside!

By Kami Klein

Morningside is hard at work creating a Celebration week filled with family, faith, fellowship, and FIREWORKS!  We want to celebrate our great nation in a big way, learning from anointed prophets and teachers, praising God and spending joyful time together!  Begin your mornings with communion and prayer led by Pastor Joe Campbell and end every exciting day with worship, joyful, moving musical performances by James Huey, Tammy Sue Bakker, the PTL Band and singers and truly inspired speakers including Hubie Synn and Bobby Conner to lift your spirits!

We hope you have made plans to join us here for our 4th of July week beginning on Saturday, July 1st and ending the following Saturday, July 8th!  Don’t miss the educational and exciting seminars that will be held each day, hosted by experts such as Ray Gano, John Shorey, Security expert Darren Parker, Bill Whaley, Frank Davis, Michelle Bacarella, Dr. Sherrill Sellman and Chris Fortner.  There will be valuable seminar giveaways every morning too!

Watch a live taping of The Jim Bakker Show on Tuesday the 4th, Wednesday the 5th and Friday the 7th with amazing guests like Cindy and Mike Jacobs, Pat and Karen Schatzline,Tom Horn, Donna Howell, , Jennifer Leclaire Derek Gilbert and more!

And please don’t forget our Partners Picnic that will be held in Peaceful Valley on the 4th of July!  Jim and Lori Bakker will be there for a meet and greet and look forward to sharing this patriotic family time with you!  That night after worship stay with us here at Morningside for an incredible fireworks display!

God Bless America!  And God bless all of our friends to Morningside!

Hope to see you!

 

4th of July Celebration At Morningside!

By Kami Klein

Morningside is ready to light up the skies and celebrate the birth of our country with an entire week of events beginning on Saturday, July 1st until Saturday, July 8th!  With fascinating and informational Preparedness and Survival seminars, fantastic guest speakers, a partner’s picnic on the 4th, a spectacular fireworks display, joyful worship, and so much more, this week promises to be something wonderful for all ages!  

Please join us as we welcome John Shorey, who will be teaching survival classes all week as well as Bill “The Junk Man” Whaley, preparedness expert Dr. Paul Williams, and security expert, Darren Parker. We also have special guests, Mike and Cindy Jacobs, Pat and Karen Schatzline, Tom Horn, Jennifer LeClaire, Donna Howell and Derek Gilbert for live tapings on The Jim Bakker Show as well as other prophetic and knowledgeable speakers who will be making appearances.  We then invite you to come worship with us every night for our evening services led by the remarkable James Huey! Join James as he welcomes amazing speakers such as Bobby Conner and Hubie Synn!  

 

We hope that you will join us as we honor this great country with fun, food, fireworks and fellowship at Morningside! Check out our 4th of July festivities here!

European cities ramp up security for New Year after Berlin attack

German policemen patrol

By Oliver Denzer and Geert De Clercq

BERLIN/PARIS (Reuters) – European capitals tightened security on Friday ahead of New Year’s celebrations, erecting concrete barriers in city centers and boosting police numbers after the Islamic State attack in Berlin last week that killed 12 people.

In the German capital, police closed the Pariser Platz square in front of the Brandenburg Gate and prepared to deploy 1,700 extra officers, many along a party strip where armored cars will flank concrete barriers blocking off the area.

“Every measure is being taken to prevent a possible attack,” Berlin police spokesman Thomas Neuendorf told Reuters TV. Some police officers would carry sub-machine guns, he said, an unusual tactic for German police.

Last week’s attack in Berlin, in which a Tunisian man plowed a truck into a Christmas market, has prompted German lawmakers to call for tougher security measures.

In Milan, where police shot the man dead, security checks were set up around the main square. Trucks were banned from the centers of Rome and Naples. Police and soldiers cradled machine guns outside tourists sites including Rome’s Colosseum.

Madrid plans to deploy an extra 1,600 police on the New Year weekend. For the second year running, access to the city’s central Puerta del Sol square, where revellers traditionally gather to bring in the New Year, will be restricted to 25,000 people, with police setting up barricades to control access.

In Cologne in western Germany, where hundreds of women were sexually assaulted and robbed outside the central train station on New Year’s Eve last year, police have installed new video surveillance cameras to monitor the station square.

The attacks in Cologne, where police said the suspects were mainly of North African and Arab appearance, fueled criticism of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to accept nearly 900,000 migrants last year.

The Berlin attack has intensified that criticism.

In Frankfurt, home to the European Central Bank and Germany’s biggest airport, more than 600 police officers will be on duty on New Year’s Eve, twice as many as in 2015.

In Brussels, where Islamist suicide bombers killed 16 people and injured more than 150 in March, the mayor was reviewing whether to cancel New Year fireworks, but decided this week that they would go ahead.

PARIS PATROLS

In Paris, where Islamic State gunmen killed 130 people last November, authorities prepared for a high-security weekend, the highlight of which will be the fireworks on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, where some 600,000 people are expected.

Ahead of New Year’s Eve, heavily armed soldiers patrolled popular Paris tourist sites such as the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe and the Louvre museum.

In the Paris metropolitan area, 10,300 police, gendarmes, soldiers, firemen and other personnel will be deployed, police said, fewer than the 11,000 in 2015 just weeks after the Nov. 13 attack at the Bataclan theater.

Searches and crowd filtering will be carried out by private security agents, particularly near the Champs-Élysées where thousands of people are expected, authorities said.

Across France, more than 90,000 police including 7,000 soldiers will be on duty for New Year’s Eve, authorities said.

On Wednesday, police in southwest France arrested a man suspected of having planned an attack on New Year’s Eve.

Two other people, one of whom was suspected of having planned an attack on police, were arrested in a separate raid, also in southwest France, near Toulouse, police sources told Reuters.

“We must remain vigilant at all times, and we are asking citizens to also be vigilant,” French Interior Minister Bruno Le Roux told a news conference in Paris, noting that the threat of a terrorist attack was high.

In Vienna, police handed out more than a thousand pocket alarms to women, eager to avoid a repeat of the sexual assaults at New Year in Cologne in 2015.

“At present, there is no evidence of any specific danger in Austria. However, we are talking about an increased risk situation,” Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka said.

“We are leaving nothing to chance with regard to security.”

In Ukraine, police arrested a man on Friday who they suspected of planning a Berlin copycat attack in the city of Odessa.

(Additional reporting by Maria Sheahan in Frankfurt, Kirsti Knolle in Vienna, Teis Jensen in Copenhagen, Isla Binnie in Rome, Sarah White in Madrid, Robert Muller in Prague, Bate Felix and Johnny Cotton in Paris; Writing by Paul Carrel; Editing by Louise Ireland)

Iraqis celebrate first Christmas near Mosul after Islamic State pushback

A Christian woman inspects a home in the town of Bartella east of Mosul, Iraq, after it was liberated from Islamic State militants

By Maher Chmaytelli

BARTELLA, Iraq (Reuters) – A few hundred Iraqi Christians flocked on Saturday to Bartella, a northern town recently retaken from Islamic State, to celebrate Christmas for the first time since 2013.

Bartella, once home to thousands of Assyrian Christians, emptied in August 2014 when it fell to Islamic State’s blitz across large parts of Iraq and neighboring Syria. Iraqi forces took it back in the first few days of the U.S.-backed offensive that started in October.

“It is a mix of sadness and happiness,” said Bishop Mussa Shemali before a Christmas eve ceremony at Mar Shimoni church, which has been badly damaged, with crosses taken down and statues of saints defaced.

“We are sad to see what has been done to our holiest places by our own countrymen, but at the same time we are happy to celebrate the first mass in two years.”

The region of Nineveh is one of the most ancient settlements of Christianity, going back nearly 2,000 years.

Islamic State targeted all non-Sunni Muslim groups living under its rule, also inflicting harsh punishment on Sunnis who wouldn’t abide by its extreme interpretation of Islam.

The region’s Christians were given an ultimatum: pay a tax, convert to Islam, or die by the sword. Most of them fled to the autonomous Kurdish region, across the Zab river, to the east.

It will be some time before people can return to the town which remains without basic services, and many buildings still bear the scars of the fighting.

“This is the best day of my life. Sometimes I thought it would never come,” said Shrook Tawfiq, a 52-year-old housewife displaced to the nearby Kurdish city of Erbil.

The front line in the battle to retake Mosul – Islamic State’s last major stronghold in Iraq, has moved a few kilometers to the west, into eastern districts where the militants are dug in among civilians, fighting off the advance of elite Iraqi units with suicide car bombs, mortars and snipers.

More than one million people are estimated to live in areas of the city that remain under militant control, complicating the war plans of the Iraqi army and the U.S.-led coalition providing air and ground support.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Adrian Croft)

Precious New Addition to Lori’s House!

Lori holds the newest baby to be born at Lori's House

True smiles and hearts full of thankfulness are shining at Morningside as we welcome a brand new addition to Lori’s House! Baby Daniel was born this month! Both he and his Mom are healthy and happy! We are certain that Daniel will be getting lots of attention by the staff as his amazing and loving Mother continues to work hard at bettering her life for the both of them. It is such a blessing to see the vision of Lori’s House come to life!

Lori’s House is a place of ministry, love and healing with it’s main goal to save babies by providing an alternative to abortion and caring for their mothers. This beautiful home sits alongside a lovely stream, and is snuggled in the Ozark Mountains’ Peaceful Valley, just outside of Branson, Missouri.

We are happy to say that Lori’s House has been built debt free through generous and loving donations. There is no charge for a young woman who have been accepted to live at Lori’s house throughout her entire pregnancy. The ministry, through donations, will provide assistance for food, clothing counseling and medical care. Educational classes and job training are also provided.

This home opens its doors with hope for life! Welcome to the world little Daniel!