Rifqa Bary, far from hiding her Christianity, never shut up about it!
What originally seemed to me to be a rather dodgy story now seems dodgier than ever!
In my last post I noted that the family did not appear to be terribly radical, in spite of Rifqa's claims. In my last post I was also reacting to my discovery of Rifqa's rather disturbing style of prayer. (The 'Jesus Camp' style of breaking down in tears while ranting. One commenter on atheism noted her prayer included the words "And the Lord will spit fire".)
Further news on this conference call where she demonstrated her style of prayer is that the Department of Children and Families (DCF) with whom she is in protective custody, had absolutely no idea that this had happened (nor, more worryingly, who could have arranged it):
The Department of Children and Families is trying to figure out who arranged for Fathima Rifqa Bary to join-in on a conference call with "thousands" of people and on which the 17-year-old delivered her testimony and a frenzied prayer.
Rifqa -- the center of national political and religious debate -- has been living at an undisclosed location in state foster care, where she was placed in August.
...
On Monday, DCF spokeswoman Carrie Hoeppner said the state agency "had no knowledge of this until it surfaced. Although she is 17, she remains in protective custody. Neither the Department nor do we believe her parents, gave permission for her participation in this call with strangers, which is of concern to us."
"Right now, we are working to get more background on the video such as when it posted and who arranged it."
Since then, an article has been written based on "court records, police reports, Brian Williams' diary, reporting in Orlando and Ohio, interviews with Rifqa Bary's friends and family, and her words - written on her laptop, said to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and spoken into video cameras and then disseminated on YouTube", so it's been pretty well researched.
First of the most vital points in the essay: Rifqa Bary's family were in the US for her sake.
Home for the Bary family is a second-floor apartment with a tan carpet and two bedrooms. The table in the dining room sits on unsteady legs. The living room couches are draped in blankets to cover the worn upholstery.
This is where Rifqa lived, with her father Mohamed, her mother Aysha, her 19-year-old brother Rilvan and her 6-year-old brother Rajaa. Her father sells jewelry at weekend trade shows around the South and Midwest. Rifqa shared a bedroom with Rilvan. Rent for the apartment: $850 a month.
They're here because of her.
The Barys are from Galle on the southern coast of Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean. When Rifqa was 5 she fell on a toy airplane that pierced the cornea of her right eye. Scar tissue built up over the next couple years. Doctors told the Barys they might have to remove the eye. So they came to New York in 2000 for medical treatment.
Four years later they moved here in large part because of the schools. The district around suburban New Albany is considered one of Ohio's best. It's 80 percent white, 9 percent Asian, 6 percent black. The campus with its red-brick buildings and tall white columns feels almost collegiate. Average income in the district: $185,000 a year.
Second point: Not only was she not expected to join in with daily Islamic prayers, but her older brother also did not partake in prayer:
The Bary parents prayed five times a day. Rilvan did not. Neither did Rifqa.
Third point: She wrote that she was a Christian, carried books about Christianity by fundamentalist authors and even discussed her religious beliefs with her father!
In 2006, she made a babysitting flyer that said she was Christian; in 2007, her father found in her room Rick Warren's Christian best-seller, The Purpose Driven Life.
This sometimes made her parents sad, but not mad, they say - their children were growing up in America, not Sri Lanka, so they understood.
Her father says he told her: "You know, Rifqa, you have a brain of your own, you do whatever is good for you, but you were born Muslim - it's your responsibility to learn that, too."
Fourth point: Not only did the parents blatantly know about her religious beliefs, but she was doing a very VERY bad job of hiding it.
Rifqa was forced to live a secret life of sorts, she has said - to friends, in court files, to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement - praying and reading her Bible in the middle of the night in her room or the bathroom or the porch on the back of her family's apartment.
Her parents say they knew.
At school, meanwhile, she did nothing to hide her faith.
"She'd read her Bible in class," said Tony Hou, a junior at New Albany. "She brought her Bible with her just about everywhere."
It became, he said, one of the things she was known for - her blue Bible, her name written on the front, in shiny silver letters.
Fifth point: It's official. The Christian group she has joined is full of apocalyptic nutcases.
And at some point she started reading the Facebook writings of an Ohio State student and an aspiring pastor named Brian Michael Williams.
In Williams' writings, evolution is bunk, abortion is murder, Armageddon is near. He said he needed "an army of prayer warriors" for the end of days.
Rifqa grew to consider Williams a friend and a mentor. She started last spring proselytizing students at school. Her father scolded her for it, he said, because it was against school rules.
At home, when Rilvan had friends over, she started coming out of her room and telling them about the Bible, saying they were listening to "demonic" music.
Sixth point: Descriptions of her baptism seem rather bizarre.
Brian Williams baptized Rifqa in June, in Big Walnut Creek at Hoover Dam park, not far from her parents' apartment. She cried and laughed and kept falling over so Williams had to hold her up.
"After she was submerged in the water," said Hou, her New Albany classmate, "she pretty much fainted, she pretty much passed out, literally, from joy."
Rifqa wrote in her journal.
"I am called to the nations," she said. "Send me to the deepest darkest places into the pagan land."
"Lord is preparing me."
"Enemy is after me."
Seventh point: She did not leave through her own efforts, but was helped by a local family who knew in advance of her intention to leave. (This is actually possibly the most creepy part of the whole article.)
She took a right on Longrifle Road and a left on Mardela Drive and went to a small brown house a third of a mile away. The Hopsons live there. Their daughter is one of her friends. They knew she was coming. They knew where she was going.
Later that day Williams picked her up and drove her downtown to the Greyhound station. He knew where she was going.
So did people in Orlando. Global Revolution director of operations John Law bought her ticket, she later told FDLE, and the Lorenzes had decorated a room just for her in their home.
Her mother walked into her room Sunday morning. No Rifqa. She called her husband. He came home early from his trip. He called Rifqa's cell phone. Straight to voice mail. He called some of her friends. Nobody knew where she was. He called the police.
Eighth point: Her last note to her supposedly bloodthirsty parents who she claims would kill her if they knew she was a Christian says that she hopes they will become Christians too and that she loves them dearly.They found the note she left.
"Jesus is my saviour, I cannot deny Him, nor will I ever. I pray that you find His mercy and forgiveness just as I have. Love you both dearly."
So please take a look at the original article.
I've had a look for more recent videos related to Rifqa Bary and there's not much. There's a random rant from a guy called Paul F. Davis, which seems to be mainly just interested in promoting his book and there are a few random videos saying fairly unsubstantiated cr*p about Rifqa's parents having terrorist connections. Nevertheless, I did find this one report about the FDLE's findings, though it's rather lacking in information.
(Via Right Wing Watch)
x-posted to atheism
In my last post I noted that the family did not appear to be terribly radical, in spite of Rifqa's claims. In my last post I was also reacting to my discovery of Rifqa's rather disturbing style of prayer. (The 'Jesus Camp' style of breaking down in tears while ranting. One commenter on atheism noted her prayer included the words "And the Lord will spit fire".)
Further news on this conference call where she demonstrated her style of prayer is that the Department of Children and Families (DCF) with whom she is in protective custody, had absolutely no idea that this had happened (nor, more worryingly, who could have arranged it):
The Department of Children and Families is trying to figure out who arranged for Fathima Rifqa Bary to join-in on a conference call with "thousands" of people and on which the 17-year-old delivered her testimony and a frenzied prayer.
Rifqa -- the center of national political and religious debate -- has been living at an undisclosed location in state foster care, where she was placed in August.
...
On Monday, DCF spokeswoman Carrie Hoeppner said the state agency "had no knowledge of this until it surfaced. Although she is 17, she remains in protective custody. Neither the Department nor do we believe her parents, gave permission for her participation in this call with strangers, which is of concern to us."
"Right now, we are working to get more background on the video such as when it posted and who arranged it."
Since then, an article has been written based on "court records, police reports, Brian Williams' diary, reporting in Orlando and Ohio, interviews with Rifqa Bary's friends and family, and her words - written on her laptop, said to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and spoken into video cameras and then disseminated on YouTube", so it's been pretty well researched.
First of the most vital points in the essay: Rifqa Bary's family were in the US for her sake.
Home for the Bary family is a second-floor apartment with a tan carpet and two bedrooms. The table in the dining room sits on unsteady legs. The living room couches are draped in blankets to cover the worn upholstery.
This is where Rifqa lived, with her father Mohamed, her mother Aysha, her 19-year-old brother Rilvan and her 6-year-old brother Rajaa. Her father sells jewelry at weekend trade shows around the South and Midwest. Rifqa shared a bedroom with Rilvan. Rent for the apartment: $850 a month.
They're here because of her.
The Barys are from Galle on the southern coast of Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean. When Rifqa was 5 she fell on a toy airplane that pierced the cornea of her right eye. Scar tissue built up over the next couple years. Doctors told the Barys they might have to remove the eye. So they came to New York in 2000 for medical treatment.
Four years later they moved here in large part because of the schools. The district around suburban New Albany is considered one of Ohio's best. It's 80 percent white, 9 percent Asian, 6 percent black. The campus with its red-brick buildings and tall white columns feels almost collegiate. Average income in the district: $185,000 a year.
Second point: Not only was she not expected to join in with daily Islamic prayers, but her older brother also did not partake in prayer:
The Bary parents prayed five times a day. Rilvan did not. Neither did Rifqa.
Third point: She wrote that she was a Christian, carried books about Christianity by fundamentalist authors and even discussed her religious beliefs with her father!
In 2006, she made a babysitting flyer that said she was Christian; in 2007, her father found in her room Rick Warren's Christian best-seller, The Purpose Driven Life.
This sometimes made her parents sad, but not mad, they say - their children were growing up in America, not Sri Lanka, so they understood.
Her father says he told her: "You know, Rifqa, you have a brain of your own, you do whatever is good for you, but you were born Muslim - it's your responsibility to learn that, too."
Fourth point: Not only did the parents blatantly know about her religious beliefs, but she was doing a very VERY bad job of hiding it.
Rifqa was forced to live a secret life of sorts, she has said - to friends, in court files, to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement - praying and reading her Bible in the middle of the night in her room or the bathroom or the porch on the back of her family's apartment.
Her parents say they knew.
At school, meanwhile, she did nothing to hide her faith.
"She'd read her Bible in class," said Tony Hou, a junior at New Albany. "She brought her Bible with her just about everywhere."
It became, he said, one of the things she was known for - her blue Bible, her name written on the front, in shiny silver letters.
Fifth point: It's official. The Christian group she has joined is full of apocalyptic nutcases.
And at some point she started reading the Facebook writings of an Ohio State student and an aspiring pastor named Brian Michael Williams.
In Williams' writings, evolution is bunk, abortion is murder, Armageddon is near. He said he needed "an army of prayer warriors" for the end of days.
Rifqa grew to consider Williams a friend and a mentor. She started last spring proselytizing students at school. Her father scolded her for it, he said, because it was against school rules.
At home, when Rilvan had friends over, she started coming out of her room and telling them about the Bible, saying they were listening to "demonic" music.
Sixth point: Descriptions of her baptism seem rather bizarre.
Brian Williams baptized Rifqa in June, in Big Walnut Creek at Hoover Dam park, not far from her parents' apartment. She cried and laughed and kept falling over so Williams had to hold her up.
"After she was submerged in the water," said Hou, her New Albany classmate, "she pretty much fainted, she pretty much passed out, literally, from joy."
Rifqa wrote in her journal.
"I am called to the nations," she said. "Send me to the deepest darkest places into the pagan land."
"Lord is preparing me."
"Enemy is after me."
Seventh point: She did not leave through her own efforts, but was helped by a local family who knew in advance of her intention to leave. (This is actually possibly the most creepy part of the whole article.)
She took a right on Longrifle Road and a left on Mardela Drive and went to a small brown house a third of a mile away. The Hopsons live there. Their daughter is one of her friends. They knew she was coming. They knew where she was going.
Later that day Williams picked her up and drove her downtown to the Greyhound station. He knew where she was going.
So did people in Orlando. Global Revolution director of operations John Law bought her ticket, she later told FDLE, and the Lorenzes had decorated a room just for her in their home.
Her mother walked into her room Sunday morning. No Rifqa. She called her husband. He came home early from his trip. He called Rifqa's cell phone. Straight to voice mail. He called some of her friends. Nobody knew where she was. He called the police.
Eighth point: Her last note to her supposedly bloodthirsty parents who she claims would kill her if they knew she was a Christian says that she hopes they will become Christians too and that she loves them dearly.They found the note she left.
"Jesus is my saviour, I cannot deny Him, nor will I ever. I pray that you find His mercy and forgiveness just as I have. Love you both dearly."
So please take a look at the original article.
I've had a look for more recent videos related to Rifqa Bary and there's not much. There's a random rant from a guy called Paul F. Davis, which seems to be mainly just interested in promoting his book and there are a few random videos saying fairly unsubstantiated cr*p about Rifqa's parents having terrorist connections. Nevertheless, I did find this one report about the FDLE's findings, though it's rather lacking in information.
(Via Right Wing Watch)
x-posted to atheism