Blog note. Jesus indicated that ‘fearful sights’ (various natural disasters) would occur leading up to the time known as the Tribulation and Great Tribulation (a combined seven year period of great destruction on earth). Although these types of things have occurred in the past for centuries and thousands of years, they could be identified as the ‘season of the times’ due to the ferociousness of these events. They would be occurring in greater intensity, severity, frequency, size, duration, scope … just like the pains that a woman experiences in labor the farther along she is in the labor process. We are in the ‘season of the times’ that comes just before the seven (7) year Tribulation/Great Tribulation period
… And great earthquakes shall be in diverse places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven. (Luke 21:11).
… And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; (Luke 21:25)
… Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken; (Luke 21:26)
… This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. (2 Timothy 3:1)
Jesus is giving a series of prophecies about what to look for as the age of grace comes to a close. These verses are several of many such prophecies from throughout the Bible. 2017 was the worst year in recorded history for the intensity, frequency, severity, duration and occurrence of a large number of severe natural disasters worldwide. Earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones, torrential flooding, unprecedented wildfires in unusual places, devastating droughts, excessive/scorching heat setting records everywhere, record snowfalls in Europe and Russia. Snow in the Arabia. This list can go on. Most studied Eschatologists believe these ‘fearful sights’ and massive natural disasters are all part of the ‘CONVERGENCE’ of signs that this Biblical and prophetic age is closing. Most people who study prophecy are familiar with the routine reference(s) made that these things will be like a woman having labor pains, growing in intensity, frequency, size and duration.

UN more than doubles food aid to eastern DRCongo

AFP•July 2, 2019

Geneva (AFP) – The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) said Wednesday it was more than doubling aid in eastern DR Congo’s Ituri province, with the goal of reaching 300,000 people forced from their homes by weeks-long fighting.

“Our hearts go out to the latest victims of this senseless cruelty, most of them rural villagers who have had to run for their lives, with little or nothing, right at harvest time,” Claude Jibidar, the WFP’s representative in the Democratic Republic of Congo, said in a statement.

The WFP is already assisting 116,000 internally-displaced people in Ituri each month, providing them with food and small payments of cash to survive.

The agency said many of the newly-displaced were malnourished and had moved numerous times — many seeking safety in towns or in the bush.

At least 160 civilians have died in Ituri since June 10, according to local authorities.

Tens of thousands of people in this troubled region died in clashes between the Hema and Lendu ethnic groups between 1999 and 2003.

Violence between the two communities also displaced some 350,000 in late 2017 and early 2018.

The country counts an estimated 4.5 million internally displaced people in a population of some 80 million.

The WFP said the food crisis in DRC was the second worst in the world, behind the impact of the war in Yemen.

About 13 million Congolese, five million of them children, live in a state of food insecurity, according to its estimates.

Ituri and neighbouring North Kivu province are also trying to roll back an epidemic of Ebola that has claimed more than 1,500 lives since last August