Syrian Refugee Widow Learns to Overcome Affliction
A Syrian widow with several children had endured affliction before and after arriving as a refugee in Jordan. Islamic State (ISIS) invaders in Syria had seized her oldest son and, fearing they might take her other children, she and her husband had fled in 2013. Some of her children were able to help her husband in odd jobs he might find on the streets – until he was diagnosed with cancer.
Help Send the Gospel in Syria
About 150 university students with little chance of ever knowing about Christ heard the gospel thanks to the efforts of a devout woman who has become a leading local missionary.
Leading Muslims to Christ in Syria Brings Challenges
Leading Muslims to faith in Christ in Syria brings the discipleship challenge of helping them to withstand persecution, among other issues. Recently local missionaries stood with a woman whose husband and son were killed for refusing to deny Christ. “That is a hard thing,” the ministry leader said. “She says, ‘Every time I close my eyes, I see my husband and my son in front of me, how they killed them.’”
Amid New Disaster in Syria, Hope and Healing
Syria is an economic disaster after nine years of civil war and the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the crisis has hobbled a native ministry as well – even as workers have seen more people come to Christ.
Economic chaos amid the pandemic has forced a native ministry to scale back its number of local missionaries while ratcheting up the intensity of its crisis response.
“As we are able, our leaders continue to distribute food and clothing to those that lack,” the ministry leader said. “Our target criteria: any person that is in need.”
Syrian Refugees Find Reasons for Hope In Turkey
Local missionaries delivering aid to refugees in Turkey had never seen an elderly Muslim woman look anything but sullen, so they were curious when they saw her laugh as she talked with a group of Syrians in a tent camp.
The Christian workers asked her, “What happened? What did they say that has made you laugh?”
She told them, “They said, ‘You are always speaking so highly of these Christians, and you’re even visiting all the tents with them – what’s happened, have you become a Christian now?’”
Syrian Mother Gives Birth amid Bombs
Nine months pregnant when ISIS soldiers began going door-to-door in search of opponents and people non-compliant with Islam, an Alawite mother was terrified and immediately fled with her family to another part of Syria.
The family made it to a hospital hours away just as Haya went into labor. She gave birth as bombs fell, but soon nurses told her that everyone had to leave the hospital.
The exhausted Haya said her temperature was dropping fast, and that she could not move.
