DAVID ADAMS reports…
Christian relief workers serving in Iraq say the aid and assistance they are providing to people driven from their homes by the Islamic State is leading to unprecedented opportunities to share the love of Christ.
US-based Christian Aid Mission report that a team working in the northern Iraq city of Erbil were recently able to share the love of Christ with a colonel in the Kurdish Peshmerga – one of the groups fighting IS, also known as ISIS or ISIL.
When the colonel had asked why they were providing aid such as food, clothing, beds and medicine and where it had come from, the organisation said its team director had been able to share that their motivation came from Christ.
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“The greatest challenge in the ministry right now is not whether these people will accept Christ or not…The challenge is how and when we will reach all those people with the message of salvation in the squares, sidewalks, roads, inside the tents and out, and everywhere.”– An unnamed team director for Christian Aid Mission working in Iraq |
“We spoke with him explicitly, explaining everything to him, saying that Christ taught us to love and express our love to the people in a practical way…” the organisation quoted the team’s unnamed director as saying.
The organisation said that colonel had responded: “You see the Arabs around you in the Gulf states, which claim to be religious Muslims, have not sent us anything but terrorists. But you who follow Christ send love and peace and goodness to people every day.”
It quoted the team’s director as saying that after they’d subsequently had a long talk with the colonel about Christ, “he bowed and prayed, asking Christ into his life”. “And he said, ‘Today I am the happiest person – I’ve had the privilege of making this decision’, and he received a copy of the Bible.”
The aid group says their team’s experience with the colonel, whose name was withheld for security reasons, is not uncommon and that in refuge cities like Erbil – where people displaced from their homes by IS have sought shelter – “people are turning to Christ at a stunning pace”.
The team’s director said tent churches were springing up in the makeshift camps, adding that while, under normal circumstances, mission strategies focus on how to proclaim Christ effectively, the challenge now is keeping pace with the number who would receive Him.
“The greatest challenge in the ministry right now is not whether these people will accept Christ or not,” he said. “In all our travel to deliver the aid and preach God’s Word, we did not find anyone opposed to or rejecting our message. The challenge is how and when we will reach all those people with the message of salvation in the squares, sidewalks, roads, inside the tents and out, and everywhere.”
Christian Aid Mission have said that as a result of the openness of people to the Gospel, some church leaders and ministry workers have chosen to remain in Iraq despite the risks.
“I think of workers who stayed behind in Mosul and the surrounding areas because there are so many who are receptive to the Gospel,” said the organisation’s Middle East director, also unnamed for security reasons. “They are willing to risk being in an area under the rule of ISIS for the privilege of more and more fruit for Christ.”
“I respected them before the Arab Spring because they were serving in Islamic areas, but now they are serving more and maturing even more,” he said. ”We need to intercede for these workers. They are all always in danger. They need God’s power to show His love to the thousands of helpless people.”
Meanwhile, Canon Andrew White – better known as the “Vicar of Baghdad” – reportedly told the congregation at the Life Center Church in Tacoma, in the US state of Washington, last Sunday that Iraq’sChristian community has been left “a million times worse” than it was under ousted dictator Saddam Hussein thanks to the persecution now being seen there.
“I think it could be one of the worst persecutions of Christians in history…” he was quoted as saying by The News Tribune. “Everything that was central to us as Christians is gone.”
The newspaper reported that Canon White, who has been forbidden by the Anglican Church from returning to Baghdad where he is the vicar of St George’s Church, blamed the plight of Iraqi Christians on the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq.
“The reason we had this tragedy now is because you came in and you left us too soon,” he was quoted as saying. “We weren’t ready to be left…The terrible thing that the Americans have to realise is that all the intervention, everything they tried to do has been totally wasted. Nothing has been achieved.”
