Open Doors field worker Brother George is in Australia to raise awareness and build bridges with the persecuted church in the Middle East and north Africa. He speaks with DAVID ADAMS…
Brother George barely hesitates when asked whether the persecution of Christians being seen in the Middle East at the moment is worse than it’s ever been. “Yes…” he says, adding later: “(And) you can definitely say persecution is growing.”
But in the midst of that, he says, come reports that the numbers of people from a Muslim background who have found Christ continues to grow. “We derive hope from what the Lord is doing there.”
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Aleppo in Syria, one of the countries which is seeing more people from a Muslim background coming to Christ despite rising persecution. PICTURE: Open Doors “Sometimes it’s just very, very difficult. (But), at the same time, we see amazing signs of spiritual strength and even signs of, I wouldn’t call it revival, but definitely growing openness with the Gospel.”– Brother George |
Brother George, whose surname we can’t reveal for security reasons, is touring churches in Australia this week to speak about the persecuted church in the Middle East on behalf of Open Doors, a Christian ministry aimed at supporting and encouraging members of the persecuted church in some 65 countries around the world.
Having joined the organisation about 15 years ago, Brother George – who comes from The Netherlands, has spent the last 10 working in the Middle East and North Africa.
“My role is really…strategic relations and so I connect a lot with partner ministries, I connect with networks in the field and so on…” he says, noting that Open Doors doesn’t send out Western missionaries to work in places like the Middle East but instead supports and encourages local networks of believers.
His visit to Australia, which follows a tour of New Zealand, is one of several he endeavours to make to Western countries each year with the aim of simply sharing “the message of what’s going on, raise awareness, get people involved…and also encourage them”.
Reports to Open Doors show that the numbers of people from a Muslim background who are accepting Christ into their lives is growing in all 18 of the countries in the Middle East and north Africa in which the organisation operates despite the dangers they face.
“In all countries, Muslim background believers are in danger, simply in danger, because the number one source of persecution for them is not the government, it’s the small social circle around them, like the family, the relation and so on…” Brother George says.
“Sometimes it’s just very, very difficult. (But), at the same time, we see amazing signs of spiritual strength and even signs of, I wouldn’t call it revival, but definitely growing openness with the Gospel.”
While the actual numbers of people from a Muslim background giving their lives to Christ vary dramatically from one country to the next – in some, there are only a few dozen believers while in others, such as Iran, the number is believed to reach into the hundreds of thousands – the growth being seen stands in stark contrast to what’s been happening in what Brother George calls the “established” church.
Noting that just six of the 18 countries in which Open Doors operates in the Middle East and north Africa could be said to have established, traditional Christian churches – the Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt is an example – Brother George describes the situation among the faithful who belong to such churches as “more concerning”. “If you look all over the region, the traditional church is in trouble number-wise,” he says.
Taking Iraq as an example, he says that while there were more than a million Christians living in the southern part of Iraq prior to the Gulf Wars, “(t)oday that has come down to under 100,000 with probably 160,000 or so who left for the north including Kurdistan and all the others to foreign countries.”
He says Syria appears to be headed the same way with contacts reporting from Damascus that as many as 40 per cent of church congregations in the city have either fled the country or been internally displaced inside the country due to the ongoing conflict.
“(M)ore and more cannot take the pressure any longer, often because of their children, and they leave…” he says.
But there are also those who choose to stay. Brother George cites a recent meeting with a Syrian woman in Lebanon who shared her story with him.
She and her family were considering leaving the country – they had even had offers, including job offers, to go to the US – but as she was struggling over whether or not to do so, she felt God ask her whether she was willing to give your her for His glory in Syria.
“And she battled with it and she fasted and prayed and so on,” says Brother George. “And the next day she said, ‘Yes, Lord, I’m ready’. And God asked her ‘But are you willing to sacrifice your husband, to give up your husband for the same sake – for my glory in Syria?’ and then she wrestled even more, but again, the next day she said ‘Yes, I can do it’. But then God asked her ‘Are you willing to give up your children?’”
“This family has three children, three beautiful girls, I know them, and this she couldn’t do. So she battled with it for three days praying and fasting and then she said ‘Yes, Lord, I am ready. It was quite impressive to hear that. And they’re in the heart of one of the conflict zones. Literally, they hear mortars fly over their head every day.”
Brother George says her struggle typifies that of the “persecuted church in general”. “(I)t’s always glory and suffering – this mix of beautiful blessings and just a lot of grief at the same time.”
He says that while Australian Christians can do much to support the persecuted church – including through prayer and the provision of financial support as well as things like writing letters to prisoners and signing petitions – that’s just half the message he’s come to deliver.
“This is just half of the message – that the persecuted church needs us,” he says. “But there is also another message which is that we need the persecuted church as much because we can learn from them what it is to actually do what Jesus said we would all do – which is to come after Him, to take up our Cross and follow Him, maybe, all the way to the end. They are closer to the reality of that than we are…”
“We have the same Lord, the same hope. We have the same church. If children are being killed in Syria, they are our children. It’s our children being killed, it happens to us, that’s what the Bible says…” he says, before adding: “But it’s sometimes so hard to grasp that because our circumstances are different.”
Brother George will be sharing stories direct from the field at various venues in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria until 24th November. For his full itinerary, visit www.opendoors.org.au.
