Tag: Syria

Syria Has Six Months to Receive Your Earthquake Aid

Post author By Jayson
Post date April 5, 2023
2 Comments on Syria Has Six Months to Receive Your Earthquake Aid

Syria has been suffering for 12 years, plagued by civil war, jihadist violence, foreign occupation, and autocratic governance. Yet widening US economic sanctions have made it increasingly harder to help—until now.

A February waiver offers a 180-day window for earthquake relief.

“If God has put it on your heart to give to Syria, be generous,” said Nabil Costa, executive director of the Lebanese Society for Educational and Social Development (LSESD), also known as the Baptist Society. “Find trusted organizations, because it is not easy to get it to the right place.”

On March 10, the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) joined the World Council of Churches (WCC) and Catholic charity Caritas to detail the “chilling effect” sanctions have on the ability of faith-based and other NGOs to transfer money and goods to struggling Syrians. Most banks have deemed such transactions too risky to facilitate.

Therefore, unlike in neighboring Turkey, the February 6 earthquake was not followed by an immediate outpouring of international aid. Despite a death toll of 6,000 and an estimated 500,000 more displaced amid the rubble, United States and European Union policy—and distrust of the Bashar al-Assad government—prevented most nations and international humanitarian organizations from rushing to the scene.

A false step could result in a $1 million fine and 20 years in prison.

US sanctions against Syria began in 1979 with a declaration that it was a state sponsor of terrorism, and tightened in 2004 for its undermining of the war in Iraq. In 2011, Syria’s repression of civil protest resulted in additional sanctions, subsequently strengthened throughout its civil war—especially after the use of chemical weapons in 2017.

Two years later, after a whistleblower smuggled out alleged evidence of the torture of civilians, the Caesar Act implemented secondary sanctions against anyone conducting business with the Syrian government.

Legislation permitted humanitarian exemptions for food and medicine, and in 2022 allowance was made for unfettered aid into regions outside of government control. Turkey and various rebel entities occupy territory in northwest Syria, while a US military base supports Kurdish forces administering large swaths of the northeast.

The United Nations designated a number of humanitarian aid corridors from Turkey, but Russia and China vetoed all but one—in protest of their ally’s dwindling sovereignty. Iran and Hezbollah have also backed Assad militarily, while Israel occupies the Golan Heights and regularly bombs the alleged transport of weapons near its frontier and before crossing into Lebanon.

Amid it all, Syria’s Christians help who they can.

Following the earthquake, Aleppo’s churches hosted hundreds of frantic neighbors fleeing their cracked and crumbling homes. But the WEA report, written prior to the tragedy, outlined how many faith-based organizations lacked the resources and legal expertise necessary to navigate the myriad regulations to apply for permitted exemptions. Costa said LSESD did not attempt it, relying instead on “existing channels” to get aid into Syria.

“Everything we do is transparent,” he said, “but not everything is advertised.”

Even large NGOs like Caritas have struggled. “It should be like math, one plus one equals two,” said Karam Abi Yazbeck, Caritas’s regional coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa. “But I can’t make sense of…

This article was originally published at Christianity Today on April 3, 2023. Please click here to read the full text.

Tags Earthquake, Sanctions, Syria

Christianity Today Middle East Published Articles

Turkish and Syrian Christians Rally Earthquake Relief

Post author By Jayson
Post date February 8, 2023
No Comments on Turkish and Syrian Christians Rally Earthquake Relief

Local Christians were among the first responders to the massive earthquake in Turkey and Syria that left more than 5,000 people dead and more than 20,000 injured. They just don’t know how to make sense of it.

“God have mercy on us, Christ have mercy,” said Gokhan Talas, founder of the evangelical Miras Publishing Ministry in Istanbul. “This is our only spiritual reflection right now.”

His first instinct was to go. But as reports came in of deep snowfall and damaged roads, he shifted gears. His wife stayed up all night making phone calls to believers in Malatya, trying to coordinate aid. And with members of his church and Protestant congregations throughout Turkey, they bought blankets, medicines, baby formula, and diapers to send onward to the afflicted areas.

“From this side of eternity, nothing is clear,” Talas said. “But our sweet Lord is suffering with us.”

He warned of scams preying on the outpouring of generosity from around the world, even among the small Turkish evangelical community of roughly 10,000 believers.

Their own supplies are being donated through İlk Umut Derneği—in English, First Hope Association (FHA), a Turkish Protestant NGO working closely with the local Red Crescent and AFAD, Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority.

Officials said more than 5,000 buildings have been destroyed by the 7.8 magnitude quake. More than 13,000 search and rescue personnel have been deployed, supplying 41,000 tents, 100,000 beds, and 300,000 blankets. Almost 8,000 people have been rescued so far.

This includes pastor Mehmet and his wife Deniz in Malatya, longtime friends of Talas, who spent half the day freezing under the rubble until neighbors succeeded in pulling them out.

Founded in 2014 to assist the refugee flood from Syria, FHA works “shoulder-to-shoulder” with the Association of Protestant Churches, said Demokan Kileci, chairman of the FHA board.

Conveying the first batches of aid in a solid 4×4 vehicle, it took him 14 hours—double the standard time—to drive 440 miles southeast from his home in Turkey’s capital Ankara to Gaziantep, a scant 20 miles south of the epicenter.

One of FHA’s five mobile hygiene units—and a mobile bakery—stayed there. Another two were dispatched to Antakya, the ancient biblical Antioch, and a fourth sent to Kahramanmaras, site of a 7.5 magnitude aftershock.

The fifth went to Diyarbakir, another 200 miles east. Overall, 10 Turkish cities suffered devastation. With Syrian cities included, the distance covered is greater than an imagined epicenter in New York City destroying the eastern seaboard from Boston to Washington, DC.

“We are doing whatever we can to help our country,” said Kileci. “And right now, prayer is the most important.”

Multiple houses of prayer have been badly damaged. The list is long. In Turkey, it includes…

This article was originally published at Christianity Today on February 7, 2023. Please click here to read the full text.

Tags Earthquake, Syria, Turkey

Christianity Today Europe Middle East Published Articles

Is It ‘Christian’ for Europe to Welcome Refugees from Ukraine but Not Syria?

Post author By Jayson
Post date March 26, 2022
No Comments on Is It ‘Christian’ for Europe to Welcome Refugees from Ukraine but Not Syria?

As Ukraine continues to be battered by Russia, Syrian refugees know what to pray for better than most.

“This is what happened to us,” said refugee students at the Together for the Family center in Zahle, Lebanon. “We don’t want it to happen to others.”

Born in Homs, Syria, to a Baptist pastor, Izdihar Kassis married a Lebanese man and then founded the center in 2006. She shifted her ministry to care for “her people” when the Syrian civil war started in 2011. About 50 traumatized teenagers find counseling there every year, and 300 have graduated from the center’s vocational programs.

As the refugees discussed the “horrible” situation in Europe during the weekly chapel service, Kassis suggested intercession. Bowing their heads, the 40 children and 30 Syrian staff and volunteers knew better than anyone what to ask for.

But one child wanted to be sure the Ukrainians would know of their solidarity. He went outside into the cold and snow of the Bekaa Valley, where most of Lebanon’s 1.5 million Syrian refugees take shelter.

His sign proclaimed, “Praying for peace.”

Since the invasion, about 4 million of Ukraine’s population of 43 million have become refugees. Another 6.5 million are internally displaced.

Yet 11 years since its civil war, most of Syria’s 6.8 million refugees—out of a population of 20 million—still live in limbo. Europe largely shut its doors, certainly in comparison to its warm welcome of those fleeing Russian aggression.

Many have taken offense.

“There is the perennial double standard and selective outrage of global news media, Western governments (and, sadly, even Western Churches) when it comes to reporting on wars, conflicts and the plight of refugees,” stated Vinoth Ramachandra from Sri Lanka, a senior leader with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES), affiliated with InterVarsity.

“If Ukrainians were not blonde and blue-eyed, would their plight have occasioned [this] outpouring of compassion?”

It is a fair question. Is European hypocrisy—even racism—on full display?

Arab Christians are not quick to judge.

Born in Syria, Joseph Kassab today heads the Beirut-based Supreme Council of the Evangelical Churches in Syria and Lebanon. He notes the more than one million countrymen taken in by Europe—Western Europe, primarily. Eastern nations, he said, are still recovering from the communist era and have not yet developed the same sense of human rights.

There should be no discrimination, yet even this he understands. The early church struggled to open its mission to non-Jews.

“Racism is in every society,” Kassab said. “But Europeans have been more welcoming to the Syrians than many Lebanese.”

Being Muslim is a factor, said Elie Haddad, president of Arab Baptist Theological Seminary in Beirut. But also important is that most are rural, uneducated farmers. Legitimate or not, people are uncomfortable with difference.

Europe is a bit hypocritical, but so is he.

“If a faculty member needs shelter, I will open my home,” Haddad said. “For a stranger, not so much.” One who did open his home is a Frenchman…

This article was originally published at Christianity Today on March 25, 2022. Please click here to read the full text.

Tags Evangelical, Refugees, Syria, Ukraine

Prayers

Lebanon Prayer: Syria Intertwined

Post author By Jayson
Post date September 5, 2021
No Comments on Lebanon Prayer: Syria Intertwined

God,

Prayers are said for gasoline, as people wait in line.

Naught to do but ask your help in hope it will remain.

And prayers are said for Shiite sheikh, as people mourn his death.

Tributes came from every sect, remembering his cause.

But do these prayers all miss the mark? Do they reveal a focus on

The nation as deciding force? On Lebanon, strong and sovereign?

God, we pray that this might be, for agency and power.

Yet Syria—torn by civil war—is still the land of reckoning.

The novel solution proposed by the States would power Beirut via Cairo-Amman.

But to work it needs sign-off, Damascus to say: Yes and you’re welcome, we’re back in the fold.

And even Resistance will flow from the north, as oil imported from Tehran docks there.

Avoiding the sanctions it’s loaded on trucks, to then cross the border—a smuggling in reverse?

God, why must work-around characterize our land?

God, can we not solve our problems ourselves?

Ever so clever, dodge this way and that—as names and portfolios circle and fall.

Ever the posture in cabinet formation: To squeeze a concession while all around burns.

God, forgive us.

God, rebuke.

God, empower us.

God, inspire.

What can we pray we have not asked already? God, we are tired. We are weary, depressed.

We need you to lift up our spirits and heal us. We need a reminder your justice will come.

Until then give us patience in every gas station. May prayers be exchanged, not gunfire or fists.

And honor the efforts of every true cleric, aiming to serve you through country and sect.

God, maybe Syria intertwines with our nation.

Let these prayers—centered here—bless us both, and beyond.

Amen.

To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.

Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.

It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.

It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.

How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.

Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.

It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.

It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.

How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.

Sometimes prayer can generate more prayer. While mine is for general principles, you may have very specific hopes for Lebanon. You are welcome to post these here as comments, that others might pray with you as you place your desires before God.

If you wish to share your own prayer, please adhere to the following guidelines:

1) The sincerest prayers are before God alone. Please consult with God before posting anything.

2) If a prayer of hope, strive to express a collective encouragement.

3) If a prayer of lament, strive to express a collective grief.

4) If a prayer of anger, refrain from criticizing specific people, parties, sects, or nations. While it may be appropriate, save these for your prayers alone before God.

5) In every prayer, do your best to include a blessing.

I will do my best to moderate accordingly. Thank you for praying for Lebanon and her people.

Tags Lebanon, Prayer, Syria

Prayers

The Syrian Vote

God,

The question is valid: Why are they here?

Tooting their horns and waving their flags.

If Assad you want, then go back to Syria.

Stop milking our welcome; your country is safe.

The question is valid, perhaps even fair.

But reactions conflict with your welcome of us.

God we are sinners, and yet received grace.

And still we keep sinning. We spit in your face.

In this world we are strangers, depend on your care.

So we can give freely, of what we receive.

Now it is less.

Am I also so?

But God, they have smuggled the best of our goods.

They eat up resources in our time of want.

Yet they fled their homeland. They left all, to live.

God, it is politics – make right the wrongs.

Give peace to Syria. Help them return home.

And of Lebanon’s policy: What to decide?

May it honor the nation, then, also the guest.

Repatriation: A respectful return.

Refugee care: Needs aid from abroad.

But Lebanese also are living impoverished.

As one member of government insulted the Gulf.

He lost his position. Did he set back the nation

In efforts to regain financial support?

And at home politicians aired blame in the parliament.

Give push to the leaders to come to accord.

Guide them as they vie for the rights of their sect,

To not lose the nation in privilege they dwell.

God, in all politics, protect the heart.

Let us show mercy. We need it ourselves.

Amen.

To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.

Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.

It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.

It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.

How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.