Middle East (MNN) — Young boys are shot in the street. Women and girls are brutally raped. Thousands are fleeing the area.
The JESUS Film Project is working in the Middle East distributing aid and "JESUS" film DVDs to refugees from a very unstable country. There is extreme risk.
Willie Erasmus with The JESUS Film Project says the cases they’re seeing are horrific. “You can hardly understand how people have to go through things like this. Our guys went to a hospital and they met a nurse there who fled the area. And she was working with four young girls of 18-years-old who were brought to the ICU.” Erasmus says the girls were assaulted by soldiers.
But there is hope. “We can at least help by giving them a little food packet or giving them water. But the best thing we can do is to give them the Good News and give them hope,” says Erasmus.
The JESUS Film Project volunteers are all indigenous Christians working in four different countries. When passing out the aid, volunteers offer refugees the option of a "JESUS" film DVD and New Testament as a gift. So far, everyone has taken the DVD with the aid, and some even take it before they take the food packet. Volunteers also ask if they can pray with the person in the name of Jesus. Everyone has said yes.
Erasmus says this is encouraging. “I would say 90 percent of them are from [an] opposite faith. For them to see that there are people who are caring for them, that they want to show them love, and in the midst of this want to give them hope, it’s very encouraging for them.”
Over the course of this project, volunteers have distributed 60 thousand food packets, New Testaments, and "JESUS" film DVDs to the refugees. “A lot of them, obviously, don’t have the means of watching the movie, but we are hoping and trusting that they will eventually get to a place where they will watch it. But at least they have the New Testament where they can read [it].”
But in the midst of trauma and peril, they are seeing amazing transformations through Christ in their ministry.
Erasmus shares some volunteers found a blind man abandoned in a tent. They gave the man food and water. The man then said he could tell the volunteers were Christians because they didn’t accuse him or tell him Allah was punishing him. They shared the message of God’s love and the man begged them to come back and talk to him again.
“We know that God’s Word says that the Good News will never return void. So we are praying and trusting God that his Word will…accomplish what it set out to accomplish,” says Erasmus.
The JESUS Film Project does not ship the "JESUS" DVDs into the countries, but duplicates the films within the borders. Because of this, the process is costly. Erasmus estimates each "JESUS" film DVD costs around $6-7 to produce and distribute.
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