Syria (MNN) — The U.S. President may be ready to give up on Syria, but a congressional committee says “no.” On Tuesday, the Syria Study Group issued an 80-page report urging U.S. leaders to maintain an active presence and military pressure in Syria.
Panel members penned this in the report’s executive summary:
“The Syria Study Group uncovered no easy solutions in Syria; optimal outcomes were left behind long ago. Yet the Group determined that the threats the conflict in Syria poses…are sufficiently serious to merit a determined response from the United States.”
Samuel* with Redemptive Stories says the Church shouldn’t give up on Syria, either. Muslims like Jamileh are turning to Jesus.
Jamileh’s story
Representative photo. A woman and her child walk along the ‘Champs Elysees’, the main street in the Zaatari refugee camp for Syrian refugees in Jordan, 29 August 2013.
(Wikimedia Commons)
Displaced several times by ongoing violence, a Muslim woman named Jamileh finally escaped with her family to a Christian village. Samuel says Jamileh chose this village because “she knew that they gave away aid to those that were in need and living there in the IDP [camp].”
By her own admission, Jamileh wanted nothing to do with Christianity. She simply wanted the physical aid believers freely offered to refugees and displaced families.
However, Jamileh grew desperate one day when her husband, son, and brothers were abducted. She turned to a pastor’s wife for help, and the woman responded, “I’ll pray.”
“Two weeks later, her husband and her brothers and her son show up out of nowhere. They proceed to tell her [stories about] multiple times when they were almost killed. [Jamileh realized] those were the times when the dear sister most likely was praying,” Samuel recounts.
“The answered prayer began to break down her walls to Christianity, her walls to Jesus. She began to go to the church more and more, and then eventually gave her life to Jesus Christ.”
Then, Jamileh began inviting kids from her community to the church; approximately 300 have come so far. Many hail from extremist Muslim families.
Jamileh tells Samuel, “These children will be exposed to Christ and will eventually hear the stories of Jesus and want to know more, and will eventually follow Him with their lives – just like I did.”
She isn’t the only Syrian committed to Christ’s cause. “I can tell you stories of pastors who had opportunities to leave who have now come back to Syria to care for their people,” Samuel says.
“One had the opportunity to go to [the] States and then returned back to Syria, just to minister to people that were coming in to his town. [We have] story after story like that.”
Find your place in the story
Now that you know, what will you do? Samuel says prayer is the biggest need of all.
“These are dear brothers and sisters who have stayed, who are doing what they’re called to do — love their neighbor as themselves,” he says. “They’re doing that and they need our help. They need our prayer support, they need encouragement.”
Ask the Lord to strengthen and encourage Syrian Christians like Jamileh as they build His Kingdom their homeland. Pray groups supporting these believers, like Redemptive Stories, will receive help from the global Christian community.
*– Name changed for security purposes.
Header image courtesy of Prayercast | Syria.
