“You’ve got a new government trying to enact a new system of law and even create a new constitution over the next four years,” says Samuel* with Redemptive Stories. “There’s a lot at stake for what [this election] means, particularly for minorities.” 

Samuel notes that under the previous al-Assad regime, women held respected roles in society. But in last week’s election, only six women and 10 members of minorities were among the nearly 120 seats chosen. Two of those seats went to representatives for Christians — less than 1% of the total 210-member parliament.

A minaret and a church steeple side-by-side in Syria. (Photo courtesy of Ali Wassouf/Unsplash)

“With a more Sunni conservative government, those voices will be pushed more or brushed more aside,” Samuel says of women and minorities. 

That’s not the only factor complicating Syria’s government. Elections for 21 more parliamentary seats were delayed in two Kurdish-controlled provinces as well as one in the south of Syria. The delay stems from the government’s continued tensions with  Kurdish-led forces in northeast Syria as well as predominantly Druze communities in Suwayda.

Another 70 seats in parliament (one third of the total body) await direct appointment by President Ahmed al-Sharaa. It’s possible that his appointments could correct the imbalances in the new government.

What does this election mean for believers in Syria?

“I think more and more Christians are realizing that this is not a place that will be safe for them,” says Samuel. “What this mean[s] for the Church is that that ethnic Christian [population] will continue, I think, to decrease.”

Syrian children (photo courtesy of Jonathan Ramalho via Unsplash)

Ethnicity is no barrier to God or the gospel, of course. But it is a factor in Syria, where certain people groups are considered to be Christian.

“The prayer would be that there would be more of a desire of Christians to stay and to remain in order to be a light for their community,” says Samuel. “But as those numbers continue to probably actually dwindle, then the church also needs to be engaged in raising up leaders from a Muslim background, Alawite background, Druze background [and] Kurdish Muslim background in order to fill in the gap where the ethnic Christian churches might exit.” 

Please join in praying for Syria at this fragile time. Ask God to open the way for the gospel to reach across Syria’s ethnic and religious divisions. Pray for greater national stability that could allow greater spread of the gospel. 

*Pseudonym

Header photo: Women wearing niqabs, veils worn by Muslim women that cover all of the face except the eyes, walk down the road in Damascus, Syria. (Photo courtesy of IMB)

The West Papua Liberation Army, known locally as the KKB, was responsible. This group wants Papua to have independence from the rest of Indonesia.

Bruce Allen with FMI says, “In the past several years, the KKB’s targets have typically been those who were perceived to be authorities, such as the police, military establishment, and even sometimes religious leaders.”

“They will often target migrants, people who come from other islands to Papua.”

Why do some in Papua want independence from the Indonesian government? Indonesia spans 6,000 inhabited islands. Papua is one of the most populous. Allen says, “Sometimes there have been islands that feel underrepresented or far removed from the powers that be in the capital.”

Church-planting in Papua

Elias Erbaye had no position of authority. And his death was not religiously motivated. Allen says, “When I spoke with our national leadership team members, one of the tragically ironic aspects of this attack was that the majority of the rebels in the KKB would identify as Christians.”

In Papua, many people identify ethnically as Christians. They don’t know what Christianity means, they just know they are not Muslims. Allen says, “It’s so remote in all these little villages. They might not even have access to Bibles. They don’t know what being a Christian means. So evangelical churches are few and far between.”

Through FMI, you can support a national church planter in Papua for less than 5 dollars a day.

Allen will travel to Indonesia next week to meet with local partners and plan for future expansion. “Ask the Lord to bless us with productive meetings to really identify the next places that we need to be empowering church planters.”

The header photo shows graffiti left in support of West Papuan liberation. (Photo courtesy of Esteban Maurer, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)