BACKGROUND

During his first term, President Trump helped arm Kurdish fighters opposing ISIS in Syria, which resulted in Kurdish forces taking ground and captives. Since the 2024 overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, Kurdish fighters have lost ground and seen the resurgence of ISIS affiliates. 

Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa has given verbal assent to the protection of minority groups and has decried the rise of ISIS, as Syrians wrestle with his recent history of conflicting courses of action. 

A gathering of the people and residents of Daraa city in Al-Karama and Al-Hurriya Square after the fall of Bashar Al-Assad. Courtesy of Mahmoud Sulaiman via Unsplash.

CURRENT OUTLOOK IN SYRIA

“The reality is that on the ground, there are many pockets of ISIS people that are doing whatever they want to do,” Matar says. “So they enter into a church, and they tell people inside the church to convert to Islam. So it’s very direct and very strong.” 

Matar says there’s no restraint. On the street, in schools, and in churches: people are calling anyone and everyone to convert to radical Islam. 

“Many are being kidnapped. Many are being forced to close shops. Even now, there is a rule that if you eat during the fast month – the Ramadan month – if you eat on the street, you can be taken to prison for two or three months,” she points out. 

In that sense, Matar sees Syria rapidly becoming more Islamic. ISIS is driving the change, striking fear into Syrian hearts. 

“Whether it is humanitarian or even just normal jobs, they’re afraid that someone is going to come and close their shop or burn their shop or just come and disrupt the business,” she says. 

HOW THIS AFFECTS REFUGEES

Reports of difficulty within the country discourage the world’s 3 million Syrian refugees, more than 500,000 of whom reside in Lebanon, from returning home. 

“It’s very hard for them to go back to a Syria that is becoming more indoctrinated than ever,” says Matar. 

On the flip side, she notes that refugees in Lebanon have seen the fruit of communities living in unity and freedom.

“They’ve seen a liberty of even expressing your feelings or expressing your ideas about politics or whatever they want to talk about. In Syria it’s not the same.” 

And while the contrast is enough to squelch the number of Syrian homecomings, the mix of religious affiliation in Syria makes it hard for any one Islamic group to establish a caliphate there. Instead, the country exists in tension, as ISIS affiliates push back against the current president’s apparent move toward alliances with the US and Israel. 

In the meantime, Matar says Lebanon’s infrastructure cannot support the long-term resettlement of Syrian refugees. Matar and her teammates are encouraging refugees to consider returning to the pockets of Syria that remain relatively peaceful. Ministry workers at Triumphant Mercy Lebanon point people to the Lord along the way, reminding refugees of His power and presence that transcends and transforms our circumstances. 

Syrian refugees. Courtesy of Salah Darwish via Unsplash.

HOW YOU CAN PRAY

Please pray for Syrians embattled by their country’s conflict: both those at home and those abroad. Pray for wisdom and perseverance as families seek out the best courses of action during this time. 

Pray for resolution amidst warring sects, religious and political, and for peace to be established in Syria. 

Pray for Triumphant Mercy Lebanon and other ministries serving Syrian refugees. Ask the Lord to provide resources, personnel, and most of all opportunities to share the Gospel with those around them.

Featured photo courtesy of Salah Darwish via Unsplash. 

The SDF is an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias formed back in 2015 during Syria’s civil war. Today, Syria’s government continues to call for centralized control of the nation. Other international voices stand with them.

Aleppo, Syria (Photo courtesy of Ahmad Sofi via Unsplash)

“External governments, particularly Turkiye and even the US, in some respects, want the SDF to be disarmed in order to unify with the central government,” says Samuel* with Redemptive Stories. 

“Turkiye wants to get rid of the Kurds at all costs and help disarm them, because they are a threat on their border, and there’s constantly been a feud between them.”

But Kurds have good reason to balk at disarming. They’ve seen the government come down on other groups in Syria the past year. 

“We’ve seen in places like the coastal region, where there was basically genocide of Alawites who were formally aligned with Bashar al-Assad. Then in the south, [the government] also committed atrocities among the Druze people,” Samuel says.

Months of negotiations between the SDF and the state have reached an impasse. That’s why in early January, fighting broke out between the two sides in several Kurdish-controlled neighborhoods in Aleppo. 

“It was only a few nights of lobbing rockets and bombs and machine gun fire. Ultimately, the Kurdish troops backed out, and so then the government troops took over [those neighborhoods],” says Samuel. 

But after the SDF retreat, the clashes moved east of Aleppo, with the threat of even further escalation. The root of distrust between the SDF and al-Sharaa administration hasn’t changed.

Syrian kids (photo courtesy of Ahmed akacha via Pexels)

The skirmish has already had a high cost. Tens of thousands of civilians have fled, many Christians among them, says Samuel.

“One of the neighborhoods was heavily populated with our brothers and sisters, Christians who had to flee their homes and into other areas,” he says. “This means loss of income. This means they have had to move locations. This has implications on their children, their families, moving schools, etc.”

Pray for endurance for Christian and non-Christian families caught in the fighting.

“Keep praying that God would heal them from those traumatic experiences that they walk through, and that ultimately, this would be another part of what God uses to bring people to Himself,” Samuel says. 

*Pseudonym

Header photo of shadowed Syrian flag is a representative stock photo (Courtesy of Abdalhady Mansour via Pexels)

Now, more civilians east of the city are fleeing a possible further escalation.

Nuna* with Triumphant Mercy Lebanon says Syria will fragment into separate federations. “I don’t see a solution, unless with division. They cannot live together.” 

Conflict with the Kurds is only one of many fires the new Syrian government has faced since coming to power in December 2024. Massacres took place last year among Alawite and Druze communities, causing distrust of the administration to skyrocket.

“This is a religious war. More than a religious and ethnic war, more than just the land or dominion. They’re fighting against each other because of beliefs,” says Nuna. “How can you topple that? How can you minimize that and say, ‘It’s okay. Just become friends again and make an alliance again’?” 

Yet Nuna says the clashes between different groups of Muslims (as well as non-Islamic faiths such as the Druze) are doing something else: They are opening people to the gospel.

Syrian citizens celebrate the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, December 2024 (Photo courtesy of Shvan Hark via Unsplash)

“People are disillusioned with Islam. They’re looking for the true truth, if I can say it this way — the real truth,” she says. “So many people are coming to the Lord.”

Media is helping to share the gospel with people in Syria. “It’s a difficult process [for a person to become a Christian], because the families are not supportive. They face persecutio,” says Nuna. “But reaching out on media and responding to [media-based] prompts is something that they can do without being persecuted by their own family.”

Pray for Syrians trapped in poverty. Nuna says three or four people in a household have to work to pay rent and cover basic necessities.

Pray also for many more people to encounter the light and peace of Christ in Syria’s turmoil. Nuna describes the national situation as “a war within each person.”

“Each person is afraid and is watching carefully to see what’s next,” she says. People wonder whether they can stay in Syria and raise their families, or if they should leave. “I understand them, really, when I talk to them and I see the way they’re living. I understand the threats, I understand the fear, I understand the anguish. We have no solution. We [at Triumphant Mercy] just say, ‘Let’s wait and see.’ We cannot say anything else.”

Aleppo, Syria in 2017 (Stock photo courtesy of Aladdin Hammami via Unsplash)

*Pseudonym

Header photo of Aleppo, Syria is a stock photo courtesy of Ahmad Sofi via Unsplash.

In the bigger picture, Kurds are a stateless people. Millions live across parts of Turkiye, Syria, Iran, and Iraq alone, with many more across Europe. 

“They’ve always longed for their own state, but it has not been allowed by the governments that own those lands,” Samuel* with Redemptive Stories explains. “I think their end goal is to create a state for themselves, to live freely as a people, to not be oppressed as a minority.” 

He continues: “The northern swath of Iraq — which is one of probably the most recognized Kurdish bases, Iraqi Kurdistan — still is not its own state. It’s just basically [a governorate] within the context of Iraq.” 

Politics aside, Samuel says many churches have been planted in the Kurdish-controlled region of Syria, called the Rojava.

“Kurdistan” means “the land of Kurds”. Originally this designated a region of Western Iran. This map extends the concept to cover the greater region with any significant Kurdish population and encompasses parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.
(Wikimedia Commons)

“During the Syrian crisis in particular, there’s been a huge movement of the gospel among Syrian Kurds,” he said. 

While Iraqi Kurds strongly identify as Muslims, it’s not the same for Syrian Kurds. “That identity of Islam is far less than their identity as Kurds, and so for them to abandon Islam in order to follow Jesus, it’s less of a huge step,” he said. “Many are coming to faith. That’s happening online. It’s happening in person.”

If Kurdish armed forces integrate with Syria’s new government forces, Syria could see greater stability. But the new government has a track record of persecuting minorities. This could prove to be devastating to Kurds in the region, including Christians.

“If they are forced to lay control back to Damascus, then there [are] deep concerns that persecution will increase —  persecution that could be just ethnic in nature, but then also spiritual persecution,” said Samuel. 

Please pray for God’s peace and mercy in this unfolding situation. Pray for bold gospel witness from Kurdish believers in Christ no matter what happens. 

“Pray for God’s peace in the midst of that, pray that His faithfulness will continue to go forth. Pray for our brothers and sisters that are from a Muslim background [who] are working in that space [in Syria],” said Samuel.

*Pseudonym

Header photo: Sipan Hamo (Sîpan Hemo), general commander of the People’s Defense Units (YPG) and a member of the general command of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). (Photo courtesy of YPG Press Office – “Nirxandinên endamê fermandariya QSDê Sîpan Hemo li ser Şehîd Nûreddîn Sofî”, YouTube, CC BY 3.0)

Lebanon offers a haven.

“New Christian families, new Alawite families, and new Kurdish families have come to Lebanon seeking shelter, fearing retribution from the strong Sunni regime right now,” Heart for Lebanon’s Camille Melki says.

Why are Alawites targeted?

Syria’s former dictator, Bashar al-Assad, and his father Hafez before him, are from the Alawite sect, a minority offshoot of Shia Islam. When the Assad family took power, starting with Hafez in 1970, they heavily staffed key positions in the military, intelligence, and government with Alawites, often from their region.

The Assad family. Hafez al-Assad and his wife, Mrs Anisa Makhlouf. On the back row, from left to right: Maher, Bashar, Basil, Majid, and Bushra al-Assad.
(Wikimedia Commons)

Over time, this tight link between the regime and the Alawite community created the perception that the Alawites as a whole were behind or benefited from the Assad regime’s rule. So, when the regime committed atrocities during the Syrian civil war (e.g., mass detentions, chemical attacks, sieges), people began to associate the regime with the sect.

After Bashar al-Assad’s overthrow in December, hundreds of the Syrian refugees Heart for Lebanon cared for returned home. “Early on, we [saw] fewer people in our aid distribution, only to see those numbers not only returning but also increasing,” Melki says.

“Since the last three weeks of this infighting between the Alawites and the Sunnis, Lebanon has seen an increase in the refugee population coming from Syria. They see and are afraid that the new Syrian regime would be a more Islamic regime, with no room for diverse religious families,” he continues.

“More than 60,000 individuals have crossed our borders.”

Find your place in the story

Newly arrived refugees are scattered across northern Lebanon, predominantly in 27 villages near the border with Syria. Local officials cited 20,553 new individuals in this region as of April 2.

As they meet today’s needs, Heart for Lebanon teams offer hope for tomorrow. “The more they experience these ethnic cleansing and wars in Syria, [the more] you see people seeking the truth, and the truth is only found in the Gospel,” Melki says.

“We have seen a significant turn toward the Gospel, with people desiring to hear and learn more about the God of Christianity. God has given us amazing opportunities to love on, care for, and share a word of encouragement.”

You can help by supporting Heart for Lebanon’s efforts here.

Header image courtesy of Heart for Lebanon.

That’s the key to Heart for Lebanon’s effective ministry, says Bachir Sarkis with Heart for Lebanon: relationships.

Heart for Lebanon’s team of staff and volunteers starts each day at 8:15 a.m., dividing out lists of families to visit whom they have connected with, and determining what rooms of their ministry center will host the week’s busy schedule of Bible study groups.

Along with food kits and winterization supplies, Heart for Lebanon introduces people to the love and hope of Christ.
(Photo courtesy of Heart for Lebanon)

For their home visits, Sarkis says four to five groups of staff will connect with at least 30 households every day, if not more. They have the long-term welfare of people in view.

“When we build relationship(s), we are building trust with people. We are winning the hearts of people, we are winning the love of people,” says Sarkis.

“When we promise them that we have distribution next month, (or that) we will help this family at this date, they find that we are working on time. So we do what we say, and people are touched through how we treat them, because they see through our team all respect, love and care.”

Syrian Sunni (Muslim) families, Syrian Christian families, Iraqis families and those of other nationalities that live in Lebanon alike receive Heart for Lebanon’s friendship.

The team provides humanitarian aid with respect for Kurdish families too, many of whom are looked down on by Lebanese families as farmers. These families feel the difference.

“They say, ‘You are totally different. We were taking (a) bad picture about Christianity, and now you’re changing everything,’” Sarkis says.

Jesus showed us how to care for people – by spending time with them, acknowledging them, hearing them.
(Photo, caption courtesy of Heart for Lebanon)

Syrian Christian families as well as Lebanese Christian families both may know the basics of the Bible, Sarkis says, that Jesus is the Savior who died on the cross. But they don’t necessarily have a personal relationship with Jesus or know how to accept Jesus as Savior. So the Heart for Lebanon team helps them toward that understanding.

Sarkis tells us, “Through the visits that we are doing, we (get) the opportunity to win some of the people that we visit to Christ. It’s not easy to win someone to Christ. It takes time, it needs patience.”

Heart for Lebanon strives to help people grow as disciples of Christ. They work alongside the Church with their multiple discipleship programs, learning programs, relief work and more.

Sarkis asks for prayer for the peace of Lebanon, as Israel and Hezbollah exchange fire over the southern border of the country.

“We pray for stability in the political situation, because any political earthquake, I’ll call it— (if) any political problem in Lebanon or any war might be expanded, (it) might affect all our work.”

He says a rocket strike in late February struck very close enough to their center in the South to send shrapnel through the walls and windows, and they had to stop all their operations in the region.

Learn more about Heart for Lebanon’s disciple-making ministry here.

Header photo is a representative stock image courtesy of Masjid MABA/Pixabay.

“There is something big going on, and that is standing against tyranny and proclaiming the basic rights that every citizen needs across Iran,” Mike Ansari, President of Heart4Iran and MohabatTV, says.

“MohabatTV stands in solidarity with the people of Iran in seeking freedom and human rights.”

At the same time, Iran is launching missile and drone strikes on Kurdish communities in neighboring Iraq. “The general sentiment among many experts in the region is that Iran is testing its reach [by] taking action against the sovereignty of another country,” Ansari says.

(Photo courtesy of Heart4Iran)

“[Additionally,] Iran is acting as an extension of Turkey and the Erdogan administration to crush the Kurds. Also, Mahsa Amini, who was murdered by the Iranian morality police, was from the Iranian Kurdish territory.”

Pray the Lord will overcome manmade barriers so that Gospel broadcasts can reach inside the country and people can connect with Heart4Iran.

“Calls from Iran have dropped dramatically because the Iranian Revolutionary Guard controls and limits communications and internet access to its citizens,” Ansari says.

“The few reaching our call center seek the international community’s support. People contacting us ask, ‘would you guys please talk about our plight on your broadcast?’ That’s exactly what we have done. We have launched programs on both TV and social media.”

Learn more about Heart4Iran and MohabatTV here.

One new program, Freedom Iran, provides up-to-date information. “We’re bringing in experts, and we share videos from inside Iran with the international community to let them know the Iranian Christian community sees itself as a part of this movement,” Ansari says.

Header image depicts Iranian protestors on the Keshavrz Boulevard in Tehran. (Wikimedia Commons)

The men had fled economic and security hardships in the Kurdish areas of southeastern Turkey. After helping them with their needs for food and legal orientation, the workers were even more surprised when the Kurdish Turks eyed the Bibles on the shelves and asked, “What are these?”

When workers answered that they were Bibles, one of the men asked if there were any copies in Turkish.

“We smiled, as just a few days before, Turkish Bibles were donated to us after much research we had done to learn how to obtain them,” the ministry co-director said. “We gave him a Bible, and he said, ‘I am interested to know more about God. Can you teach me?’”

As the co-director knew some Kurmanji, the dialect of Kurdish people in southeastern Turkey, they had a brief Bible study, and she promised to find a Turkish interpreter for future sessions.

The future turned out to be a few minutes later, as the Kurds returned with a Turkish friend who also couldn’t wait to learn about God. Turkey is 99 percent Muslim, as Islam is central to Turkish nationalism, but in this corner of the world they were free to explore. The co-director asked them how they had found out about the ministry, and one replied that he had learned of it from a Greek Orthodox priest.

“I went twice to this Orthodox church and asked about Christianity, but the priest told me to come to you,” he told her.

(Photo courtesy of Christian Aid Mission)

The co-director could think of only one person who could act as a Turkish interpreter for a Bible study: another refugee who knew various languages but was not a Christian. He had often received help from workers and had attended the ministry’s church services before coronavirus lockdowns. He was eager to help.

“To our first Bible study in the Turkish language, we had the three men attend,” the co-director said. “At the next one, a young man joined them, and before they left, one of them asked, ‘Can I bring my wife next time?’

“I really love to be surprised by God,” she added. “At the end of the second Bible study, the Turkish translator looked at us and said, ‘It is such a good opportunity for me. I have been struggling to read and understand the Bible, but now I can do it with you!’”

Huge Opportunity

Such divine encounters are a regular part of a ministry that sees a constant stream of people in seasons of transition.

Whatever their needs for food, baby diapers, or housing, refugees come with spiritual hunger at a time when they are free of the societal pressures against Christianity in their home countries – ministry team leaders receive daily texts and phone calls from people who want to hear God’s Word, the co-director said.

“We believe discipleship stems from the relationships,” she said. “Just as our family and friends are involved in our day-to-day life, so are the people that we disciple. Just as someone becomes interested in learning about Christ, we intentionally form a relationship with them and continue to teach, pray, and walk through God’s Word.”

Workers follow up with new Christians in weekly Bible studies, women’s meetings, home visits, phone calls and text messages, she said. Pandemic restrictions on the size of gatherings remain in effect, so the women’s group has broken into smaller units. Refugees don’t generally have the technology to benefit from Zoom church services, so the ministry leaders record 10-minute services and send them as WhatsApp text messages in Arabic, Farsi and Sorani, she said.

The messages are sent to church members, refugees, and the hundreds of people who have passed through the ministry and on to other parts of Europe, she said.

“It is a way to encourage the whole network of people connected to our ministry and really see our vision of outreach throughout Europe come to life,” the director said.

(Photo courtesy of Christian Aid Mission)

At the same time, team leaders are creating small discipleship groups in Greece to strengthen the local Body of Christ, she said.

“Our vision is to train disciples, and we don’t want to give it up,” she said. “Despite the pandemic, we have seen a rising interest in the people to know more about God; in December, we had a new believer nearly every second day.”

The ministry’s church thus has continued to grow in spite of restrictions on gatherings and the transitory nature of the refugees they are serving, she said. Workers travel from house to house in order to pray for refugees, encourage them, study the Bible and train them.

“We have baptized people and have more waiting to be baptized,” she said.

Power of the Word

Her husband, who co-directs the ministry, began receiving calls from a Syrian refugee held in a detention center last year.

A convert to Christianity, the refugee requested encouragement and prayer. He met another Syrian in the detention center who was interested in learning about God, so both of them began calling the male co-director, asking for prayer and Bibles.

He visited them, gave them Bibles and continued following up with them.

“And then one day,” his co-director wife said, “the refugee called him back and said, ‘We have some men from Pakistan and Bangladesh. They are complaining, saying, why do we have Bibles only in Arabic?’ Of course, communication in their language is not easy for us, as we don’t have interpreters in their languages. But we are working on following up with getting the Bibles for them.”

Ministry workers meeting physical needs come across such spiritual hunger every day in Greece and other parts of Europe. Consider giving through Christian Aid Mission to equip believers to meet such needs with the love of Christ.

Header and story images courtesy of Christian Aid Mission.

As Lebanon crumbles, Syrian refugees weigh their options. Nearly 90-percent of the Syrian refugee population cannot access food, clean water, or essential services.

“Because there are now so many Lebanese people struggling with food insecurity, there’s more pressure put upon them,” David* from Cry Out Now Ministries explains.

“Many refugees are starting to question whether or not they need to go back to Syria, even though that could mean going back to a war zone.”

(Photo courtesy of Cry Out Now via Facebook)

The circumstances are dire, but God’s Spirit is moving. “Before the war in Syria, most people had very little opportunity to hear the Good News. Because they’ve been taking refuge in countries like Lebanon, many have ended up giving their lives to follow Jesus,” David says.

“We’re particularly seeing this amongst the Kurdish population from Syria.”

Dreams and visions

Kurds make up between 7- and 10-percent of Syria’s population and God is moving mightily among this group. Just ask Frank and Mary*, David says. “Frank had been coming in and out of Lebanon for a number of years to do work, which many of the Syrian men had been doing before the war. Once the war struck, he brought his family over,” he begins.

One night, Mary had a dream. “In the dream, she saw a man, and she was in what she assumed to be a church building. She was worshipping God in that building with other people,” David continues. Mary described the dream to her sister, who had recently attended a church near their new home in Lebanon.

“Whenever she describes the man from the dreams, her sister realized that this was the pastor from the church.”

Mary’s sister invited the couple to attend a church service with her. Afterward, they spoke with the pastor, and Mary confirmed he was the man she saw in her dream. “They ended up starting to discover more about Jesus, getting involved in Bible studies, and they give their lives to follow Jesus,” David says.

“Kurdistan” means “the land of Kurds”. Originally this designated a region of Western Iran. This map extends the concept to cover the greater region with any significant Kurdish population and encompasses parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.
(Wikimedia Commons)

“[Now], they have been opening up their home and inviting other Syrians, particularly Kurds, to come and discover more about Jesus by doing Discovery Bible Studies. At least 40 or 50 people [are] involved, and quite a number of them are starting to decide whether or not they truly want to follow Jesus.”

Some new believers are taking the Gospel with them as they head back to Syria. “Be praying they would have a deeper knowledge of Scripture, and that they would start spreading the Good News further and further amongst the other Syrian Kurds,” David requests.

“The Kurds have the potential to bring the Good News to the majority of people in the Middle East who are Arabs.”

*–Names changed for security purposes.

Header image courtesy of Cry Out Now Ministries via Facebook.

On Friday, analyst Hussain Abdul-Hussain highlighted potential consequences of keeping Shia militants around:

Kataib Hezbollah has been busy building a “statelet” within Iraq. If the government does not act quickly, it will soon become stronger than the Iraqi state itself; it will dominate Iraq in the way Hezbollah dominates in Lebanon and will seal Iraq’s slide into failure as a client state of Iran.

On Saturday, Hashd al Shaabi supporters set fire to Kurdish Democratic Party offices, stirring tensions between Kurds and the Iraqi government. Security forces were slow to respond, TRT World reports, and “could not do much in reaction to the incident.”

Last week, a coalition of pro-Iranian militias agreed to a conditional ceasefire with the U.S. Samuel* with Redemptive Stories says the truce hinges upon a complete U.S. troop withdrawal by December 31st. “It creates an opportunity for the U.S. to pull out troops, which is its stated desire,” he explains.

Will troop withdrawal cost minorities their safety? The U.S. wants “the Iraqi government to deal with the Iranian militias that are across the country, and particularly up there in the north with the Sinjar province,” Samuel says.

“So far, they have been unwilling to do so.”

The conditional ceasefire described above and a Sinjar agreement signed several days ago are two of many multifaceted issues clouding Iraq’s future.

“It’s like this quagmire, for lack of a better term, that affects Iraqi politics, Iranian politics, U.S. politics, and then also Turkish [politics],” Samuel says. “I’m sure Russia’s got a hand in there somewhere as well.”

Why it matters

Last year, Gospel workers began voicing concern about Iranian militants’ budding power in Iraq. Seeking to control strategic geographic locations, the militants openly persecute believers and other Iraqi minorities.

Christian homes in Mosul were marked with the Arabic letter “N” for Nazarite and “Property of the Islamic State.”
(Image, caption courtesy of Vision Beyond Borders)

“That northern part of Iraq – Mosul, Sinjar province – has been under dispute for a long time. There have been lots of different factions fighting for that land, including Turkey,” Samuel says.

Iraq’s government may not be able to protect believers, but you know the God who can.

“[Pray] that they would stand under the midst of this persecution; that they will be faithful to share the Gospel and to communicate Christ as they live among Muslims, Yazidis, and many other unique unbelieving sects throughout that area,” Samuel requests.

Pray also for Gospel workers assessing security changes and how they will affect the ability to help persecuted Christians.

“We need to care about the politics that affect [Iraqi Christians], but then also we need to pray for them.”

*– Name changed for security purposes.

Header image depicts woman walking through rubble in West Mosul. © European Union 2017 (Photo by Peter Biro/Flickr/CC2.0)