Prelates survey the damage following an attack on Christians in Aleppo. Credit: Melkite Archdiocese of Aleppo.
Posted on 09/19/2015 2:03:10 PM PDT by NYer
.- Syrian natives who have ministered to refugees from the civil war there are trusting in God to protect their fellow Christians.
There are many “satans” in the world, but “there’s a lot right now in Syria and Iraq,” Christian minister Joseph Sleman told an audience Sept. 18 at a religious freedom summit co-sponsored by Baylor University and hosted by the Catholic University of America, in Washington, D.C.
Sleman and his wife Hannah described a list of horrors perpetrated by the Islamic State against Christians in Syria amid a years-long civil war. “The blood is shouting from this land,” Hannah said.
Yet they added that the Gospel originally spread to much of the world from Syria thanks to St. Paul, and that “we believe that God can do it again.”
“The only hope that we have is Jesus,” Hannah said, noting that prayer and fasting have sustained the Christians in Syria far longer than expected. “We believe that the power of the Lord is working a lot in our country,” she said.
The Syrian civil war has continued since 2011, internally displacing 8 million, and forcing more than 4 million to flee the country as refugees. More than 250,000 have died in the war.
The Slemans hail from Syria but moved to the United States for Joseph to continue his theology education.
They have ministered to refugees in Syria for years, though; first from the Iraq War, and now from the Syrian civil war.
Before the civil war, Christians and Muslims lived together peacefully and were free to worship, they maintained. Joseph described how his childhood friends were Muslims.
“As Christians and Muslims, we have one enemy,” he said, “it’s Satan.”
Now that the civil war has erupted and the Islamic State is ravaging portions of the country, Syrian Christians live in the constant face of death, they explained, and they are “waiting for the time they will die.”
Fathers say goodbye to their families when they leave the house, knowing it could be the last time they do so. Parents cry after their children leave the house for school in the morning.
The Slemens described their own hellish experience in Syria as they endured an hour-long shelling of mortar rounds in the area of their residence as they cried and prayed on the floor. “Many children died that day,” Joseph said, adding that “many families face the same things every day.”
Islamic State militants can eviscerate whole villages in 24 hours, he explained, and they are notorious for not only mass killings but rape as well. Their trail of terror has grown so great that some Christians have planned to kill themselves and their families rather than fall into their hands. One of Hannah’s friends armed his house with explosives in case the Islamic State took over the area, she noted, and this would have killed intruders along with his family.
It’s good to hear that countries have opened to welcome refugees from the conflict, they maintained. The Polish embassy in Syria, for example, opened its doors for refugees seeking visas.
But more could be done.
The White House says the United States has taken in 1,500 Syrian refugees since the beginning of the conflict, and the president pledged to increase to accept 10,000 refugees over the course of the next year. However, more than 20 former senior White House officials urged the administration to increase that number to 100,000, citing the gravity of the situation.
Joseph and Hannah are pseudonyms, used to preserve the couple's safety and privacy.
Obama is only allowing Muslim immigrants. For those christians who made it here ... Adios!
More than half of the 27 Iraqi Christians the Obama administration has been holding for the past six months at an ICE detention center in Otay Mesa, California, are set to be deported in coming weeks, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced earlier this week.
Obama set to deport 12 Iraqi Christian refugees
Catholic ping!
I’m waiting.
Refugees are not the answer. Saving Assad’s regime and setting up constantly enlarging safe zones for Syrians is. Anyone who starts anything in those zones, shoot them on sight! And for heaven’s sake, disarm all of the rebels/terrorists who aren’t part of an established military! Harsh rules, for sure, but for those who are really being decimated it’s the only way to protect them, and civilization.
Praise the lord and pass the ammo.
Amendment II
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more; we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.” - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Jesus aint gonna save them...
Abomination.
Isaiah 17:1
The burden against Damascus.
Behold, Damascus will cease from being a city,
And it will be a ruinous heap.
Let the Christians flee from Damascus.
Let ISIS have it.
Let Damascus become their base of operation and then their graveyard.
Lord, please have mercy on your people and destroy the wicked.
Lord, behold the evil deeds of ISIS and their mockery against You and Your Son, Jesus of Nazareth, and destroy them.
Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, "He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust."
Psalm 91:1-3,
"And I give them eternal life; they will never come to destruction, and no one will ever take them out of my hand."
John 10:27-28
"But the Lord is faithful, who will establish you, and guard you from the evil one."
2 Thess 3:3
"And the Lord will deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me for his heavenly Kingdom; to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen."
2 Timothy 4:18
Yahweh is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge; my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower"
Psalm 18:2
We beseech You O Lord,
We come boldly asking for Your divine safety and protection over Your Christian children in the Middle East. You instructed us to always pray, for You are able to keep, take care of, and bring to pass the things that we commit unto You in prayer. Lord, we commit all things into Your hands. We pray that You would assign strong and mighty angels to watch over the Middle East nations, cities and communities. They are suffering so these many years. May You encamp each one in a hedge of protection to keep safe in all their ways.Father, thank You for the power and authority that You have given us over the devil and over every evil and demonic spirit; and with that authority, We do bind Satan, every principality, and every spirit of weakness from hurting or harming those who belong to You, in any way, by the authority of the name of Jesus Christ.
No weapon formed against those who belong to You shall prosper. You instructed us to cast our cares and our worries upon You, and You would sustain us. Therefore as praying intercessors, we cast the Middle East nations’ cares and worries upon You. We are confident , that according to Your word, You shall sustain and keep all safe. Your word says You are faithful to keep us from all evil.
Because we trust in You to watch over these Christians , friends and loved ones, We thank You for allowing Your peace to rest upon us and their every concern. Thank You and praise You for victory in Christ Jesus .
Let it be done in Your glory, Lord.
We praise and glorify Your name,
Amen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SdFyxNdlxE
Lord, Save Thy People and bless Thine Inheritance
Give Victory to thy Kings over the barbarians
And preserve Thy Commonwealth by the Power of Thy Holy Cross!
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