(Editors Note. After reading the following article, I asked the same question, what is my/your church doing to help? How many Sunday’s have gone by in the last year as ISIS has systematically persecuted some of the oldest Christian communities in the world? Yet on Sunday, not a peep. Follow the link and find out what more YOU can do)
In the spring of 2014, an organized militia set out to create a form of Islamic government known as a caliphate in the Middle East. As spring turned to summer, this Islamic State (ISIS) destroyed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Syrian Christians, Iraqi believers, Yazidis and various sects of Shia Muslims. Over 1 million were driven from their homes, and thousands of others were slaughtered or enslaved as this ruthless caliphate swept across Syria and Iraq.
Thousands upon thousands fled into the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq to places called Erbil and Dohuk. They took refuge in parks, stadiums, abandoned buildings, parking garages, shelters and tents. Months later, many of them continue to live in camps and refugee centers with little hope of ever returning home.
I have just returned from northern Iraq where I served with a Kentucky Baptist Disaster Relief medical and children’s trauma team. The team was comprised of Dr. Tom Ashburn of Barbourville, Glenn Hickey of Monticello, Stacy Nall of Shelbyville, Pat Callan of Sparta, Debra Kramer of Henderson, Karen Smith of Shepherdsville, and myself, Coy Webb, Kentucky Baptist DR director. We spent nine days in northern Iraq seeking to bring help, healing and hope to those displaced by war and violence. As we ministered among the refugees, they only asked one thing of us, “Will you please tell our story to the world?”