Piece on Syrian Christians

[Sandy]

https://sbcvoices.com/will-this-be-the- ... hristians/

This really caused some pause for me when I read it. A few years ago, we helped a Syrian Christian refugee family who had managed to get through our immigration shield to hook up with family they had already in the US. They were from Northern Syria and the stories they relayed about what had been happening to the Christian community there as a result of the Civil War and the ISIS invasion were just unimaginable. Their saga was the result of prior events and their story was the sort of thing that, by the time they were done, several adults had to leave the room. Apparently there is a whole new sweep of terror since the impromptu decision made in a phone call with the Turkish President took place and the US opened the door to Turkey and Russia, threw the Kurds under the bus and pulled out, then realized it was an extremely unpopular move and tried to backtrack. Most people don't realize that there are Christians there too, one of the oldest, continuously existing Christian communities in the world.

With all of the self-proclaimed Evangelical leaders trolling after Trump with tissues and toilet paper, couldn't one of them have spoken up when he first pushed the idea of getting out, which meant that Turkey and Russia would go in, and tried to stop that disaster from happening? Or at least, made some allowances in the immigration program. The Syrians whom our church were helping told us that getting into the US is virtually impossible and they think they got in only because their relatives here had lined up places for them to work and pulled some strings. There are some Baptists and Assembly of God among those Eastern Orthodox Antiochians.

From this piece, which is, as you can see, unusually well documented, it doesn't look like there will be much left.

[Haruo]

We had a Syrian couple attending Fremont Baptist once or twice a year for a while, must be at least a decade ago now, when they came to visit their son who was attending the University of Washington. I don't know what became of them, nor do I know if anybody at Fremont Baptist developed enough of a relationship with them to be in contact when they weren't in town.

[Sandy]

https://erlc.com/resource-library/artic ... GHHkTZJhxY