One year ago today in Shingal, Iraq and the villages around it inhabited by a lesser known people group called the Yazidi were captured by ISIS forces. Fathers were seperated from their wives, young men were separated from their mothers and sisters. The men were systematically murdered. By UN calculation over 5,000 were killed. The remaining women and children have been sold as sex slaves, married-off in a forced conversion or have been trained as "cubs of the Caliphate" to become murderous child soldiers. 5,000 - 7,000 were captured and by in large most remain Islamic captives. The surviving families pray to be reunited with their daughters though many on both sides have given up hope leading to the reports of Yazidi captives killing themselves. This intense pressure gave rise to this now somewhat renown rescue video which I cannot watch without crying.
I cannot believe the extent to which the nations are flooding to Germany. Beforehand I knew of the refugees but many attempts at contact were so difficult as to make me wonder if it was worth it. Language barriers and extreme need and system abusing liars all take the edge off of our passion but now as the nations no longer rise as water seeping through the cracks but as water bursting through the door and pouring through the window I am made to consider what my role, our role in this might be.
The Yazidi people have a strange form of faith mixed with Christianity, Islam and Tribal superstition. They revere a top fallen angel and are therefore known as devil-worshipers by the Muslims. But in this I imagine there must be an openness to the Gospel. As I considered these things today I saw a dark man with two children at the park. I asked his language and he said "Kurdish" and expanded that he is a Yazidi who fled from Sadaam Husein.
Gods will be done. "in the latter days the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and it shall be lifted up above the hills; and peoples shall flow to it" - Micah 4:1 AND Isaiah 2:2
Fortunately due to U.S. bombings and the brave actions of Syrian Kurds a passage was made to allow the escape of almost 50,000 Yazidi into Kurdistan preventing the massacre from becoming a full regional genocide.
But all of this has been laying heavily on my heart. As I found out how Germany has been struggling to receive so many of such refugees something has continue to somewhat burn and somewhat stir within me. As I saw the 150 refugees who came just this week to our little city of Lippstadt. I have began to feel a prompting.
The Yazidi people have a strange form of faith mixed with Christianity, Islam and Tribal superstition. They revere a top fallen angel and are therefore known as devil-worshipers by the Muslims. But in this I imagine there must be an openness to the Gospel. As I considered these things today I saw a dark man with two children at the park. I asked his language and he said "Kurdish" and expanded that he is a Yazidi who fled from Sadaam Husein.
Some reporter should ask him what he thinks of the war in Iraq having seeing his kinsman murdered under Sadaam. I think I can thank all our servicemen on his behalf.
We talked for a while in somewhat broken German but still we were able to converse well. Not in some difficult middle-eastern language but in one I know very well. This in addition to observing a rise in the Persian presence while knowing that many Christians are probably among the refugees has really got me thinking. Also I looked it up and the largest population of Yazidi outside of Iraq is in our state in Germany. 100,000 live in this country though most are from Turkey and are often falsely identified by their former nationality instead of by their people.
I'm not sure what God is doing in and through us. I got to preach at another church this week and so far the relationships between the churches are healthy and a work for refugees is growing. There are still plenty of obstacles but I wonder if this sense of change that has been long stirring within might not be as geographically far as we may have expected.
I've had a dream but perhaps that is for another post. . .
Gods will be done. "in the latter days the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and it shall be lifted up above the hills; and peoples shall flow to it" - Micah 4:1 AND Isaiah 2:2
Blessing to you my friends and remember the exhortation "So you, too, must show love to foreigners, for you yourselves were once foreigners in the land of Egypt." - Deut. 10:19
In his Love,
Aaron, Amy, P, N & E
- Monday, August 03, 2015
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