Saturday, August 18, 2018
Jewish donations save persecuted Christians in Mideast
Carlos Barbar will never forget the moment he was saved from execution in the "Valley of Death" near Mosul, Iraq. On August 6, 2014, ISIS took control of his village Batnaya. The neighbors managed to flee, but Carlos' father wasn't able to walk and the family didn't have a car. The ISIS terrorists demanded that they decide whether to convert to Islam, pay huge fines or leave. Carlos asked his brother to leave, while he stayed behind to protect his parents.
One of the ISIS terrorists ripped the cross from his neck, threw it on the floor and demanded that he step on it. "I told him, 'I'll put my foot on your neck, but never on the cross. I have my God and he's also your God,'" Carlos recalls.
The barrel of a rifle landed on his head and he collapsed. When he woke up, he discovered that he was hanging from the ceiling by one leg. "They immersed my head in dirty water, beat me with a stick full of nails, tied me with wire and put salt on my wounds," he remembers and shudders. "I screamed in pain, they demanded that I promise to convert to Islam, but I said that I would be happy to die like a proud Christian."
He was brought to trial before an ISIS leader in the region who sentenced him to execution by firing squad. Six ISIS men took him to the "Valley of Death," the execution point. They blindfolded him and cocked their Kalashnikov rifles.
But then, suddenly, the group's commander's cell phone rang. On the other side of line was the man who had sentenced him to death. "Leave him and return immediately," he instructed. They dropped him to the ground, left the site and he lost consciousness. When he awoke, everything around him was white: "I thought I was in heaven. But then I saw a nurse and she told me: 'You're in a medical clinic in a church in Baghdad.'"
Carlos fled from Iraq and didn't return. Today, in a rented apartment in Amman, he's waiting for a response to his asylum applications, which he filed to Canada, Australia, and the US. His mother joined him, and they're paying for rent and food with the money they received for her jewelry. The money is running out.
Like Carlos, there are 12,000 Christian refugees living in Amman, Jordan's capital, who fled from Iraq. Jordan is indeed one of the only countries that has agreed to accept them, but they can't work and they live in abject poverty. Many of them suffered torture, lost relatives, and saw death stare them in the face.
This is also the case for Yitzhak Bahanam, a resident of the Christian village Bartella. In 2010, members of Al Qaeda kidnapped him because his brother was a soldier in the Iraqi army. He was beaten and thrown into a small, dark and filthy pit. "You'll never leave here alive," they told him before they closed and locked the cage with an iron door. They didn't leave him food or water.
Miraculously, three days later, a group of American and Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers received a report about him, came to the site, and rescued him.
The rescue was recorded on video and Isaac shows it to everyone as proof of the hell he experienced. In the video, you can see him being pulled out of the ground, handcuffed and trembling. He asks for a cigarette, lights it and cries.
I met Carlos and Isaac at the "Mother Maria Church" in Amman. The church, surrounded by a wall, is the only place of refuge for the Christian refugees in Amman. The church takes care of them, and tries to help them find asylum in the West.
Father Halil Jahar, a Palestinian from Bethlehem who once served as the priest at the church in Eilat, heads the "Mother Maria Church."
"You, the Jews, have suffered, you know what persecution is," he says.
Before the Christians arrived from Iraq, his church was empty. "On Sundays, 20-25 people would come for Mass, but today, thanks to the refugees, hundreds of Christian families come. The church has never thrived like this," he says.
On Sundays, the church distributes food. The refugees eat in the church courtyard and take meals home. They're all poor, but in Iraq, at another time in their lives, they would come to church in their Sunday Best. They kneel on the wooden benches and pray to God who delivered them from their homeland.
Envelopes with money at a church
A few weeks ago, two important guests came to the church: Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, president of The Fellowship from Israel, and the British pastor Canon Andrew White, president of a charitable association that provides aid to persecuted Christians in the Middle East.
In recent months, The Fellowship started assisting 12,000 Christian refugees from Iraq who live in Jorden. Through White's association, The Fellowship donated $125,000 in food vouchers, money for rent and funding for the operation of a medical clinic and medicine.
https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5330322,00.html
One of the ISIS terrorists ripped the cross from his neck, threw it on the floor and demanded that he step on it. "I told him, 'I'll put my foot on your neck, but never on the cross. I have my God and he's also your God,'" Carlos recalls.
The barrel of a rifle landed on his head and he collapsed. When he woke up, he discovered that he was hanging from the ceiling by one leg. "They immersed my head in dirty water, beat me with a stick full of nails, tied me with wire and put salt on my wounds," he remembers and shudders. "I screamed in pain, they demanded that I promise to convert to Islam, but I said that I would be happy to die like a proud Christian."
He was brought to trial before an ISIS leader in the region who sentenced him to execution by firing squad. Six ISIS men took him to the "Valley of Death," the execution point. They blindfolded him and cocked their Kalashnikov rifles.
But then, suddenly, the group's commander's cell phone rang. On the other side of line was the man who had sentenced him to death. "Leave him and return immediately," he instructed. They dropped him to the ground, left the site and he lost consciousness. When he awoke, everything around him was white: "I thought I was in heaven. But then I saw a nurse and she told me: 'You're in a medical clinic in a church in Baghdad.'"
Carlos fled from Iraq and didn't return. Today, in a rented apartment in Amman, he's waiting for a response to his asylum applications, which he filed to Canada, Australia, and the US. His mother joined him, and they're paying for rent and food with the money they received for her jewelry. The money is running out.
Like Carlos, there are 12,000 Christian refugees living in Amman, Jordan's capital, who fled from Iraq. Jordan is indeed one of the only countries that has agreed to accept them, but they can't work and they live in abject poverty. Many of them suffered torture, lost relatives, and saw death stare them in the face.
This is also the case for Yitzhak Bahanam, a resident of the Christian village Bartella. In 2010, members of Al Qaeda kidnapped him because his brother was a soldier in the Iraqi army. He was beaten and thrown into a small, dark and filthy pit. "You'll never leave here alive," they told him before they closed and locked the cage with an iron door. They didn't leave him food or water.
Miraculously, three days later, a group of American and Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers received a report about him, came to the site, and rescued him.
The rescue was recorded on video and Isaac shows it to everyone as proof of the hell he experienced. In the video, you can see him being pulled out of the ground, handcuffed and trembling. He asks for a cigarette, lights it and cries.
I met Carlos and Isaac at the "Mother Maria Church" in Amman. The church, surrounded by a wall, is the only place of refuge for the Christian refugees in Amman. The church takes care of them, and tries to help them find asylum in the West.
Father Halil Jahar, a Palestinian from Bethlehem who once served as the priest at the church in Eilat, heads the "Mother Maria Church."
"You, the Jews, have suffered, you know what persecution is," he says.
Before the Christians arrived from Iraq, his church was empty. "On Sundays, 20-25 people would come for Mass, but today, thanks to the refugees, hundreds of Christian families come. The church has never thrived like this," he says.
On Sundays, the church distributes food. The refugees eat in the church courtyard and take meals home. They're all poor, but in Iraq, at another time in their lives, they would come to church in their Sunday Best. They kneel on the wooden benches and pray to God who delivered them from their homeland.
Envelopes with money at a church
A few weeks ago, two important guests came to the church: Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, president of The Fellowship from Israel, and the British pastor Canon Andrew White, president of a charitable association that provides aid to persecuted Christians in the Middle East.
In recent months, The Fellowship started assisting 12,000 Christian refugees from Iraq who live in Jorden. Through White's association, The Fellowship donated $125,000 in food vouchers, money for rent and funding for the operation of a medical clinic and medicine.
https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5330322,00.html
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