Your support and prayers are continuing to provide vital support for families in Syria. One of the displaced families receiving support is Micheline’s family. She is a 37-year-old mother, now living in Aleppo. She rents a room with her husband on the rooftop of an apartment building, and her children are living with her mother temporarily. Micheline says, “Our children are struggling without us. They are worried about us. My mother shares with our children what she can, and when there is enough they bring the rest to us. So we thank you for helping us with paying the rent of our room and with food portions.”
Your support and prayers are continuing to provide vital support for families in Syria.
An Open Doors partner who coordinates food distribution to families in Aleppo told us, “The people are very tired and some are even in despair. Our support gives them the strength to continue. We see that this support is really important for them.”
One of the families that your support is helping in Aleppo is a family with one son and three daughters. The man, in his fifties, suffers from diabetes and recently had a toe amputated. His son lost his job because of the war, and after being unemployed for some time, he finally left Syria to find work abroad. The three daughters stayed with their parents; two are still at university, while the other has graduated. She is the only one working in the family, and she tries to support them all with her small income, but it’s not enough.
A church member who frequently visits the family says, “In spite of all the difficulties, we can say they are still strong. They look up to heaven and raise their hands to pray to God, and they face all the problems with their strong faith. Thanks to your support, we were able to afford the medical support that they need frequently, in addition to the food support.”
Syria’s civil war has forced about half of the Syrian population to leave their homes and move to other parts of the country that are more secure, or to leave the country completely. Those who have been displaced within Syria have often fled their homes with nothing, including their businesses and sources of income. Prices have gone up in Syria, making the situation for those people even harder.
A church leader who helps hundreds of families, with support from Open Doors, says, “People have to pay a lot extra to have electricity and water. Our city suffers under the big economic crisis. All basic needs are becoming more and more difficult to purchase. This is forcing people to leave.”
One of those displaced families is Micheline’s family. She is a 37-year-old mother, now living in Aleppo. She rents a room with her husband on the rooftop of an apartment building, and her children are living with her mother temporarily. Micheline says, “Our children are struggling without us. They are worried about us. My mother shares with our children what she can, and when there is enough they bring the rest to us. So we thank you for helping us with paying the rent of our room and with food portions.”
In the parts of Syria that are more stable, Open Doors has been able to help some families to repair their homes through local partners. In October, an elderly couple, Antoom and Basima, were able to return to their house in Homs after six years of displacement. “I didn’t expect that we would be able to come back, but we did! I am so happy, this house has belonged to our family for more than 100 years. I thank God for the people who supported us.”
There are even new ministries beginning in some parts of Syria. For example, in the church of our partner Pastor Edward in Damascus, they have a special ministry reaching out to deaf people, called ‘Speaking Hands’. Recently, they were able to open a centre for this ministry in the city. The centre is separate from the church, which makes it more easily accessible for deaf people of all backgrounds, and is playing an important role in helping to integrate deaf people with the rest of the community.
Your support has helped our local partners to provide vital aid to thousands of families in Syria - thank you!
The challenges facing our church family in Middle East are still huge, and our church family in Syria, as well as in Iraq, continue to need support. As well as praying, there are three other things you can do today:
Your support helps persecuted Christians continue to courageously follow Jesus.
Together, we can reach those where persecution hits hardest.