How to help displaced Iraqis

The images of Iraqi refugees come so fast it’s hard to sleep at night. I am afraid to look at the news; afraid to read the stories; afraid to pop on to Facebook and discover the latest photos my friends in the Middle East are posting.

I’m afraid I’ll recognize their bodies in a pile of humanity spread on desert rocks. I’m afraid the smiling faces of believers I met in Dohuk, Iraq in 2011 will be smashed, smattered, and bloodstained.

They will have died for Christ. Of this I am sure. But still, the pain remains. The fear is that whatever I have done is not enough. So for now, I pray, write and text $10 by entering 80888 as the recipient and imbrelief as the message.

In September of 2011 I was with a group that traveled to Kurdistan, Iraq, to host a conference for Christian pastors and their wives. They came from all over Iraq–from the cities and from the villages and mountains nearby, risking dangerous roads and exposure to extremists to learn about ministry and be inspired in preaching and teaching the Word.

I was told stories of modern-day persecution. Not the kind you read about in the papers, but first-hand accounts from people sitting across from you at the dinner table. I was stunned by how they lived to serve Christ. I wrote a series of special reports.

Celebration and terror were two sides of a coin in Iraq•even in 2011. I was there to write about the gift of property, new partnerships in Iraq, but even then I was concerned that Christian persecution was only going to continue if left unabated in Iraq and history repeated itself.

The day I left Dohuk, Iraq, I interviewed Farouk Hammo, pastor of the Baptist church in Baghdad. A gentle, smiling man, I learned he had family ties to Yazidis, a non-Christian religious sect which is also being persecuted. I was reminded of Hammo’s origins after hearing horror stories this past month from my friends in Baghdad.

First, Islamic radicals finally drove Christians out of Mosul, Iraq, seizing their property and destroying their churches. They marked their homes with an “N” for “Nazarene/Christian” to exterminate or expropriate them.

A friend in Baghdad sent me an urgent message: “Oh my God, don’t let them come!”

As #WeAreN became a hashtag of solidarity in social media, the Christian media wrote stories about Mosul and the rise of ISIS (the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria), who are the terrorists who are said to be even more radical than Al-Qaeda.

The mainstream media finally announced in early August that thousands of Yazidis had became stranded in mountain caves after being driven from Sinjar and were starving and dehydrated. Reports of rape, murder, beheadings, executions followed as ISIS seemed intent on genocide.

Sunday morning I got an e-mail with a message from Pastor Hammo reporting a “massive exile” from mainly Christian cities in northern Iraq.

“ISIS has attack[ed] churches and raise[ed] their flags on churches; and call[ed] upon their gods inside our churches,” Hammo wrote.

“People walked out leaving everything behind just fleeing for their lives – I mean everything,” he wrote. “I was on the phone all night on the phone with brothers and sisters trying to help them find some sort of shelters as Erbil and Duhok were over-occupied.

“Families covered streets; curbs; schools & parks,” Hammo continued. “All churches ground[s] being occupied with families. It’s a symbol of the abomination surfaced and emerged recently in this land.”

Calling for urgent fasting and prayers, Hammo said: “I believe it’s a spiritual warfare more than a ground battle. During my personal prayer and the intercessory group’s prayers I found it’s the old days monster, the old stingy serpent filled with hate and poison.”

Describing first hand accounts of what he had heard, Hammo said he was praying for the Holy Spirit to move and for divine intervention.

“In Sinjar, they kidnap[ped] young girls and women and sold them as slaves. Kids and seniors died of thirst and hunger on the mountains,” he wrote.

Hammo asked readers to press on the government and authorities to get involved; for non-governmental organization to mobilize to save lives and treat the injured; and for support to provide food, medication, shelter, clean water, baby milk, etc.

“Your prayers and intercessors will make a big difference,” he said. “May the Almighty bless richly always, amen. Thank you.”

Russell Moore, Southern Baptists’ ethicist, in an Aug. 8 commentary calling for wise administration of the “sword of justice,” lauded President Obama’s efforts take action to protect religious minorities, including Christians, in Iraq from ISIS.

Pray and text. The International Mission Board and Baptist Global Relief, working together is standing by to help provide immediate assistance to the 200,000 displaced refugees. Southern Baptists and others may help Iraqis who have been forced from their villages and homes by donating to the IMB general relief fund or by texting imbrelief to 80888, which will donate $10 to that fund.

Yes, I’m afraid of what I’ll see next and mostly I’m just so proud of my brothers and sisters in Christ who have been so faithful. They are the un-secret church. They are courageous and God-fearing. “I trust the Lord will not leave us alone,” an Iraqi friend wrote me last week. “Please ask for actions with prayers.”

Share their story so many will come to know the Jesus whom we love and we serve. Pray and give. Our brothers and sisters are desperate for our prayers and our tangible support.

–Joni B. Hannigan is president of Intro LLC in Houston, Texas.