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MIDDLE EAST Texan Peter Matheson* works tirelessly to bring refugees God’s shining hope. But the heart-wrenching situation takes a great toll on the many he serves and to him personally as he ministers in the midst of tremendous suffering.
It’s hard to imagine anything but a continued descending darkness closing in on Syrian and Iraqi refugees, victims of a rebellion being fought against the Syrian regime and brutality caused by ISIS and other Islamic extremists.
“The hardest thing in this ministry is just sitting down and listening to their hurts,” Matheson says about spending time with the refugees. “They come, they arrive with little children just with the clothes on their back, because back in Syria their homes are destroyed, their businesses are destroyed … women have been raped … real torture goes on among men and young men in Syria.”
While images and reports of beheadings, cruelty and pure evil continue to shadow refugees—numbering in the millions—from any light of hope, Matheson is there to tell them about a loving God who cares deeply for all who are fleeing violence and that only he can push back the descending darkness.
Through the support of Southern Baptists, Matheson and other workers are able to distribute boxes of food and other critical necessities provided through gifts to Global Hunger Relief along the Syrian border.
“We are able, through the Cooperative Program and Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, to focus 100 percent on the ministry that God has given us as workers … as laborers in the field,” Matheson says. “We’re able to give all of our attention to people who are hurting by ministering to their physical, emotional and, most importantly, their spiritual needs.”
U.S. churches also are playing a direct role in ministering to refugee needs alongside Matheson. A medical team from Mandarin Baptist Church of Los Angeles came to see the work firsthand and to help.
Nurse Katherine Lee* recognized that their physical presence to provide medical assistance is important, but the ongoing presence that Matheson provides is key to lasting hope. Matheson’s physical presence to listen and give comfort to the refugees, as well as to offer help and hope makes a real difference in their lives, she says.
“Giving to IMB is just one of the ways we can help,” Lee says. “It is very important to support … the local workers here. Without funding, they … cannot stay here and build relationships…, and they cannot provide for their physical needs. They cannot provide for food or medicine or diapers or milk.”
As more and more Syrians flee the violence, Matheson hopes he can help the refugees out of at least one aspect of the darkness in which they’ve been living.
“My aim is to move them from one level of understanding to another, building into their lives one brick of truth after one brick of truth until by God’s grace, the spirit of God (begins) working in their lives,” Matheson says.
With overwhelming challenges in the midst of constant need, it would be easy for Matheson to feel alone. But he is sustained emotionally and spiritually as well as financially by knowing that believers back home in the U.S. haven’t forgotten him and share the resolve to bring light where there is darkness.
“From the bottom of my heart, I thank Southern Baptists for giving to the Cooperative Program and the Lottie Moon Christmas [Offering] to keep us as workers … on the field,” Matheson says.
He adds, “Yes, it’s hard, (but) we’re able to minister to their physical needs, showing the love of Christ in a practical way to these people and thus opening an opportunity for them to listen.”
Matheson is providing tangible hope in what appears to be a hopeless place.
“My friend here asked me why we are doing all of this,” Matheson says after he had explained to a refugee father and his family why the group from California had come.
Matheson told him there are 46,000 Southern Baptist churches with approximately 16 million people to lift “your group, all the refugees and the people back in Syria, before the Father.”
Matheson says the man responded that if this many are going to lift them before the Father, it gives him hope.
*Names changed
