Holding together

Nearly a century ago, Irish poet William Butler Yeats published his description of a devastated Europe after the brutality of World War I: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. …”

Forty years later, Nigerian author Chinua Achebe used Yeats to describe the woes of Africa in his famous novel Things Fall Apart. Nearly 60 years later, Yeats resonates again. From Iraq to Syria, from Israel to Ukraine, wars and rumors of wars scatter refugees and strain residents struggling to live normal lives in abnormal conditions.

It’s not unlike New Testament days when the Apostle Paul wrote to Christians facing persecution and instability. But from a prison cell in Rome, under the threat of execution, Paul had a different take than Yeats. Christ is before all things, Paul wrote. And in Him “all things hold together.”

The same holds true today. In some of the darkest corners of the world, ordinary people are helping to hold things together by the unseen sacrifices of everyday life. Aid organizations and mission agencies are doing valiant work to help the weak and needy in the world’s hot spots, but so are average citizens whose deeds often go unnoticed.

It’s a thread of good news in the midst of devastating deadlines: From church basements in Ukraine to living rooms in Iraq to fellowship halls in Israel, a center still holds where things fall apart.

IN THE UKRAINIAN SEAPORT OF ODESSA, things hold together nearly a year after upheaval led to a revolution and an incursion by Russian-backed separatists in the country’s eastern regions.

Indeed, after demonstrations in May, summer in Odessa unfolded like many seasons before it, with a couple of notable exceptions: Prices rose and more people than usual packed the Black Sea retreat. But the influx wasn’t just tourism: Like many cities in Ukraine, Odessa is absorbing refugees from the country’s beleaguered east.

It’s a jarring reality for a developed nation unaccustomed to a refugee crisis. The United Nations estimates the recent fighting in Ukraine has displaced more than 1 million people.

Despite a tentative cease-fire in September, many Ukrainians remain skeptical. They doubt the agreement will quell Russian President Vladimir Putin’s expansionist ambitions. Some think Putin will use the moment to regroup and refocus his efforts on grabbing more territory.

For now, Ukrainians in cities outside the conflict zones retain a sense of normalcy: They commute to work, walk to school, visit markets, and stroll through parks. But a growing anxiety punctuates daily life, as many Ukrainians wonder if unrest will reach them.

Caleb Suko, a Baptist missionary in Odessa, sees the anxiety as he interacts with friends and neighbors. In his blog about life in Ukraine, Suko writes about the new normal: “People are on edge and it shows in their faces. Smoke rising in the distance could just be someone burning garbage, or it could be a provocation, the beginning of something ugly. A distant boom makes you wonder, ‘Was that a car backfiring or was it something much more ominous?’”

For those living inside conflict zones, the ominous has become the ordinary. In the eastern city of Donetsk, rebels have seized control and declared the area the Donetsk People’s Republic. Many residents have fled, and those remaining are vulnerable, including the elderly and those without the resources to relocate to other homes.

Shelling and bombs send residents scattering to makeshift shelters in basements and cellars across the area. In the besieged city of Antratsit, the basement of a local Baptist church quickly became a nightly bomb shelter for some 70 people.

One of the church leaders described the scene to Suko: Most of the congregation’s 120 members fled the city, but about 20 congregants remained. Those 20 members had attended services regularly, but weren’t heavily involved in the life and ministry of the church.

War has changed them.

These days, the 20 church members in Antratsit are busy caring for residents in a city where food supplies are scarce, rebels run the town, and bombings are a brutal reality. At nightfall, congregants prepared the church basement for several dozen residents seeking a safe place to sleep. When outsiders manage to bring supplies into the city, the church members distribute them to long lines of needy residents.

“They are just busy ministering to people,” says Suko. “And really risking their lives to do it.”

In early September, another blow fell: Rebels seized control of the church building in Antratsit, and demanded the locals leave. It’s a scene unfolding across rebel-held areas, as many evangelical churches report separatists seizing their property to use as local headquarters. On Aug. 13, rebels in Donetsk seized the property of the 4,000-member Word of Life Church. Earlier in the summer, separatists occupied Donetsk Christian University, and housed rebel militia in staff apartments.

In some cases, the seizures turn violent. In June, the Institute for Religious Freedom reported gunmen kidnapped four members of the Transfiguration Evangelical Church in Donetsk. The assailants shot and killed the four men, including two deacons and two sons of the church’s senior pastor. “The victim’s bodies were buried by the terrorists in a mass grave,” said Anton Herashchenko of the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Church leaders say rebels target evangelicals, vilifying them for suspected connections to the West. Church members say their activities are spiritual, not political.

Despite the threats of bombing and violence, Christians still help their neighbors. When rebels seized the church building in Antratsit, the 20 congregants adapted: Since they could no longer shelter residents in the church basement, they brought the most vulnerable into their homes. The church members now care for about 20 disabled residents who can’t quickly make it to bomb shelters without help.

Suko’s friend at the Antratsit church is encouraged by the spiritual growth he sees in the remaining members, and by the reality it displays. “The church is not a building,” he told Suko. “The church is still in Antratsit.”

THE CHURCH IS STILL IN ISRAEL TOO.

One example is Christ Church—the oldest Protestant church in the Middle East. The evangelical, Anglican church sits in Jerusalem’s Old City and counts British abolitionist William Wilberforce among its founders.

David Pileggi—an American who has lived in Israel for 34 years—leads Christ Church, and has watched tension, conflicts, and wars roil the country for three decades.

The recent, 50-day war with Hamas militants in Gaza brought missiles, rockets, and carnage to the Gaza Strip and southern Israel, but it also stoked tensions in Jerusalem. Even after a cease-fire ended the worst fighting in late August, demonstrations and riots continued in parts of the Israeli capital.

Israeli officials in Jerusalem reported a spike in violent Palestinian attacks on Israeli police and civilians during July and August. They also reported Palestinians launching firebombs at Jewish enclaves in Arab neighborhoods.

Palestinians reportedly suffered a smaller number of Israeli attacks in Jerusalem over the summer, but the Associated Press reported hundreds of Israelis marched through the capital during one set of demonstrations, shouting “death to the Arabs.”

Pileggi says it’s some of the worst disturbances he’s seen in Jerusalem in years. Still, Israelis manage to live normal lives in what Pileggi calls the “routine emergency” of life in Israel: They go to school, raise families, start businesses, grow crops, write music, and visit cafés. Much of the capital—and other parts of Israel—see little of the violent conflicts.

But tensions always simmer between Jews and Arabs in the divided city, and Pileggi says residents sometimes feel as if they’re on the front lines, even if war is in another part of the country. For Christians—an even smaller minority in the capital city—it’s a challenging dynamic for ministry.

At Christ Church, meeting that challenge often means simply being together. The church’s mix of Jewish followers of Jesus, Arab Christians, and believers from other countries work hard to promote community in ordinary ways: Together they celebrate holidays, eat meals, pray, study the Bible, and serve others.

Serving others often means looking beyond internal woes, and helping those suffering in other parts of the world. The church recently sent a team to help refugees from Iraq and Syria and sent aid to Christian families suffering in Gaza. The church also hosts a conference every two years for Christians from other Middle Eastern countries to promote unity in the gospel.

But often, Christian ministry in Jerusalem means helping people in unnoticed ways, as people face ordinary difficulties during—or in spite of—the outbursts of turmoil and war.

Pileggi thinks of some of those Christ Church has helped recently: The mentally challenged Palestinian man who needs help with basic needs. The low-income families in need of work. The woman locked in a custody battle for her handicapped child. The Palestinian mother who longed to send her sons to a Christian school.

These are the faces unseen during high-profile conflicts: They need help beyond the fog of war. Pileggi says helping others in such complicated dynamics requires staying humble and clinging to Christ: “We do not want to be ashamed of the power of the gospel.”

IN OTHER PARTS OF THE MIDDLE EAST, citizens are clinging to any help they can find.

Militants from the terror group Islamic State—also known as ISIS—have seized large swaths of Iraq and Syria, and driven more than 1.5 million people from their homes. Many of those refugees are Christians and members of other minorities. The militants have also viciously killed thousands, including two Americans beheaded publicly.

Sarah Ahmed has seen much of the suffering of the refugees firsthand. In her work for the Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East (FRRME), Ahmed travels between the refugee settlements in the north and a base of operations at St. George’s Anglican Church in Baghdad.

When Ahmed talks about the extremism and violence of ISIS, she expresses grief and anger, and claims the terror group “doesn’t represent Islam.” Ahmed spends her days helping Christians and others suffering in the north. As refugees have fled their homes, they’ve flooded Kurdish cities like Erbil. Those with resources seek shelter in hotels or rental homes, but others end up sheltering in church sanctuaries, schools, and tents.

Aid agencies and some missions organizations have delivered aid to the area overwhelmed by the influx. Fuel prices have risen, rents are doubling and tripling, and permanent residents grow frustrated with the strained living conditions. Still, Ahmed says, some churches have opened their doors to refugees, and she’s also seen Christian families offer to share their homes.

That’s a difficult offer for some. Many Iraqis already have large families in small houses, so offering space to large refugee families—sometimes with six to 10 people—is challenging.

Still, Ahmed says she’s been encouraged when she sees ordinary citizens sacrifice to help others. She remembers one local resident who saw several Christian families living in the streets after arriving in Erbil. He invited the families to stay on his property and provided bedding and other supplies.

In other parts of the city, daily life continues for those already residing in Erbil. Ahmed sees weddings and parties, and says people eat and drink in local restaurants as usual. She says it can be a jarring sight in a city with so many suffering: “But what can people do except continue living their lives?”

In Baghdad, people are trying to continue as well. ISIS militants haven’t seized the city, but residents still live in fear of car bombings and other attacks. A pair of car bombings near a Baghdad market on Sept. 10 killed at least 30 people. Ahmed says the city’s residents still go to work and school, but wonder if they’ll make it home: “In Baghdad people are scared all the time, but being scared and fearful is just a part of life right now. This is how it is.”

Despite the dangers of Baghdad, some refugees fleeing ISIS have arrived in the capital city. Congregants at St. George’s Church have offered aid to those arriving, and Ahmed says many have bought new clothes and other supplies for those who fled their homes.

Meanwhile, the church continues its outreach to poor and needy residents in spots around Baghdad. And Canon Andrew White—the St. George’s chaplain known as “the vicar of Baghdad”—continues to pursue discipleship in the midst of chaos.

In an August blog post, White—who also leads FRRME—wrote about the joy of preparing children at the church for their first communion. He asked the children why they were excited, and “they basically said that when they were baptized their parents had promised they would follow Yesua, but now they have decided themselves.”

The chaplain gave the children Bibles, and said the church would distribute the same Bibles to refugees in the north: “So amongst the devastation there has indeed been the joy of the Lord.”

BACK IN UKRAINE, the pastor of Word of Life Church—the large church seized by rebels in Donetsk—wrote a letter to his scattered congregation, encouraging them also to pursue the joy of the Lord in the places where things seem to be falling apart.

The pastor said the remaining congregation would continue to meet in small groups around the city, and still strive to serve and multiply like the church in the days of the New Testament.

“Tested faith is more precious than a faith that has not been tested for durability,” wrote pastor Leonid Padun. “Tested faith—a faith to the praise of Jesus Christ Himself. … It’s like a reward for the uniform of a soldier who returned from the front with a victory.”