In extremity, opportunity

Our news feeds are full with what ISIS has done. So full even a Jordanian friend told me he doesn’t pay attention anymore, though ISIS could be at his doorstep. It’s too heartbreaking. But the reason for the heartbreak—and hopelessness—is not knowing what we who abhor what ISIS is doing should be doing in return. I’m asked all the time, How can I help?

There are some things only governments and armies can do, and let’s be realistic: Those things are unlikely to happen. President Obama in his interview with The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg made plain he is content to continue leading from behind. In April the State Department made clear it would not accept Iraqi Christians as a special category for asylum. An adequate military response with enough forces on the ground to defeat an al-Qaeda-led insurgency never happened under President George W. Bush. There’s no reason to think it (or nonmilitary options) might on Obama’s watch.

Next question: How can the rest of us help the walking wounded? I’m impressed with humanitarian work among the survivors of ISIS, with dedicated caregivers who work against all odds, some for years. Three snapshots, and look for more details on our website.

Ted Rondeau was like many of us watching the news when ISIS invaded Iraq last summer. The head of missions and outreach at Grace Community Church in Goshen, Ind., also was asking questions, and “a friend of a friend of a friend” helped him make contact with pastor Malath Baythoon in Iraq. The two connected via Facebook, “and 14 days later we flew into Erbil with a team of eight men.”

I’m impressed with humanitarian work among the survivors of ISIS, with dedicated caregivers who work against all odds.

None of the men had been to Iraq before, but they did their homework and hit the ground running in the middle of terrorism and a humanitarian crisis.

What they saw and the people they met gave them an unforgettable view of what needed to be done. Upshot: Grace Community, a church of 3,000, raised $60,000 in a short period of time and began working through Baythoon’s church to assist 80 families—250 people—who lost their homes to ISIS. They have now helped them rent apartment units for six months. Do the math, and see how the church in America can make a real difference in the lives of Iraq’s persecuted. Plus, the church-to-church contact opens doors for future work and relationship building.

Kim and Kirk Milhoan are physicians who run For Hearts and Souls, a medical outreach nonprofit working in Iraq and elsewhere for more than a decade. With specialties in pediatric cardiac care, the couple has put together medical teams of Christians who work alongside Muslims in Iraq’s most embattled sectors. Last year ISIS destroyed a cath lab where they treated patients in Fallujah, but that hasn’t deterred them: In May the Milhoans headed to northern Iraq with a team of nine doctors for five days of surgical procedures unavailable to most of the Iraqis displaced by ISIS.

Nashville-based Servant Group International has been working in Iraq since the time of Saddam Hussein, doing one of the hard things I think is most important if Iraq is to have a future: education. The group has helped to launch primary and secondary schools across Kurdish northern Iraq staffed by Christians who are teaching Muslims. When I was there in March, staff members opened a school for Yazidis—a first. Yazidis are a syncretistic group largely erased from their homeland by ISIS, and largely overlooked by aid groups. In March the new school had 350 students. Today it has more than 1,000. That’s a reflection of the desperate need, as school officials (also dislocated by ISIS) are turning to Servant Group’s school operators more than UN providers and others. In other words, the locals trust them.

Space will not allow me to tell of more good works, but they are there in not small ways: Barnabas Aid, Samaritan’s Purse, Open Doors, Voice of the Martyrs, World Relief, the Jordanian Evangelical Committee for Relief and Development, the churches themselves, and more. For every group I’ve mentioned there are others I’ve left out. If you are asking the question what to do, see our Aid for Iraqis page to learn more, and consider: “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

Email mbelz@wng.org