Germany (MNN) — Last week,
three Syrian refugees in Germany helped capture a fellow refugee who was
allegedly planning to bomb a Berlin airport. Investigators say the
would-be bomber, Jaber al-Bakr, was likely an ISIS allegiant. His
captors are being hailed as heroes.
Refugees Stand Against Terror
Al-Bakr had been on the run for two
days. Security forces raided his apartment and circulated the suspect’s
photo on social media. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/10/11/german-r efugee-terror-attack-averted-refugees/91885722/ - According to USA Today , al-Bakr approached three fellow Syrian refugees at a train station and asked if he could stay at their apartment.
One of the refugees, identified by
German media as Mohamed A, said they took in al-Bakr because they
recognized him and knew they had to turn him in.
Mohamed A told German press, “I was
so angry at him. I won’t accept such a thing — especially here in
Germany, the country that opened its door to us,”
The
three friends trussed up al-Bakr on their couch, refused his monetary
bribes, and turned him over to the police. German authorities have
issued public gratitude to the three men for taking a stand against
terrorism. The suspect committed suicide in jail later in the week.
Although Syrian refugees in Germany
have left the war in Syria behind, the trauma still follows them. These
ISIS-sympathetic attacks in Germany and the rest of Europe can be like
reliving nightmares.
A Father’s Emotional Account
Matt Morrison with https://www.mnnonline.org/mission_groups/e3-partne rs/ - e3 Partners
was just in Germany on one of the organization’s mission trips working
with refugees. He says he witnessed first-hand the ongoing emotional
wrestle in one particular conversation with a Syrian father.
“I got to meet a family in one of the
refugee camps, and the father was showing me pictures on his cellphone
of Aleppo, where they were from, and showing me what they had left
behind. As he was flipping
through, he just kind of stopped when he got to a picture of a dead body
and it still had a cable tie around the man’s neck. He explained to me
through Google translator that was his brother. The 18-year-old boy they
were raising in their family was not his son, but was actually his
nephew.
(Screenshot courtesy of AMG International)
“He went on to explain how his wife
had to be revived as they were crossing the Aegean Sea, how his children
were sick, and how both his parents and his wife’s parents had been
literally blown apart by the bombings there in Aleppo.”
Morrison says, “You could just see
the turmoil in his face. They had been in Germany for nine months, but
you could still just see the tears welling up his eyes, the fear, the
sense of relief that finally they were safe, but just that desperation.
And this coming from a man who used to build cell towers all over the
Middle East and actually used to do men’s fashion design on the side as a
hobby. And now this family is living in basically a room the size of a
dorm room; just absolutely devastating.”
Spiritual Warfare in Refugee Camps
Morrison says, more than ever, the biggest needs he saw in the refugee homes and camps was a spiritual need.
“You would come into these
nondescript looking buildings, and it may be a place where as much as
1,100 to 1,500 refugees live with their families. We would walk in and
you could just feel the spiritual oppression as you went in there. You
could feel this sense of darkness. Some of our team members really dealt
with a lot of spiritual warfare just coming in and out of those
places.”
(Photo courtesy of Christian Aid Mission)
But spiritual darkness could not keep
out the message of deep truth and hope that Jesus Christ offers. In
making relational connections and fostering conversations with refugee
families, the team members were able to talk about the Gospel.
“It was amazing just how hungry they
were to hear more about Jesus, to hear more about the hope we have in
Christ,” Morrison shares. “It was this genuine sense that what they had
always believed and what they had always followed had been letting them
down in a big way. They were excited to hear about Christ and hear about
the fact that this God they have always feared actually truly loves
them.”
Ground-Breaking Ministry
This is the second German city where
e3 Partners has started refugee ministry, says Morrison. And it’s all
part of a greater, long-term vision for missions there.
“We were basically breaking ground on
some new ministry, which made this trip actually quite a bit more
challenging. When we were there, we were working with a number of
on-the-ground missionaries who are there long-term, helping them begin
their new ministry to refugees. We were really blessed to have a
connection with Muslim-background believers in the city, and they were
able to start introducing us to their friends.”
As Muslim-background believers
connected the team with other refugee families and friends, the team
members invited people to connect with the local church.
“We were able to invite them to one
of the local churches where we were able to feed them, actually
worshiped with them, got to celebrate with them, and got to share Christ
with them.”
A Revitalizing Spiritual Landscape
Morrison says God is miraculously changing the spiritual landscape among Syrians.
“There are a number of Muslims coming
to faith, not because of some kind of spiritual witness by a Christian
in their community (many of them don’t have access to Christian
missionaries), but instead they’re having dreams and visions of Jesus. I
can’t tell you how many Muslim-background believers I met who it wasn’t
someone who led them to Christ, it was a dream, it was a vision, it was
basically Jesus telling them about Himself. I met a guy who his mom had
that vision and she ended up leading the whole family to Christ, and
then they had to flee where they were from because she couldn’t stop
talking about Him.”
One way you can encourage spiritual revival among Syrian war-survivors? Pray.
“Be praying that God will continue to
reveal Himself to these men and these women and these children, because
there’s only so much we can do. We’ve learned we can be there, we can
be available, we can share what God puts on our hearts to share, but
ultimately He’s the one who’s breaking into their hearts,” says
Morrison.
“[Pray] that more Christians will
rise up and see this horrible crisis as an opportunity to advance the
Gospel and understand God is doing some really exciting, positive stuff
in the midst of the greatest humanitarian crisis of the generation.”
The leadership at e3 Partners is now planning 27 more mission trips,
particularly for the summer next year. Would you be interested in
joining a mission trip to work with refugees in Germany and share
Christ’s encouragement? The trips aren’t posted yet, but you can watch
for trip listings on http://e3partners.org/ - e3 Partners’ website here !
For Morrison, the trip was life-changing. “I’m still processing
everything I experienced. I’ve been on a lot of mission trips before and
I’ve never been a part of anything quite like this. I would just say if
you’ve never been before, I really encourage it. This is a type of
ministry that may not be available to us in five or ten years, but it is
now and there is an opportunity to literally change the spiritual
landscape of the 10/40 Window just by going to Germany.”
Source: http://www.mnnonline.org/ -