Noor arrived in Europe with two young children and without her husband. She had left her home in Aleppo, Syria, two years earlier because conditions in the war-torn country had made it impossible to live there. Her family felt they had no other choice. During her passage across tSyrihe Mediterranean Sea, the boat she was on sank with her young children and a group of other migrants. Noor had trained for years as a swimmer so she was strong enough to stay afloat and keep her children safe until they were rescued. But she had tears in her eyes as she remembered one mother who screamed repeatedly for her lost baby.
Noor arrived in Europe with two young children and without her husband. She left her home in Aleppo, Syria, two years earlier. Conditions made it impossible to live. Her family felt they had no other choice.
An estimated crowd of more than 260 Presbyterians have gathered today at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. for CPJ Training Day, the annual kickoff to Ecumenical Advocacy Weekend. Planners say the record turnout, a 38 percent increase over last year, can be attributed to this year’s topic, “Confronting Chaos, Forging Community — and Battling Racism, Materialism and Militarism.”
Released in movie theaters in April, ‘The Promise’ is no mere period love story but a ‘fight to end genocide and injustice,’ promoters say. Actor Christian Bale plays an American journalist trying to expose the Ottoman plot to exterminate millions of Armenians.
In a recent visit to Lebanon and Syria, a delegation from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) had an opportunity to see firsthand the devastation caused by years of conflict. The group also got an up-close view of efforts to breathe new life into Syrian neighborhoods and cities.
The Rev. Jan Edmiston, Co-Moderator of the 222nd General Assembly (2016) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), returned early last week from a trip to Syria with a delegation from the church’s Compassion Peace and Justice ministries. Following the chemical weapons attack in Idlib and the retaliatory airstrikes by the United States military, she issued a prayer for the people of Syria and the world.
The Presbytery of New York City, in solidarity with Rutgers Presbyterian Church and its partners assisting in the resettlement of Syrian refugees, approved a resolution yesterday “protest[ing] the deeply flawed, un-American and immoral Executive Order aimed against refugees of the Muslim faith.”
In a besieged corner of Aleppo, Shahe, a victim of sudden blindness lost his only source of income as a dental technician. He and his wife, Talin, struggled to stay in their home when the monthly payments became impossible. While their oldest son was excelling in school, the younger boy’s autism required special care, and the wonderful Armenian institution on which they had relied closed, another casualty of war.
In Lebanon these days, there is one Syrian for every four citizens, which doesn’t help the delicate economic and sectarian balance of the small country. Unless that one Syrian is Mardig, a young man quietly putting diapers on the elderly or nursing them after surgery. When Mardig first walked into the Jinishian office, he did not look the part. He was covered in tattoos and had no possessions at all, no home and nothing to eat.
In August of 2013, President Obama announced the possibility of military action in Syria. Our Syrian Church partners urged the Presbyterian Church (USA) to speak out against military action, arguing that the situation would only become more violent as more weapons were funneled into the country. Mary Mikael, our church partner from the Evangelical Church of Syria and Lebanon, came to Washington, DC and the Office of Public Witness organized visits with key members of congress and the administration. She asked them to give “Syrians a chance to live.”
