Posts tagged Syria Appeal
Syria/Lebanon Partnership — December 2022 Update
Syria/Lebanon Partnership — December 2022 Update

Crossing the mountains from Latakia brought us to the old city of Hama. A warren of tightly packed streets led us to the unobtrusive front door of the National Evangelical Church, founded in 1869. This was the first visit for all of us.

Stepping through the front door, we entered a courtyard where the ghosts of laughter and children playing seemed to surround us. The church operated a highly respected school here in Hama for many years until it was closed by the government in the late 1960s. The old classrooms are gathering dust today, but it does not take much to imagine this place filled with life.

Read More
Middle East, Partnership, ProjectsThe Outreach FoundationSyria Lebanon Partnership, Syria, Lebanon, Syria Appeal
Syria Lebanon Partnership - February 2022 Update
Syria Lebanon Partnership - February 2022 Update

Mathilde and Firas, two bondservants of Christ Jesus, were sent to shepherd God’s people in the Al-Hasakeh Governorate in the far northeastern corner of Syria. This tip of the country is bordered by Turkey in the north, the Tigris in the northeast, Iraq in the southeast, and the Euphrates in the southwest. It is a contested region, forgotten by much of the world, where Turkey has annexed a swath of the north and the Kurds have declared it an autonomous region. It is to this impossibly difficult region that Mathilde, Firas, and their families were called.

Read More
Middle East, Projects, PartnershipThe Outreach FoundationSyria, Lebanon, Syria Lebanon Partnership, Syria Appeal
Syria Lebanon Partnership - December 2021 Update
Syria Lebanon Partnership - December 2021 Update

In late October, I led a team from The Outreach Foundation to Lebanon and then into Syria to meet with our partners, especially the congregations and leaders of the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon. During the intense 9 days we spent in Syria we were able to visit 7 congregations and all 16 of the pastors and seminarians who are leading these congregations. One of the team, Rev. Mike Kuhn, recounts the time we spent in the south of Syria, not far from the border with Jordan.
Marilyn Borst, Associate Director

“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

One imagines the gospel writer’s knowing smile as he records Nathaniel’s question. The place one is from inevitably leaves its imprint on the soul and destiny. Occasionally, the stigma of origin is overcome by the power and beauty of the person, much as Jesus upended Nazareth’s sketchy reputation.

Read More
Middle East, Partnership, ProjectsThe Outreach FoundationSyria Lebanon Partnership, Syria Appeal, Syria
Syria Lebanon Partnership - April 2021 Update
Syria Lebanon Partnership - April 2021 Update

Of Peppers and Praise

For as the earth brings forth its growth, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up amongst the nations… Isaiah 61:11

Spring is here and many of us are delighted to anticipate the planting of our gardens. I live in an urban townhouse but my small balcony allows for a long, narrow planter that will soon be overflowing with basil, thyme, and rosemary. If your context is suburban, fast-growing zucchinis and tomatoes are likely in your plans. Have a bit of acreage? Sweet corn and lettuce will enliven your summer picnics' enjoyment, no doubt.

Garden analogies, like the one from Isaiah, are quite numerous in Scripture because this was the ubiquitous context for the original audience. In fact, the book of Genesis had not even completed its second chapter before God is planting a garden and dropping “man” in it to tend to it. But what is a “hobby” for us can be life-sustaining for others. Recently, our major partner in Lebanon---the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon---wrote to ask for help in funding a project which would assist 250 middle-class families from their congregations in Lebanon in planting vegetable gardens because they could no longer afford the cost of food. This once thriving nation had been brought to the verge of economic collapse by a convergence of the pandemic, government corruption, and the explosion in the port of Beirut last August.

Read More
Middle East, Partnership, ProjectsThe Outreach FoundationSyria Lebanon Partnership, Syria, Lebanon, Syria Appeal
Syria Lebanon Partnership - February 2021 Update
Syria Lebanon Partnership - February 2021 Update

Children of the World

On several visits to Aleppo during the war, my teams and I would be taken across the street from the Presbyterian Church and shown through a dingy old apartment for which the congregation had a shining vision: open a clinic where low-cost healthcare could be provided to the neighborhood, regardless of the ability of someone to pay the fees. It seemed like a longshot, given the realities of the war and depressed economy of Syria, but Outreach supplied some funds to help its startup. Despite our doubts, God has blessed this ministry and it is now running at “full throttle” and providing hope and healing in Christ’s name! The faces here are some of those who have been served at the Children of the Word Medical Center.

Recently, the Rev Joseph Kassab, General Secretary of the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon shared an assessment of this now vital ministry…

Read More
Middle East, Partnership, ProjectsThe Outreach FoundationSyria Lebanon Partnership, Syria Appeal, Syria
Syria Lebanon Partnership - December 2020 Update
Syria Lebanon Partnership - December 2020 Update

Arise, shine, for your light has come,

and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.

Isaiah 60:1

It is close to impossible, for many of us, to read this opening verse from Isaiah 60 and NOT hear Handel’s “Messiah” with its light and lilting chorus repeating those words in response to the alto’s aria of “Oh Thou That Tellest Good Tidings to Zion”. [For all you choristers, I just implanted an “earworm” -- you’re welcome!]

Standing alone, the verse seems carefree, hopeful, and almost breezy, doesn’t it? But then the following verse grounds us in the context:

See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples…

Read More
Middle EastThe Outreach FoundationSyria Lebanon Partnership, Syria Appeal
Syria and Lebanon Partnership
Syria and Lebanon Partnership

I remember you in my prayers at all times; and I pray that now at last by God’s will the way may be opened for me to come to you. (Romans 1:9c-10)

In looking through a travel journal from 2015 I paused to see this Scripture there. That trip was centered around the annual women’s conference that is put on by the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon (NESSL) at their retreat center in Dhour Choiuer in the mountains of Lebanon. It was filled with reunions: Americans with their Lebanese and Syrian sisters. Syrian women with each other in the midst of war. A Syrian mother from Homs with her two sons who worked at the center. Extraordinary, emotional, uplifting moments of reunion.

Read More
Middle EastThe Outreach FoundationSyria Lebanon Partnership, Syria Appeal
Syria and Lebanon Partnership
Syria and Lebanon Partnership

Note: The Outreach Foundation’s partner in this region is the National Evangelical [Presbyterian] Synod of Syria and Lebanon. Julie Burgess, the author of this update, has made 17 journeys with Outreach to the Middle East. This is Part II of her story (click here to read part I) that introduces us to 5 Syrian Presbyterians who are recent seminary graduates of the Near East School of Theology (NEST) in Beirut who have been doing their “fieldwork” amongst some of the 20 Presbyterian congregations in Syria and who will, eventually, be called to serve, permanently, in one of them. ---Marilyn Borst, Associate Director of Partnership Development.

When you travel with The Outreach Foundation, as I have, frequently, in the past ten years, you spend hours on planes and in airports in order to finally arrive in the midst of God’s people in churches in faraway places. My best advice: take a book, or two.

Read More
Middle East, Partnership, ProjectsThe Outreach FoundationSyria Appeal, Syria Lebanon Partnership
Syria Appeal - May 2020 Update
Syria Appeal - May 2020 Update

A Joyful Return (Ebenezer)

In September, I wrote one of these updates about a visit I had made to Sweida, about 90 minutes south of Damascus, Syria Appeal September 2019. I had just met with a Presbyterian congregation there who had been displaced, in 2014, from their hometown of Kharaba, about 20 miles away. One of the many terrorist groups operating in Syria during the war had overrun the largely-Christian town and “set up camp” in the churches while breaking into private homes and taking up residence. This faithful flock was now being pastored “in exile” by the Rev. Saleem Ferah who had been given a place to worship in the local Alliance Church. Although much of Syria had already been liberated from terrorist organizations by that time, Kharaba was one of the last holdouts, and the Syrian government had been reluctant to mount a military operation there because of the number of citizens still present…

Read More
Middle East, Partnership, ProjectsThe Outreach FoundationSyria Appeal, Syria
Syria Appeal - January 2020 Update
Syria Appeal - January 2020 Update

A Renewable Resource

…is a phrase often used to describe energy sources that are replenishable, abundant and in endless supply, like wind and sun. But over the past few weeks, pictures posted by Presbyterian congregations in Syria, celebrating events and gatherings, have come to inspire me with the thought that the Church, even in such a seemingly unlikely place, is a “renewable resource!”

This past fall, when Turkish troops flooded northeastern Syria to confront what they saw as a Kurdish threat to their security and sovereignty in the region, the instability rocked the area and exacted a heavy toll on an economy already collapsed after 7 years of war. Because of your generous gifts, Outreach was able to quickly wire funds to the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon (NESSL) so that families of their three congregations in the Northeast (Hasakeh, Malkieh, and Qamishli) could purchase water (after the bombing of a local spring, bottled water had to be purchased in Hasakeh), food (the price of meat rose to $10/kilo in Malkieh – $80 is a typical monthly salary), and heating fuel (as I write, temperatures will drop below freezing tonight in Qamishli).

Read More
Middle East, Partnership, ProjectsThe Outreach FoundationSyria Appeal, Syria
Syria Appeal - Update
Syria Appeal - Update

“You can never learn that Christ is all you need, until Christ is all you have” is a familiar quote of Corrie ten Boom, the courageous Dutch Christian whose family sheltered Jews in their home during WWII and who, along with members of her family, would be found out and sent to a concentration camp where she watched her sister die of starvation.

On my 20th trip into Syria, just a few weeks ago, I encountered an entire congregation whose lives give witness to what many of us sing and to what Corrie ten Boom professed. This congregation was from Kharaba, a small city in the far south of Syria, near the border with Jordan. When terrorists overran the city in 2014, most of the inhabitants were forced to flee to the city of Sweida, about 20 miles away. I met with that congregation when they gathered in a special worship service for the purpose of meeting me. That was a humbling experience. I brought then a word of encouragement and an assurance of our oneness with them. But mostly, they encouraged me by their faith and their faithfulness.

Read More
Middle East, Partnership, ProjectsThe Outreach FoundationSyria Appeal, Syria
Syria Appeal - June 2019
Syria Appeal - June 2019

In February I took another Outreach team to Syria, thanks to an invitation from our partner, the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon, and their General Secretary, the Rev. Joseph Kassab, who was with us in Syria for much of the time. At the end of this update, you will find a timely word from him: a reminder that support for the families that make up these faithful congregations still requires our help until the economy of Syria recovers. In this trip update two of our travelers, Julie and Steve Burgess, share their reflection on our time in Homs, which suffered much through the war, including substantial damage to the Presbyterian Church.
Marilyn Borst, Associate Director for Partnership Development

Come and See, Go and Tell
Once again we found ourselves saying good-bye, this time to friends at Yazdia Presbyterian Church. We try to turn our “goodbye” into “until-we-meet-again,” but it is always bittersweet to look behind the car and see these places get smaller. Dark clouds, heavy rain and thunder kind of added to the bitter part along with our tears, and yet we made our way down the road and through the checkpoints.

Read More
Middle East, ProjectsThe Outreach FoundationSyria Appeal, Syria
Syria Appeal - March 2019 Update
Syria Appeal - March 2019 Update

In February I took another Outreach team to Syria, thanks to an invitation from our partner, the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon, and their General Secretary, the Rev. Joseph Kassab, who was with us in Syria for much of the time. At the end of this update, you will find a timely word from him: a reminder that support for the families that make up these faithful congregations still requires our help until the economy of Syria recovers. In this trip update one of our travelers, Mike Kuhn, shares his reflection on the ministry of education offered by two of the Presbyterian Churches in the far northeast corner of Syria: Hasakeh and Qamishli.
Marilyn Borst, Associate Director for Partnership Development

Read More
Middle East, ProjectsThe Outreach FoundationSyria Appeal, Syria
Syria Appeal - September 2018
Syria Appeal - September 2018

Bringing a child forward for baptism is always a sacred moment-holy ground-both for the parents and the congregation who, in our Reformed tradition, pledge to assist the family in raising that child to know Christ and to serve him. And there is little Christian Khatouf, pictured above with his two older brothers barely visible behind his mom, awaiting the water, old enough to know what is happening and seemingly “at home” in front of a “full house” in his home church in Nabek, Syria about 50 miles north of Damascus. As Christian looks up at the camera, he is also seeing a “wall of clergy” standing in the chancel, for his baptism had been delayed for just this moment in time – the rededication of his Presbyterian Church home that had been badly damaged by terrorists during the war.

Read More
Middle East, ProjectsThe Outreach FoundationSyria Appeal, Syria
Syria Appeal - May 2018
Syria Appeal - May 2018

In April, I was able to take a small team into Syria to meet with three of the congregations of the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon, which your generous gifts have sustained and encouraged. I cannot but be enormously grateful for those who chose to defy all of the possible “no’s” to come on this journey and be present to our sisters and brothers there: 
Rev. Tom and Joy Boone, Julie Burgess, Rev. Jim Wood and Brian Collins. The fact that their families and congregations (Bethel Presbyterian Church, Cornelius, NC; West Hills Church, Omaha; First Presbyterian Church Norfolk, VA) sent them off with their (somewhat anxious?) blessing confirms their discernment that God’s YES preceded our journey. What follows is part of our daily trip blog, this one written by Julie Burgess while we were in Aleppo in April.
–Marilyn Borst, Associate Director for Partnership Development

Read More
Important News, Middle East, ProjectsThe Outreach FoundationSyria Appeal, Syria, Lebanon
Syria Appeal - January 2018
Syria Appeal - January 2018

ALEPPO: TIDINGS OF COMFORT AND JOY?

Now to the Lord sing praises, all you within this place,
And with true love and brotherhood each other now embrace;
This holy tide of Christmas all other doth deface.
O tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy.

Aleppo is one of the oldest continuously inhabited places on earth; many historians believe that the site has been lived in for more than 8,000 years. But over the past five years, our nightly news stunned us with the images of this ancient city turned to rubble due to a bloody war. In Aleppo alone, over 5,100 civilians were killed in 2016. In all of Syria, over 470,000 civilians have been killed during the five-year span of the conflict – from March 2011 to February 2016.

Read More
Middle East, ProjectsThe Outreach FoundationSyria Appeal, Syria
Syria Appeal - November 2017
Syria Appeal - November 2017

With Every Act of Love

I was recently listening to a favorite song by Jason Gary and the refrain reminded me of the many, many ways in which your gifts to the Syria Appeal have encouraged the work and witness of the Presbyterian Church in Syria over these past years of war: supporting families so that they can remain despite the awful economics of war; undergirding the mission and ministries of individual congregations; helping to train the next generation of leadership for those churches.

We bring the kingdom come
With every act of love
Jesus, help us carry You
Alive in us, Your light shines through
With every act of love
We bring the kingdom

The photos included here give glimpses into the ways in which your generous gifts – your “every act of love” –

Read More
Middle East, ProjectsThe Outreach FoundationSyria Appeal, Syria