Ministry to the Persecuted in Displacement Camps
W e just returned from our most recent mission trip to the Middle East. Our team was determined to serve in a very difficult place despite the fears and challenges.
We served with our WCF Life Center ("LC") ministry partners in Refugee & Internally Displaced Persons ("IDP") Camps and city locations.
Collectively, we ministered to more than 770 people. Our medical team helped 600 patients, our Vocational Training team taught 100 students, and our Character/Leadership team trained 70 people.
Treating the children
English Classes
We spent time listening and visiting with many refugees and IDPs who shared their tragic stories.
IDP Camp Visit
In the middle of the trip, we went to an IDP camp to do home visits. We've taken English + Computer teaching teams and Medical teams here to support our Life Center partners in the past.
Internally Displaced Person Camp
We currently have a Life Center class here teaching hairdressing. We met with one of our teacher's former students - a Yazidi named Sister 'H' - in her home.
The Yazidis were victims of a terrible genocidal campaign committed by ISIS militants that forced them to flee to other areas in the region. The men were slaughtered and the girls were taken and treated in unspeakable ways.
Sister 'H' shared how her family fled the brutal militant attacks from 10 years ago. Her cousin's family was captured by militant fighters and they beheaded her baby in front of her eyes and did other unspeakable things.
Sister 'H' and her family fled the attacks and it took them 5 days to reach this IDP camp. On the way, she saw people getting slaughtered and girls being raped. They had to walk over corpses in their desperate escape.
She reached this camp traumatized and deeply depressed. She started coming to our partner's vocational classes and there experienced deep spiritual healing from our pastoral leaders.
While we were visiting, there was a young lady that I remembered from our previous classes. She remembered me, and her computer teacher, Tamara, who was also on this trip. I was so pleasantly surprised and I asked her if she was able to continue her studies. She said no - nothing more opened up at the camp for English or Computers.
This made me start to pray about opening up more classes in this camp - sewing and English classes. Sister 'H' could teach the class and there's another Yazidi brother that could teach the English class. It would cost about $400/month for each teacher and it would give these Yazidis an income while helping others in the camps.
It would cost an extra $800/month or $9,600 for the year to add these 2 classes to our existing Life Center there.
Life Center Classroom
We were moved by the situation here and although we weren't originally planning to bring a medical team here, we were blocked from another location so we pivoted by bringing the medical team here later in the week.
Medical Ministry
We returned to this IDP camp and sister 'H' and her daughter were the main organizers of the clinic for us. The people were desperate so we helped as many people as we could, but it was still not enough. We started running out of medical supplies and time, but the people were very grateful.
Crowd waiting for the Medical Team
In addition, the Medical Team went to other camps and a city location in the region to support our other LC ministry work. The team did an amazing job.
Child with severe burns
We had a Family doctor and a Pediatrician on the team so this allowed us to better treat many more children than usual. I noticed more of the children seemed to come in with autism diagnoses. The support for children in these situations is extremely limited in this region and the parents know very little. We did the best we could - but it's a matter of prayer for the families.
Blessing the children
Some of the patients shared many traumatic stories about their escape from war.
One woman stood out strongly - she suffered deep depression and trauma. She showed us pictures on her phone of 73 family members that had been killed by militants. 7 of her uncles are still missing.
Woman with 73 family members that were killed by militants
I learned that this militant group is still active in many areas and are still holding thousands of prisoners, mostly girls, in places in the region. Earlier this year, a girl who had been held captive for years had escaped and made it to this camp. I can't even imagine the trauma she must live through.
Vocational Training
We had separate sub-teams that taught English and Computers at 2 locations.
Earlier this year, we started a Life Center class in a city location. We took our teaching team to support our effort here.
Computer Class at city Life Center location
We weren't able to go to our 2nd location so we pivoted our Vocational team to a Syrian Refugee camp where we also have our medical LC team ministering.
English Class
Our camp partners quickly arranged about 80 youth and young adults to be part of our classes.
Computer Class
We also taught on character classes on topics such as Love and Forgiveness which is much needed in this part of the world. Some were struggling deeply with issues such as Forgiveness.
Character/Leadership Training
We hosted a conference for about 70 spiritual and community leaders here. We taught from our Character/Leadership curriculum which involves group discussion and the questions and answers from the group were heavy, but powerful. Our topics were on Forgiveness, Serving with Limited Resources and Progress over 'Perfection'.
One man, brother 'M' shared how his friend was shot 30 times by a militant, but never served jail time and has been free ever since. Brother 'M' became a follower of Jesus along with some others and they collectively forgave the murderer. But he said he personally struggled with forgiving him.
I told him that I completely understand this human response. Only God can give us supernatural Forgiveness for such a thing. We can't do this in our natural selves.
Much thanks to our volunteers and supporters that are making the Life Center ministry here possible in such a hard place.
We also appreciate all of your financial support. We are always in need of financial partners to continue this vital work.
God bless,
WCF Team
