Thursday, October 12, 2006

We Must Do Something

From the Assyrian International News Agency:

Mosul, Iraq (AINA) -- On Monday, October 9, a prominent Assyrian (also known as Chaldean and Syriac) priest, Fr. Paulos Iskander (Paul Alexander), was kidnapped by an unknown Islamic group. His ransom was posted at either $250,000 or $350,000. This group had demanded that signs be posted once again on his church apologizing for the Pope's remarks as a condition for negotiations to begin.

Father Alexander was beheaded on Wednesday.

An email from a priest in Sweden, Adris Hanna, describes the Muslim terror campaign against the Christians in Iraq:

The Syriac-Orthodox priest Paulos Iskandar was kidnapped this Monday, October 9, and beheaded today Wednesday October 11.

The Bishop in Mosul wrote me an email tonight and told me that the funeral will be held in Mosul tomorrow.

Christians are living a terrified life in Mosul and Baghdad. Several priests have been kidnapped, girls are being raped and murdered and a couple of days ago a fourteen year old boy was crucified in the Christian neighborhood Albasra.

I have also spoken to a group of nuns that were robbed and treated brutally on their way between Baghdad to Amman in Jordan.

The murder of Father Paulos is the final blow for Christians, and now only hell is expected for the Christians of Iraq.

We the Oriental Christians in Sweden and the rest of the Western world must protest against the genocide. We must do what we can to stop the rape, threats, hatred, robberies, murders... We must do something.

These latest murders continue an escalating pattern of attacks against Iraq's Christians. On October fourth a bomb ripped through an Assyrian neighorhood, killing 9.

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History will judge us very, very harshly if we do not stop this, if we sit on our hands and pretend nothing is happening. I just finished reading a literally RIVETING book called Left To Tell, written by Immaculee Ilibigaza, about the atrocities that occurred during the Rwandan genocide in the 1990s. If you run across this book, read it. It took me less than a day because I literally could not put it down. Some of the dates in the book, I could think back and remember what I was doing right about that time... living in blissful ignorance, failing to pray for my oppressed and persecuted brothers and sisters all over the world. Shame on me. I do not wish to sit idly by while it continues to happen.

In my 10th grade classes, we are reading the non-fiction novel The Hiding Place, which is the true story of Corrie ten Boom and how she and her family hid Jews during the Nazi occupation of Holland. There seems to be a theme, here... I don't believe that God arranges things haphazardly, and if nothing else, He has orchestrated these books for me to read all at once to remind me to pray for the strength of my fellow Christians in bondage, who must live hidden lives in China and Saudi Arabia and North Korea and Cuba.

I will pray, and I will do anything else God brings across my path to do. I hope you will, too.

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