Syrian & Iraqi Refugee Child Sponsorship Program:

160 Precious
Children Sponsored!

Yosif, Rita and their parents have moved back to their home village just east of Mosul. After living in a refugee camp for almost three years, they heard the government was closing their camp and packed up. Like the other kids in their neighborhood, Rita and Yosif are on summer break, but soon they and many other children in this town will begin a new school year. While they look forward to it, these kids struggle with PTSD from the war with ISIS and tough adjustments since they lost everything and fled their homes.

This is where you, our sponsors are making such a difference; when these kids and their parents register into our program, excitement runs high because they know someone will be sponsoring and praying for them. If you can believe this…the kids are just happy to know their sponsor will be THINKING about them!

The monthly sponsorship you share really helps! The food packets, visits, meetings and biblical teaching all mean someone cares. With school beginning soon, please consider an extra gift for your child to ensure he or she has a backpack (with school supplies inside), school uniform, socks and shoes. You can help your child with first-day-of-school-jitters and get them off to a successful new school year.

Would you like to sponsor one of these precious kids today? Stop by our website and on the right click “Sponsor a Child.” For $39/month you can greatly help a child, $78 for two and $117 for three!

 

Help your sponsored child get ready for school!

School Uniform:  $45

Shoes and Socks:  $20

Backpack: $18

 

Welcome New Sponsors!  We’re excited you are part of this growing community of IM Friends who are putting their hearts of love into action. Thank you!  Help more kids with the Gospel; we’d love to share in your church effective ways to impact lives.

If you have questions on your sponsorship, Sarah will be happy to assist you at 719-302-3028.

 

Have you joined our growing team of child sponsors? You may have had a typical spring planting flowers or breaking out your bike, but here at IM, our spring has been…well, a bit crazy! And it’s really just begun.

Last fall we began our Refugee Child Sponsorship Program helping Iraqi and Syrian Refugee kids with an initial goal of getting 125 kids sponsored. In May we celebrated reaching that goal! That means more kids are receiving nutritious food, being encouraged, mentored and hearing the Gospel every mont

Thanks to our amazing sponsors and our team in Iraq, we are thrilled that 140 kids are now sponsored. One thing we’ve learned in working with refugee families is that they truly appreciate the monthly visits, food packets and meetings for the kids. They are truly grateful to you.

We’re now on our way to the next level of 300 kids in the program being sponsored. Word is getting out! KLOVE Radio has shared Indigenous Ministries’ ministry, we’ve been on TV, multiple churches across the US have launched the Refugee Child Sponsorship Program, and this month IM teams will share at IFCA National Conference in South Bend, Indiana and the Rocky Mountain Homeschool Conference in Denver.

On June 30, look for us at the FishFest Concert in Anaheim with over 16,000 in attendance; we are one of 20 booths. If you’re there, stop by and see us!

Sponsor one of these precious kids today! Stop by our website and on the right click “Sponsor a Child.” For $39/month you can really help a child. For $78, you help two and for $117 three kids are better off!

Highlights: Last month was a busy month in Iraq with the ministry. First, we’re excited to announce that the Indigenous Ministries office in Kurdistan is complete. John and our team found just the right amount of new and used furniture along with office supplies for use. Next, additional staff was hired for administrative and video work and intensive training went on for days. A special joy was a large food distribution at one of the refugee camps, and John and Dee met with refugee families under our sponsorship. There were four women’s meetings held. The men of the church had a BBQ fellowship where John spoke. There were meetings with ministry teams reviewing past projects, working on current projects and planning future direction together. There were times in prayer together, times around the Word as John preached, and of course we ate good Iraqi food together celebrating the Lord’s goodness.

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Refugees return to a war zone: It was, however, visiting the areas where refugees are going back home, that was one of the toughest sights to see. Street conditions range from half decent to horrible dirt roads with holes. Post-war debris of burned out cars, tanks, building rubble, pipes and other miscellaneous junk lay piled up outside of town, and the schools and buildings that are operational look bleak. Out of every 10 homes, 4-6 are either totally destroyed, greatly damaged or deserted. For those with resources, the reconstruction is going well; there are big piles of sand, rock and building supplies in the driveway and street. But for the majority, it’s not going so well. Many people will never return; they simply don’t have the heart or desire to. Others don’t have jobs or resources to rebuild. But, there are some who are doing both.

How long until normal is restored? Life in these neighborhoods is slowly coming back online with the sounds of backpack ladened children chattering together walking home from school. Dogs bark and women hang up clothes, and neighbors chat in the streets. The outside farmer’s markets, once massive and a supply channel for the large city of Mosul, struggle to supply locals with what they need now. This is farm country, and we met with one of the residents who had joined our church plant after fleeing ISIS with his family in 2014, living in refugee camp in Erbil. Recently he and his family moved back to their home town. He took us five miles outside of town to his verdant green farm plot. Straddling overgrown rows, he picked armloads of sizeable onions, peas, carrots and cabbages, which soon filled our vehicle with their just-picked aroma. God has His hand on this country for blessing, not for war or disaster, but it will take a lot more than vegetables to bring back “normal.” Other seeds must be sown.

Ministry future: Pray with us as plans are developed and prayed over with national ministry colleagues for integrating fellowships in these post-war areas. More to come on that later.

In March, hundreds of women gathered together to listen to the story of Hagar who was also displaced and whose life was tossed about by other people’s decisions. It was a thrill to be able to met these women and speak to them in Baghdad for the first time! We had a great time together in the Word, exercising and making the signature Beautiful International beaded memory wire bracelets. Then in Kurdistan, we met with two more groups of Beautiful women who are refugees. The energy in the refugee camp was off the charts as the women laughed, sang and spent time together around the Word.

I asked a group of Iraqi and Syrian refugees what their biggest personal challenge was as a woman…no one hesitated; “It’s our children, of course, we are so concerned for them, it’s hard to get good medical care,” some said, others, new refugees from Syria, noted with frustration that their children cannot understand the Kurdish language and cannot attend school. I look forward to sharing with you more ways we help women in the Middle East.

These women know that so many of you here in the US make these meetings happen with your prayers and financial gifts, because I share that you want to help them – they send their love and grateful hugs to you for these wonderful times! Please give generously to Beautiful International. Thank you.

Join me in Egypt or Iraq in Fall 2018: Cost: $3850. Pray, teach, sing, help with crafts, bring a group from your church. The time is now. Women are waiting, and you CAN make a difference! Contact our office to sign up.

This month as ministry in Iraq continues, the families our teams are serving share their personal stories and gratitude; stories of great heartache and frustration. One widow and her three children, revealed they were living on the food they were receiving from our child sponsorship program. Others share they learned their home is destroyed and wait for the government to help.

At this time, refugees are in no small struggle with their fate.  Reports state that in the past three months, hundreds of thousands of refugees in the Anbar governorate are returning to their districts and some to their homes, or what is left of it. Sounds good, doesn’t it? This is false hope. Fallujah in Anbar was the first to fall to ISIS in January 2014, and the offensive against ISIS concluded in Rawah in November 2017, the last town liberated from ISIS control. Now that major military efforts against ISIS are completed, the focus is on resettling millions of internally displaced Iraqis.  Sending Syrian refugees home, another topic entirely, remains a dismal prospect at present, given the condition of their home government.

Complicating matters for Iraqi refugees are conditions causing many to leave refugee camps prematurely. Some are coerced by family and tribal leaders, while others are being forced out of camps by the Iraqi government in an attempt to resettle refugees. Despite the UN’s Funding Facility for Stabilization (FFS) launched in 2015 to provide funding to stabilize and rebuild areas previously held by ISIS, the consensus is that needs greatly outnumber resources.  These conditions have created “re-refugees,” or refugees once again without homes, making this crisis even more heartbreaking.

Safety cannot be guaranteed for families with unexploded explosives scattered throughout cities, communities and in homes. In surveys, 30% of refugees have no idea of the condition of their homes, and those who have information are often disappointed to find out their homes are greatly damaged, already inhabited by someone else, and their community infrastructure has yet to be rebuilt.

Another twist in this drama is the ongoing terrifying prospect of neighbors turning each other in to be arrested as “ISIS collaborators,” whether true or not. Families have seen their loved ones killed as a result.  After enduring so much, the threat of the ISIS state of mind is still very much a destructive one.  For those who lived under ISIS control, freedom now is a mixed bowl of cherries, and some of the cherries are rotten.

We cannot overstate the importance of aid families are receiving from our program.  The refugees we minister to are receiving some of the most basic food packets and other supplies from our program, which help make life more bearable. What we have confirmed, as John and I are in Iraq, is that no aid is insignificant. Families living on the edge of existence need the aid and spiritual hope given through the Refugee Child Sponsorship Program. 

Thank you for giving to help refugees! Please continue to help with regular generous donations to the Iraq Relief Fund. These funds continue to be used to reach out to refugees in the name of Christ. Go online and in the Donate drop down, select “Iraq Relief Project.”   

Source: Report from The Danish Refugee Council, Norwegian Refugee Council and International Rescue Committee, Feb. 2018