by Ava Thomas, posted Friday, March 16, 2012 (12 years ago)
DAMASCUS, Syria (BP) -- Syrians were complacent for a long time -- at least that's how one person familiar with the war-torn Mideast country described its people.
They were "a people who felt they were more blessed than others," as Dan David* put it, "because natural disasters and wars had not been a part of their modern history."
Photo by Chris Carter
But war has broken out in the past year, bloodshed has escalated and people have run for the country's borders with their children in tow. The peace they enjoyed has been shattered.
So there's a big question mark over the extent to which Good News is being shared inside Syria amid the tumult.
Seven percent of the population is "Christian," a title that's more indicative of a passed-down identity than a personal relationship with Christ, David said. It's a long heritage -- Syria's capital, Damascus, is the place where Paul met up with followers of Christ for the first time as a fellow believer rather than a persecutor, according to Acts 9 in the New Testament.
"During the first century A.D., the news about Jesus went into all Syria [Matthew 4:24] but only centuries later this cradle of Christianity became the cradle of Islam," David said.
Over the past several decades, the Gospel has been shared with small pockets of the people, with rough starts and stops. But believers are still there, however few, according to evangelical leaders familiar with the area.
"Today -- as far as we can tell -- less than 1 percent of the population of Syria knows Jesus," said Natalie Shepherd*, a follower of Christ who lived and worked in the country. "Pray that millions of Syrian families who live inside and outside the country will begin to follow Jesus during this monumental upheaval in their homeland."
The unrest has shaken Syrians to their core, Shepherd said.
"Fear and apprehension about what will happen next is eroding most Syrian families' sense of well-being, leaving them with a huge deficit of hope," she said. "Many Syrian families face desperate physical needs for warmth, food and shelter, permeated by emotional trauma -- the death of loved ones, gunfire night and day and the bombing of their homes. Many families are filled with fear, wondering if and when the fighting will come to their neighborhood."
Recent news images show the city of Homs bombed out, people freezing in the snow and struggling to get the injured to medical care. On March 8, CNN footage showed some injured people chained to beds in hospitals, torture devices close at hand.
The Syrian death toll from the past year teeters around 8,500, according to The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Read More
