Hear the lament to Christians in the West from a Christian pastor in Syria, describing the deteriorating, horrific conditions in the war-torn country:
A Syrian boy walks after crossing to Turkey by boat over the Orontes river on the Turkish-Syrian border near the village of Hacipasa in Hatay province October 10, 2012. Scores of Syrian civilians, many of them women with screaming children clinging to their necks, crossed Orontes, a narrow river marking the border with Turkey as they fled the fighting in Azmarin and surrounding villages. Residents from the Turkish village of Hacipasa, nestled among olive groves, helped pull them across in small metal boats.
?Millions are not sleeping in their own beds, forced out of their homes to find themselves with their children homeless?and living in public parks or in the wilderness. Others are not sure if they or their children and loved ones will see the light of a new day. Tens of thousands of families lost loved ones?a child, a father, a mother or a husband.
?Hundreds of the?injured died for lack of?medical care. Thousands of children go to bed terrified of the sound of shelling. Hundreds of thousands are in camps in neighboring countries.
?My people are hurting. I can cry like Nehemiah because the walls of our cities are burnt and the people in great trouble and disgrace. I can weep like Jeremiah because of the intensity and the spread of evil. I can mourn like David because of the indiscriminate brutal killing of innocent people; children, women, elderly, youth subject to shelling or under the rubble of their homes.?
?The violence has pushed people out of their homes, fleeing for their lives. Many are displaced internally and many others are external refugees living in the most humiliating circumstances, deprived of even shelter, clean water, power, food and medical care.?
?We are here for a divine reason; we trust and rely on our sovereign loving Lord. We believe that we are in the midst of a spiritual war. In this country there are many who are much more effective than us militarily, politically, economically and?socially, but none have the privilege of being effective in this spiritual battle like we are.
?We thank God because the Church is united across the country in prayer 24 hours a day, seven days a week; praying for the glory of God to dwell in the Church, praying for an end to the bloodshed, praying for peace in the country, praying for keeping the church’s faithful witness, to reach out to the suffering, to?share the divine cure of the gospel, to speak the word of the Lord in all boldness.?