Perhaps you’ve experienced a day when you were numb from grief and pain. When the trauma was so intense you escaped to a place where you felt nothing. The Director of Bible Society Syria saw precisely this after a blast happened near him. People picked themselves up, dusted off the dirt and carried on with their day.
It was the moment he pledged to establish the trauma healing program in Syria.
There’s been civil war in the country since March 2011. Half a million people have died and most Syrians grieve at least one friend or family member. 6.7 million people are internally displaced, and another six million have fled across the border.
The nation is in a major economic crisis, worsened by international sanctions. More than 80% of Syrians live in extreme poverty and 9.3 million have become food insecure. COVID-19 has put these conflict-affected, displaced communities at further risk and worsened the economic, political and security crises.
There is hardly anyone unaffected by trauma, and it’s why help and hope are so critical.
Bible Society Syria works with churches to help people overcome trauma. Through a critical trauma healing program they share God’s life-giving word, offering hope and a way forward.
Trauma experts train volunteers to minister to broken families: listening to them, sharing God’s word with them, helping them talk about their experiences. On average each trained volunteer ministers to at least 30 people, and they see amazing things happen. Relationships are repaired and people who’ve become mute through shock learn to speak again.
Today there are many trauma healing classes up and running but more are needed as instability in the region continues. Your prayer and support can help bring hope and rebuild lives in a shattered land.
When asked what Christians here in Australia can do, the Director of Bible Society Syria responded, “You can pray. Pray, Pray, Pray!”
Jesus, our Lord,
Please teach us how to follow you! You are the only Way, the absolute truth and the only life worth living.
Jesus, bring changed ways of thinking, new laws to protect the women of Syria. And don’t forget our children who have seen and heard too much. You know what every little child is going through: their traumas, their fears, their unwillingness to think of tomorrow, as today has just been too hard. Jesus, can you spare a thought for our young people who have lost their dreams, whose world is so dark that they will hang on to just anything to be able to survive.
Jesus, we feel both unworthy and very weak as we continue sharing the wonderful message about you in our country that we don’t recognise anymore. Please be with us, as we try to bring healing to the many traumatised people around this country.
Be with us and speak your own word to us and the many who hear it through us. Jesus, show us and our volunteers and friends and all the people that we meet that “Your Word is Truth! Yes, Jesus!”
Amen.
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