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Letter from Nuhad Tomeh in Iraq |
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December 2, 2004
Dear Friends in Christ Jesus.
I send you Advent and Christmas greetings from Baghdad, Iraq.
As I write, it is Saturday night, November 27. It has been an
unusually quiet night after a dangerous day when a car bomb exploded
near the Middle East Council of Churches office in downtown Baghdad
just an hour before I passed by the area with a Chaldean priest
to meet with His Beatitude Emanwel Daleh, the Chaldean Patriarch
of Iraq and the World. God is great and He is our protector!
I had arrived in Baghdad a few days earlier in order to visit
the churches and resume the Middle East Council of Churches work
in Iraq after it had been put on hold for several months due to
the security situation and a critical shortage of funds. An important
part of my visit was to reconnect with our Presbyterian churches
here in Baghdad, Mosul, Kirkuk, and Basrah. |
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Nuhad Tomeh visiting with children at the first church school to
reopen this year. |
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For the last three days I have being visiting
with church leaders in Baghdad in order to hear, first hand, about
their current situation, especially after the recent series of church
bombings by Muslim radicals. Since August, this new, dangerous development
has prompted thousands of Christian families to leave Iraq and travel
into the neighboring countries of Syria, Jordan and Turkey. Also,
as a result of the fighting in Falluja, thousands of Muslim families
have flooded into the capital as they try to escape the unrest in
their own city. |
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Since the beginning of this year,
the security situation has grown steadily worse, with numerous kidnappings
and killings, along with the tragic deaths of so many American soldiers.
In addition to this, the economy is getting worse, with unemployment
at 65 percent. Baghdad, a bustling metropolis of five million, once
known as “the city which never sleeps,” is now like
a ghost town after 8:00 p.m. And in a country which sits in a sea
of oil, car lines for gasoline can be more then two miles long.
People are depressed, worried about the future, and scared for the
present. Many children have lost their smiles and a growing number
of them are quitting school so as to help bring some small income
to their family through menial jobs. |
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I was asked to preach last Sunday
at our Presbyterian church here in Baghdad. What could I say to
my Christian sisters and brothers, and, through them, to all
Iraqis about this coming season of Advent and Christmas, this season
of “peace on earth”? Looking at the lectionary for this
Sunday I decided to use the text from Isaiah 2 and to include Isaiah
61, emphasizing the message of “hoping for peace.” Peace
will come, God promises, no matter what. God chose us,
not only as His children, but also as His instruments to carry the
message of the incarnation and the message of His love and peace.
I have been inspired to share from my own experience and that of
the church in Lebanon, which endured through 15 years of civil war.
Eventually, an end came, and God brought peace to His people in
Lebanon. God will do the same in Iraq. This must be the
message of our Christian faith. As I was sharing these thoughts
with the Baghdad Presbyterian Church, I saw joyful and smiling faces
responding in the pews and was reminded how God can use us to bring
encouragement and confidence to others. |
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Nuhad in front of a bombed church.
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Friends, this is the message of
Advent and the message of Christmas. It is the message of hope:
Christ’s coming was a real, specific event in time, but
it is also a continuous event, whenever we reflect His presence
through our words and deeds to those around us.
In this season I encourage you, as I encouraged the Presbyterian
church in Baghdad, to live this message and continue the Incarnation
through your life and ministry—and do not forget the Christians
and all the people of Iraq in their needs and aspirations for
safety, security, and prosperity, and, ultimately, a comprehensive
and concrete peace.
May God give us a spirit of waiting, so as to fully experience
the incarnation of Hope, Love, and Peace.
Nuhad Tomeh
PC(USA) Mission Co-worker
Regional Liaison for Iraq
The 2004 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p.
322 |
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