08052
January 23, 2008

American raises funds for Baghdad church

by Kristen Campbell
Religion News Service

MOBILE, AL — Cmdr. Scott Rye doesn’t claim to be a saint.
   
Raising funds for a Baghdad church surrounded by razor wire just seemed like the right thing to do.
    
A partner and executive vice president of a Mobile advertising and public relations firm, Rye works as the day chief at the Media Operations Center at the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad.
   
The erstwhile parishioner of Mobile’s Trinity Episcopal Church is seeking to make a difference in Iraqis’ lives personally as well as professionally.
   
Not long after arriving in Baghdad last September, Rye said he began attending Sunday worship services at the Embassy chapel. There he met the Rev. Canon Andrew White, who leads the approximately 20 congregants at the Embassy as well as Saturday services at Iraq’s only Anglican church, St. George’s Church.
   
“The church was forcibly shut down for 10 years under Saddam Hussein’s regime,” Rye wrote in an e-mail. “Some time after the war started, the church was hit and badly damaged by rocket fire. Of the 1,300 or so parishioners, only half a dozen are men — the rest were killed or kidnapped in the sectarian violence that swept through Iraq.”
   
Rye doesn’t attend St. George’s, since that would require a personal security detail and “would draw the wrong kind of attention to the church.”
   
Still, he wanted to help. Rye began asking friends if they might consider the cause. In his letter, he noted the congregation has monthly expenses ranging from $8,000 to $10,000, and asked that recipients “make a one-time donation to assist our Iraqi brothers and sisters in Christ.”
   
“My initial intent was just to ask a few Episcopalian friends at different churches to help out, Episcopalians helping fellow members of the Anglican Communion, but the interest seems to have spread beyond the boundaries of the Anglican Communion,” he said.
   
Thus far, Rye reports, his efforts have netted $1,375, as well as the interest of an Episcopal parish in Boston.
   
“No matter one’s politics or personal views of the war, if people want to make a personal gesture to help Iraqis, this is one way to do so,” Rye e-mailed.
   
The Rev. Jim Flowers, rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Mobile, said it was an “easy decision” to donate $1,000 from his church to the Baghdad parish. “The community goes beyond our borders,” he said.
   
For his part, Rye writes that he sees “getting involved with St. George’s as a personal way to make a difference in the lives of some Iraqis. And if I can come home and be able to say that I helped make even a small difference in the lives of a few people, then I’m good with that.”