|
With the recent elections and controversy surrounding the United States new immigration policy, those of us with a heart for the lost, least and unreached need to get a Biblical perspective on how to respond.
The Bible is clear that we are to "defend the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and love the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing.”
(Deuteronomy 10:18)
Though we would agree that the security of our nation is imperative, we should use caution, not overreact and remember that as Christians we have a mandate to share the love of Christ with those in need.
At Jordan Lewis Missions we are actively engaged in both humanitarian aid as well as preaching and discipleship. The global refugee crisis has opened a historic door to minister to those who were once unengaged and unreached. God loves them so much he is sovereignly moving them to countries like Jordan, Lebanon, Greece, Germany and even the United States. If we allow fear to prevail, we will possibly lose one of the greatest harvest field opportunities since the formation of the church 2000 years ago.
I have personally had the privilege of visiting one of our JLM partners on the front lines and seeing firsthand the work he and his team are doing to answer the call to reach the unreached refugees with the Gospel. For security reasons we can’t disclose his name or photograph but below he shares the work they are doing:
"My family and I have served in the region for over eight years. We have been serving Syrian refugees for over four of these years. Syria was a country of 24 million people. The civil war in Syria, however, has led to over half a million people being killed, five and a half million people fleeing the country as refugees and another six and a half million people becoming internally displaced refugees within Syria. Before the war in Syria, the population of the country where we live and minister was over six million and now it is over eight million. There are over a million and a half Syrian refugees in our country alone. All of them have lost loved ones and all of them lost their homes and livelihoods in Syria.
We do aid and relief work among the refugees, and this opens the door to friendship which allows us to pray with them and to begin to share with them about Jesus. Our vision is to see a reproducing house church movement among the Syrian refugees in our nation. Proselytizing is illegal, so we meet in homes with families or groups of men or women and do Bible studies. They then in turn meet with other families or groups of men and women and reproduce these studies.
Thanks to your partnership our work now consists of several hundred small groups and over a 1000 people. Around half of these people we estimate to be believers. It is actively growing and expanding in the North and South of our country and there is a smaller cluster of groups in the refugees home county. Our most pressing needs right now are related to this main stream. Several of the main leaders have a need for monthly food assistance and medical expenses. There is also a need for more Bibles and SD cards that we put our audio studies on. In addition to those needs, we also have plans to do professional translation of some new materials and create new audio recordings."
|
