MEET FATHER NICOLAS

“Our church is located in south-west Syria, an area that remained relatively safe throughout the war. We have had many displaced families coming in since the start of the conflict, 10 years ago. We started seeing homeless people, people living in empty or unfinished buildings, meeting more and more widows, young ones too, whose husbands would lose their lives all of a sudden.

We don’t feel like we “took the decision to help”. It was just the natural thing to do. We couldn’t just watch what was happening and do nothing about it. So we started to reach out to people in need around us, no matter their religious or political background. We see people as humans first and foremost.

Today, thanks to the support of FMEEC[1] and MERATH, we serve around 2,400 families on a regular basis, with food and winter assistance, as well as hygiene kits since the COVID-19 pandemic. What a relief for the families we help to know that in a given month, they will at least be able to count on the food box MERATH helps us provide. Besides, a food box is never just a food box! It helps the family in many different ways, and it helps us establish contact with them to later on stay in touch and see how else we can help them.

The relief ministry enhanced the image of the church. It helped us become a lighthouse in our area and strengthened our witness. In very dark circumstances, we pray and work to remain messengers of hope. Sometimes we feel that simply visiting the families is enough to give them some form of hope. Our presence by itself comforts them.

I remember a family in particular, displaced all the way from El Hassakeh, whose seven-month old baby girl was blind, had additional malformation, and urgently needed a surgery to survive. When we met them and heard their story, we started helping them with food boxes, which have in turn allowed the family to save some money to buy fuel and keep warm. With the help of other organizations in our area, we also have been able to cover the surgery expenses for the baby girl and we provided the mother with a sewing machine so she can work from home and does not have to leave her baby girl with special needs.

We are facing many challenges to this day, like increasing security issues, and the fact that new displaced families are still arriving, which continues to put additional pressure on our already impoverished area. The needs keep on increasing and are so much bigger than our resources. We sometimes feel burdened, but in the end we believe that it is a normal feeling as we are seeking to be God’s hands on earth.

What keeps us going is seeing the joy in the eyes of the people we are able to help. This is the only reward we need! Besides, the steady support of partner organizations like MERATH makes us feel like we are not alone in this. We are overwhelmed to know that people everywhere in the world still feel for us and with us and have it on their heart to support us.

We have no idea what tomorrow holds and chances are it will keep on getting worse and worse, but we always hope and pray for the best. Historically, no war has continued forever. We are hopeful that our civil war will stop at some point, hopefully soon, so we can start actively building our country back. Until then and as long as we are able to hold on to what we have in God, we will be OK. We need to always keep on smiling. God is good.

[1]  Fellowship of Middle Eastern Evangelical Churches, MERATH’s partner organization in Syria.