MEET NOUR

Badee (left) and Nour (right) are in charge of the relief projects of their church in Tartous, Syria

My name is Nour and I help Badee, who leads our church in Tartous, with the relief projects of the church. We do all distributions together. We have been helping people for years, and the situation before the earthquakes was bad enough already.

The first earthquake woke us up in the middle of the night, and we had no idea what was happening. We started to pray, believing we were going to die. The houses were shaking very violently. We fled as far as possible from the buildings, towards the sea. Then people told us not to stay close to the sea because there might be a tsunami. We felt there was nowhere safe we could flee. We stayed up all night long, terrified. It was a cold and stormy night, with heavy rain and winds, and it was pitch dark because the earthquake caused a massive power outage. It felt like the end of the world. 

Thankfully, there wasn’t as much damage in our city as in other places. But we stayed traumatized for a long time, especially as the many aftershocks kept us in a constant state of panic. For about a month, children didn’t go to school. Parents were scared to let their children go anywhere. There was much more damage in Latakia, which is closer to the Turkish border. Many buildings collapsed, killing entire families. As a church, we started helping people there and the stories we heard were all heartbreaking. For example, we met two young men who were the only survivors from their respective families.

The first one is 22 years-old, and he was not at home at the time of the earthquake. His father, mother, brother, and sister all died in the collapse of their family building. When we first saw that young man, he was in complete shock. His wound, pain, and unbelief were beyond understanding. We told him we would do our best to help him, but he replied he didn’t want any help. After he went to stay with his uncle, we checked up on him and were able to provide any assistance we could.

A similar story happened to another boy who is only 16 years old. As we stood by him in front of his destroyed family building, he kept pointing at the rubble telling us “this is our building, this is where my family is”. I have no idea how he was able to get outside. His mother, father, sister and brother all passed away in the earthquake. He is now staying with his maternal uncle and we are doing our best to stay in touch. There are so many families with similar stories. We are hoping to help them on the long run.

If you ask me how I am today, it is hard to give an answer. At first, I was so busy helping people on the ground that I didn’t have time to think about anything else. My mind was always busy. After about two months, it felt as if my body caught up and I started experiencing post traumatic stress disorders.

Our faith and our hope in Christ didn’t go away, but we are sinners and we have been through so much. First the war, then COVID19 pandemic and the economic crisis, a Cholera outbreak, and now the earthquakes. We sometimes reach a place where we are weary, and we feel the burden is too big for us. We become scared although we know we shouldn’t. We talk with our Lord and we ask Him: “Why did this happen? Why can’t we rest for a second?” Deep down, we know that God’s wisdom is beyond our understanding. We don’t see what He sees.

Despite everything, we thank God, especially as we are still able to help people in need around us. One of my favorite verses says: “God loves a cheerful giver”. There is truly joy in giving, in helping. This joy is deep and lasts long. It gives you an inner peace that you are in turn able to share with others. It helps you be stronger than your own pain and gives you a sense of responsibility to continue caring for the people.