Pastor Edward: ‘We didn’t feel left alone’
During all the years we supported the Syrian church to stand strong as a beacon of hope and to help the needy, pastor Edward is one of the amazing steadfast church leaders who mobilized his congregation to help. He is still doing so. He is tired, after 11 years of working hard.
Looking back on those years, including the seven of the Hope for the Middle East campaign, he uses words like challenging, scary, frustrating. “It’s a prolonged crisis, without seeing an end. We had positive and negative experiences. There were painful situations, people got killed, injured. On the other hand we experienced divine light amid darkness. The Lord was there. There were so many stories of divine protection.”
He is pastor of the Alliance Church in Damascus and head of the Alliance Church in Syria, one of the Centers of Hope in Syria. “We enjoyed peace [of heart] amid darkness. The church was bleeding, we lost over 60 per cent of our members; they left the country. It was so hard, many of them had positions in the church, the burden on the leadership of the church grew. We need new workers in our church.”
Although the crisis is far from over, he says, “When the storm is over and we look back, we will see how the hand of the Lord was moving. Some places were hit very hard, but the result was a great expansion of the Kingdom. God for example opened doors for the gospel. The Lord’s sovereignty allows crisis in our lives because He offers at the same time huge purposes. Yes, it is tough, the experiences are painful but, at the same time, the Lord has His divine project, we are somehow instruments in His hand to complete this project.”
He describes how the church tried to stand with the people. “The church has distributed relief items to the neediest. There were months with over a thousand packages. We brought love and care to the people in need in the name of Christ. The help has been very purposeful. We are the ambassadors of Christ in the country, we stayed with the message of light, where the embassies of the nations closed their doors. We gained a lot of respect from the whole community. People were touched by what we did as a church.”
The middle class is now close to starvation
“The situation in the country is worse than before. The economy collapsed. It’s the first time in our country the middle class is now close to starvation. They wait for a food parcel. It is so painful to see, that graduates from university wait for food. The people were waiting for the war to be over. And now, two years after the war is over in most areas, we don’t hear explosions and there is no more fighting, beside the fighting in the Idlib area and in the far north of the country where the Turkish army and
its allies have occupied big areas. We’re in a devastating situation in Syria, more people try to leave. Last week a family of our church left – very frustrating – this broke us.”
As said more than 60 per cent of the members of Edward’s church have left the country. “They were replaced with new members who find hope and peace in the church. But, of course, they are different. If feels as if we as a church adopted half of the family in one day. It takes time to train new leaders. In a sense this leads to fragmentation.
‘I don’t promise a better future. I believe it is not so much about promises, but about trusting God’s sovereignty’
“I preached during the crisis a lot about the promises of the Lord. People now say ‘these promises are only theories, they have nothing to do with real life.” He pauses, his eyes filled with emotion. “For me as a pastor it is a hard challenge. I’ve learned my lesson, I don’t promise a better future. I believe it is not so much about promises, but about trusting God’s sovereignty and experiencing His presence. We need to focus on working out Gods purpose in our life.”
“Personally the pastor says he doesn’t struggle with that issue. My challenge is to experience that the hand of the Lord is with me. When I experience that, to me that is more than enough. That makes up for any other losses in life. When the hand of God is with me, I have everything.”
He continues with a very personal story: “My wife and I, we sometimes feel we are close to burn out because of the many responsibilities. I must give credit to all our people who do the job, they are not working as employees, they have a calling to do what they do. If we didn’t have them, we never could have done what we did.”
On a personal level, Edward and his wife Rana had a hard time the past two years with so many travel restrictions in place. They couldn’t visit their children in the USA. He sighs a few times before he continues, tears filling his eyes. “The children were deeply concerned about us, that was very painful for us. We got a new baby granddaughter in the beginning of the covid crisis but we couldn’t visit her yet.”
Through the whole crisis, pastor Edward and his church felt supported by the worldwide Body of Christ. “We didn’t feel left alone. Through your support and prayers we really felt part of that one Body of Christ. The support made it possible to bring the light of Christ further, to meet the peoples’ needs.
Thank you for your support. We have an excellent relationship with you, an old relationship that goes back to the days of the Iraqi refugees in Syria. We appreciate this partnership. Thank you for example for supporting our medical clinic. We need the clinic more than ever as many people can’t afford medical services. You also support the rest of the Center of Hope and its activities.”
The Medical Clinic
Medical clinic serves 1500 patients a month both Muslims and Christians. The clinic – called ‘Jesus light of the World’ – in one of the outskirts of Damascus, is a hive of people seeking medical assistance. Pastor Edward Awabdeh and his wife Rana oversee the clinic that started in 2006 as
part of the Center of Hope of the Alliance Church in Damascus.
“The clinic is of great help for the people, especially in such times when most of the people, especially in the area where the clinic is, cannot afford for their medical needs and their medicine,” pastor Edward says. “We have a medical lab and we have a mammogram which is really helping ladies at such time when they cannot afford for this mammogram test. We also help many patients with the medicine they need. We have seven doctors and 12 workers, most of them are committed Christians who really try to serve medically and at the same time they bring the cure of Christ to people at such tough times.”
Established to help the Iraqi refugees who fled to Syria in 2006, the clinic later went on (when the war in Syria started became “very instrumental”) to help all the Syrian people too. “We thank God that we were able by the support of many people to keep on going with next-to-nothing fees for patients, offering a high standard of medical services.” The clinic, in a three-story building, is small. They can’t offer all specialties. “We don’t have the ability to do surgical interventions and several other interventions. In those cases we transfer them and we try to support those people.”
The pastor says that “people appreciate the clinic because they feel the respect and love of our staff. At the same time many of them ask questions about Christ and about the word of God.” Because the name of the clinic everyone knows that it’s a Christian clinic. When sitting in the lobby, it’s obvious that this is a Christian clinic. Christian music is played the whole time and the television screen shows a Christian broadcaster. Christian literature is displayed and can be taken for free.
“We try to not only give them medical support but also build personal relationships. Patients in the clinic come from all backgrounds and especially people from non-Christian backgrounds love the clinic. Most of the patients are non-Christians; they can tell that there is something different in this clinic.” The need for the services of the clinic is big. “The economic situation now is the lowest ever in the country so definitely people need places to offer medical services at very low prices. We appreciate
people who support us that enable us to bring those services at such low prices. The support of the church globally is very vital, we know that we are not left alone we belong to the larger body of Christ.”
Because of your prayers we feel that the Lord is answering and helping us to continue with our ministries, the Lord’s presence gives power and gives hope and peace. The different ministries are enabling the church to reach out to the community, not just in preaching and teaching, but also in helping the needy and touching the pain of the people. So we definitely appreciate the support and prayers of the church globally.”
Below is the link to our One Million Prayers of Hope campaign. You can add your name to the map and light it up with prayer. Join the global call to prayer for our brothers and sisters in Syria and Iraq. They faced a decade of war. Now they’re facing economic collapse, persecution and discrimination.
One Million Prayer of Hope
Let us stand with them to make hope last. Use the link bellow and add your light to the map to show where you are praying from.
