Living the Cross Neville Kyrke-Smith reports back from the Middle East

A girl at a refugee village in northern Iraq clutching our ACN Child’s Bible in Arabic. As well as food and other essential aid, ACN has provided simple gifts for displaced children.

I have recently returned from the Middle East – where I met Iraqi and Syrian refugees who are being helped thanks to you, the benefactors of Aid to the Church in Need. Because of your generosity, we are providing help to rent accommodation, provide basic food, offer medical help, give pastoral support, and provide catechetical material – as well as supporting priests and Sisters who themselves fled Daesh (ISIS)’s campaign of terror. Inside you will learn more about the various projects we are supporting. I spoke to many Christians we are helping. One mother, Nadir, told me

Aid to the Church in Need is a Pontifical Foundation of the Catholic Church and registered in Malta as a Foundation regulated by the second schedule of the Civil Code Chapter (16) of the Laws of Malta.

that her husband Amer had been a taxi driver in Mosul and how he had been kidnapped and killed because he was a Christian. Another man, Franco, had been a policeman in Baghdad. He told me how he had fled to Erbil, northern Iraq in November 2014 after he received a call saying “you are a Christian in the police… we have to kill you.” Archbishop Boutros Marayati, the Armenian Catholic Archbishop of Aleppo, Syria told me: “Don’t forget there are still Christian communities in the Middle East and we still want to remain – please support us. We hope that people will return. We cannot build Christian-Muslim dialogue and rebuild

our homes and our country whilst war rages. We are shocked to see the suicide bombers… “Don’t forget we have to support all the priests and Sisters – they administer the sacraments, they are present for the people. We need the Catholic Church throughout the whole world to support us – as this is the meaning of Catholic.”

Armenian-Catholic Ar chbishop Boutros Marayati.

Helping the suffering Church today

Nothing will Separate us from Jesus’ Love In Lebanon, we visited Iraqi refugees huddling for safety in their small rooms. I met Yasser and his wife Eva, who were living with their eighteenmonth-old daughter Mairis and her grandparents. They fled from Mosul at the end of June 2014 after Daesh (ISIS) seized control. After seeking refuge in Erbil, they came to Beirut hoping to find work and safety – and eventually leave the Middle East. Yasser now works as a concierge, earning $400 dollars per month – but their rent is $525

per month, meaning they have to rely on help from the Church. They go to church to pray two or three times a day and watch Christian TV at home. Yasser told me: “We will be Christian until our deaths – nothing will separate us from the love of Jesus.”

• Christian broadcasting brings hope to refugees far from their homes – and food, accomodation, and medicine is keeping them alive.

This boy is collecting one of the essential food parcels that went to 13,500 displaced Christian families in northern Iraq at the end of 2015.

ACN is Helping the Middle East

Aid to the Church in Need has been rolling out one of its biggestever aid programmes, with some 140 projects in Syria and Iraq. We are focusing on emergency relief for the displaced families, which has included providing pre-fabricated

21487818

housing units in northern Iraq for 120,000 Christians and financial aid to rent houses for families who would have nowhere else to live during the bitter winter. We are also funding food distribution for 13,000 Christian families from Mosul and Niniveh. ACN is additionally supporting

Bishops, priests and helping Sisters who, while internal refugees themselves, are tending to this scattered flock. Chaldean Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil said: “We wish to thank all Aid to the Church in Need’s benefactors for their generosity.”

Please offer hope by making a kind donation to support these and other similar projects around the

One of the Churches

in Egypt visited by AC

N pilgrims.

Rebuild my Church

Yasser, Eva and Maris, who fled from Mosul, northern Iraq after it was seized by Daesh (ISIS) – but the horrors they witnessed have not diminished their Faith.

As we arrived the pries t told us: “Welcome to your church – not just our own church. You helpe d build it… and the hall.” In Ju ne 2013 more than 60 of Egypt’s churches were attacke d by the Muslim Brotherh ood. Aid to the Church in Need is helping them rebuild , bu t fearing that they will be targeted again if their attackers learn of the repairs, we cannot tell you about the place s where your love is rebuilding wh at the extremists tore do wn.

New Home for the Sacred Heart Sisters

After Daesh (ISIS) blew up their convent in Mosul, northern Iraq in November 2014, the Congregation of the Daughters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus started the search for a new home. The congregation has lost three other convents over the last few years. The Sisters – whose order was founded in Iraq in 1911 – accepted an invitation of the Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Raphael Sako to find a suitable place for a new convent in Erbil. Erbil in the Kurdish north, has become one of the last bastions of Christianity in Iraq, with numbers of faithful exceeding 100,000 due to the mass displacement. The Sisters are caring for those who, like them, have lost their homes in the recent terror.

world

The Sisters found a small convent in the north of the city, but it was only built to house four Sisters – but 11 squeezed into the small rooms, praying in its tiny chapel. The Sisters sold a convent in Baghdad to defray the costs of extending it – but they still

needed help to finish the project. ACN stepped in with €240,000 to help complete the project up to the first floor. By assisting them we are helping all the displaced Christians to whom the Sisters are bringing the hope of Christ.

Visiting the sick is an act of mercy – the Daughters of the Sacred Heart are caring for ill and elderly refugees in northern Iraq.

www.acnmalta.org/middleeast

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Please remember in your prayers all those priests and members of religious congregations who are supported by Aid to the Church in Need around the world and especially these countries:

Please also pray for all priests and members of religious congregations who are being held captive or are missing at this time.

Burma - Central African Republic - China - Egypt Eritrea - Ethiopia - Lebanon - Iraq - Nigeria - Pakistan - South Sudan - Syria - Zimbabwe

Thank you for all that you do to show solidarity with priests worldwide by supporting Aid to the Church in Need through prayer, through one-off or regular donations, by purchasing our products and through Mass offerings.

Support our persecuted brethren and priests in need with a Mass offering - a thoughtful gift for friends and family, in memory of a deceased loved one or for your particular intentions.

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O Lord, support us all the day long untilPrayer the shades lengthen and Blessings and the evening comes, theworld Persecuted andfor the busy is hushed, andChurch. the fever of life is over, and our work is done. Lord, strengthen people whom Then, Lord, in thy your mercy, grant us are suffering violence and threat for a safe lodging, a holy rest their Christian Belief. Shield them so andthat peace last.you and worship theyat canthe follow

Prayer for the PrayerChurch and Blessings Suffering

for the Persecuted

Father, all powerful and ever-living God, youChurch. decreed that man should be saved through the wood of the cross. The strengthen your people whom treeLord, of man’s defeat became the tree of are suffering violence and threat for his victory: where life was their Christian Belief. Shieldlost, themthere so life that has they beencanrestored. our prayer follow youHear and worship for in your suffering if it be peace. Change Church; the hearts and of those who believe force will, and intimidation according to your break the chains can build a better world. Mayso men of your imprisoned people that both and women of goodwill everywhere the rally persecuted and the persecutors to defend religious minorities maywherever serve you and freedom, theyinarepeace in danger. through Christ Our Lord.

in peace. Change hearts of those BlessedtheJohn Henry Newman who believe force and intimidation can build a better world. May men and women of goodwill everywhere rally to defend religious minorities wherever they are in danger.

Amen

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