Christian Aid Mission, a Protestant organization based in Virginia, is reporting that thousands of Syrian refugees are converting to Christianity in Turkey, Lebanon, and Iraq.
“Literally thousands of Syrians from traditional Muslim backgrounds are turning to Jesus Christ,” the organization stated. “It’s not an inflating of the numbers, nor is it an optimistic estimate.”
And, here is the full story at Christian Aid Mission, let’s hope their conversion is legitimate. Christian groups like this one—doing the hard work around the world rather than advocating for the third world to come to America—are to be encouraged in my view.
For new readers, those advocating (lobbying!) to bring the third world here are the federal refugee contractorsrepresenting some mainstream churches in America.
IRELAND WILL ACCEPT 90 Syrian refugees this year, the government has told the United Nation’s refugee agency.
Most will be resettled from host countries in the Middle East and North African region. According to the Department of Justice, they could possibly come from over-populated camps in Lebanon and Jordan.
[…..]
Earlier this week, the UK agreed to take up to 500 refugees after a battle with the UNHCR for not signing on to its ‘quota’ programme.
Check out this interesting graphic accompanying the story. I guess that message that the US has agreed to take 2,000 (from the article about US Rep. Pascrell wanting 15,000) hasn’t reached the UN. Frankly, I didn’t think the 2,000 was a done deal yet because the security screening will take a long time and we are already 4 months into the fiscal year.
Crazy Germany! FBI:Who are these Syrians moving into Europe?
Rep. Pascrell: bring in 15,000 Syrians this year! http://apps.washingtonpost.com/politics/capitol-assets/member/william-pascrell/
Update February 4th: The PR push is on, Think Progress (Soros and Podesta) showcase another Syrian who got into the US, here.
Update: The New York Times did a feature story on this family a month ago. The well-connected savvy Muslim Syrian family is not what you picture as destitute, struggling refugees. They knew how to work the system!
And, NJ Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-Paterson is pushing for Obama to increase the 70,000 refugee goal for FY2014 by another 15,000 for Syrians.
PATERSON – When the onslaught of bombs grew too close to home, Abdulrazak Chacha and his family fled Aleppo, Syria, with nothing but the clothes on their backs and their passports.
They spent 45 days in Lebanon, trying without success to get to the United States where they had once lived and where they had relatives. Then they went to Cuba where they had planned a vacation and sought help at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, which accepted them as refugees after one year of screening.
[….]
Chacha, with his wife and four children, are among 108 Syrian refugees to have been resettled in the United States since the conflict began nearly three years ago, according to the State Department. Now, Syrian-Americans, some public officials and human-rights agencies are calling for the U.S. to take in more refugees from Syria, where war has led to one of the largest civilian exoduses in recent history.
Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-Paterson, met with family members Thursday to hear their story and to show support. He called for the United States to increase the number of refugees accepted for resettlement to at least 15,000 this year and to expedite the approval process. [By the way, it is my understanding that Obama does not need Congressional approval to expand the number in an ’emergency’, but if any reader knows otherwise, let us know!—ed]
“We’re not taking in refugees as we should,” said Pascrell, who wrote to President Obama on Jan. 16, asking that more Syrian refugees be allowed in.
Syrian refugees have faced roadblocks getting into the U.S. for a number of reasons, including security concerns, ongoing diplomatic efforts and the rapid escalation of war. The Obama administration agreed to take about 2,000 refugees in 2014, according to news reports.
Syria’s leading Catholic prelate has voiced misgivings about refugee programs that are helping Christian families from Syria resettle in the West, saying that it is better if they remain in the Middle East.
Melkite Catholic Patriarch Gregory III Laham, who doubles as president of the Syrian bishops’ conference, said that the flight of Syrian refugees threatens to aggravate the overall exodus of Christians from the Middle East. “The danger is that if they leave the Middle East, they will never go back,” he said.
The Melkite Patriarch said that he could readily sympathize with the Christians who choose to leave the region. “Of course, we cannot decide for ourselves what response our people should make,” he acknowledged, adding that “the suffering is great.”
However, Patriarch Gregory suggested that aid programs should concentrate on helping people to remain near their homes. “It is better to help the people within the country or the region, and not invite them to go outside,” he said. “There is more that can be done locally,” he said.
Agreed! But, unfortunately then the US refugee resettlement contractorswho are being paid by the head and doing the UN’s business will be happy to bring more Muslims to America and that includes among them the US Conference of Catholic Bishops!
Addendum: Check out this useful world map of countries where Christians are being persecuted.
FBI Director James Comey says intelligence agencies know little about the refugees moving into Europe.
Basically he says we don’t know who these refugees are “moving up into Europe or elsewhere in the Middle East.” No kidding!
Partway into this Politico piece on Obama’s State of the Union speech and Afghanistan comes this telling section of the article:
The danger from Syria, for example, seems likely to linger for a long time. And it’s exactly the kind of danger that, in the wake of Sept. 11, was deemed by Republicans and Democrats to be unacceptable.
“As long as that conflict is going on, as long as people are learning how to kill other people and meeting really bad people, it’s going to be a big worry,” FBI Director James Comey told reporters recently.
“The conflict in Syria has attracted so many people from so many places, of so many motivations, including Americans, that it is an enormous challenge for all intelligence services, including the FBI, to identify the ones of bad intent,” he said. “To figure out where they’re going, why they’re going and to keep track of them. It’s something we’re spending a lot of time on.”
The new FBI director told reporters at his office that the FBI has a relatively good handle on Americans who’ve traveled back and forth to Syria, or made the attempt, but knows much less about the many others involved with or displaced by the conflict, including refugees moving up into Europe or elsewhere in the Middle East.
People inside the counterterrorism world have compared it to Afghanistan in the 1980s, Comey said, “but in some ways it’s more worrisome.” Syria is easier to reach, more people are involved, and the population is much more diverse, he said.
Here is the report I saw first at Catholic Culture:
