Many of us saw the picture of a little, lifeless, three year-old Syrian boy named Aylan washed up on a Mediterranean beach. What we saw broke our hearts.
It also forced me to ask some basic questions.
How did this “refugee crisis” come to be?
Who are the human beings caught in the wake of this trauma?
What role must the US Church play in ensuring that Aylan’s tragedy is the last of its kind?
In 2011, Syria was home to 22 million people. More than half of those have now either fled as refugees or been internally displaced by violence. I’m so grateful the Church is finally being moved to action around caring for our brothers/sisters who are fleeing violence.
But what we decide to do is inevitably shaped by how we understand this crisis. Before we act, it’s always important to ask people who know, “What’s really going on?”
This is why I’m getting online today with friends from Iraq, Syria, Jordan and missions agencies in the US to talk about the church’s response to our current refugee crisis in Europe.
I’d love for you to join us.
Whether you can be part of this conversation today or not, please pray with us as we seek to walk with our sisters and brothers who are fleeing, as our Lord had to flee to Egypt, for their very lives.