Seeds of Hope - Nineveh logo. The Arabic Letter
Seeds of Hope – Nineveh logo. The Arabic Letter “N” (in red) stands for “Nazarenes” and is the letter the Islamic State paints on the sides of Christian Houses; above the cross, sprouting seeds of hope.

My Bags Aren’t Packed, but I’m Ready to Go.

Fr. Dale Johnson, is no stranger to refugee crises.

This Syriac Orthodox priest has aided the UN High Commission on Refugees all over the world—in South Africa, Mongolia, the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

Fr. Dale now resides most of the year at the Mor Augin Monastery in eastern Turkey, where yet another refugee crisis moved into the neighborhood, right across the Iraqi border, in Dohuk.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Syrian Christians, Yazidis and Zoroastrians have escaped the genocide of the Islamic State and are massed in the hills (and even abandoned shopping malls) around Kurdish-controlled area of Dohuk.Dohuk Camp

The Islamic State seems to be hell-bent (truly!) on eliminating all the minority religious peoples out of the region. Now, for the first time since the time of the apostles, we fear that those Christians who speak the Aramaic language (the language of Jesus and his disciples) will disappear from the Middle East. Continue reading “Preparing for Takeoff – Seeds of Hope-Nineveh” →