IRAQ — Bishop Daniel has known persecution all his life, and despite many opportunities to flee, he chose to stay and support his church and those in his community who could not leave the country.

Bishop Daniel:

On my 16th birthday, my family got a gun threat from the radical groups in Baghdad. The threat was paper wrapped in a bullet and dipped in the blood. It was written in the threat that we need to leave in 24 hours, otherwise we are going to be killed.

Today we are facing a crisis which is the homage of the Christians going out of the country, leaving the country behind. If we will not have them today, we will not have any future for the church.

The Christians of Iraq, they are one of the most ancient Sikhs in this country, and we are working so hard to preserve our existence. Many of these challenges are being re-addressed by the church. We have and we open trauma healing centers, we call them Hope Centers. They focus on bringing the hope of Christ in the lives of our young people.

One of the core things that we’re focusing on is to bring new leaders to the community from the young generation. From other side, the church is trying its best to talk with officials to find job opportunities for our community. The church is trying to make some pressures on officials to make laws that will preserve the rights of the Christians in this country.

As a church, we always believe that the church is one body. So that’s why it’s important for our brothers and sisters to pray for us, to stay in solidarity with us. With other help we are unable to fulfill most of the programs that we have today with the youth and with the Centers of Hope and also the vocational trainings that we have.

My dream for the Iraq youth is to accomplish their dreams and also to be more resilient and to become the salt and the light of this country. We really need them in the future to lead our community into a better place where maybe we can then do that.

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