Since the start of the Syrian civil war almost 10 years ago, Open Doors has stood with the local church to help Christians—believers who are forced to flee war, threatened by extremists, persecuted and who lost everything.
When we met with the 22-year-old Sozan and her family, the situation in Qamishli had calmed down. Bombs are not falling anymore. But the situation remains complicated—and coronavirus has complicated it even more since we spoke with Sozan.
Sozan and her family are new believers who came from Islam. This is one of the families you supported when the bombs fell in 2019.
“I am from a Muslim background,” Sozan says by way of introduction. “I wasn’t deeply involved with Islam and I didn’t have peace, I had no love, I felt hatred in my heart.”
About 90 percent of Syrians are Muslim. There are no reliable current statistics, but before the crisis in Syria, an estimated 7 percent to 8 percent of the population—2.2 million at that time—were Christians. It’s estimated only 744,000 believers remain. So many Christians have fled the country that some churches are nearly empty. And yet, the empty spots left by those believers are being filled by new believers who are finding Jesus.