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At
several steps on their path to death by beheading and
crucifixion last month, 11 indigenous Christian workers
near Aleppo, Syria, had the option to leave the area and
live. The 12-year-old son of a ministry team leader also
could have spared his life by denying Christ.
The
indigenous missionaries were not required to stay at
their ministry base in a village near Aleppo, Syria;
rather, the ministry director who trained them had
entreated them to leave. As the Islamic State (ISIS),
other rebel groups and Syrian government forces turned
Aleppo into a war zone of carnage and destruction, ISIS
took over several outlying villages. The Syrian ministry
workers in those villages chose to stay in order to
provide aid in the name of Christ to survivors.
"I
asked them to leave, but I gave them the freedom to
choose," said the ministry director, his voice tremulous
as he recalled their horrific deaths. "As their leader,
I should have insisted that they leave."
They
stayed because they believed they were called to share
Christ with those caught in the crossfire, he said.
"Every
time we talked to them," the director said, "they were
always saying, 'We want to stay here—this is what God
has told us to do. This is what we want to do.' They
just wanted to stay and share the gospel."
Those
who chose to stay could have scattered and hid in other
areas, as their surviving family members did. On a visit
to the surviving relatives in hiding, the ministry
director learned of the cruel executions.
The
relatives said ISIS militants on Aug. 7 captured the
Christian workers in a village whose name is withheld
for security reasons. On Aug. 28, the militants asked if
they had renounced Islam for Christianity. When the
Christians said that they had, the rebels asked if they
wanted to return to Islam. The Christians said they
would never renounce Christ.
The
41-year-old team leader, his young son and two ministry
members in their 20s were questioned at one village site
where ISIS militants had summoned a crowd. The team
leader presided over nine house churches he had helped
to establish. His son was two months away from his 13th
birthday.
"All
were badly brutalized and then crucified," the ministry
leader said. "They were left on their crosses for two
days. No one was allowed to remove them."
The
martyrs died beside signs the ISIS militants had put up
identifying them as "infidels."
Eight
other ministry team members, including two women, were
taken to another site in the village that day (Aug. 28)
and were asked the same questions before a crowd. The
women, ages 29 and 33, tried to tell the ISIS militants
they were only sharing the peace and love of Christ and
asked what they had done wrong to deserve the abuse. The
Islamic extremists then publicly raped the women, who
continued to pray during the ordeal, leading the ISIS
militants to beat them all the more furiously.
As
the two women and the six men knelt before they were
beheaded, they were all praying.
"Villagers
said some were praying in the name of Jesus, others said
some were praying the Lord's prayer, and others said
some of them lifted their heads to commend their spirits
to Jesus," the ministry director said. "One of the women
looked up and seemed to be almost smiling as she said,
'Jesus!'"
After
they were beheaded, their bodies were hung on crosses,
the ministry director said, his voice breaking. He had
trained all of the workers for their evangelistic
ministry, and he had baptized the team leader and some
of the others.
Hundreds
of former Muslims in Syrian villages are in danger of
being captured and killed by ISIS, which is fighting to
establish a caliphate in which apostasy is punishable by
death. The underground church in the region has
mushroomed since June 2014, when ISIS began terrorizing
those who do not swear allegiance to its caliphate, both
non-Muslims and Muslims. Consequently, the potential for
large-scale executions has grown along with the gains in
ISIS-controlled territory.
The
ministry assisted by Christian Aid Mission is providing
resources and trying to find ways to evacuate these
families by other routes.
Many
of the ministry's teams also remain in Syria. Christian
Aid Mission assists those who do not or cannot leave
with the means to survive.
Even
those who leave, however, may encounter ISIS militants
and other criminals in refugee camps, said the leader of
another ministry that Christian Aid Mission assists. He
spoke of a Muslim from northern Syria who, like all men
in areas that ISIS takes over, was coerced into joining
the caliphate or being killed.
Recruited
into ISIS, he fled the country after his brother was
killed in the fighting. Disillusioned with ISIS but
still adhering to Islam and its teaching that Christians
and Jews are unclean "pigs," he went to Amman, Jordan,
as he had learned that relatives there were receiving
aid from Christians.
The
Muslim, whose name is withheld for security reasons,
went to a Christian meeting with the intention of
killing the aid workers gathered there. Something kept
him from following through on his plan, though, and that
night he saw Jesus in a dream, the ministry director
said.
"The
next day he came back and said, 'I came to kill you, but
last night I saw Jesus, and I want to know what are you
teaching—who is this One who held me up from killing
you?'" the director said. "He received Christ with
tears, and today he's actually helping in the church,
helping out other people. We're praying for lots of such
Sauls to change to Pauls."
The
sorrow of the ministry team leader who lost 11 workers
and one of their children last month has been deep, but
he takes heart that their faithfulness could help change
the hearts of persecutors.
"They
kept on praying loudly and sharing Jesus until their
last breath," he said. "They did this in front of the
villagers as a testimony for others."
He
asked for prayer for surviving family members and for
himself.
"These
things have been very hard on me," he said. "What wrong
did those people do to deserve to die? What is happening
is more and more people are being saved. The ministry is
growing and growing—in the past we used to pray to have
one person from a Muslim background come to the Lord.
Now there are so many we can barely handle all the work
among them."