My name is Miriam. I am 75 years old. I am sitting in a small room in Syria right now, the country where I was born, the country I love, the country that has caused me so much pain.
My hands shake as I speak these words, not just from age, but from everything I have seen, everything I have lived through.
I want to tell you my story, not because I want your pity, not because I want to be called a hero.
I want to tell you because the world needs to know what is happening to Christians in Syria, what have been happening for many, many years.
And I want to tell you because my faith in Jesus Christ is the only reason I am still breathing, still here, still able to speak.
I was born in a small village Hello viewers from around the world. Before our sister from Syria continues her story, we’d love to know where you are watching from, and we would love to pray for you and your city.
Thank you, and may God bless you as you listen to this powerful testimony. I was born in a small village in Syria in 1951.
It was a different time then. Syria was beautiful. My village had narrow streets with old stone houses.
And we had olive trees and fig trees. In the spring, everything bloomed with colors I can still see when I close my eyes.
Purple flowers on the vines, red poppies in the fields. The sky was so blue it hurt to look at it for too long.
We were not rich people. My father worked with his hands. He was a carpenter, like Jesus was a carpenter.
My mother stayed home and took care of us children. There were six of us.
I was the third child, three boys, three girls. We were Christian, Syrian Orthodox Christian.
Our families had been Christian in this land for hundreds and hundreds of years, long before Islam came to Syria, there were Christians here.
My grandmother used to tell me this. She would say that our ancestors knew Jesus’ disciples, that the faith came to Syria in the very beginning, in the first days after Jesus rose from the dead.
I I do not know if this is exactly true, but I know that we have been here a very long time.
This is our home. Syria is our home. But even when I was a small child, I knew we were different.
I knew that being Christian meant we had to be careful. My parents never said this directly to me when I was very young, but I could feel it.
I could see it in the way my mother’s face changed when we walked past certain people in the village.
I could hear it in my father’s voice when he told us to come inside before dark.
There was always something underneath the normal life we lived, something like fear, but we did not call it fear.
We called it wisdom. We called it being smart. I remember when I was 7 years old, maybe eight, I was walking home from church with my older sister.
It was a Sunday morning. We had our best dresses on. My mother had braided my hair.
I was holding my sister’s hand. We were happy. We had just sung hymns in church.
The priest had blessed us. I felt clean and good inside, the way a child feels when they believe God is watching them with love.
Three boys saw us. They were older than us, maybe 12 or 13 years old.
They started following us. At first, I thought they were just walking the same direction, but then one of them said something.
I will not repeat the exact words. It was a curse word, and then he called us Christian dogs.
My sister grabbed my hand tighter. She told me to keep walking, to not look at them, but they came closer.
They picked up stones from the road, small stones the size of figs. They started throwing them at us.
One stone hit my back. It did not hurt too much, but I was shocked.
I had never been hit by anyone except my mother when she disciplined me, and that was different.
This was hate. I could feel the hate coming from those boys like heat from a fire.
Another stone hit my sister on her leg. She made a small sound, but did not cry.
She just pulled me faster, and we started running. The boys laughed. They shouted more words at us.
We ran all the way home. When we got inside our house, my mother saw our faces.
She knew immediately what had happened. She did not need us to explain. My sister started crying then, and my mother held her.
I did not cry. I just stood there, confused. I asked my mother why those boys hated us.
What did we do to them? My mother looked at me for a long time.
Then she sat down and pulled me onto her lap, even though I was getting too big for that.
Uh she told me that some people hate Christians. She said it simply like that.
Some people hate us because we believe in Jesus, because we do not follow Islam.
She said that this hatred has been here for a long time, and it will probably be here for a long time more.
She said that we must be strong. We must be brave. We must love Jesus more than we fear anyone.
Then she prayed with us. She asked God to protect us and to help us forgive those boys.
I think that was the first time I really understood that my life would not be easy, that being a Christian in Syria meant something hard, something that required courage.
My father came home late that night, later than usual. My mother had kept his dinner warm, but it was very late, maybe 10:00 or later.
When he came in, I saw my mother’s whole body relax. She had been worried.
Uh I was supposed to be asleep, but I was listening from the room I shared with my sisters.
I heard my father tell my mother that there had been trouble near the church.
Some men had been standing outside watching who went in and who came out, making comments.
He and some of the other men from our community had stayed behind to make sure everyone got home safely.
This became normal. This became our life. We went to church, but we went carefully.
We prayed, but we prayed knowing that someone might hate us for it. We celebrated our faith, but always with one eye watching, one ear listening.
When I was 10 years old, our neighbor disappeared. His name was Boutros. He lived three houses down from us with his wife and four children.
He was a kind man. He always said good morning to everyone. He worked at a shop in the town selling fabric.
One week, he did not come home. His wife went to the shop, and they told her he had never arrived at work.
She went to the police. They did not help her. They told her that maybe he had run away, maybe he had left her.
She knew this was not true. Boutros loved his family. He would never leave them.
We never found out exactly what happened to him, but everyone in our Christian community knew.
We all knew without anyone saying it directly. He had been killed, maybe because he was Christian, maybe because he had an argument with someone, maybe because someone wanted his shop or his money.
It did not matter why exactly. What mattered was that he was gone, and no one would help his family find justice.
No one cared. I remember his funeral. We did not have a body to bury.
His wife just wanted to have a service to pray for his soul. Uh the church was full.
Everyone came. I sat between my parents and watched Boutros’ children crying. The oldest was about my age.
She cried so hard that no sound came out of her mouth, just tears running down her face and her body shaking.
I remember thinking that this could be my family. This could be my father. This could be us.
After that, my father started coming home earlier. He stopped going certain places at night.
My mother told us children to always stay Never talk to people we did not know.
The world felt smaller, darker. But we still had joy. This is important to say.
We still had happiness and love and good things. We celebrated Christmas even though we had to be quiet about it.
We did not put decorations outside our house. But inside, my mother would make special sweets.
Um my father would read us the story of Jesus’ birth from the Bible. We would sing very softly so the neighbors would not hear.
On Christmas morning, we would go to church before sunrise when it was still dark outside and the church would be full of candles and the smell of incense and all of us singing together.
Those moments were so beautiful. So full of God’s presence. Easter was the same. We knew Jesus had died and risen again.
We knew he had defeated death. This gave us hope. When we took communion when the priest gave us the bread and wine I felt Jesus close to me.
I felt him telling me that he understood suffering. That he had suffered, too. That he would never leave me.
My teenage years were hard in different ways. I was growing into a young woman.
In Syria Christian girls had to be very careful. We could not dress certain ways.
We could not go certain places. If a Muslim man wanted to marry a Christian girl often he could just take her.
And she would have to convert to Islam. This happened to a girl in the next village.
She was 15. A man saw her and wanted her. He came to her family and said he would marry her.
Her family said no, she is too young and she is Christian. He took her anyway.
With his brothers, he came to the house and took her. The police did not stop him.
Her family cried and begged, but she was gone. We heard later that she had to convert.
She had to leave her faith. She had to leave everything. My parents watched me very closely.
They did not let me walk anywhere alone once I turned 13. My brothers had to go with me everywhere.
I understood why. I did not complain. But it was hard being young and feeling like a prisoner in my own village.
When I was 16, my older brother Sammy was beaten. He was coming home from church on a Sunday evening.
It was just getting dark. Three men stopped him on the road. They asked him where he was coming from.
He told them church. They started mocking him asking him why he worshipped a dead man saying that Jesus was not God.
Sammy was a quiet person. He did not argue with people. He just said he had to go home.
His family was waiting for him. One of the men punched him in the face.
Just like that. No more words. Just a punch. Sammy fell down. Then they kicked him.
His ribs his stomach his back. He tried to protect his head with his arms.
They kicked him maybe 10 or 15 times. I do not know exactly. Sammy never talked much about it.
Then they left him there on the road. He lay there for a few minutes trying to breathe.
Everything hurt. Eventually, he got up and walked home. When he came in the door, his face was bleeding.
His shirt was torn. My mother screamed. My father’s face went completely white. We wanted to go to the police.
My father said no. He said it would make things worse. That the police would not help us.
That if we made trouble more trouble would come to our family. So we did nothing.
My mother cleaned Sammy’s wounds. We prayed for him. He healed slowly. But something in him changed.
He became more quiet. More afraid. I could see it in his eyes. I learned then that we were not protected.
That our government did not care about us. That we were on our own. The only protection we had was God and each other.
By the time I was 20 years old uh I had already lost several people I loved.
Boutros, our neighbor, was the first. Then my uncle my father’s brother was killed when I was 14.
He was traveling to another city for work. His car was stopped on the road.
He was robbed and shot. Again, no one was arrested. No one was punished. Then a young man from our church a boy I had grown up with was stabbed in an argument at a market.
He died right there. He was only 19 years old. Death was always near us.
We lived with it like you live with weather. You know rain will come. You know winter will come.
We knew death would come. But our faith grew stronger because of this. I know this sounds strange.
How can suffering make faith stronger? But it did. When everything else is taken from you when you have nothing else to hold on to you hold on to Jesus and he holds on to you.
I felt his presence so strongly during those years. When I prayed I felt him listening.
When I read the Bible, the words jumped off the page and went straight into my heart.
When we sang in church I felt the Holy Spirit moving in the room giving us strength giving us courage.
My mother used to tell me to memorize scripture. She said that they can take everything from us.
But they cannot take what we have hidden in our hearts. So I memorized Psalms.
I memorized the words of Jesus. I memorized Paul’s letters. I would repeat them to myself when I was afraid.
When I heard gunshots in the night I would whisper Psalm 23. The Lord is my shepherd.
I shall not want. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil.
For you are with me. Those words kept me alive. They kept me sane. Uh I also learned to hide my faith in small ways.
My mother taught me this, too. She taught me how to pray silently with my eyes open so no one would know I was praying.
She taught me to keep my Bible hidden under my mattress wrapped in cloth. She taught me to wear my cross under my clothes not on top where everyone could see.
These were survival skills. This was how we lived. Some Christian families left Syria during those years.
They went to Lebanon to Jordan to anywhere that would take them. I remember when the Haddad family left.
They were our neighbors. They had three small children. One morning, their house was empty.
They left in the night. They did not say goodbye because it was too dangerous.
If people knew they were leaving someone might stop them. Might rob them. So they just disappeared.
My father talked about leaving. He and my mother would discuss it late at night when they thought we were sleeping.
Should they take us and go? Should they try to get to Lebanon? But my father could not decide.
Syria was his home. His father was buried here. His grandfather. How could he leave?
Where would he go? What would he do in another country? He was a carpenter.
He spoke only Arabic. He had no money saved. So we stayed. I am grateful now that we stayed even though it was hard because if we had left, I would not have met my husband.
I would not have had my children. My life would have been completely different. But I did not know any of that then.
I only knew that I was a young woman living in fear. Trying to follow Jesus in a place that hated Jesus.
Trying to stay alive. Trying to keep hope. When I was 21, things got worse again and a new group of extremists came to our region.
They were very strict Muslims. They believed that Christians should not exist in Syria. They started making rules.
Christians had to pay extra taxes. Christians could not repair their churches. Christians could not ring church bells.
Christians could not share their faith with anyone. If a Christian tried to tell a Muslim about Jesus, they could be killed for it.
One of our churches was burned. Not the church I attended, but one in a nearby town.
It was an old church, hundreds of years old. Beautiful stone walls, icons painted by monks long ago.
One night, men came with gasoline and fire. They burned it to the ground. In the morning, there was nothing left but black stones and ashes.
Our priest went to see it. When he came back, he cried during the service.
I had never seen him cry before. He said we must pray for our enemies.
We must forgive them. But we must also be ready to die for our faith if that time comes.
I remember sitting in church that day, listening to him and feeling something change inside me.
I realized that I might die for being Christian. That this was a real possibility.
Not just a story from the Bible. Not just something that happened to martyrs long ago.
This could happen to me soon. I made a decision that day. I decided that if I had to choose between Jesus and my life, I would choose Jesus.
I did not know if I would have the courage when the moment came, but I decided it in my heart.
I gave my life to him completely. I said, “Jesus, I am yours. Whatever happens, I am yours.”
That decision gave me peace. Strange peace. Even though the world around me was getting darker and more dangerous, I I had peace inside.
I knew who I belonged to. But nothing Nothing in those years prepared me for what was coming.
The suffering I had seen as a child and as a young woman was only the beginning.
The real darkness was still ahead. I did not know it then. I thought I had already seen the worst.
But I was wrong. I was so wrong. I met my husband when I was 23 years old.
His name was Elias. He was a good man, a gentle man. He worked as a teacher in a Christian school.
We met at church. He noticed me and I noticed him. In our culture, we could not just talk freely.
So, he spoke to my father first. He asked permission to visit our home. My father asked around about him, about his family, about his faith.
Everyone said good things about Elias. So, my father agreed. Elias came to our house on Thursday evenings.
We would sit in the front room with my parents there. We would talk. He told me about the children he taught, about his love for books, about his faith in Jesus.
I told him about my life, about my dreams. I dreamed of having a family, of raising children who loved God, of having a peaceful life.
Even though I knew peace was not likely in Syria, I still dreamed of it.
After 6 months, Elias asked my father for permission to marry me. My father said yes.
We were married in our church on a Sunday morning. It was a small wedding.
Maybe 50 people came. We could not afford a big celebration and we did not want to draw attention to ourselves.
Big Christian weddings sometimes attracted the wrong kind of attention. So, we kept it simple.
But it was beautiful. I wore a white dress my mother had sewn for me.
Elias wore his best suit. Uh the priest blessed us. We took communion together as husband and wife.
I felt so much joy that day, so much hope. We moved into a small house near the school where Elias worked.
Two rooms, a tiny kitchen, a bathroom. It was enough. I was happy. For the first time in my life, I felt like maybe things would be okay.
Maybe Elias and I could build a quiet life together. Maybe we could raise children and grow old together.
I got pregnant 4 months after we married. I was so excited. Elias was excited.
We prayed every night for our baby. We thanked God for this gift. I gave birth to a son.
We named him Joseph after Jesus’ earthly father. He was perfect. 10 fingers, 10 toes.
A loud cry that filled our small house with life. I had never loved anything the way I loved that baby.
Holding him in my arms, I understood God’s love in a new way. Uh if I loved Joseph this much, how much more did God love me?
2 years later, I had a daughter. We named her Maria. She was quiet and calm, the opposite of Joseph.
She rarely cried. She would just look at everything with her big brown eyes. Elias said she was observing the world, learning everything.
I felt complete. I had a husband who loved me. Two healthy children. We went to church together every Sunday.
We prayed together every night. Yes, there was still danger around us. Yes, things were still hard for Christians in Syria.
But we had each other. We had our faith. We had love. Those were the happiest years of my life.
But happiness does not last forever in this world. I know that now. I knew it then, too.
But I hoped. I hoped we would be spared. I hoped God would protect us.
And he did protect us for a while. But not forever. Not in the way I wanted.
The year was 1982. I was 31 years old. Joseph was seven. Maria was five.
The political situation in Syria had become very bad. There was violence everywhere. The government was fighting against certain groups.
Innocent people were being killed. Christians were caught in the middle. We were nobody’s friends.
The government did not trust us. The extremists hated us. We were just trying to survive.
One night in February, Elias did not come home from school. He always came home at 4:00 every day.
4:00 exactly. He would walk in the door and Joseph and Maria would run to him.
And he would pick them up and swing them around. But that day, 4:00 came and went.
Then 5:00. Then 6:00. I started to worry. I put the children to bed early.
I I told them their father had to work late. But inside, my heart was racing.
I knew something was wrong. At 8:00, there was a knock on the door. I opened it.
Two men from our church were standing there. I knew from their faces. I knew before they said anything.
One of them was crying. He told me that uh Elias was dead. He had been shot on his way home from school.
They did not know who did it or why. Someone had just shot him on the street and left him there.
And some people from our community had found him and brought his body to the church.
I do not remember what happened next. I think I fell down. I think I screamed.
I do not remember. The next thing I clearly remember is being at the church, looking at Elias’ body.
He looked like he was sleeping, except for the blood on his chest. His face was peaceful.
I touched his hand. It was cold. I wanted to wake him up. I wanted to tell him to stop this joke and come home with me.
But he was gone. Just gone. The funeral was the next day. We had to bury people quickly in Syria.
His whole family came. My whole family came. The church was full. Everyone was crying.
The priest said that Elias was with Jesus now. That he was in paradise. That we would see him again one day.
I tried to believe this. I did believe it. But I also wanted him here.
I wanted him with me and our children. I wanted him to see Joseph and Maria grow up.
After the funeral, I went home with my children. They did not fully understand. Joseph kept asking when his father was coming home.
I had to tell him over and over that his father was in heaven with Jesus.
That we would not see him again until we went to heaven, too. And Joseph cried every night for months.
Maria stopped talking. She would just sit quietly and stare at nothing. My heart was broken for them and for myself.
I had to figure out how to survive. Elias had been the one who earned money.
I had stayed home with the children. Now I had no income. I had a little money saved, but not much.
I started sewing clothes for people. I would sew all night after the children went to sleep.
My eyes hurt from the bad light. My fingers bled from the needle, but I had to feed my children.
I had to keep a roof over our heads. The next few years were so hard.
So dark. I was alone. I was poor. I was afraid all the time. The violence in Syria was getting worse.
More Christians were being killed. More churches were being attacked. There were bombings, shootings, kidnappings.
Every day I heard about someone else from our community who had died or disappeared.
I thought about leaving Syria. Many people were leaving now, whole families. They were going to Lebanon, to Turkey, to Europe if they could.
But I had no money to leave. And I had no one to go with.
It was just me and two small children. How could I make that dangerous journey?
What if something happened to us on the way? What if we died trying to escape?
At least in Syria, we had our home. We had our church. We had people who knew us.
So I stayed and I prayed. I prayed constantly. Every moment of every day, Jesus, help me.
Jesus, protect my children. Jesus, give me strength. I survived on prayer. It was my food, my water, my air.
When Joseph was 12 and Maria was 10, our church was destroyed. Extremists came in the middle of the night with explosives.
They blew it up. Our beautiful church where I had been baptized, where I had married Elias, where we had baptized our children.
Gone. Just rubble and dust. We were devastated. All of us. Where would we worship now?
Where would we gather? We started meeting in homes, different homes each week. We would gather quietly.
Maybe 15 or 20 people. We would pray and sing very quietly. We would take communion.
The priest would move from house to house, hiding, always in danger. But we kept meeting.
We had to. Our faith was all we had left. The economic situation became terrible.
Christians could not get good jobs. We were denied positions, denied opportunities. I could barely feed my children.
Sometimes we ate only bread and olives for days. Sometimes we had nothing. I might would give my food to Joseph and Maria and tell them I had already eaten.
I would go to bed with my stomach aching from hunger. But I did not want them to suffer more than they already were.
Joseph grew into a young man. He wanted to help me. He wanted to work.
But there were no jobs for Christian boys. He tried everything. He was smart. He was strong.
He was willing to work hard. But no one would hire him. I watched him become frustrated, angry.
He started asking me why God let these things happen to us. Why did God let his father die?
Why did God let us suffer? I did not have good answers. I just told him that God’s ways are not our ways.
That we have to trust him even when we do not understand. Maria grew quieter and quieter.
She hardly spoke at all anymore. She just helped me with the sewing. She was good at it.
Uh her stitches were tiny and perfect. But I worried about her. I worried about what all this suffering was doing to her young heart.
Then came the day that changed everything again. Joseph was 17. He went out to try to find work.
He did not come home that night. I was frantic. I went looking for him.
I asked everyone I knew. No one had seen him. The next morning, someone from our community came to tell me that Joseph had been arrested.
The police had taken him. They said he was involved in some kind of political activity.
This was not true. Joseph was not political. He just wanted to work. He just wanted to help his mother and sister.
I went to the police station. They would not let me see him. They told me to go away.
I went back every day for a week. Finally, they released him. When I saw him, I almost did not recognize him.
He had been beaten. His face was swollen. His eyes were black and blue. His lips were split.
He could barely walk. I took him home. I cleaned his wounds. I held him while he cried.
He told me what they had done to him. How they had hit him. How they had mocked his faith.
How they had told him that Christians did not belong in Syria. That was when I decided we had to leave.
We could not stay anymore. If we stayed, Joseph would be killed. Or Maria would be taken.
Or I would die and leave my children alone. We had to go. I sold everything we had.
Our furniture, my sewing machine, Elias’s books, everything. I got a little money, not much, but enough.
I talked to people who had left Syria. They told me how to do it.
Who to pay. Where to go. It was dangerous. Many people died trying to escape.
But staying was also dangerous. We had no choice. I might told Joseph and Maria.
Maria cried. She did not want to leave Syria. Even though Syria had given us nothing but pain, it was still her home.
She had never known anywhere else. Joseph said he would go wherever I said. He just wanted us to be safe.
We left on a Tuesday night in October. The year was 2000. I was 49 years old.
We took only what we could carry, one bag each, some clothes, our Bibles, a photograph of Elias, nothing else.
We walked out of our house and did not look back. If I had looked back, I might not have had the courage to keep walking.
The journey was terrible. We traveled at night. We hid during the day. We paid people to help us cross borders.
Some of them were honest. Some of them were criminals who took our money and left us.
We walked for miles and miles. My feet bled. Maria got sick. And Joseph had to carry her.
We had no food for 2 days. We drank water from streams. I thought we would die.
I really thought we would not make it. But we kept going. We prayed as we walked.
We sang hymns quietly to keep our spirits up. We reminded each other that God was with us.
That he would not abandon us. After 3 weeks of traveling, we made it to Turkey.
From there, we managed to get to a refugee camp. The camp was crowded and dirty.
Thousands of people living in tents. No privacy. No safety. But we were alive. We had made it out of Syria.
We stayed in that camp for 8 months. It was hard, very hard. But I met other Christians there.
We formed a small church community. We prayed together. We encouraged each other. We shared what little we had.
Eventually, with help from a Christian organization, that we were accepted to go to the United Kingdom.
I could not believe it. The UK. A place where Christians could worship freely, where no one would kill us for our faith, where my children could have a future.
We arrived in London on a cold day in April 2001. I had never been so cold in my life.
We had no winter clothes. We were freezing. But, we were free. That was all that mattered.
A family from a church met us at the airport. They took us to a small apartment.
They gave us blankets and food. They showed us such kindness. I cried when they prayed with us.
I cried because I had not felt safe in so long, and here for the first time in years, I felt safe.
We went to church that first Sunday. A big church with hundreds of people. When they started singing, I started crying.
I could not stop. Joseph put his arm around me. Maria held my hand. I We sang loudly.
We worshipped freely. No fear, no hiding, just pure worship. It was like heaven. I thought this must be what heaven feels like.
I thought the suffering was over. I thought we had finally found peace. I thought we could finally rest.
But, life had more in store for me. More pain, more testing, more refining. I just did not know it yet.
The first year in the UK was confusing. Everything was different. The language was different.
The weather was different. The food was different. Even the way people walked and talked and looked at each other was different.
I felt like I had landed on another planet. We lived in a small flat in East London, two bedrooms for the three of us.
It was in a big building with many other flats. The walls were thin. I could hear our neighbors talking and fighting and watching television.
Uh it was noisy all the time, but it was ours. We had a place to live.
We were safe. That was more than I had dared to hope for. Joseph was 18 now.
Maria was 16. They both needed to learn English quickly. I needed to learn, too, but it was harder for me.
I was 50 years old. My brain did not work the way it used to.
Young people learn languages easily. Old people struggle, but I tried. I went to classes at the church.
I practiced every day, slowly, very slowly. I learned enough English to survive. The hardest part was finding work.
I needed to work immediately. We had no money. The government gave us some help, but it was not enough.
I had to find a job. But, what could I do? I could not speak English well.
I had no education. I had no skills that British employers wanted. I could sew, but that was not useful here.
Um I found work cleaning. A cleaning company hired me to clean offices at night.
I would start work at 10:00 at night and finish at 6:00 in the morning.
Then, I would come home and sleep for a few hours. It was hard work.
My knees hurt from kneeling to scrub floors. My back hurt from bending over. My hands became rough and red from the chemicals.
But, I was grateful for the work. It paid for our food and our rent.
Joseph found work, too. He worked in a warehouse moving boxes. It was hard physical work, but he was young and strong.
He gave me all his money to help with expenses. Maria wanted to work, too, but I told her to to study first, to learn English well, to go to college if she could.
I wanted her to have opportunities I never had. The loneliness was terrible. I missed Syria so much.
Not the danger, not the persecution, but the place itself, the language, the smell of the air, the taste of the food, the sound of church bells in Arabic.
I missed my family. My parents had both died before we left Syria, but I had sisters and brothers still there.
I missed them. I wondered if I would ever see them again. I missed Elias.
Every single day I missed him. In Syria, I could visit his grave. I could put flowers there.
I could sit and talk to him. Here, I had nothing. Just a photograph. Sometimes, I would hold that photograph and cry.
I would tell him about Joseph and Maria, about our new life, about how much I wished he was here with us.
But, in the middle of all this loneliness and hardship, there was one beautiful thing.
One thing that made everything worth it. I could worship Jesus freely, without fear, without hiding, without looking over my shoulder.
Every Sunday, we went to church. It was a Syrian Orthodox church with other Syrian Christians who had fled like us.
When I walked into that church, I felt at home. We spoke Arabic there. We sang the old hymns.
We prayed the old prayers. The incense smelled the same. The icons looked the same.
For a few hours each week, I was back in Syria. The good parts of Syria, the parts I loved.
I will never forget the first time I wore my cross outside my shirt. In Syria, I always kept it hidden under my clothes.
If people saw it, they might curse at me, might hurt me. But, here in London, I could wear it openly.
So, one day I took my cross out from under my shirt and let it hang on my chest where everyone could see it.
I walked down the street like that. My heart was pounding. Part of me was still afraid.
But, nothing happened. People walked past me. Uh no one said anything. No one hurt me.
No one cared. I cried right there on the street. I touched my cross and thanked Jesus.
I thanked him for this freedom, for this safety. After a lifetime of hiding my faith, I could finally show it openly.
This was a miracle to me. I started going to a Bible study at church.
A group of women, all Syrian, all refugees like me. We would meet on Wednesday evenings.
We would read the Bible together and discuss it. We would pray for each other.
These women became my family. We understood each other. We had all lost husbands or children or parents.
We had all fled the same persecution. We had all arrived in this strange cold country and had to start over.
One woman, her name was Samira, became my close friend. She was a few years younger than me.
Her husband had been kidnapped in Syria and never found. She had three children. She worked cleaning hospitals.
We worked different shifts, but we would meet for coffee when we could. We would talk for hours about Syria, about our children, about our faith, about our pain.
Having her friendship kept me sane during those hard years. The physical work was destroying my body.
I was not young anymore. Cleaning offices all night every night was too much for me.
My knees started to give out. I would wake up in the afternoon, and my knees would be so swollen, I could barely walk.
My back pain became constant. I started taking painkillers just to get through my shifts.
Joseph and Maria worried about me. They told me to stop working, but I could not.
We needed the money. Joseph’s warehouse job did not pay much. Maria was studying now, learning English, trying to get her education.
I had to work. I had to provide for them. Then, my health got worse in other ways.
I started having chest pains, sharp pains that took my breath away. I ignored them at first.
I thought it was just stress, just tiredness. But, they got worse. One night at work, I collapsed.
My chest felt like someone was squeezing it with both hands. I could not breathe.
I thought I was dying. My co-worker called an ambulance. They took me to the hospital.
The doctors said I had heart problems. They said I needed medication. They said I needed to stop working so hard.
They said I needed to rest. But how could I rest? How could I stop working?
We had no money. We had no savings. If I stopped working, how would we eat?
The British National Health Service gave me medication for free. This was amazing to me.
In Syria, if you could not pay for medicine, you just died. But here, they gave it to me.
They took care of me. I was so grateful, so thankful. The medication helped. The chest pains became less frequent.
But I was diagnosed with other things, too. High blood pressure, diabetes. The doctor said these came from years of stress and poor diet and hard work.
He said I needed to take care of myself. But taking care of myself felt like a luxury I could not afford.
Joseph turned 21. He met a girl at church, a nice Syrian Christian girl named Nadia.
They got married. I was happy for him. But I also felt sad. He moved out of our flat to live with his wife.
The flat felt empty without him. It was just me and Maria now. Maria finished her English studies.
She wanted to go to university. She wanted to study to become a teacher. I was so proud of her.
My daughter, who had been so quiet and traumatized, uh was now a young woman with dreams and goals.
She got accepted to a university. She would be the first person in our family to go to university.
I cried when she told me. Tears of joy and pride. But university cost money.
Even though the government helped, there were still expenses, books, transport, food. I worked more hours to help her.
I took on extra shifts. My body screamed in protest, but I did not listen.
I had sacrificed everything to get my children out of Syria. I had to give them the best chance at a good life here.
The years passed. I worked. I went to church. I prayed. I watched my children build lives in this new country.
Joseph and Nadia had a baby. A little boy, my first grandchild. When I held him in my arms, I felt overwhelming gratitude.
This baby boy would never know the fear I had known. He would never hide his faith.
He would never be persecuted for believing in Jesus. He would grow up free. But even as I rejoiced for my grandson, I felt a deep ache in my chest, a longing I could not shake.
I missed Syria. I know this sounds crazy. After everything Syria had done to me, after all the pain, after losing my husband there, after fleeing for my life, I still missed it.
It was my home, my homeland, the place where my ancestors were buried, the place where I was born.
I followed the news from Syria. The civil war had started. It was terrible, worse than anything we had experienced.
Entire cities were being destroyed. Millions of people were fleeing. Christians were being targeted by new extremist groups, ISIS.
They were beheading Christians, crucifying them, selling Christian girls as slaves. It was worse than any nightmare.
I prayed for Syria every day. You every single day. I prayed for the Christians still there.
I prayed for peace. I prayed for the war to end. Then, after many years, I started hearing that things were getting better in some parts of Syria.
The war was ending in some areas. The government had regained control. Some people who had fled were going back.
They said it was safe now. They said Christians could live there again without fear.
I started thinking about going back. I know Maria thought I was crazy. She said I was too old, that I had health problems, that I needed to stay in the UK where I had doctors and medicine, that Syria was still dangerous.
But I could not stop thinking about it. I was 68 years old. I had lived in the UK for 17 years.
I had worked hard jobs that destroyed my body. I had survived. I had seen my children grow and succeed.
But I was tired, so tired. And I wanted to go home. I wanted to die in Syria.
I wanted to be buried next to Elias and next to my parents in my homeland.
I prayed about it for months. I asked God what he wanted me to do.
Stay in the UK where it was safe, or go back to Syria where my heart longed to be.
I felt God telling me to go back. I felt him saying that he had work for me to do there.
I did not understand what work. But I trusted him. I told Joseph and Maria.
They were both upset. They begged me not to go. They said I was making a terrible mistake, that I would regret it, that Syria had not really changed, that I would be in danger again.
But I had made up my mind. God was calling me home. I had to obey.
I said goodbye to my church family, to Samira and the other women. They cried.
They prayed for me. They thought they would never see me again. Maybe they were right.
I said goodbye to Joseph and Nadia and my grandson. Uh Maria cried and held me for a long time.
I promised her I would be okay. I promised I would call her. I promised I would come back to visit.
I did not know if any of these promises would come true, but I said them anyway.
I got on a plane in March 2018. I was 70 years old. I had a small suitcase with my clothes, my Bible, my medications, that photograph of Elias.
That was all I owned. All I needed. As the plane took off from London, I looked out the window at the city below, the city that had given me refuge, that had kept me safe, that had allowed me to worship freely.
I was grateful, so grateful. But I was also ready to leave. I was going home.
I thought things had changed. I thought I could finally live in peace in my beloved Syria.
I thought my suffering was over. But I was wrong. So terribly wrong. The plane landed in Damascus.
When I stepped off and breathed Syrian air again, I felt something break open inside me.
I was home. After 17 years away, I was finally home. The air smelled right.
The light looked right. Everything felt familiar in a way that the UK never had.
This was my land, my country. I started crying right there in the airport. People stared at me, but I did not care.
I took a bus to my old region. I looked out the window as we drove, and my heart broke.
So much was destroyed. Buildings with no roofs, walls with bullet holes, entire neighborhoods that were just rubble.
The war had torn Syria apart. I saw children playing in the ruins. I saw women carrying water because there were no pipes.
I saw men with missing limbs, victims of bombs. This was my beautiful Syria. What had become of it?
When I got to my old village, I barely recognized it. Uh half the houses were damaged or destroyed.
Our old church was gone, completely gone. Just an empty lot with weeds growing. The school where Elias had taught was burned out, a shell.
I walked through the streets, and everything looked dead. There were very few people around.
Most had fled or been killed. I found a small apartment to rent, just one room with a bathroom.
It was all I could afford with my small savings. The building was damaged, cracks in the walls, windows that did not close properly.
But it was shelter. I moved in with my suitcase and my memories. I tried to find my old community, the Christians who had stayed.
There were not many left, maybe a few hundred in the area where there used to be thousands.
We met in a house, not a church. We prayed quietly. We did not sing loudly.
Even though people said things were better, we were still careful and still afraid. I asked people if things had really improved for Christians.
They looked at me with tired eyes. They said it was better than the worst days of ISIS, better than when ISIS was beheading people and burning them alive, but it was not good, not safe.
Christians were still second-class citizens, still targeted, still persecuted, just in different ways now. I started to realize I had made a mistake.
I should have listened to Joseph and Maria. I should have stayed in the UK, but I was here now.
I had spent all my money to come back. I had nowhere else to go.
I tried to find work, but I was 70 years old. I had health problems.
No one would hire me. I lived on the little money I had saved. I rationed it carefully.
I ate one meal a day, sometimes just bread and tea. I could not afford more.
My medications were running out. In the UK, I had gotten them for free. Here, I had to pay and they were expensive, very expensive.
I could not afford all of them. I had to choose. Heart medication or diabetes medication?
Blood pressure pills or insulin? I tried to make my pills last longer by cutting them in half, by taking them every other day instead of every day.
This was dangerous, but I had no choice. My health got worse. The chest pains came back.
My blood sugar went up and down. I felt weak all the time, dizzy, short of breath.
I knew I was slowly dying, but what could I do? I had no money for proper medical care.
The hospitals here were overwhelmed, destroyed by war. They could not help me even if I could pay.
I called Maria once a week from a phone at a shop. She begged me to come back to the UK.
Um she said she would send me money for a ticket, but I was too proud, too stubborn.
I told her I was fine. I lied and said everything was good. I did not want her to worry and part of me still believed God wanted me here.
I still believed he had a purpose for me in Syria. The persecution was different now than when I was young.
Before, it was random violence. Now, it was systematic, organized. Christians had to pay special taxes.
We had to get special permits for everything. We were not allowed to repair our homes without permission and permission was almost never granted.
We were being slowly squeezed out, pushed out, made to feel unwelcome in our own country.
I saw Christian families leaving every week. They could not take it anymore. They were going to Lebanon, to Jordan, to Europe, anywhere that would take them.
Um the community was bleeding, dying. Soon there would be no Christians left in Syria at all.
I met a widow named Rania. She was my age. Her husband had been killed by ISIS.
She lived alone in a damaged house. We became friends. We would visit each other, drink tea, read the Bible together, pray together.
She was the only friend I had. She understood what I was going through. She was going through the same thing.
One day men came to Rania’s house. They told her she had to pay them money for protection.
If she did not pay, bad things would happen to her house, to her. She had no money.
She told them this. They beat her. They broke her arm. She was 72 years old.
They broke her arm because she could not pay them. I went to visit her in the hospital.
She was lying in a bed with her arm in a cast. She was crying.
She said she could not stay in Syria anymore. She was leaving, going to her daughter in Lebanon.
She asked me to come with her. I said no. I said God wanted me to stay.
She looked at me like I was crazy. Maybe I was. After Rania left, I was completely alone.
I had no friends, no community, just me and God. I prayed constantly. I read my Bible for hours every day.
It was all I had. The words of Jesus became my food, my water, my only comfort.
I was getting sicker. I could feel my body failing. I had pains in my chest every day now.
Sometimes I could not catch my breath. I would sit down and wait for the feeling to pass.
I knew I was dying, slowly. I thought about death a lot. I was not afraid.
I knew I would see Jesus. I knew I would see Elias again. My parents, all the people I had lost.
Death did not scare me, but I wanted to die with dignity. I wanted to die peacefully.
I did not want to suffer. I prayed that God would take me quickly when the time came.
I should have known better. I should have known that my suffering was not over yet.
It was a Tuesday evening. I was 75 years old. I was sitting in my small room reading my Bible.
I had just taken my last heart pill. My medicine was almost gone. I had maybe a week’s worth left.
After that, I did not know what I would do. I was praying about it, asking God to provide.
Then I heard footsteps outside my door, heavy footsteps, multiple people. My heart started racing.
I knew that sound. I had heard it before in my life. The sound of men coming with bad intentions.
There was a loud knock on my door, so loud it shook the frame. I sat very still.
Maybe if I was quiet, they would go away, but they knocked again, harder. Then a voice shouted for me to open the door, a man’s voice, angry, demanding.
I stood up slowly. My legs were shaking. I walked to the door. I did not want to open it, but I knew if I did not, they would break it down.
So, I opened it. Three men pushed their way into my room. They were young, maybe 25 or 30 years old.
They had beards. They wore dark clothes. One of them had a gun tucked into his belt.
I could see it. My heart felt like it would explode in my chest. They looked around my small room.
One of them saw my Bible on the table. He picked it up. He said a curse word.
He said I was a Christian. I did not answer. What could I say? It was obvious.
Another man started going through my things. He opened my small bag where I kept my clothes.
He threw everything on the floor. He found my cross necklace, the one I had worn for 50 years, the one Elias had given me when we got married.
He held it up and spit on it. Then he threw it on the floor and stepped on it.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to fight them, but I was an old woman, weak, sick.
I could do nothing. The man with the gun spoke. He asked me why I was here, why I had come back to Syria.
I told him this was my home. I was born here. He laughed. He said Syria did not want Christians.
He said we should all leave or convert to Islam. Then he said it, the words I had heard before in my life, the words I had always feared.
He said I had to choose, convert to Islam right now. Say the words. Become a Muslim or suffer the consequences.
I thought about all the people I had known who had faced this choice. Some had converted to save their lives.
I did not judge them. God knows their hearts. But I knew I could not do it.
I could not deny Jesus, not after everything, not after he had brought me through so much.
Not after a lifetime of suffering for his name. I looked at the man with the gun.
I said no. I said I was a Christian. I would die a Christian. I would never convert.
His face changed. He got very angry. He started shouting at me. Calling me names.
Cursing me. The other men joined in. They surrounded me. I thought they were going to kill me right there.
I closed my eyes and prayed. Jesus receive my spirit. But they did not kill me.
Not directly. They did something worse. One of them went to the small shelf where I kept my medications.
My heart pills. My diabetes medicine. My blood pressure pills. Everything I needed to stay alive.
He grabbed all of it. All the bottles. He held them up and showed them to me.
He said they were taking my medicine. If I would not convert, they would let me die slowly.
Without my medicine. They would watch me suffer and die. He laughed when he said this.
Like it was funny. I tried to grab the bottles from him. I begged them.
I told them I needed those pills to live. But they pushed me down. I fell on the floor.
My old body hit hard. Pain shot through my hip. One of them kicked me.
Not hard enough to break anything. Just hard enough to hurt. To humiliate me. Then they left.
They took my medications with them. They took the little money I had hidden. They took some of my clothes.
They left my Bible but they tore some pages out of it first. They left me lying on the floor.
Crying in pain. Alone. I do not know how long I lay there. Maybe an hour.
Maybe more. Eventually uh I pulled myself up. Everything hurt. My hip. My chest. My heart was pounding irregularly.
I could feel it skipping beats. I sat on my bed and tried to breathe.
I looked at my empty shelf where my medicine had been. I knew what this meant.
Without my heart medication, I would probably die within a few days. Maybe a week.
Without my diabetes medicine, my blood sugar would spike. I might go into a coma.
Without my blood pressure pills, I might have a stroke. I was going to die.
Soon. Alone. In this small room in Syria. I picked up my Bible from the floor.
The pages they had torn out were from the book of Psalms. My favorite Psalms.
The ones I had memorized as a child. But they could not take those from my heart.
I still knew them. I whispered Psalm 23 to myself. The Lord is my shepherd.
I shall not want. I cried that night. I cried until I had no tears left.
I cried for myself. For my wasted life. For all the suffering I had endured.
I cried for Syria. For my people. For the church being destroyed. I cried for all the Christians who had died.
Who were dying. Who would die. But then in the middle of my crying, I felt something.
A presence. A peace. Jesus was there with me. In that small room. In my pain.
In my fear. He was there. I felt him speak to my heart. Not with words I could hear.
But with words I could feel. He told me I was not alone. He told me he had never left me.
He told me that my suffering had a purpose. That my story would be told.
That it would help others. That I needed to survive. To testify. To tell the world what was happening to Christians in Syria.
And I knew then why God had brought me back to Syria. Not to die quietly.
Uh but to live long enough to tell this story. To be a witness. To be a voice for the voiceless.
I did not know how I would survive without my medicine. But I decided to trust God.
To believe that he would keep me alive as long as he needed me alive.
That was 3 months ago. I am still here. Still alive. I should be dead.
But I am not. God is keeping me alive. Somehow, the first night after they took my medicine was the worst night of my life.
Worse than the night Elias died. Worse than the night we fled Syria. Worse than any night I had ever experienced.
My chest felt like someone had tied a rope around it and was pulling it tighter and tighter.
I could not breathe properly. I would gasp for air. And my lungs would only half fill.
My heart was beating so fast and so irregularly that I could hear it pounding in my ears.
I lay on my bed and thought this was the end. This was how I would die.
Alone in this room. My body would be found days later when someone noticed the smell.
I would die like a dog in the street. No dignity. No one to hold my hand.
No one to pray with me. But I did not die that night. When morning came, I was still breathing.
Still alive. I was weak. So weak I could barely stand. But I was alive.
The next few days were agony. Without my diabetes medication, my blood sugar went very high.
I was thirsty all the time. My mouth was dry no matter how much water I drank.
I had to urinate constantly. I felt dizzy and confused. Sometimes I did not know where I was.
I would forget what day it was. What year it was. Without my blood pressure medication, I had terrible headaches.
Pounding headaches that made my vision blur. I was afraid I would have a stroke.
That I would fall and not be able to get up. That I would die slowly.
Unable to move. Unable to call for help. But the worst was my heart. Without my heart medication, the chest pains became constant.
Every breath hurt. Every movement hurt. I could not walk more than a few steps without having to sit down.
And wait for the pain to pass. Several times I thought I was having a heart attack.
The pain would spread from my chest down my left arm. I would break out in cold sweat.
I would pray and wait to die. But I did not die. Day after day, I did not die.
I should have died. Medically, I should have died. But God kept me alive. After about a week, a neighbor knocked on my door.
An old woman who lived in the same building. She had heard that men had come to my room.
She wanted to check on me. But when I opened the door, she gasped. She said I looked like a ghost.
Like I was already dead. She asked what happened. I told her everything. How the men had come.
How they had demanded I convert. How they had taken my medicine. She started crying.
She was Muslim. But she was a kind woman. She had lived through the war.
She had lost family, too. She understood suffering. She asked if there was anything she could do.
I told her I needed medicine. But I had no money. She said she would ask around.
See if anyone could help. I did not have much hope. But I thanked her.
Two days later, she came back. She brought me some pills. Not all my medications.
But some heart pills. She said a doctor she knew had given them to her.
Not enough to last more than a week. But something. I cried and thanked her.
I took one pill immediately. Within an hour, um the chest pain eased slightly. Just slightly.
But it was relief. That neighbor, whose name was Fatima, saved my life. A Muslim woman showed me more kindness than any Christian had.
She brought me food sometimes. Bread. Rice. A little bit of cheese. She would sit with me and talk.
She told me she did not agree with what those men had done. She said they were not true Muslims.
That Islam taught compassion. Not cruelty. I I her I did not hate Muslims. I never had.
I hated violence. I hated extremism, but I did not hate people. She nodded. She understood, but Fatima could only help me so much.
The pills she brought ran out. My health continued to decline. I was getting weaker every day.
I could not eat much. Food made me sick. I was losing weight. My clothes hung on me like I was a skeleton.
I could count my ribs and see every bone in my hands. I spent most of my time lying in bed, reading my Bible and praying.
I prayed for strength to survive. I prayed for Maria and Joseph in England. I prayed for the church in Syria.
I prayed for my persecutors. Yes, even them. Jesus said to pray for those who persecute you.
So, I prayed for those three men. I prayed God would open their eyes, show them his love, save their souls.
I also prayed about my story. I felt strongly that God wanted me to tell it.
To share what had happened to me. What was still happening to Christians in Syria.
But how? I could barely leave my room. I had no money, no resources, no way to reach the world.
Then one day about two months after the men had come, I had a visitor.
A young man from a Christian organization. Someone had told him about me. About my situation.
Uh he came to see if he could help. His name was David. He was Syrian, but lived in Lebanon.
His organization helped persecuted Christians. He brought me food, medicine, not everything I needed, but some.
Enough to keep me alive a little longer. But more than that, he brought me hope.
He listened to my story. He recorded it on his phone. He said he would share it.
That the world needed to know what was happening. That my testimony would help others.
Would encourage believers. Would expose the truth. I told him everything. From my childhood to this moment.
I spoke for hours. He listened and asked questions. I showed him where I kept my Bible.
The torn pages. I showed him the empty shelf where my medicine had been. I showed him my cross necklace.
Bent and scratched from where the man had stepped on it. When I finished, David was crying.
Uh he said my story was powerful. That God would use it. He prayed with me before he left.
He promised to come back. To bring more medicine. To check on me. That was 1 month ago.
David has come back twice since then. Each time bringing a little medicine, a little food.
Each time encouraging me to stay strong. To keep believing. To keep trusting God. I am still alive.
I am 75 years old. I am sick and weak. I have very little medicine, very little food, very little strength, but I am alive.
And I want to tell you, whoever is hearing this story, why I am telling it.
I am not telling it so you will feel sorry for me. I do not want pity.
My life has been hard, yes. I have suffered, yes. But millions of people have suffered more than me.
There are Christians in Syria right now who are in worse situations than mine. There are children being sold as slaves, women being raped, men being tortured, entire families being killed.
My suffering is small compared to theirs. I am telling this story because the world needs to know what is happening to Christians in Syria and in Iraq and in Egypt and in Pakistan and in so many other countries.
We are being persecuted, killed, driven from our homes, and the world is silent. No one cares.
No one talks about it. We are dying and the world looks away. I want you to know.
I want you to care. I want you to pray. Prayer is powerful. Prayer changes things.
If you are a Christian and you are hearing this, please pray for your brothers and sisters in Syria.
We need your prayers. We need God’s intervention. But I am also telling this story to give glory to God.
Because he has sustained me through everything. Every trial. Every loss. Every moment of suffering.
He has been with me. When my husband was killed, God comforted me. When I had no food, God provided.
When I fled Syria, God protected us on the journey. When I was alone in England, God gave me friends and community.
When I came back to Syria and faced persecution again, God gave me strength. And when those men came to my room and took my medicine and left me to die, God kept me alive.
I should be dead. But I am alive. This is a miracle. Only God could do this.
I want to speak to the Muslims who might hear this story. I do not hate you.
I have never hated you. I know that most Muslims are not like the men who persecuted me.
I know that many Muslims are kind and peaceful people. Fatima, my neighbor, proved this to me.
But I want you to think about your faith. To examine it and to ask if violence and persecution are truly what God wants.
I do not believe they are. I believe God is love. I believe God wants peace.
I believe God grieves when his children hurt each other. I also want you to know about Jesus.
He is not just a prophet. He is the son of God. He died on the cross to pay for our sins.
He rose from the dead on the third day. He offers forgiveness and eternal life to everyone who believes in him.
Muslim, Christian, anyone. He loves you. He died for you. I pray you will seek him and find him.
To the Christians who are hearing this, I want to encourage you. If you are facing persecution, know that you are not alone.
Jesus is with you. He promised never to leave us or forsake us. He is faithful to that promise.
I have proven it in my own life. If you are afraid, it is okay.
Fear is natural and I have been afraid many times, but do not let fear stop you from following Jesus.
Do not let fear make you deny him. He is worth everything. Worth every sacrifice.
Worth every suffering. I think about those disciples in the Bible. How they were beaten and persecuted for preaching about Jesus.
And the Bible says they rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer for his name.
I did not understand that for many years. How can you rejoice in suffering? But now I understand.
Suffering for Jesus is an honor. It means you are standing for truth in a world of lies.
It means you are choosing eternal life over temporary comfort. It means you are following in the footsteps of Jesus himself.
Who suffered and died for us. When I was lying on the floor of my room after those men left, when I was in pain and afraid and thought I would die, um I felt closer to Jesus than ever before.
Because I was experiencing a tiny bit of what he experienced. He was beaten, mocked, tortured, killed.
All for me. All because he loved me. My suffering was nothing compared to his.
But in that moment, I understood his love. In a deeper way. And I felt honored.
Honored that God would allow me to suffer for his name. Honored that I could prove my love for him by choosing him over my own life.
I do not know how much longer I will live. My heart is very weak.
Sometimes it beats so irregularly that I think each breath will be my last. I have pains constantly.
I am dizzy most of the time. I know I am dying. Slowly, but surely I am dying.
But I am at peace. I am ready to go. I have lived 75 years.
I have seen much pain, but also much beauty. I have lost much, but also gained much.
I have suffered, but also experienced God’s faithfulness. When I die, I will see Jesus face to face.
I will see Elias again. My parents, my uncle, Boutros, my neighbor who was killed when I was a child, Sammy, my brother.
All the Christians who died for their faith, we will be together in heaven. No more pain, no more fear, no more persecution, just peace and joy forever.
But until that day comes, I am still here, and I believe God has kept me alive for a reason, to tell this story, to be a witness, to encourage others, to expose the truth about what is happening to Christians in Syria.
I want my story to make a difference. I want it to wake people up, to make them care, to make them act, to make them pray.
If just one person hears this and starts praying for persecuted Christians, it will have been worth it.
And if just one person hears this and draws closer to Jesus, it will have been worth it.
And I want to say to you, whoever you are, whatever you believe, examine your heart.
Examine your faith. Ask yourself what you would die for. What matters so much to you that you would give up everything for it?
For me, it is Jesus. He is everything. He is my life, my hope, my peace, my joy.
Without him, I would have died long ago. Not physically, but spiritually. I would have lost my mind, lost my soul, become bitter and full of hate.
But Jesus has kept me. He has filled me with his love, his peace, his strength.
He has turned my suffering into something beautiful, into a testimony that can help others.
This is the power of faith. This is the power of Jesus. He takes broken things and makes them whole.
He takes suffering and brings purpose from it. He takes death and brings life. I sit here in my small room in Syria.
I am an old woman, sick, poor, alone in many ways. But I am not really alone.
Jesus is with me every moment, every breath. He is here, and I am not afraid anymore.
I used to be afraid all the time, afraid of persecution, afraid of death, afraid of suffering, but I am not afraid anymore because I know that nothing can separate me from the love of God, not persecution, not death, not anything.
The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”
These words are true. I have proven them true in my life. I am more than a conqueror, not because I am strong.
I am weak, and not because I am brave. I am often afraid, but because Jesus loves me and he has conquered death and sin and evil.
And because I am in him, I share in his victory. So, I want to end this story with a prayer, a prayer for everyone who hears it.
Father God, I thank you for my life, for every moment of it, the good and the bad, the joy and the suffering.
Thank you for never leaving me. Thank you for your son Jesus, who died for me and rose again.
Thank you for the hope of eternal life. I pray for my brothers and sisters in Syria and around the world who are being persecuted for their faith.
Strengthen them. Protect them. Give them courage. Help them stand firm. And Father, I pray you would move in the hearts of those who persecute us.
That you would show them your love. That you would save them. I pray for everyone hearing this story.
Pray that it would touch their hearts. That it would draw them closer to you.
That it would make them examine their own faith and their own lives. That it would inspire them to live for what truly matters.
And I pray for Syria, my beloved homeland. I pray for peace. I pray for healing.
I pray that one day Christians and Muslims can live together in harmony. That we can love each other and respect each other.
That the violence and hatred will end. I pray all of this in the name of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior.
Amen. This is my story. This is my testimony. I have told it as honestly as I can.
I have held nothing back. I hope it has touched you. I hope it has changed you in some way.
Remember me when you pray. Remember all the Christians in Syria who are suffering right now.
Remember that we are your family. We are part of the body of Christ. And when we suffer, you should suffer with us.
When we rejoice, you should rejoice with us. And remember Jesus. Always remember Jesus. He is the reason for everything.
The reason I have survived. The reason I have hope. The reason I can forgive.
The reason I can love. The reason I can face death without fear. He is worthy, worthy of all our worship, all our love, all our devotion, all our suffering, all our lives.
I am Miriam. I am 75 years old. I am a follower of Jesus Christ, and I will be a follower of Jesus Christ until my last breath.
This is my testimony. This is my witness. This is my life.
