Iraq and Syria

FBR was invited to help Kurds and Yizidi’s under attack by ISIS in 2015. We are now serving in Kurdistan, Syria and Iraq. We have full-time teams in Syria a Kurdish and Iraqi team in Kurdistan (Northern Iraq). In Kurdistan, Iraq, our Kurdish and Iraqi team continues to help meet humanitarian needs and also provides an ambulance service to those in need. They have helped transport many sick people and provide for their care. The team in Iraq is also helping in the rehabilitation of many of the wounded people we rescued during the battle against ISIS. This involves continued medical care as well as job placement and in some cases buying vehicles so that the families can start a business. In northeast Syria our teams are responding to the constant attacks of Turkish forces and their proxies. We have a full-time Syrian team that provides emergency medical care along the front lines as well as conducting children’s programs and food distribution for IDPs. Our team leader there, named Hamdu, is a new follower of Jesus and has recruited other people to join him. 

These teams are augmented with ethnic medics videographers and chaplains from Burma. In NE Syria over 200,000 are displaced by attacks from the Turks and their proxies the Free Syrian Army (FSA). Many live out in the desert with little access to any help. One of our team members from Burma Zau Seng was killed during these attacks and two of our team members wounded. Our teams help provide food, water and some shelter for these IDP’s as well as share the love of Jesus. ISIS is active and their attacks make it more difficult to provide services but our teams continue anyway. 

“When the attacks came you did not leave us. You stayed with us and helped evacuate the wounded and help us treat them. We thank you and God so much,”  — Kurdish Doctor Akif (Head of hospital in Ein Issa).

In Kurdistan and Iraq, our teams provide relief, an emergency ambulance service, as well as relief missions into Syria. Our main ministry is to be with people under attack. To pray with them, to point them to Jesus, and to help in any way we can. To stay alongside them no matter what. This means enduring machine guns, mortars and bombs and not knowing if you’re going to get out alive.  Other times it means singing traditional songs in Kurdish and dancing around a fire late at night. Sometimes it means praying together, asking God for His protection, leading, provision, forgiveness and for our enemies hearts to change. It means we are together in love.