Gulf Refugees Respond to Aid and Gospel

Christians in the Middle East are seeing a steady stream of Persian Gulf refugees become followers of Christ, often as a result of humanitarian aid offered by the Christians.

Human needs have lessened in the past two months as governments and Christian agencies have coordinated relief efforts to augment the work of Jordanian believers (CT, Oct. 8, 1990, p. 69). At the same time, the flow of refugees has dropped to a comparative trickle. Shortly after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in August, 15,000 to 20,000 refugees a day, most of them workers from Asian nations, were pouring into Jordan. By October, about 1,000 a day were entering Jordan, and more were leaving than entering the country, according to Issam Ghattas of Manarah Book Ministries in Jordan.

“The refugee situation today is vastly different from what it was a month ago,” said Robert Reed, who directs work for the Christian and Missionary Alliance in the Middle East. Incoming refugees are getting transportation to their homelands relatively quickly.

Still, a “backlog” of about 500,000 people was trying to leave Iraq and Kuwait in mid-October, said Dick Anderson, Africa and Middle East director for World Relief. And physical and spiritual ministry is continuing among them, with notable results.

Arab Openness

At the airport near Jordan’s capital city, Amman, where refugees must wait for up to two days before flying out of the country, Christians have been holding nightly evangelistic meetings. Some nights as many as 100 people have received Christ, said one Jordanian believer. He has distributed thousands of New Testaments in Tagalog (the chief language of the Philippines) and Singhalese (the chief language of Sri Lanka) and has also given out Arabic Bibles and New Testaments.

The refugee camps on Jordan’s border with Iraq have also been the site of many conversions, according to Christian sources in Jordan. At the camp at Azraq, where Jordanian Christians distributed food, water, Scriptures, and Christian literature, 60 to 100 Filipinos were turning to Christ daily. About 150 Filipino Christians from Kuwait stayed in the camp to hold two daily worship services and witness to fellow refugees, the sources reported.

Doug Clark, Middle East-North Africa director for the Assemblies of God, said from Cyprus, “We’ve heard reports that some South Asian people have remained deliberately in Kuwait in order to share their faith, but others have gone to the refugee camps and are working among their own people in those camps.”

World Relief’s Anderson also reports spiritual revival among Jordanian Christians. One long-time missionary in Jordan told Anderson that the opportunity to put faith into action by ministering to the refugees had sparked the whole church. “In 65 years of working in Jordan, this was the greatest revival he had seen,” Anderson said.

Similar reports have also come from nearby Cyprus, where people who have gotten out of Jordan often must wait for visas to go elsewhere. Alistair Wynne, pastor of the Nicosia Community Church, a Protestant congregation for internationals, said Arabs there are not only getting help with visas from Christians but also are worshiping at the church and attending Arabic Bible studies during the week.

“The Arabs who have made it to Cyprus are wide open to the gospel in a way they haven’t been before,” Wynne said. He said the invasion of one Arab nation into another “has shaken the faith of many of these people.… Many of the Muslims are quite surprised by the help they are getting from the local Christians.”

Christian ministry in Arab countries, however, still faces opposition. Some Middle Eastern Christians have complained about Western agencies’ control of relief efforts. Relief agencies agree that they should be responsive to local churches. But they also cite the need to be accountable to Western donors for how their money is used.

In addition, some Muslims in Jordan resent the Christians, according to Anderson. “Church people are being referred to as crusaders by some of the ultraconservative Muslim groups, and that is a real concern. If there’s war, Christian Arabs might be caught in a backlash because they are identified with the West.”

By Stan Guthrie.

CAPITAL CURRENTS

U.S. doors open wider

President Bush has authorized the admission of up to 131,000 refugees to the United States next year, an increase of 6,000 over the past year’s numbers. Under federal provisions, the U.S. will pay for the travel costs for all but 10,000 of those refugees who are seeking asylum from religious, ethnic, or political persecution. The rest will be paid for by private groups.

The allocations breakdown is as follows: the Soviet Union, 50,000 people; Southeast Asia, 52,000; the Middle East and South Asia, 6,000; Africa, 4,900; Latin America, 3,100; and Eastern Europe, 1,500.

Don Hammond, director of World Relief’s USA Ministries, called the numbers “adequate for the year, as long as we don’t see any emergencies anywhere.” If new problems do arise, he said, “we are going to be hard pressed to meet them.” However, he added, “I think it’s probably the best the administration could do considering the budget constraints.” World Relief works with American churches in resettling refugees in the U.S.

At the high court

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two cases that could have impact on the abortion debate. In New York (Rust) v. Sullivan, the justices are deciding the constitutionality of federal regulations that separate abortion from the nation’s family-planning program. The case specifically involves the Title X program, which requires family-planning providers to be physically and financially separate from abortion services, to refer clients to prenatal care, and to refrain from advocating abortion. Several advocates of legalized abortion are challenging the regulations (CT, Oct. 22, 1990, p. 62).

In United Auto Workers v. Johnson Controls, the Court is considering whether a company’s fetal-protection policy violates federal sex-discrimination laws by keeping all women of childbearing years from certain hazardous jobs. Johnson Controls, a battery manufacturer, excluded women from jobs involving exposure to lead, saying that “the health and safety of unborn children from toxic manufacturing operations” takes precedent over “gender equality in the workplace.”

The unions, however, argued that the policy amounts to sex discrimination in violation of federal laws. The case has no direct connections to abortion, but prolifers are watching it closely to see what kinds of protections the justices are willing to give to the unborn.

In other action, the justices:

• let stand a lower-court ruling requiring a Pennsylvania public high school to rent its auditorium to Campus Crusade for Christ;

• let stand the racketeering convictions of a Virginia couple for selling and renting obscene materials in their three bookstores and nine video-rental businesses. Their conviction was the federal government’s first successful use of the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) law to prosecute obscenity;

• denied the appeal of a former air force sergeant convicted of assault under the Uniform Code of Military Justice for engaging in homosexual activity after testing positive for AIDS.

Negotiating a treaty

The Salvation Army and the U.S. Labor Department have begun discussions in an attempt to settle their dispute over paying minimum wages to persons enrolled in the Salvation Army’s rehabilitation programs (CT, Oct. 22, 1990, p. 58). Last month, the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, dismissed the Salvation Army’s request for a hearing about whether it should be forced to comply with a Labor Department order to pay the wages. The Salvation Army says it should not have to pay the wages because participants in the program are in “work therapy” and not employees.

The Labor Department has said it will not bring enforcement action for 120 days while the discussions are taking place. One possible compromise would be a legislative exemption to the Fair Labor Standards Act for groups like the Salvation Army.

“We do hope the matter can be solved without further litigation,” said the Salvation Army’s national chief secretary, Col. Kenneth Hood. However, he added, if the discussions fail, his organization will bring further legal action rather than comply with the order.

Around town

Two of the highest-ranking evangelicals in the Bush administration are leaving. Labor Secretary Elizabeth Dole has resigned to become president of the American Red Cross. Health and Human Services Undersecretary for Public Affairs Kay James will head up the One to One Foundation.

Bread for the World founder and president Art Simon was presented the 1990 Presidential End Hunger Award at a White House ceremony last month.

At a press conference, Feed the Children president Larry Jones transferred 80 tons of food to District of Columbia churches to distribute to the needy. The food was collected during concerts by the popular country group the Highwaymen led by Waylon Jennings.

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