The Story of Aida
In another visit, we met a lot of young widows with children. Most of the women were between ages of 18 to 22. Aida was one of them—a widow at 21, with two little girls. When we visited her family, she didn’t say a word and didn’t stop crying. We saw the sadness and the pain in her eyes. To be a young widow is a tragedy, but to be a young widow in the Muslim world is even a greater one.
In the Muslim world, a widow is a burden, and many times the family tries to make her marry an older man so that she will stop being a burden to the family. Aida lost her husband two years ago, when the Syrian army entered their village and simply executed all the young men, including her husband. It was sad to see her little daughters—ages 5 and 3—and to know that without a father to protect and to take care of them, they were exposed to a very difficult life. We pray to God through Yeshua, that He might show them the way, how to find in Him their hiding place from all their pain.
The Story of Rana
One day, as we were visiting refugee families, an elderly woman whose name was Rana approached us. She asked us to pray for her son, who has been missing for about two years. All she knows is that before the war broke out, her son was a soldier in the army of Assad. When the war began, he joined the rebel side. Now he is missing, and she doesn’t know whether he is alive, injured or dead. Although the chances of him still being alive are very slim, she continues to believe her son is still alive and will return to her one day.
During our conversations with the Syrian refugees, we saw there was a high percentage of people with missing family members. These people don’t have peace day or night for lack of knowledge about what happened to their loved ones. We prayed along with Rana, that God would give her an answer concerning what happened to her son. Who knows? Maybe there will be a happy end to this story.
