St. George's Memorial Church
Baghdad

A Recent letter from Canon Andrew White
 

Dear Friends,

Greetings and Blessings from Baghdad.

There are no words to say how grateful we are for your support for our Church. We are praying for you that you will know that same presence and glory of God as we do. Everything may be awful here but we are still praising our Lord for his love and faithfulness and you have been part of that faithful love. Every day our church is praying for the churches and individuals who keep our church running.  We had a wonderful Christmas. This was largely due to the wonderful work of our Mothers Union which is flourishing. At every event they organised there was also worship. The Christmas Bazaar was not something done in Iraq but thanks to MU literature, our MU not only knew about them but knew what to do.


Children at Christmas 2006

The MU organised a play for the Children, a service, feast and bazaar all on the same day. They were delighted that a lot of Muslims also came to join in the festivities.


Children at St. George's

The past week has not been easy for the Church. Last week over 60 people were killed in Haifa Street. At least thirty bodies were hanged up on the lamp posts. Yet by the weekend people were coming down the street to come to worship. As I am not allowed to attend the Church building, we had our service in the National Security Council this week. The worship was even more wonderful than usual. The Children were on form as ever. So I decided to start asking questions of them rather than the adults. The first little boy to speak told me that on Monday his school was blown up, so he has no school any more. The sad thing is that he was the last of our children to have a school to go to. Our Sunday school is therefore becoming even more important.

Part way through our service Ali turned up. Now Ali is one of the leaders of Muqtada Al Sader’s Mahdi Army, one of the major terrorist groups. He said to me “Abouna (Father) why did you not tell me all the children were coming I would have got them some presents”. He returned a little later and this time with a pile of children’s Bibles. He gave them all out. It was only after the service that we saw that the Bibles were the very ones that had been sent by World Compassion and the Bible Society. They were stolen on the way into the country but by God’s grace some of them have ended up with the right people.

The relief work of the Church is increasing all the time more of our men in particular are killed. To add to this the $US has fallen in value by 20%, inflation is running at 77%, so things have not been easy but we have had the basic funds that we need each month. The church is desperate to buy a second hand bus that will cost about $14,000. This will require a considerable output but will then reduce our monthly outgoings as we spend so much just getting people to Church. I have told the Church that we do not have the money for this so they simply said we will just pray for it then and it will definitely come. They have such faith and I have no doubt they are right.

So things continue to be really difficult and really wonderful. The faith of our people does not diminish and our people continue to see the worship of the Lord as their only hope. So we will keep praising the Almighty. However awful things are, we know our God does not change.

With Love, Grace, Peace and Thanks,

Canon Andrew White
Anglican Priest in Iraq
Email:   apbw2@hermes.cam.ac.uk