In the Midst of War, REVIVAL IN SYRIA

“Because we can be killed anytime and war is going on, we work to glorify the Lord and bring in new people.”

Aleppo Baptist Church, damaged by a rocket

(Photo courtesy of Voice of the Martyrs)

A Baptist church in the south of Syria, near Golan Heights, has a membership of 700, growing from just a few dozen less than 10 years ago. The oldest Baptist church in Damascus reports a membership of 500, growing from four over the same period. “We have other Baptists who are starting churches in other

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areas in Damascus,” Makkar told the Baptist World Alliance. A number of these church planters studied theology in Lebanon and are returning to Syria to open new church plants. “Because we can be killed anytime and war is going on, we work to glorify the Lord and bring in new people and multiply the congregations,” she said.

Makkar, a Lebanese, and her husband, an Egyptian, first

went to Syria as part of Life Agape Syria in 1997 before entering the pastoral ministry in that country. They follow a simple but effective evangelism formula. “I give the information to someone; he gives it to another. I share the gospel with two,

ccording to Michelline Makkar, Syria is experiencing a revival.

university student in the youth meeting brings another one and disciples him. We had another goal of having the youth meetings increase from 25 to 75 over a period of one year.” Makkar said the objectives are determined then the steps to achieve the targets are put in place. The revival in Syria, Makkar said, is partly due to distractions created by the civil war that has rocked the Middle Eastern Muslim-majority country since March 2011. “The secret police don’t have time to put us in jail if we evangelize a Muslim. We have more freedom to evangelize, to baptize people freely, to speak about the Lord,” she explained.

“There was so much persecution before,” she said. “Baptist

people who are staying in the country are doing a wonderful job.” She also said there is a lot of depression in the Christian community. “Some Christians don’t believe God is merciful. They feel he’s cruel. No one cares for us. All these people are allowed to die, so there’s a lot of depression, a lot of hatred. There’s a feeling there’s no future. A lot of people are dying.

“The secret police don’t have time to put us in jail if we evangelize a Muslim. We have more freedom to evangelize.”

these two bring four and the four bring eight and they grow,” she explained. “We do measurement and we do accountability to each other and we put goals and strategies in place.” They set specific targets. “We place a goal to the youth

that we need to have 50 percent growth of students from this particular university within six months.” To achieve this, “each

People die just like crazy, it’s traumatic.” There are increased economic hardships throughout the country as well. The local currency deteriorated from 47 lira to the United States dollar to more than 400 lira to the dollar. “Food is very expensive, hospitals are not very clean. You need to walk

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