Just as the sun was rising in the West on Sept. 29, a new day dawned in Iraq’s Kurdistan region as Gov. Tamar Ramadhan gave Baptists two acres of land worth $2 million for the Grace Baptist Cultural Center — a multiphase project including a medical clinic, school, athletic facility, church building and seminary in the town of Simele. The first phase of the facility, slated for completion in 2012, is a clinic for women and children, who traditionally have limited health care options in the Middle East.
Standing in for Ramadhan, Gurgis Shlaymun, the deputy governor of Kurdistan’s regional government in Dohuk, joined a team from Hillcrest Baptist Church, Pensacola, Fla., along with Iraqi, Jordanian and Brazilian Baptists and other evangelical Christians, at an hourlong ceremony prior to cementing the top on an engraved marble cornerstone marking the new property.
Shlaymun, an Assyrian Christian first elected to his post in the Muslim-majority government in 2005, delivered remarks at a community center near the undeveloped property in the growing village of Simele. In the Duhok province of Kurdistan, Simele is on the main road of an agricultural plain about 10 miles from the Turkish border.
This city has a tragic history concerning Assyrian Christians. In 1800, Christian inhabitants of Simele were forced from their homes and massacred by local radicals. In 1933, after Assyrians and Chaldeans again found refuge and settled in the fertile valley, an estimated 3,000 were slaughtered by the Iraqi government following the withdrawal of British troops from the region in light of a treaty granting Iraq’s independence in 1930.
Under a banner bearing a colorful map of Iraq’s regions marked with a cross and open hands at the spot of the new facilities in Simele, Shlaymun smiled at the gathering of about 100 local officials and Christians and extended a special greeting for those from afar.
“The people of Dohuk love their guests,” Shlaymun said. “Today you are the children of Iraq.”
Noting the involvement of Baptist groups from various nations, Shlaymun praised each for serving the people of Dohuk by taking interest in “each family, in each sickness” so future generations will be well served. “This is our duty to introduce the land for this project,” he said.
Recognizing Iraqi Baptist pastor Farouk Hammo, a project leader who shares a personal history with Ramadhan, Shlaymun said, “Our purpose and your purpose is to make a good generation.”
Shlaymun, a deacon in the Assyrian Church of the East, spoke openly about the spiritual dimension of the center.
“Jesus said your light will be shined through the people to see your works and glorify your Father in the heaven,” Shlaymun said. “That is what Jesus Christ said in the Bible. And this Jesus did not speak specifically about man but for all the world. This will be for all.”
Shlaymun pledged his support for the project and thanked the leaders. “You understand this project is from God,” he said, urging continued unity.
Ruba Abbassi, director of Arab Woman Today Ministries, is looking forward to the unique opportunity this project presents to serve Iraqi women directly on their land and hopes to advance Christian women’s leadership role in Iraq by focusing on women in ministry and pastors’ wives.
“Arab Woman Today considers this project a turning point in our impact in the region because it allows us to work with all kinds of women and … approaches: social, emotional, spiritual and educational,” Abbassi said. “Iraq will be the first country who provides us full freedom to implement this project.”
Her husband, Nabeeh, immediate past president of the Jordan Baptist Convention and pastor of West Amman Baptist Church, brought greetings from Baptists worldwide on behalf of the Baptist World Alliance and the European Baptist Federation of which the Baptist churches in Iraq are a part.
“We stand with you on the roots of a shared civilization and history,” Nabeeh Abbassi said. “We are genuinely rooted; our evangelical churches are part of the whole. We are a small slice or number within you but large within its allegiance and dreams.
“The history of the Baptist church of Iraq is still being written,” he said.
Nabeeh Abbassi, who is also the provost at Jordan Evangelical Theological Seminary in Amman, said he is thankful to God for the “unique Kurdish leadership” for providing security and comfort. Because of the leadership, people from all backgrounds, in spite of their differences and political parties or religious beliefs, “live with tolerance,” he said.
Brian Barlow, missions pastor of Hillcrest Baptist and a former Southern Baptist representative in the Middle East, said in his remarks that the educators at the new school will have the responsibility to teach “the universal principles of kindness, respect, compassion, human rights, charity, dignity, equality and peaceful coexistence among every Kurd, Assyrian, Arab, Chaldean, Turkmen, [Syrian] and Armenian.”
A former superintendent of the Baptist School in Amman, known as one of the crown jewels of the Middle East, Barlow said the community should welcome every “Muslim, Christian and Yezidi” because the center has as its main focus the role “to educate the children of Kurdistan, of Iraq — to see all others as neighbors and to learn to love their neighbors as they love themselves and their own families.”
Acknowledging informed people throughout the world know Kurdistan has become a refuge for thousands fleeing violence in other parts of Iraq and in countries nearby, Barlow said developing the project is “a way to say to those who come in the future, ‘We cared.’”
Noting the people of Kurdistan, through their elected government officials, made a major contribution by donating the land for the center, Barlow said he is thankful for the partnership.
“This is a great example of how a good democratic government, freely elected, can bring about positive, progressive change and make life better for the entire community,” he said. (TAB contributed)
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