God at Work in Iraq
Waad Simaan is an Iraqi believer who attends a fundamental, Baptist church in the Greater Detroit area and studies at Macomb Community College. Ben Eckman interviewed Waad about the condition of Christianity in Iraq and his personal testimony.
BE: What is the condition of Christianity in Iraq? WS: I am excited about some men who will be graduating from a seminary in Jordan this year and, Lord willing, will be able, especially with the current situation over there, to go back and establish some Baptist churches. We only have Presbyterian churches in Iraq. That is because the government will not accept new denominations, so Baptist cannot enter. I am praying that God will open new doors for these seminary graduates in Jordan. I expect that God will use them greatly, because they are very godly men, and they will sacrifice for the ministry. They are young, they are in their forties, and they are willing to live in poverty for the Jesus sake of ministry. Please pray for them that God will open doors of opportunity for them. I hope to see more churches established in Iraq. We have 18 big cities. The three largest are Mosul in the north, Baghdad in the middle, and Basra in the south. Those cities have a church. In the north by the Kurdish there are some underground churches, that is churches where former muslims worship secretly. I really would like to see more churches in Iraq. I ask you, Ben, where are the Bible college students going after they graduate? I would think that with the hundreds of graduates we could see more missionaries in the Middle East? Let me tell you about a conversation my pastor and I had with a believer who was a former muslim who graduated with his Master's degree from the largest Muslim seminary in Egypt. My pastor asked him, "If you had a million dollars, how would you use it to reach Muslims for Christ?" I found his answer to be odd, he said, "We do not need a million dollars to reach Muslims. What we need is martyrs for Christ in Muslim countries. That is what we need. You cannot win Muslims by building churches with large amounts of money. But what we need is for people to go to the Muslims and be willing to suffer persecution and even die for the cause of the gospel. For example, when the gospel was first taken to China, missionaries were martyred. Now we have hundreds of churches and million of believers in China." In Arabic countries we need good teaching and people who will sacrifice for the gospel. Another item that is important to know is that in Iraq Christians are not persecuted. Hussein is evil, but doesn't necessarily target Christians. Actually, he respects Chaldeans, nominal Christians. The people who cook for Hussein are Christian, nominal that is.
BE: What kind of Christian? WS: Chaldean.
BE: How many believers are there in Iraq? WS: There are about 2000 believers in
a country of 24 million. There were more, but many have left Iraq
because of the embargo.
BE: How did you come to know Jesus Christ as your
personal Savior? WS: I grew up in a Catholic family. We,
as Chaldean, we attended the Chaldean church and listened to the
priest and watch the mass. I was religious by upbringing. My grandfather
was a deacon in the church. He was a great man. He taught me how
to be moral and respect people. During my teenage years I began
to wander from church attendance. I couldn't find peace, and I became
depressed. I was trying to figure out how I could find the peace
I longed for. I went back to the Chaldean church to confess the
priest. He asked, "You haven't been around lately. You need to spend
time with young people here and not with the Muslims." So, I began
to think about visiting other churches. A relative of ours was a
Seventh Day Adventist. I was about 17 years old and thought "Why
not?" She invited me to her church and I visited for about 3 or
4 months. I read their material, and became somewhat interested,
but found that their small church was not like the big Chaldean
church I grew up in. I kept on thinking, "What is the truth?" I
noticed there was a big Presbyterian church less than a mile from
the Adventist church. I didn't know much about it, because it wasn't
on a main street. One day, a friend of my sisters invited me to
come with her to the Presbyterian church. The first service I attended
a man gave his testimony about how he used to be demon possessed,
but since accepting Jesus Christ as his Savior his life had changed.
The man urged people to accept Christ as their Savior. From that
point on, I couldn't help but think about what the man said. The
Spirit was really working on my heart. I attended two Friday schools
[editor's note: they meet on Friday for what we call Sunday School],
and the girl who invited me to church asked me one day, "Waad, are
you saved?" I replied, "I don't understand what you mean by saved."
She asked, "Are you born again?" I replied, "What does born again
mean?" She said, "Ok, I will ask an elder in the church to talk
to you." The next Friday school I visited this man's Friday School.
After the lesson he talked to about John 3 and explained verse 16
to me. That day I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior. From that
day I attended this Presbyterian church in Baghdad for one year.
The pastor was an Egyptian man who was 73 years old. After having
attended there for a year, the pastor realized he needed to retire
due to his poor health. He soon moved to Montreal with his son.
I tell you, he was a man of God. I was discouraged to see him leave,
and the church began to go down after he left. I am so thankful
for that first year as a Christian in Baghdad. While attending the
Presbyterian church I knew it was different than the Catholic church.
This church taught the truth. I have great memories of this church.
It is the only Presbyterian church in Baghdad.
BE: Why did you decide to leave Iraq and how did
you make it to the United States? WS: I left Iraq because my brothers and
sisters were moving away to different countries. Because of the
dictatorship of Saddam was very oppressive. Also, the embargo on
Iraq makes life in the country very miserable. With Saddam we have
been through two wars. He is an evil man. He destroyed so much of
the country and hurt so many. He has killed thousands of people.
I would need days to tell you how much he hurt people-so many have
left Iraq. There are hundreds of educated people, with Master's
and Ph.D. degrees, that are in different countries, but cannot find
work. They are now beggars. They left for their safety. Many left
illegally. When I left Iraq, Baghdad was crying. So, a friend of
mine and I left for Turkey and my sisters and my mom left for Jordan.
We were all heading to Greece to meet up with my father and older
brother.
BE: How did you make it to Turkey? WS: We traveled to Northern Iraq and we
gave money to smugglers to get us to Istanbul. It took us eight
days to get to Istanbul. We walked the whole time. Those eight days
were so hard. We would walk through the mountains at night time
and hide from the army. We were afraid they would think we were
Kurdish. They would have killed us on the spot. The smugglers told
us to be careful not to kick stones, because it would roll down
the hill and the soldiers would hear the stones falling. If I knew
before hand how hard it would be, I would have never done it. At
night the military would shine spotlights on the mountains looking
for Kurds. We were constantly ducking for fear of being marked with
these spotlights.
BE: How old were you at this time? WS: I was 18. So, while in Turkey, my
father applied to the Immigration Department in the US for our whole
family. The story is long, but eventually we all joined up with
my father in Greece. The US government granted us legal entrance
into the country. I arrived to the US in 1995.
BE: Is your family saved? WS: Some are and some are not. I had two
sisters live in Turkey for 3 ½ years before they joined us in the
US. While in Turkey, my former Arabic pastor in Detroit traveled
to Turkey to speak at the Arabic house church my sisters were attending.
While there, he led my one sister to the Lord. Eventually, a seminary
graduate from the seminary in Jordan traveled to Turkey and took
over this house fellowship as pastor. But, he had to return to Jordan
because he didn't have financial support to stay as the pastor of
the Arabic church.
BE: What kind of advice would you give to people
who want to minister someday in an Arabic country? WS: I will give you the good and bad news.
The bad news is that the language is hard. Also, it is very important
that you love people. Arabic people are not easy to deal with. If
you don't have strong agape love to love them you will be easily
discouraged. Muslims are hard to reach for Christ. I would encourage
people to first work in the United States and learn their culture
and views here before they travel overseas. We learn from Genesis
that the sons of Ishmael are wild people. They are not easy to work
with. On the other hand, we have a great God who is powerful and
able to turn many Muslims to Christ.
BE: What kind of opportunities do you see here
in the Greater Detroit area? WS: We probably have about five Arabic
churches in the area. The churches are doing what they can, but
I don't think we are reaching the Arabic people. We need to make
a cooperative effort to reach the Arabic community. You can see
the statistics. There are thousands of Arabs around here. Knocking
on doors is not the way to do evangelism. We need to pray and ask
God to lead us how to creatively establish relationship with them.
There are a lot of resources and Americans should reach out as well,
but first of all there needs to be a desire.
BE: How hard is it to witness to them? WS: It's important to understand that
Arabs respond better to foreigners than they do to fellow Arabs
who are Christians. You know, if you lead a Muslim to Christ you
will see him work harder than 100 American Christians. Their desire
to see their people saved is amazing. Ben, bring as many as you
know to Detroit!