Syria (MNN) — A pastor traveling in Syria this week to help start new churches needs your prayers. He’s following in the footsteps of Kurdish Pastor Nihad Hassan, who was arrested in July under trumped-up charges. 

Pierre Houssney with Horizons International says Pastor Nihad had gone to northern Syria to visit Christians and get a sense of people’s spiritual openness, with the hopes of one day starting a church fellowship.

Originally from Afrin, Syria, Pastor Nihad Hassan became a Christian in 2008 and has since played a crucial role in reaching Muslims in several countries.
(Photo, caption courtesy Horizons International)

“We were really praying and planning to figure out how we’re going to plant churches in northern Syria,” Houssney says, “especially because we have a lot of believers who have come to Christ in Lebanon and returned to their homeland in Syria.” 

But instead of finishing his exploratory trip, Nihad spent about two weeks in prison. He saw God’s protection over him in that situation. (More on that in our previous report.) 

Syria’s central government was involved in Nihad’s quick release. Houssney explains an interesting dynamic in Syria today. The country is largely governed on tribal and ethnic lines, and in accordance with militia groups that held local authority during the Assad regime. However, although the central government has less widespread control than the Assad regime had, it still has power. 

“They (the central government) say Syria is for everyone — meaning Christians, Muslims, Yazidis, Shiites, Sunnis, Alawites, everybody is welcome in the new Syria. And so in order to live up to that reputation, the central government is actually having to oppose the local kind of more extremist people, so that they can maintain that PR nationally,” says Houssney. 

“So I think it’s very possible that the local forces that had imprisoned Pastor Nihad — or got him in trouble — that they may not be as willing to stick their necks out again and do the same thing to the next person that we’re sending.”

The Christian evangelical community in Lebanon and Syria reached out to the government on Nihad’s behalf, Houssney says. There are established communication lines there.

“We haven’t been given any guarantees of safety or anything, but it will be interesting to see,” Houssney says. “In the end, we’re just relying on the Lord, but we do feel that we have what we need now to be sending [this pastor] in to give it another try.”

Young Syrian boy, Idlib, Syria (Photo courtesy Ahmed Akacha via Pexels)

The pastor traveling this week is eager to go and is trusting God. Pray for him as he enters places where there is both opposition to and hunger for the message of Jesus.

“It is seeded for the gospel, and it’s very encouraging,” says Houssney. “There are people who are upset, but there are also people who are very open and excited and welcoming the gospel with open arms.”

Pray for favor with local authorities and communities. “We pray that the Lord would guide his steps to the right people who are open to helping with starting this new group of congregations,” Houssney says. 

Pray that new avenues for the gospel would open, and that communities and regional forces would recognize that the message of love in Christ is a blessing to Syria. 

Header photo: A minaret and a church steeple side-by-side in Syria. (Photo courtesy of Ali Wassouf/Unsplash)