{"id":30101,"date":"2018-08-07T06:38:42","date_gmt":"2018-08-07T06:38:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.acnmalta.org\/?p=30101"},"modified":"2018-08-13T09:59:22","modified_gmt":"2018-08-13T09:59:22","slug":"iraq-i-want-my-child-to-grow-up-in-iraq-liver-maksan-acn-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2018\/08\/07\/iraq-i-want-my-child-to-grow-up-in-iraq-liver-maksan-acn-uk\/","title":{"rendered":"IRAQ: \u201cI want my child to grow up in Iraq\u201d &#8211; Oliver Maksan &#8211; ACN UK"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\"><\/style><h2><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>IRAQ<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<h2><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>\u201cI want my child to grow up in Iraq\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><em><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>How young Christian parents found a house for themselves and their newborn child thanks to Aid to the Church in Need<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">For some Christians in Iraq, the future is just a few weeks old. Baby Timotheus was born in mid-May. \u201cIt is my heartfelt wish that my son will be able to grow up in Iraq. God will find a way,\u201d his father Samir hopes. He and his wife Siba are proud parents \u2013 and devout Christians. Their baby will be baptised in just a few weeks. The young people \u2013 he is 30, she 25 \u2013 live in Bartella, a Christian town on the Nineveh plains near Mosul. The majority of its inhabitants are Syriac Orthodox.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Their small son lies quietly in the arms of his mother. His parents will later tell him about the difficult times the family went through in the years leading up to his birth. The Islamic State arrived in Bartella in August of 2014. All of the Christians living in the town fled in panic from the Islamic extremists. Their churches and houses were destroyed, damaged, and almost all of them were looted. <strong><em>Aid to the Church in Need (ACN)<\/em><\/strong> is making it possible for Christians to return to the places they call home. A large project has been called into being to restore the houses made uninhabitable by IS. This has paved the way for more than 45 per cent of families displaced in 2014 to return to their homes, a total of more than 8700 families as at June 2018.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The house Timotheus is spending the first year of his life it is not owned by his family. \u201cThe house does not belong to us. The owner lives in Sweden. However, thanks to ACN, we are living in this house for one year for free,\u201d Samir explains. This has been a big help to the young family. \u201cMay God bless the benefactors and support them in every stage of their lives. They live by the words of Jesus: I was homeless and you welcomed me.\u201d This is possible because the reconstruction committee, which is sponsored by ACN, has stipulated that assistance will only be granted for the renovation of houses destroyed or damaged by IS if owners who do not live in their houses themselves allow a needy family to live in them for one year for free. Samir and his family are the beneficiaries of this requirement. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">However, in November it will have been a year since Timotheus\u2019 parents returned to Bartella and they will have to start paying rent as of then. But Samir is still looking towards the future optimistically. \u201cI live from day to day, just as Jesus taught us. May God give us our daily bread.\u201d Samir earns his family\u2019s daily bread as an English teacher. \u201cI prepare students for university.\u201d He primarily teaches non-Christian children of the Shabak peoples, an ethnic group that follows Shia Islam. Muslims are a growing part of the population of Bartella because many Christians are selling their land to them before leaving for other countries. This worries Samir. Samir also earned his living as an English teacher when he lived in Iraqi Kurdistan as a refugee. Most of the Christians had fled to safety there. \u201cThe years as a refugee were of course difficult. We hardly had any money. We would not have made it without the support of the Church.\u201d Despite everything, though, leaving Iraq has never been an option for Samir. \u201cWithout a doubt: we live in an unstable country. However, it is still our homeland. As long as nothing absolutely terrible happens, I want to remain here.\u201d His wife Siba agrees with him. \u201cI love my homeland. The support of my Lord and my husband give me the strength to endure all hardships.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Samir is happy that things are improving again in the town. \u201cMost people have gone back to their normal lives. Things have returned to the way they used to be.\u201d In fact, the sound of hammering and renovations can be heard all over town, as people repair the damage left behind by IS. However, in the Syriac Orthodox parish church in Bartella, not all traces have been removed. Father Jacob, the priest, leads the way through the church. It has been renovated using monies granted by ACN. The walls are radiantly white. The painted wooden altar gleams in vibrant colours. The anti-Christian graffiti and the Islamic creed that the IS terrorists wrote on the walls have been whitewashed. Only a charred chapel has been left as a reminder of IS. \u201cWe left the chapel like this on purpose. It is supposed to act as a reminder of the awful things that happened to us. However, thanks to God\u2019s help and the generosity of the benefactors of ACN, we have come back.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong><em>From 2014 to June 2018 and ACN has provided nearly 39,7\u00a0 million Euros for projects in Iraq.<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<h5><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong><em>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n<h5><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><em><strong>Oliver Maksan &#8211; ACN UK<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h5>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>IRAQ \u201cI want my child to grow up in Iraq\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 How young Christian parents found a house for themselves and their newborn child thanks to Aid to the Church in Need For some Christians in Iraq, the future is just a few weeks old. Baby Timotheus was born in mid-May. \u201cIt is my&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30167,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-newsletters"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>IRAQ: \u201cI want my child to grow up in Iraq\u201d - Oliver Maksan - ACN UK - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2018\/08\/07\/iraq-i-want-my-child-to-grow-up-in-iraq-liver-maksan-acn-uk\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"IRAQ: \u201cI want my child to grow up in Iraq\u201d - Oliver Maksan - ACN UK - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"IRAQ \u201cI want my child to grow up in Iraq\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 How young Christian parents found a house for themselves and their newborn child thanks to Aid to the Church in Need For some Christians in Iraq, the future is just a few weeks old. Baby Timotheus was born in mid-May. \u201cIt is my...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2018\/08\/07\/iraq-i-want-my-child-to-grow-up-in-iraq-liver-maksan-acn-uk\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-08-07T06:38:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-08-13T09:59:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Samir-father-of-baby-Timotheusv2.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1636\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"ACN Malta Media\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"ACN Malta Media\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2018\/08\/07\/iraq-i-want-my-child-to-grow-up-in-iraq-liver-maksan-acn-uk\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2018\/08\/07\/iraq-i-want-my-child-to-grow-up-in-iraq-liver-maksan-acn-uk\/\",\"name\":\"IRAQ: \u201cI want my child to grow up in Iraq\u201d - Oliver Maksan - ACN UK - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2018\/08\/07\/iraq-i-want-my-child-to-grow-up-in-iraq-liver-maksan-acn-uk\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2018\/08\/07\/iraq-i-want-my-child-to-grow-up-in-iraq-liver-maksan-acn-uk\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Samir-father-of-baby-Timotheusv2.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-08-07T06:38:42+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-08-13T09:59:22+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/#\/schema\/person\/3c01ab68e03f1b76347f9f6ac439a9d2\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2018\/08\/07\/iraq-i-want-my-child-to-grow-up-in-iraq-liver-maksan-acn-uk\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2018\/08\/07\/iraq-i-want-my-child-to-grow-up-in-iraq-liver-maksan-acn-uk\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2018\/08\/07\/iraq-i-want-my-child-to-grow-up-in-iraq-liver-maksan-acn-uk\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Samir-father-of-baby-Timotheusv2.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Samir-father-of-baby-Timotheusv2.jpg\",\"width\":2000,\"height\":1636,\"caption\":\"Iraq, June 2018 Samir and his wife Siba are proud parents \u2013 and devout Christians. 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