On March 10th, 1991 Kirmanj Aizat Suliman stood courageously in the city square and fired his weapon into the air signaling the uprising for the Kurds against Saddam's forces in Northern Iraq. Instantly, 35,000 of Saddam's soldiers including many of the officers surrendered to Kurdish forces. Small skirmishes resulted in the death of just 4 Kurdish soldiers. However, all the local security police of Saddam were wiped out that day.
On the 18th anniversary we sped on to Soran to celebrate with Mr. Suliman, now the mayor of the region, and to receive as a gift almost an acre of land in part of the city they call, Martyr's Quarter.
It's in this quarter of the city 250 homes have been built to house the widows and orphans of soldiers that fought against Saddam's forces and later battled in tribal warfare amongst the two main Kurdish tribes.
It was a gift giving day as both Abdullah and myself were ushered to the mayor's personal tailor to be measured for new Kurdish suits. Cannot wait to see how the Kurdish dress fits me.
This morning we brought our plan to a local architect and civil engineer to tweek our project for this particular piece of land.
Thanks for all your prayers for us in this. We were shown two different pieces of land, and I believe that we've made the right choice. The other piece truly could have been a 'life taking' decision has it was on the edge of a ridge overlooking a valley -- beautiful but a bit risky. We'll stick with the tried and sure land in the center of Martyr's Quarter, I think.
Please be in prayer for our architect to convey the plan and purpose that God has in store for this project.
A preliminary draft of the project will be ready on Sunday [a work day here], and we are expected to present this to the Soran general manager for final approval on Monday.
If you would like to see more pics of that region you click on the link to the left to see a photo album of Soran.