Rescue Iraq

Ruling bloc wins Iraqi Kurd poll

BBC: "Iraqi Kurdistan's two-party ruling alliance has retained control of the autonomous region's parliament, taking 57% of the vote in elections.

Masood Barzani was re-elected in the presidential poll with 69.6%, the preliminary results indicate." click here for the rest of the article.

Iraq awaits Kurdistan poll result

BBC: "Polls have closed in presidential and parliamentary elections in Iraqi Kurdistan, where the ruling coalition faces a stiff challenge.

Incumbent President Masood Barzani and the two main parties are expected to win, despite a strong campaign by the reformist Change movement." click here for the rest of the article.

Moving Forward

This week we met with the mayor of Soran to touch base and finalize our plans for our project.

We were introduced to one of his chief engineers, took another tour of the land together, and talked about a timeline to begin building. World Orphans approved last month a budget of $500,000 to build a community center, a playground along with 2 orphan homes.

After continuing to pray and seek God, listening to Godly counsel, and allowing our ideas and dreams to take on some solidity, we have decided to move forward sensing God’s hand in this project to rescue orphans, to strengthen the influence of the local church, and to impact this community for the cause of Christ.

This project will be the first of it’s kind in a region that lies on the Turkish and Iranian borders of Iraq. Soran, itself, is 18 miles from Iran and 24 miles from Turkey.

The map below shows the topography of the region with the geographic proximity of Iran and Turkey. This is a satellite view of the city of Soran with our land labeled. The surrounding land comprises 250 government built homes for orphans and widows who lost their fathers in the war with Saddam and other civil strife.

A general plan we are considering for our project is shown below with the yellow areas revealing existing buildings: a primary school with the rector’s house and a post office.

As mentioned above, on this upside down “T” land we will be building a community center, a playground and gathering area, as well as 2 or 3 orphan homes. Across the street from the land is the main medical clinic for the neighborhood.

Here is a design we are considering for the Community center: The idea to build a community center in this neighborhood was first proposed by the mayor himself. He said that housing isn’t the problem, the greater need is for vocational training for hundreds of orphans and widows that have been marginalized in the society by the loss of their primary bread winners.

Many youths have been known to take off into the mountains to join the PKK rather than face the humiliation of living without a father or find a way to change their circumstances.

Considering the entire continuum of care that World Orphans seeks to be a part of, this community needs love, support, and education to help them get their feet on the ground and moving forward with the broader society.

Our plan is to build a place that can provide literacy training, computer and music classes, English lessons, and other vocational courses as well as provide a meeting hall for special celebrations, festivals, weddings, and other functions for the local people.

In these ways we hope to impact the community where they need it the most through the partnership of Western and indigenous churches seeking to be the hands and feet of Jesus in a land of desperation.

We will be beginning a fund raising campaign in the coming weeks. Please pray and consider how you might be a part of redeeming a people, a land, a culture that less than 10 years ago was facing extinction at the hands of Saddam.

Thank you for standing with us as we seek to reach a village to touch the world.

Why We Go on Vacation

Well, after 3 weeks of gallivanting around Turkey and simply loving it, we slipped back into Iraq in the dead of night only to be greeted by a dark house -- the electrical breaker went off while we were gone -- but the indoor thermometer was still working reminding us why in the world we would need a little respite from living in Iraq. It read a mere 98 degrees.

After flipping the breaker, light once again poured into our humble abode to reveal things better left in the dark, like exploding molasses jars in the cupboard, a freezer that hadn't been freezing anything for a long, long time, a thick film of dust everywhere, and some fried electrical cable on our water cooler that disallowed any comfort on our first night back. Yea, it's kinda hot in Iraq.

But, it's not just the heat. Friday morning we were greeted with one of the byproducts of living on the edge of the desert - dust storms - and boy, did we have a doozy!

Here are a few pics from our neighborhood, the last one is of my office desk -- oops, I left the window open. Yes, it's good to take a vacation once in a while.