Iraq
Iraq is the ancient land of Mesopotamia — the cradle of civilization, where writing was invented, where Abraham was born, and where the rivers Tigris and Euphrates have nourished human life for ten thousand years. Babylon, Nineveh, Ur: the names appear throughout the Bible. Christianity took root here in the first century, and for two millennia the Assyrian and Chaldean churches kept faith alive in the land where faith first flourished. The Arab conquest of the 7th century brought Islam; centuries of Ottoman rule followed. Britain carved modern Iraq from the wreckage of World War One. Coups, Baathism, Saddam Hussein, the Gulf War, UN sanctions, the 2003 American invasion, and a decade of sectarian bloodshed culminated in the rise of ISIS — which nearly completed the erasure of the ancient Christian community.
47,021,000
People live in Iraq today in the aftermath of catastrophe. The ancient Assyrian and Chaldean Christian community — once 1.5 million strong — has been reduced to perhaps 150,000 survivors. Entire Christian towns in the Nineveh Plain were emptied by ISIS in 2014; some families have returned to rebuilt homes, but most of the diaspora has not. The Muslim majority, overwhelmingly Shia, is led by a fractured and corrupt government. Ordinary Iraqis — Arab, Kurd, Yazidi — have endured more violence in a generation than most nations face in a century. Yet even here, the gospel is moving quietly, carried by satellite television, courageous local believers, and the desperate hunger of a people who have seen what godless power does.
Prayer points
The Remnant of the Ancient Church
Pray for Iraq's Assyrian and Chaldean believers — an ancient church now scattered by war — that God would preserve, gather, and renew them. Pray for those who have returned to rebuild their villages in the Nineveh Plain, and for the courage to be salt and light in one of the world's most volatile places. "Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me." (Psalm 23:4)
The Muslim Peoples of Iraq
Pray for Iraq's Shia and Sunni Muslims — ordinary people who have lived through decades of war and have often seen Islam wielded as a weapon of power. Ask God to bring them into contact with Iraqi believers and with the Scriptures in Arabic and Kurdish, and to reveal to them a Savior who suffers with them. "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." (Matthew 11:28)
A Traumatized Generation
Pray for Iraq's children and young people — a generation that has known almost nothing but conflict, displacement, and loss. Ask God to meet them in their trauma with the healing only He can bring, and to raise up Iraqi believers who can speak hope into the next generation before it is shaped entirely by despair or extremism. "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." (Psalm 147:3)