Mindy Belz - They Say We Are Infidels: On the Run from ISIS with Persecuted Christians in the Middle East

What happened to the Jews in Germany in the 1930s and to the Rwandans in the 1990s is happening to Christians in Iraq and Syria today while the United States does nothing. Again. And again U.S. journalists are ignoring it, the story of our generation. But thank God one journalist has not ignored it. In fact, Mindy Belz has lived through much of it, and in They Say We Are Infidels she has produced a searing, journalistic tour de force. It is a courageous, absolutely fascinating book that tells us how this has happened and how it is happening now, this minute. Tolle lege.

ERIC METAXAS

New York Times bestselling author and nationally syndicated radio host

To be a Christian in Iraq and Syria is to live in mortal danger. Churches are bombed, pastors murdered, children kidnapped. Families whose ancestors have survived two thousand years in the region where Christ and his disciples walked now risk elimination by Islamic terrorists. Journalist Mindy Belz has spent more than a decade covering persecuted Christians in the Middle East. They Say We Are Infidels is her brilliantly reported account of what it means to be a follower of Jesus there. It is the harrowing and often inspiring story of men and women of unshakable faith.

MELANIE KIRKPATRICK

Author of Escape from North Korea: The Untold Story of Asias Underground Railroad

This sensitive, informative, and beautifully written book possesses all the immediacy and emotional power of a novel. Yet it combines meticulous reporting of real people with an enormous knowledge of the contemporary Middle East. Belz reflects a deep concern for the courageous Christians suffering persecution there, and her writing is engaging and wrenchingly intimate. Insightful, lucid, and irenic, this book will do much to dispel the fog of misunderstanding that prevails among so many concerning the extent of suffering there. Her moving and gripping account could not be more urgent and timely. After finishing this book, readers will immediately want to pray for our brothers and sisters in this troubled region of the world. I know I did.

MICHAEL CROMARTIE

Vice president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Washington, DC

Mindy Belz has earned respect for reporting on world affairs with accuracy and insight for over twenty-five years. In They Say We Are Infidels, Belz chronicles the rise of Islamic extremism and the worsening plight of Christians in the Middle East since 2003 through the eyes of the Iraqi people. The narrative is informative, powerful, and beautifully written. This book is a must-read for all who are concerned about what is happening in the Middle East.

FRANK R. WOLF

Member of Congress, retired (19812014); senior distinguished fellow, The 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative; Wilson Chair in Religious Freedom, Baylor University

Mindy Belzs book should be nominated for Book of the Year! The world cannot continue ignoring the genocide and persecution in the Middle East. Read this, then buy copies for all your friends.

DR. RICK WARREN

Author of The Purpose Driven Life

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They Say We Are Infidels: On the Run from ISIS with Persecuted Christians in the Middle East

Copyright 2016 by Mindy Belz. All rights reserved.

Cover photograph copyright EPA/Darek Delmanowicz Poland Out. All rights reserved.

Interior map copyright Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved.

Interior photographs are the property of their respective copyright holders and all rights are reserved. Displaced girls copyright Wathiq Khuzaie/Stringer/Getty Images; ISIS fighters copyright AP Photo; ISIS leader copyright AP Photo/Militant video; home in Mosul copyright Stringer/AFP/Getty Images; Kurdish Yazidis copyright Joseph Rose/BGR/Genesis Photos; displaced Iraqi Christians copyright Joseph Rose/IMB/Genesis Photos; Sunni Muslims fleeing copyright Anadolu Agency/Contributor-Ali Mohammed/Getty Images; destroyed church courtesy of CAPNI. All other interior photographs are from the personal collection of Mindy Belz and are used with permission.

Designed by Dean H. Renninger

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Belz, Mindy, author.

Title: They say we are infidels : on the run from ISIS with persecuted

Christians in the Middle East / Mindy Belz.

Description: Carol Stream, IL : Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2016. |

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015049191 | ISBN 9781496411471 (hc)

Subjects: LCSH: Persecution Middle East. | Christians Middle East. | IS

(Organization) | Islamic fundamentalism.

Classification: LCC BR1601.3 .B45 2016 | DDC 956.9104/2 dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015049191

ISBN 978-1-4964-1388-8 (International Trade Paper Edition)

Build: 2016-02-25 10:44:08

For Mom

Man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lords Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.

VIKTOR FRANKL

Contents

Preface

PAY MONEY

O DISHO Y OUSIF choked on baked dust and felt gravel tear into his cheek. His chest throbbed where the man his captors called Commander had kicked him. Odishos breath came in sharp heaves as he looked up at the Commander towering over him, holding his identity card.

Like all Iraqi IDs, Odishos had a line indicating his religion, and his was marked Christian. The Commander, who never removed his black face mask, paced to and fro in the gray dawn, turning the tattered card over and over. You are an agent with the Jews of Israel! he exploded.

No, no! Odisho protested. I am a Christian from Iraq.

Odisho was pummeled once more by the Commanders boot, and by a sense of the helplessness of his predicament.

The irony didnt escape him. His job, after all, was to carry money the funds raised by church members to pay ransom for Christians kidnapped by Islamic militants. As often as he had helped other victims, Odisho never dreamed he might become one himself.

The year was 2006 eight years before the Islamic fighters known as ISIS launched strikes into the center of Iraqs Christian heartland. Everywhere militants were blowing up Christians their churches, grocery stores, and homes. They threatened them with kidnapping. They vowed to take their children. The message to these infidels: You dont belong in Iraq. Leave, pay the penalty to stay, or be ready to die.