The fighting in Iraq between Sunni and Shia Muslims is tearing the country apart and giving the ISIS extremists the opportunity to extend their control in the Middle East. It has also given the Kurds in the North the opportunity to consolidate their claim to their own territory. “We are trying to keep away from this war, which right now is going on in Iraq,” Mariwan Naqshbandi, of the Kurdish Ministry of Religious Affairs, told CBN News.
Heresh Stwne, a news anchor with Kurdistan TV, said Kurds no longer want to be part of Iraq. “We want to be separate from them…” Stwne told CBN News. With countries like Shi’ite Iran and Sunni Turkey and Saudi Arabia pitted against each other, the majority of Kurds fear the current crisis – an Islamic civil war – could escalate into a regional war. But while the turmoil has increased, a prayer movement has grown. “There’s been a rise of prayer meetings even just in the city,” Fabian Grech with the Mesopotamia House of Prayer told CBN.
“And I get messages and calls this prayer is going to happen in this house. It’s been happening even in homes. Even the local churches open their buildings for prayer in the morning, and it wasn’t like that before,” he said, describing the prayers as “intensified, filled with faith and passion, big prayers.”
Mahir Towfiq, with Life Agape, said. Towfiq oversees a nationwide prayer network inside Iraq, which partners with an international prayer ministry. “I just want to encourage our dear brothers and sisters around the world to continue to pray for our country… in spite of all the demographic changes, destruction, the wars and whatever’s happening, God has the final word,” he said.
Source: CBN News
BIBLE STUDY: John 16:25-33
PRAISE: God that, in the midst of the fighting, His people are praying. Pray with them that He will bring salvation and revival to Kurds, Shias and Sunnis.