The journey north from Guatemala through Mexico to the Texas border lasted 17 days.
Finally, on the evening of Feb. 26, 2006, the young family of four saw the river come into view.
Weary and beaten, with the baby starting to fuss, the family was driven in a car right up to the Rio Grande.
And there, it stopped in a cloud of dust.
George and his wife, Baida, were Iraqi refugees. They fled their homeland because Muslim extremists had made two things clear: They didn't like the family's Christian faith, for one. What was worse, to the gunmen prowling the neighborhood, were the sons' names, George and Toni, which seemed to lionize President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
The decision to hire a smuggler to get them to America was clinched after militants told George Sr., a milk delivery man, that he was next on the beheading list for being an "infidel Christian," and after caregivers at their children's nursery became untrustworthy.
Crossing to safety
Tuesday May 29, 2007
Did you know that Iraqi Christians are sneaking across the US-Mexico border, fleeing Islamist persecution? Here's a fascinating story from the San Antonio Express-News detailing the phenomenon. Excerpt:
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About Crunchy Con
Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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On posted pdf URL: Money Quote: "American: How do you know about God? I thought the Communists made sure nobody believed in God anymore. Russian: They tried, but we all knew he still is there. Russia has been a Christian nation for over a thousand years. It would take more than 70 years of Communism to change who we are. American: Wow, a thousand years that s over four times older than America. I had no idea!
Now consider my Mesopotamian version: "American: How do you know about [Christ]? I thought the Mohammedans made sure nobody believed in a [Trinitarian] God anymore. Chaldean/Syriac: They tried, but we all knew he still is [here on our altars]. [Iraq] has been a [part of mission territory ever since Jesus's disciple Peter founded the See of Antioch] for over [two] thousand years. It would take more than [1400] years of [Islam] to change who we are. American: Wow, [two] thousand years that s [ten] times older than America. I had no idea!
So four years of Operation Iraqi Freedom wreaks more havoc than Mohammed's cohorts could in the intervening millenia and a half?
Whose side is the "enemy" on?
Methinks the Great Deceiver has played us... were we not ripe for the picking? Serious pruning will be needed to heal the Body of Christ of its "american exceptionalist" errors (both north and south of the border) - I caught the AU Law School Commencement Speech broadcast on CSPAN (from the Roman Catholic Basilica no less) by VA Sec Jim Nicholson http://www.c-spanarchives.org/videolibrary/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=198331-1&tID=5 Can't find a transcript - but I can approximate how he described being asked back in the early nineties (he was Ambassador to Holy See) by Pope JPII how America was going to use its immense temporal powers to serve the people of the world, but ducked an answer, instead recalled frequent diplomatic meetings where they "disagreed" but the meetings always ended with the Pope praying "God Bless America"... duh - I'm sure he'd pray God Bless Mecca if Saudi Arabia ever recognized the Holy See diplomatically and sent an envoy for "dialogue" http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0702490.htm But they don't... and yet we're asked to believe they're a close ally of the USA? Why? Close business partner? Yes I'll grant that, but nought else...
N.B. we start selling 'em "stuff", then their state-owned (read Monarch) assets get super-concentrated, then buy send their corporate raiders to buy us out? Sound far fetched? A year ago OMX pimped out the Dubai Stock exchange. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2006_May_22/ai_n16374842 Now that same Muslim monarch' personal bank account [exchange] plans on out bidding the Nasdaq for the rights to control Nordic financial markets. http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article1850845.ece Heck Sudan must be rubbing their hand in glee - the USA bans 'em using dollars to trade oil with the Chinese? Up yours! They'll just use riyals in Tallin instead... The prosperity gospel in action, folks!
This sickening little tidbit about Iraqi refugees caught my eye the other day: Iraqi women survive by prostituting themselves I believe much of this is the result of our (Bush's) gross incompetence. Thus, we have a moral obligation to take in hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees, including husbandless & fatherless women, as well as religious minorities (meaning non-Muslims) and those who have assisted us.
Inexcusable that these Assyrian Christians are not allowed asylum in the U.S. No great number of brain cells are required to grasp that their lives are in danger. BTW, Assyrian Christians are NOT Orthodox. They are non-Chalcedonian Christians. As are Copts.
At any rate, onward marches the rule of ignorance in denying these suffering people a safe haven.
I was using "Orthodox" in the general sense, meaning Eastern and/or Oriental and/or etc. Orthodox. I.e., as opposed to (Roman) Catholic or Protestant Christians.
Its outrageous that Rod Dreher would lambast the situation of the Iraqis and categorize only the Christian persecution, as biased as he is. Under Saddam (remember the great evil madman?) Christians, Sunni, Shia's lived in relative peace and intermarried.
Now thanks to Rod Dreher's US gov't that wanted to end WMDs (the worst excuse of 'em all to justify the invasion) Iraqis are suffering more than ever.
Its not JUST THE Christians but wholly the Shia's and the Sunni Muslims whose lives have been uprooted, their country "shocked and awed" and their future rendered hopeless. And what does he point out? Few Iraqi Christians fleeing? How about admitting the very Iraqis whom US helped to displace with their magic "march through democracy throughout the Middle East" FOR ISRAEL'S and OIL's SAKE. Pathehic.
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