Giving the gift of hope

There has been a war in Syria since 2011, and half the country has been displaced, meaning families are no longer living in their hometowns, cities or villages. Thousands are victims of the war and are in dire need of help.

For the past three years, Holy Family in Lawton has made it their mission to help those war-stricken families by giving Lenten offerings to the Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA).

“Every Lent, we have a special Lenten Project. The past three years it has been Syrian refugees, the Dominican Sisters of Iraq, and refugees,” said Father Phil Seeton, pastor of Holy Family.

“People are invited to drop an envelope into a basket that we have marked with CNEWA information. As they come up, they are bringing their gifts to the altar. I know from letters that the money has gone to medical clinics, and to some refugee camps. The refugees served in the camps are mainly members of the Chaldean and Syriac Catholic churches, the Assyrian Church of the East as well as Yzdidis and Muslims.”

Father Phil expressed the need to do more.

“These folks are brothers and sisters in the faith, and they are not getting much help from governments. It comes through the generosity of the different Christian churches in Europe and the United States. These people are modern day confessors to the faith. Maybe they have not been martyred, but there are thousands who have been martyred for Christ over there. They are confessing their faith with their lives.”

Luscia Hankins is the co-chairman of Holy Family’s Spiritual Life Committee, along with Mary Beth Mullins. The committee helps organize the Lenten fundraiser for CNEWA. In 2017, they raised $6,200.

“This year, we raised $10,200. It was for the displaced Syrians who were placed in camps. The donation was to build camps of their own. They are being persecuted for the religion we share. It is an obligation to our fellow Christians,” Hankins said.

Since 2013, they have given $38,000 to CNEWA.

Michael J. L. La Civita, Communications Director for CNEWA, said, “We are very grateful to the parish, not only for their generosity, but for their prayers. We sometimes have a tendency to underestimate the power of prayer, and we should never discount that as much as the dollar amounts. It is remembering our brothers and sisters in prayer. We can thank the Holy Family parishioners for helping make this happen.”

CNEWA was founded in 1926 by Pope Pius XI to work for the eastern churches in the Middle East, northeast Africa, in India and eastern Europe. They are an organization of the Vatican and are headquartered in the United States.

As an agency of the Vatican, they provide funds to ensure the Eastern churches and devoted religious sisters — who run clinics, schools, orphanages and other sanctuaries — have enough money to do their vital work.

Jolene Schonchin is a freelance writer for the Sooner Catholic.

To learn more about CNEWA, go online to www.cnewa.org or call (800) 442-6392.

Photo: Sr. Lemia Atala teaches a class at the Al Bishara School, which is run by the Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine of Siena in Ankawa, near Erbil, Iraq. The students and the Dominican Sisters themselves were displaced by ISIS in 2014. The nuns have established schools and other ministries among the displaced.
Photo Paul Jeffrey/CNEWA.