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Omaha woman shares the ‘Good News’ in Iraq
Omaha Resident Julie Burgess on mission visit in Iraq with her new buddy Frank sporting a University of Nebraska hoodie.
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Omaha resident and Director of Support Services at West Hills Church, Julie Burgess was one of eight participants in a missions trip last November to The Republic of Iraq. The team traveled with the Outreach Foundation of a Tennessee-based ministry dedicated to engaging Presbyterians and global partners in proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ.
The nine-day trip fostered goodwill and reinforced links between congregations of the Presbyterian Church in the United States and Iraq, as the new nation emerges from decades of war and devastation. Burgess described her decision to go as an act of Godly obedience.According to Burgess, the opportunity to bring encouragement to people who desperately needed it aligned with her Biblical life verse expressed in Micah 6:8, "Act justly, love tenderly, walk humbly."
"The eight of us went and formed a family unit immediately," said Burgess. "Our whole purpose was to be there and to meet people, to encourage them, to pray with them, to worship with them, to see their lives and experience their church family, and learn from them so that we could come back and witness to their lives here."
Many people in the United States think all Middle Eastern countries are Muslim. However, approximately three percent of the people living in Iraq identify themselves as Christians.
"According to statistics of country's where Christians fled, 65 percent of the refugees who fled Iraq because of war, are Christians. And many of them are in Syria." said Burgess. "I think there are something like a million Iraqi refugees in Syria."
Prior to visiting Iraq, Burgess spent time in Lebanon and Syria in 2010 which ignited her interest in visiting Iraq. One of the people that Burgess and her group met was a man named Edward. He and his family were refugees who had been in Syria since the war first started in 2003.
"We met with him one evening and what he wanted to talk about was his anger at America and he felt that we were controlled by the Jewish lobby," recounted Burgess. "Many people think that and our foreign policy is kind of driven by that. Edward, his wife and two kids were not on a list with the UN to be resettled because Edward's only desire was to go back home and be in his homeland where his church was and his community was and that is all that he wanted. He didn't want to go to Sweden or Australia or some place far away. He was an Iraqi Christian who loved his country and he wanted to be back home."
Sadly, about a week before Burgess left for her trip to Iraq in November, Edward died of a heart attack. According to Burgess, Edward was a heavy smoker. He left his wife and those two wonderful kids in Damascus, Syria without a home, without a means of support, and Edward is now buried in Damascus, Syria.
"He did not make it home," said Burgess. "He's home with Jesus, we know that. But the one thing he wanted was to get his family back (to Iraq) so it became even more important for me to go."
Burgess, with tears in her eyes recounted her conversations with Edward and felt the weight of his unfulfilled desire.
"The motivation to go to Iraq was after meeting the Iraqi families, to have an opportunity to go and stand in their country as an American Christian, that was the best I could do for them with all they have lost," said Burgess. "They are now on lists with the United Nations trying to be placed in other countries."
Can Christians and Muslims live in harmony?
According to Burgess, they can with the love of Christ. Case in point, the church in Basra. What we in the United States would call a pre-school, they refer to as a kindergarten. They have about 150 kids. Ninety-eight percent of those kids are Muslims going to a Christian preschool.
"This is true all over the place. Three of the Presbyterian churches in Iraq have these wonderful kindergartens and 98 percent of the students are Muslim. They cannot teach them about Jesus. They cannot teach them Christian doctrine because that would be against the law," explained Burgess. "But what they can do is teach them as Christians using Christian methods about love and forgiveness and how to love your neighbor, how to take care of each other."
Due to what the children are learning from the church kindergartens —good morals, good ethics, and how to be better people — the Muslim parents are asking the churches to open another school their children can attend as they get older.
"And, it's that little seed of love and compassion and sacrifice that we bear in our lives because of what's been done for us that's been spread out, and this is how they spread the love of Jesus," said Burgess. "And, it's an amazing thing, just amazing."
According to Burgess, Christian instructors pray for the kids and the kids are teaching their parents another way to live.
"It's having an impact. It may seem like a tiny little ripple, but you know what they say about all those sand dollars on the beach or the star fish," said Burgess. "You can't make a difference to all the dead or dying things on the beach but you can make a difference to the one that you throw back in the ocean. And that's what they do. They do it out of the love that they have for Jesus ... they have this incredible kindergarten which is staffed by Christian and Muslim teachers and they all work together for the good of these kids that take it home." †
For more information about the Outreach Foundation, please visit www.theoutreachfoundation.org