Inaya
“My husband was killed in Syria. While he was working a bullet hit him and our home had been bombed by a missile which destroyed the whole house, so I took the children and fled.” This is how one Syrian lady’s story started. “After they bombed us, I took my children and ran away. I have seven children; four girls and three boys.” For her own protection, her name or photo cannot be circulated, but let’s call her, Inaya, since that means help, care or protection. After this Inaya took her seven children and walked from village to village. During the day, they walked, and at night they slept in the desert. “We didn’t want to stay at night in the villages, since they were being bombed. I had no food or drink for my young ones, who at the time were 1, 2, 3 and 6 years old. We didn’t have any food. I started to eat the grass, but before I give to my children, I eat it and give myself an hour before I give it to my children to make sure it isn’t poison.”
They faced many checkpoints where they were humiliated and harassed, both sexually and physically. Inaya tried her best to find the border and stay close to it during her initial seven months of running. “We got close to the desert that separates Iraq, Syria and Jordan. There we found a driver to take us to the first Jordanian checkpoint, but the driver had very bad intentions, and kept us for two months. He kept saying we are lost, so one day he was asleep, and I took the gun from him. He knew I would shoot him, and I was very serious. So, I took his car and the food in it.” Inaya and the children stayed in the desert for the next two months. “I would leave the children in the car after I put them to sleep and I would go for hours and try to find a way out and food.”
Finally help came in the form of another driver passing through with food for his cattle, and after six days they made it to the Jordanian border and the main refugee camp where Inaya stayed for a few months with her children. “The camp was very difficult, and we weren’t able to leave the camp, so we snuck out. I had to sneak out, since I needed surgery on my arm and had severe kidney problems.” Inaya goes on to tell the story of how she met Jesus in a dream. “I had kidney problems and one night because of the pain I was unable to sleep, and while I did sleep I had a dream of myself going to the hospital in Jordan, and they said there is no room and didn’t allow me to get in – come tomorrow, when I get out there is a garden which is inside the hospital and in the dream I saw a tree, very large tree from the earth up to the heavens and on top of the tree was a person – very handsome person, most handsome I have ever seen and around this person there were angels and there was light around this person, and I get closer to the person and I said who are you, and He said Christ, this happened to me three years ago and I will never forget that dream. He said I know you have this pain in the kidney and stones, and He put His hand toward the pain, and said I heal the sick and I will be with you, He said go to the hospital and they will help you and I will be with you and He put His Hand where the pain is and when I was standing beside Him, He just breathed and I felt immediately I was in the hospital and all the Dr’s starting talking saying this is command of Christ and they started to take care of me. I woke up in the morning and there was nothing, no pain when I woke up. I felt for sure Christ has healed me.”
Inaya and her children are hoping to emigrate to Australia one day. They have started the process but since then their house in Jordan has been broken into and all the documents stolen, starting the process all over again. Inaya and her children are a living testimony God’s grace, mercy and protection through the valleys of life.