RICHMOND, Va.â€â€An Iraqi pastor addressed the annual Presbyterian Church (USA) assembly this week to explain his dangerous ministry. According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Rev. Younan Shiba takes his wife and two daughters to church with him most days because he's afraid to leave them alone.
"There's not been a day I could leave my family for a full day and go about my work," said Shiba, who is pastor of two Presbyterian churches in Baghdad: Assyrian Evangelical Presbyterian Church in the center of the city and a new church in the southeastern suburbs.
Through an interpreter, Shiba spoke during a Middle East briefing presented by the Presbyterian Church's Worldwide Ministries Division. He also answered questions at a news conference.
Shiba described life in a city that is in shambles and rampant with kidnapping, looting, robbery, rape and daily bombings. His family moved recently because of two robberies at their apartment.
"Women especially feel vulnerable now. Because of the kidnapping and raping of women, they are afraid to step outside their homes," said Shiba, who is an ecumenical advisory delegate to the 216th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
After a recent discipleship class, the Iraqi pastor said he took 16 children outside to shovel away rubble on streets near his church, which is in what used to be one of Baghdad's most affluent neighborhoods.
The Presbyterian presence in Iraq is small, Shiba said. The country has six Presbyterian churches and 2,000 to 2,500 Presbyterians.
He explained how life has changed since Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, which he said deterred crime. Now children are stuck inside for safety's sake, men complain that their depressed wives aren't keeping up household routines, and wives say their husbands are short-tempered because money is scarce and there's no work, he said.
Shiba said Iraqis thought Americans had a clear idea of Iraq's future after the war. "Then it became clear it was like blind bats banging against walls. After the war, we had no security force, no police and nothing to replace them. We felt naked and vulnerable, and fear reigns in the country," he said.
"I've had to cancel meetings, particularly women's meetings, that take place at the church during the day," Shiba said. "Educated people particularly  doctors, teachers, lawyers  have become the targets of those attacks. Many people in those categories have fled."
He told of the recent beheading of a woman who was a department chairman at a university in Mosul. "She was beheaded in the presence of her husband. He was beheaded also."
Shiba, who arrived in Richmond from Baghdad on Saturday, spoke with his wife by phone early yesterday. Since the U.S. handover of sovereignty to Iraq on Monday, "the situation seems to be quiet, and I'm very, very grateful for that."
The Presbyterian Church's Committee on Peacemaking overwhelmingly approved a paper outlining the United States' moral responsibility to Iraq and recommended that a plan be developed to send missionaries and money to Presbyterian churches there.
The paper also calls on church members with differing opinions about the war in Iraq to be respectful of each other; condemns torture and abuse of prisoners; supports long-term rebuilding in Iraq without prejudice to any ethnic or religious group; and expresses regret that the Bush administration failed to meet with U.S. religious leaders before taking military action.
