In a dream, a 6-year-old Syrian refugee girl saw "the prophet Jesus" who told her a truck would soon bring provisions for her starving family. The next day, a truck from an indigenous Christian ministry arrived, bringing both physical and spiritual aid to the Muslim family.
Living in a makeshift refugee camp in southern Turkey, Amira, her parents, and her three brothers were forced to go long stretches without food or water, Christian Aid Mission reports. Unable to take baths due to the lack of water, the family lived in deplorable conditions.
One day, Amira's mother begged a bag of chickpeas off one of the townsfolk nearby, but there was no oil for frying the mashed legume into falafel patties. That night, Amira fell asleep to the sound of her mother weeping for lack of cooking oil.
The next morning, she told her mother that she had dreamt of a truck bringing goods to them. On the truck, she said, was a man in a long white robe "just like the Prophet Jesus" - as He is known to Sunni Muslims - who had said that today the truck would come to help them.
Later that day, after a truck from an indigenous Christian ministry arrived, who gave the family cooking oil and water. Grateful for the provisions, Amira's mother invited the ministry director and his translator to their tent.
The girl's father, who had lost both legs after stepping on a landmine in Syria, was lying down when they returned to the tent, and as he struggled to sit up, he thanked the Christian for the survival package. Then he reached under the pillow he was sitting on and pulled out the children's New Testament that the indigenous ministry team had previously given to his daughter.
"Why did you give this out?" he said.
The ministry director explained that God's love prompted them to provide spiritual food as well as physical food.
"When I found this, I was about to tear it up and throw it out, but then I thought that maybe I'd better examine it first," her father told the director. "It's really good! I decided to read it and hide it under my pillow so that no one else sees it."
The director asked CAM to thank the donors who are helping to nourish the family, and asked for prayer that team members have the strength and resources to provide both spiritual and physical food to them.
"In this culture, when the father or mother reads the New Testament and likes it, the family comes to Christ," he said. "The daughter saw Jesus in her dream, and the father is reading the New Testament - surely God is at work."
He explained that the refugee camps lack bare necessities like food and water, and every gift helps: "What we bring is very important to them," the director said. "They use it first to make their baby food, or to give their babies a drink of clean water. We are thanked continually for bringing it to them, yet these thanks go to you who supply us with the funding to keep them supplied for this serious need."
The ministry director expressed hope that one day, the children raised in such camps will grow to know the Lord.
"The children are now used to seeing us coming, and they run up to us with their arms out to hug us or shake our hands," he said. "When these children grow older, may they remember that it was the Christians who gave them toys to play with as well as food and water. May the love we shared with them remain in their hearts so that they search for the truth about Jesus."
To learn how you can help, click here.
