Life has become hard for people in many places in Syria: bombings and conflict, fear, rising food prices, scarcity of gas for cooking. It is possible to leave the house, but life has been slowed down by fearful roadblocks. Many Christian families are tending to escape to Lebanon, at least for the time being.<\/p>\n
They tell us from Syria: \u201cWe were already hoping for a peaceful resolution in November 2011, but things gradually dissolved into the state of affairs that we have today, the country gripped by violence with unforseeable and certain diastrous consequences. For us who believe in a united world it is quite painful to see the lack of any real will for finding a political and diplomatic solution. Right from the beginning of the events we realized, together with many other people in the country, that the priority wasn\u2019t the one acclaimed by many newspapers and Arab and Western satellite news channels: pluralism and freedom but a game of power that is destroying the country at every level, a country known for the way people of diverse confessions have lived together in peace.\u201d<\/p>\n
From the first disturbances and disorientation the members of the Focolare Movement saw \u201cthe fruits of the Gospel life that has been sown over the decades and the total communion in and among the various communities spread throughout the country. \u201cThis trial that our country is living through,\u201d they go on to say, \u201chas brought us back to what is essential in our relationship with God, with the Word and with the people around us.<\/em> It has manifested itself in a growing effort to depend on Him.\u201d \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Believing in God\u2019s love, being attentive and in an attitude of giving ourselves to the needs of the people around them is the modus vivendi<\/em> for both young and old. The vitality that is found among the young people is quite striking.<\/strong> The Movement\u2019s youth in the city of Aleppo distribute free meals to poor families. They have also begun a support drive among their friends and families, so that they can provide regular food and basic supplies to people in need<\/strong>. Some of the Focolare\u2019s Gen3 (children) have prepared and sold snacks to students who regularly go to the parish library in order to study for their university examinations. The small children, the Gen4, gather and sell bottle caps. The young people from Damascus have held cineforums and meetings in which they try to spread the culture of peace and brotherhood<\/strong>. When the first refugees began to flow into the gardens and schools of the city, youths from the Focolare and others immediately did everything they could to meet their needs.<\/p>\n A series of difficulties had begun for engineer Walid and his wife Sima regarding the contract on their house, the car payments that had to be made and the children\u2019s school fees. We began to be invaded by fear\u201d, they recount, \u201cas we saw that we would eventually lose the house, and Walid had already lost his job. But we gained courage by believing in God\u2019s love, knowing that He would intervene at the right moment. The nex day, in fact, some help arrived for us in the form of some money that corresponded to the chidren\u2019s school fees.\u201d Another family who were left without anything also received help from the villagers. \u201cThey offered us everything that was lacking in our house,\u201d Mariam and Fouad recount, who had not seen a paycheck on four months, \u201ceven a carpet and a television.\u201d \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Just the same, the difficult situation also instilled a lot of mutual fear and mistrust, and everyone looked at everyone with suspicion. Our attitude of building fraternal relationships with everyone went against the current. This is what Rima experienced<\/strong> who works for a project in support of\u00a0 Iraqi women professionals. One day a woman showed up to enroll in the course. Her attire \u2013totally veiled \u2013 cautioned prudence. She could have generated suspicion among the other members of the course. With another excuse I found a way not to enroll her, but then a more powerful thought entered my mind: \u201cJesus loved everyone and came to save everyone without exception. We should also have the same love that doesn\u2019t make distinctions.\u201d And so she did everything she could to trace the woman down and enroll her in the course.<\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n Fahed is a taxi driver. <\/strong>\u201cNow, working is a challenge and a source of growing stress. One day an old Muslim man began cursing against a bombing attack which, in his opinion, had targeted a mosque. I listened to him attentively, then I tried to comfort him saying: \u201cDon\u2019t be saddened, because houses for God can only be built by God.\u201d Four months later the same man got into my taxi, but he didn\u2019t recognize me. During the drive he confided to me that he had been so struck by one of our Christian \u201cbrothers\u201d who had said to him that only God can build His houses.\u201d<\/p>\n Youssef is a young gynecologist<\/strong>. Amid the anger of the first disurbances in the country, he at once placed himself at the service of the wounded, going out to assist them where they were. His unusual decision to care for patients of all confessions, at the risk of being misunderstood turned out to be a seed of reconcilliation. A network of medical workers was created around him, who sought to heal both physical and the non-physical wounds as well.<\/p>\n Then there was that young professor who had been recruited by the army a year earlier<\/strong>. Prayer, unity with the other young people who lived the Christian ideal, and his decision to offer his life to God were his daily support, even when it was his duty to go and inform the famlies of fallen soldiers.<\/p>\n Mona<\/strong> is a young woman who fled with her family to a village near the city. Several months earlier she has returned to the city to offer her help at a Centre run by a religious Order that helps children of all confessions to make\u00a0 up school work and, most especially, to recuperate the desire to go on living.<\/p>\n \u201cIn my quarter,\u201d recounts Bassel, \u201cjust after the first manifestations, real and strong attacks began against the police. Many times, closed in our houses in order to find protection from the bullets that were flying all around us, we grasped the Rosary in our hand, convinced that Our Lady would have protected us. Recalling the power of a prayer said in unity, with a friend we began having the \u201cTime-Out\u201d at eleven in the evening, which is when the clashes usually began. Many people joined us. In spite of it all, we continued to believe that in the end, armed weapons would not have the final word.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In dialogue with members of the Focolare Movement in a land that for two months has been torn by disorder and conflict.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[893],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-341294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-focolare-worldwide-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341294\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}