This article was originally published in the World Orphans Insight Magazine Spring 2021.
By: Billy Ray | Senior Director, Middle East
Back in the summer of 2007, World Orphans representatives stepped off a plane in northern Iraq to see if God was leading them to work in this recently accessible part of the world.
As an international Christian charity organization, they were unsure how these Muslim government leaders would take to them establishing a presence in their region. There were many conversations over many cups of tea, but finally the government decided to give them a chance, on one condition: “You have to send an American from your organization to run this project.”
Jumping back on the plane, they looked at each other and asked, “How are we going to find someone to move here to lead this thing?”
Fortunately, God had a plan.
Our family had been working in the region for the past seven years, and we were looking for God’s next steps for our lives, feeling called to some of the least reached regions of the Middle East.
A chance encounter with a mission pastor in Dallas, Texas, paved the way for us to join World Orphans and move to Iraq the next summer, in 2008.
Fast forward to today, we are proud to say that after leading the organization for fourteen years, we are in a position to hand over leadership to a local Iraqi Kurd who has faithfully served with us for the past ten years.
Initially, the government was not ready for us to just hire a local and do business that way; they wanted an exchange—they wanted to see where our hearts really lay.
In the twelve years that we lived in Iraqi-Kurdistan, it was always our hearts’ desire to see the locals raised up into places of leadership within the organization and, whenever possible, to let them lead our efforts in northern Iraq.
For example, when the local mayor asked us to build a community center that helped local war widows and orphans, we built a community center. When the mayor asked us to find a place for refugees to live, we built a refugee camp, later turning those tents into brick homes for over 150 families. And when the need arose to build a refugee school and clinic, we were able to do that too.
In each case, the local authorities led our efforts, and, before we knew it, we had built over 100,000 square feet of new infrastructure for the city and its refugees—and by doing so, represented Christ’s love in a wholistic way to the entire community.
Now, as we are looking to hand over the operation to local leadership, we could not be more pleased with the journey we have been on, establishing trust in this land and fully giving ourselves to invest in the least of these, allowing them to lead us and show us how to best serve their own people.
As we near this fourteen year milestone of work in Kurdistan, we wonder and dream about what God will do in the next fourteen years, but it will not just be us dreaming; it will be our whole, local Kurdish staff dreaming up what great things we may do with God’s help and your support.
Thank you for walking this grand journey with us and for staying the course as we have navigated deep cultural and religious waters, trusting in God’s hand to steady us when things got hard, and leaning on the faithful friendship of local men and women who have become like family to us.