The Great Vision

Tomorrow is going to be August 7th, and it is a significant day because it commemorates the martyrs of the Assyrian people and nation, in particular those who were killed by in the village of Simele in Iraq in 1933 over a rock being thrown through a window, but also the slaughter of over 750,000 Assyrians by the Kurds under their evil leader, Simkoo, in the closing years of World War I.  The latter is particularly significant because one of the Assyrian people's greatest martyrs, their late patriarch Mar Benyamin Shimun, was struck down in cold blood while leaving what was supposed to be peace talks.  For those interested in reading more about the Assyrian Holocaust of World War I, I recommend my dear friend Rosie Malek-Yonan's historical novel, The Crimson Field (Verdugo City, CA:  Pearlida Publishing, 2005).  There are other good books on this as well, including Assyrian author Fred Aprim's two books, Assyrians:  The Continuous Saga (2004) and Assyrians: From Bedr Khan To Saddam Hussein (2006).  Yet a third book is by another dear Assyrian friend of mine, Dr. Sargon Dadesho, and is older and entitled The Assyrian National Question At the United Nations (1988).   What has transpired regarding the Assyrians is about as intense as the Holocaust against the Jews under Hitler, and although not as numerous, as the Armenian Genocide that happened concurrently with the Assyrian tragedies in World War I, and perpertrated by the same people.  So, tomorrow, as you do your prayers or whatever it is you do, please remember the Assyrian nation.

My activism with the Assyrian people has been consistent now for almost 25 years, although I am not quite as active in it as I used to be regrettably.   My first contact with them came sometime around 1988 when I first started to learn about the Armenians, and it came via a quote about some "Assyrian Christians" in a booklet the Armenian Church's Archdiocese had sent me regarding the Genocide.  That piqued my interest, and later in Frank Mead's Handbook of Denominations in The US I found out that the Assyrian Church of the East had a presence here in the US, and I eventually, with help from the Office of Communications at the National Council of Churches, tracked them down in Chicago where one of their priests, Rev. Charles (Qasha) Klutz, was most helpful in supplying me with information on the Assyrian Church in the form of some periodicals and a booklet.   In a short time, I learned that there was a considerable population of Assyrian people in the US, mostly concentrated around Chicago and the cities of Modesto and Turlock in CA, and that they had a number of organizations - I even later found out they had two Pentecostal churches in the US, and in 1995 I had the privelege of actually preaching in the Assyrian Pentecostal Church in Turlock!  It would require a whole separate chapter to really detail the experience and involvement I have had regarding the Assyrian-American community, so I won't elaborate too much on that here.  However, it gives a background to what I want to focus on regarding this current writing, and now I want to continue with that.

Although I initially became aware of the modern Assyrians and their existence back in 1988, it was not until 1990 that it took on a whole new spiritual perspective for me.   Thanks to some exposure and reading of other literature from a couple of Assyrian organizations, I became aware of Isaiah 19:23-25, which states that in the future Assyria, much like the Jewish nation, would be restored, and the Assyrians in that passage are called "the work of My hands" by God Himself.   I of course came to believe that I had a calling to the Assyrians, and wanted to do something great for them and other Middle Eastern minorities that had suffered under Islamic torment for centuries.   Although at the time I was a Pentecostal Protestant and a Bible college student, the calling I felt I had was not necessarily an evangelical one - I came to understand that many Assyrians already knew the Gospel, and all they really needed was renewal of their own churches and not starting yet another cookie-cutter, Americanized denomination among them.  I saw instead that the Assyrians needed something greater than just sermons and religious tracts, and as I really mulled this over, I came to the conclusion that what the Assyrians and others really needed was a place of refuge from persecution until the day when they could see Isaiah 19:23-25 fulfilled.  And, that birthed the vision.

Taking the name of the 10th-century Assyrian Church Father, Saint Isaac of Nineveh, in 1995 I began to envision a village that of course would have been way beyond my control to make happen, but at the time I thought it was from God and proceeded to write down a proposal of several pages about this great experiment I wanted to do.  I called it, naturally, Saint Isaac of Nineveh Village, and the vision I had was of a totally self-sustainable community of approximately 1500 Assyrian Christian families, complete with its own infrastructure, and it would serve as a way-station, if you will, for Assyrian and other Christian refugees fleeing Islamic oppression in their homelands.  I also extended the vision to encompass Copts, Armenians, and others, but primarily it was to be an Assyrian community.  I began to envision so many things about this that my head almost exploded from the sheer overwhelming endeavor of it, and thus began one of the most ambitious dreams of my life.  

The original map I drew of the Saint Isaac of Nineveh Assyrian village I envisioned - I came up with this in 1995.

As I described in my original 1995 proposal, this village was based in part "on the kibbutz system in Israel, but somewhat more democratic," and its purpose was to "instill a new determination in the Assyrian nation, and (it) would ultimately be a beacon of freedom to many who are persecuted."  I envisioned a community then which would be self-governed, and the residents of it would be able to elect their own leadership from among themselves, operate their own churches and schools, and propagate its own cultural life.   And, I thought of it as a spiritual mandate, as I also stated in the little 6-page document I drafted the following:

"God has a wonderful plan for this nation called ASSYRIA, and with Isaiah 19:23-25 as a Biblical foundation, He has chosen me to be an instrument in the realization of His sovereign will."

The original 6-page draft of my vision and proposal

I really felt like this was a divine mandate then, although I was too young to realize the vast complexities it would have taken to make this stuff happen, as great as it was.   For instance, it would have taken literally billions of dollars in resources to even start something this immense, and that was not something I had a lot of access to then as a poor, struggling college student who was just newly-married at the time.   It was, however, a noble idea, and there is still a part of me today that would have loved to have seen this happen.   But, I was not as discerning, and didn't understand in my young, less-experienced state that yes, God may have given me the calling to the Assyrians (I believe to some extent I still have that calling today) but maybe not for something this immense.   Much of it was my imagination getting too far ahead of my limitations (I did that a lot then!).  But, I was driven by a passion that I often wish I still had, and I articulated in the same document two specific reasons why I felt lead to embark on a monumental vision like this:

1.  I attributed (and rightly so) my own heritage as a descendant of the Anusim to the Assyrian people, as I believed Abraham to be an Assyrian himself originally at the time (based on Genesis 11:31 to 12:5) and I used a quote from the late Israeli prime minister, David ben-Gurion, as my basis - he made a statement once, "The Assyrians, our ancestors," that I felt cemented a bond between Jews and Assyrians as blood kin.

2.  I also noted that much of the witness of the Christian Church was a partial fulfillment of Isaiah 19;23-25, based on first that it was in Antioch, an Assyrian-speaking city then, where the disciples of Christ were first called Christians (Acts 2:9).  Secondly, I based the missionary activity of the early Assyrian Christian Church as a premise that the Assyrians were "the work of God's hands" based on the fact that they were used by Him to spread the Gospel to so many people.  I still believe that to an extent even today, although I see it on a lot of other levels too.

One thing I was certain about though, and it is a conviction I carry even today - I was not going to go around shoving tracts in the faces of Assyrian people and trying to make them into cookie-cutter versions of American Evangelicalism, as back then (and to a lesser extent still today) I felt that Evangelicals often threw out the culture of those they ministered to because it wasn't in their eyes "Christian" enough, and thus I saw Evangelical missionary activity as more a spread of Americanization than I did a spread of the Gospel message.  I suppose now that I look at it, I come from roots that were similarly attacked by "Christian missions" in their day, as mainstream churches at the turn of the century often made inroads into Appalachia and would often scorn and condemn the local church traditions in favor of their own, which they viewed often as "enlightened" and "superior."   Unfortunately, there may have been some merit for my concerns, as today I still see it going on and oftentimes it is disturbing - Dr. Loyal Jones,  the renown Appalachian scholar, calls such people who engage in this cultural narcissism "agents of uplift."  I loved the Assyrian people as they were, and to me their Christian traditions were not something to just throw out in favor of some cheap Evangelical substitute, but rather just needed to be revitalized.  In time, I myself would leave the Evangelical/Pentecostal tradition, as even to this day I see ethnocentrism oftentimes being the driving force behind many missionary projects, and I don't see how destroying all the good things in a culture is in any way "spreading the Gospel."  I said then that "I consider myself a biblical Evangelical, not an institutional one," and to this day I believe that pretty much sums up my views.  Any rate, those were some of the convictions that drove my vision then.

Getting into the village itself, I want to describe some things about it I wanted to implement.  I had proposed a system of housing for refugee families that would involve them first living in large condo-like highrise apartments until they received the language and job training, as well as other steps to inculturate them into the community and get them on their feet.  Then, they would be relocated to single-family homes in the main area of the community, where they would take their place as part of the community.   In doing so, they would be allowed to open their own businesses if they wish, with the only stipulations being that each family paid a 1% income-based tax to maintain and upkeep the community infrastructure, and also each family would be required to contribute 10% to a trust, which upon the time they would choose to move on to either settling in the US or elsewhere, this money would be given to them to help them buy a house, set up their businesses, etc.   The idea was to help new Assyrian immigrants become self-sufficient, and in doing so they would be given the choice of either ultimately buying land adjacent to the village and becoming independent that way while still maintaining an active role in the community itself, or they could go wherever they felt led to go, with the full blessing of the ministry, and have a nestegg they themselves earned to set up a new life for themselves in the location of their choice.   I also proposed a co-op system in which the residents of the community would have the infrastructure they themselves built to help out each other.  Looking back on it, it was not a perfect plan, as there would have been bugs to work out obviously, but I saw it as a good plan. 

The spiritual life of the community as a whole would also have been something I would have emphasized, as each religious community would have its own parish church, and it could also operate schools, charitable organizations, etc.   I would have wanted the churches to have an active part in the welfare of the community too, and in doing so the clergy of those churches would also be community leaders.   I would, however, also have a huge cathedral-like church in the center of the village - I envisioned it on its own island in the center of a lake with a bridge leading over to it - based on drawings I had made of what I thought was to be my "dream church" at the time too.   The "big church" would be a shrine dedicated to the Simele martyrs, and would be interdenominational.   The cool part of this, however, was the feast days of the churches - on Good Friday, for instance, a village-wide Stations of The Cross would be said, with each of the individual parish churches being a station on the route, and the big church being the terminus of the Stations.  I actually had a dream about that once.  Ultimately, this would be a fully Christian community, and the faith of the people would be reflected in the community activities as well. 

As I look back on it, the idea itself was good, but it was also the product of the imagination of an idealistic young man who often thought not just outside the box, but outside his own means.  Will something like this ever have the possibility of happening?  Who knows - perhaps, but that is ultimately up to God himself.   However, although not as active in it as I once was, the Assyrian people still hold a special place in my heart, and now that I am older I can do things definitely within my abilities to make people aware of who the Assyrians are and of their national aspirations.   I also still believe there is a prophetic destiny for the Assyrians, and who is to say that maybe this crazy vision of mine might one day become a blueprint for some young Assyrian leader when they do have a homeland again.  That would bless my heart more than anything, and I really hope I live to see the day when a nation called Assyria is a geographic reality. 

As I close, again I make reference to the fact that tomorrow, August 7th, is Assyrian Martyrs Day.   Please keep the Assyrian people in your prayers, because with the rise of Islamic fanaticism these precious people are often innocent victims of genocide still today.   I will always love the Assyrian nation, and treat its people as if they were my own - God bless you, Assyria, the "work of His hands."