Non-Profit Spotlight: Shevet Achim

Meet Aras by Cody Fisher
October 30, 2007
Meet Aras. He's a Kurdish boy in northern Iraq and he's been waiting a really long time for heart surgery. He's approved...ready to go, his family just needs $7,000. They live in a humble little home behind a concrete wall and above the entrance is a large picture of a heart. His dad's a farmer and works tirelessly just to provide for his family while his mom takes care of the home and his older brother works to help provide also.

He's 12 years old. His older brother is attached to him and does everything he can do look out for him. His parents were so proud and sat us down and showed us pictures of him when he was a baby. We talked with Aras, played soccer with him, and just got to know him and have fun. He was so humble yet at the same time so excited that some people came to see him and get to know him. He started beaming when we talked about his future and what he wants to do. He immediately told us: he wants to be a doctor.

November 16, 2007
Visiting Aras was such an exciting thing for me. He had no clue that his surgery had been funded so it was so much fun to let him know that his surgery is now paid in full and that he doesn't owe anybody anything. He was thrilled to see us show up again. [His mother] shared how she's been fighting to save Aras his entire life. They've taken him to so many hospitals and tried so many ways to help him but everybody turned them away. His father had gotten so discouraged that he gave up entirely and realized that his son couldn't be helped. She couldn't accept that, so she chose to never give up.

So this day was extremely emotional for her. Her eyes were filled with tears, she couldn't take her eyes off of her son and she kept saying "Thank God we found you...Thank God we found you."

After she shared with us we took Aras to school, which was a good walk from his house. He was struggling for breath by the time we got there. It was so good to see him in his element. We watched him interact with his friends and take part in class. He was shy and wouldn't raise his hand or say anything until the teacher finally had him go up to the chalk board and solve a problem.

Aras is scheduled to leave in a couple weeks for Jordan, where he will receive heart surgery and hopefully be on the road to recovery. Right now the paperwork is being processed and once that's done...he's able to fly out of Iraq.

November 30, 2007
This Wednesday I had the privilege of taking Aras and his family to the airport. We had gone earlier to buy tickets for them and I told them to be at our house at 2:30 and we could go from there. They showed up at 2:00 with one small bag that Aras and his mother shared. Their entire family came along with a few cousins that I had never met before. We all crammed into one car and headed off to the airport.

From that point on, everything was new for them. They had never been to an airport let alone on a plane. I always used to chuckle when the stewardess would go through all the basics of buckling your seatbelt and how to put on an oxygen mask. I guess I never thought of people like Aras and his mother who had never had the opportunity to be on a plane before. I was humbled this day as I walked them through the basics and tried to put their minds at ease.
The whole event was so exciting for me and I was thinking back to the first day I met Aras and how his case was the first case I learned how to handle all of the paperwork. It was exciting to see it all come to fruition.

The day was extremely emotional for them. They were anxious about everything. They went to say goodbye and everybody was sobbing. Aras is from a village and this might have been the first time they've had to say goodbye to someone before. For so many people here, nobody they know ever leaves Iraq so the idea of leaving on a trip and coming back is foreign to them. They weren't taking these goodbyes lightly.

Each one of them took their turns crying over Aras while hugging and kissing him all over. Aras was trembling with tears running down his face and I had to put the camera down because my vision was so blurry from trying to hold back my own tears.

The airport was kind enough to let me through security and sit with them until their flight left in three hours. I was so relieved to meet another man heading to Jordan on the same flight who spoke a little English. He was so kind and promised me that he would stay with them and look after them until someone picked them up from the airport in Jordan. Later that day I found out that he kept his word even though their ride was a couple hours late because of a miscommunication.

So Aras made it safely to Jordan and has made the long drive into Israel where he will receive heart surgery in a few days! We are so excited for him and continue to keep him in our thoughts. Be thinking of him these next few days and especially his family as they are all just as anxious, if not more while they wait for him and his mother to return.

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The Mission of Shevet Achim by Angie Meeker
Shevet Achim was founded in 1994 with the purpose of helping non-Israeli children receive lifesaving medical care in Israel. Shevet Achim seeks to foster relationships between Jews and Muslims to ease tensions in the Middle East. They seek to cross lines of division to show that an enemy is in fact a neighbor. Roughly translated, Shevet Achim means “Brothers Together.”

Brothers Together has been quietly saving lives in northern Iraq since 2005. The first year the project was in operation, our office received and sent six children for heart surgery. In 2007, 35 families presented their ill children to us. Of those, 22 received heart surgeries in 2007. Already in 2008, over 35 lives have been saved through Shevet’s work in Northern Iraq. Unfortunately, due to the inadequate healthcare system in Iraq, we expect this trend to continue. Over 7000 children are waiting for heart surgery in northern Iraq alone.

The Kurds are a very fatalistic people. If it is fated for you to recover from your illness, then you will recover whether you call a doctor or not. A mindset such as this leaves little room for a God who intervenes, either through miraculous healing or through the healing of a doctor’s scalpel. Even more, the political and cultural dynamics at play in the Middle East discourage any relationship with Israel, even if Israel is offering life saving surgery. The families and children who do seek out Brother’s Together for help are truly grasping at their last hope for life, often to the disdain of their community and religious leaders. Earlier this year, the Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq released a fatwa against the work of Brothers Together in Iraq. AMSI called on Iraq's Muslim neighbors to provide alternatives to Israel and for Iraq's Muslim neighbors to pay for the surgeries in other countries. They stated that Muslim families who go to Israel are being tricked into it and/or are traitors to Islam, at risk of apostasy. They also said that those who go to Israel for surgery must be punished, along with those who help them go to surgery. Three families awaiting surgery elected not to receive surgery in Israel after this declaration, but instead traveled to faraway Algeria to receive surgery paid for by the Algerian government.

The children of Brothers Together learn a new lesson in hope and friendship through the work of Shevet Achim. Expectations of what a Jew, Christian or Muslim should be like are torn down as a hand of help is offered to the smallest ones who cannot help themselves. The children have an opportunity to hope, and time to dream of their future.

The director of Shevet Achim in Iraq, a Kurdish follower of Jesus named Goran, said, “Imagine how many other children have the same problem and are looking for help. Imagine how many families suffer seeing their adorable child suffer, waiting for help. Imagine how many other families gave up on their children, waiting to see hope. Instead their death came first because of the lack of help in their home country. Please lift these beautiful children up in your prayers that the Lord would heal them physically and spiritually. That God would continue to give me wisdom and patience to do the work, and that He would use me to reach these families and help them understand that God is the true Physician that heals their children.”

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Cody Fisher works with Shevet Achim in northern Iraq. Angie Meeker and her husband Robert are Twoshirts members who work with various relief agencies among the Kurds in northern Iraq. If you would like to contribute to the work of Shevet Achim you can do so at shevet.org. For more information, feel free to email Angie at angieo(at)gmail(dot)com, or visit BrothersTogetherIraq.blogspot.com.

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