Faithkeepers (2016) - full transcript

♪ Multicom Jingle♪

[Sounds of birds chirping]

[light piano music]

[heavy bass sound]

My father came home

and saw an envelope.

There was a letter and

six bullets.

On the paper they had written,

"With these six bullets we'll

kill you and your family."

Just a few days after that,

they put an empty box

at our front door.

Inside was a letter that said,

"In this box we will bring the

heads of your children."

After 2003, problems started.

[sound of a car driving

and muffled people]

The villages around us

were all Muslim.

They harassed us.

They would kill you

or kidnap you or,

[sound of glass breaking]

We used to open the door and

find messages, threats.

"You must leave. You're

Christian. You're infidels."

"You mustn't live in this

country. It's a Muslim country."

We were terrified. He

couldn'’t even go to work.

They said,

"If you don't get out,

we'll kill you in the store."

We were very scared.

I was up all night crying and

thinking what'll they do to me?

What will they do

to my daughter?

What will they do to my husband?

What did we do wrong? We

would sit around in fear.

Terrible things happened

including the kidnapping

of students.

Eight students were kidnapped.

After that, buses

were blown up.

[explosion sound]

I wasn't on the bus that was

attached, thank God.

I was behind it.

Explosions were going off in

front of me and behind me.

[explosion sounds]

When you went to work,

it felt like a battlefield.

You were afraid. But you

had to make a living.

They wanted to force us

to convert to Islam.

There's no way

we would abandon

our religion for

another religion.

The persecution only

strengthens our faith.

The thing they hate most is

just that we're Christians.

They call us infidels.

They're Muslim and they don't

want Christians in Iraq.

They want to make Iraq

their own country.

We are Christians, and they

said, "We don't want a single

Christian in Iraq.

We'll kill you."

[Light Instrumental Music]

Pastor Martin Neumeier

lived during the Nazi

period in Germany.

He saw what was happening.

And he had this quote

where he said,

"When they came

for the Socialists,

I did not protest

because I'm not a Socialist.

When they came for

the trade unionists,

I didn't protest because

I'm not one of them.

When they came for the Jews,

I was silent

because I'm not a Jew.

When they came for me,

there was no one

left to protest."

[light music strings]

The current status of

Christians and other

non-Muslim monitories

throughout the Middle East

is the worst it's been in

one can say centuries.

The western people treat what's

happening to the Christians

all across the globe as

disparate phenomena,

and they don't really

connect the dots.

This is happening in Egypt.

It's happening in Iraq.

It's happening in Syria. It's

happening in Lebanon.

It's happening in Palestine.

It's happening in all other

countries in the Middle East.

At least 21 people were killed

when a powerful bomb exploded

in front of a crowded

Coptic Christian church.

In November, al Qaeda in Iraq

declared open season

on all Christians.

Gruesome beheadings,

mass executions,

they call themselves

the Islamic State

and justify their violent acts

by arguing that they

are waging jihad,

or holy war

against Infidels.

In 2014, you have ISIS

spreading in Iraq and syria.

And now you see

a situation where we've

been ethnically cleansed

for our religion and

our identity by ISIS.

As ISIS pushed forward,

Christians knew mercy

would not be their life.

Tens of thousands of Christians

are now fleeing for their lives.

The U.N. says more than

500,000 citizens

have fled their homes in Iraq.

This stream of people,

thousands every hour,

has been continuing, I'm told,

for days across this bridge.

And these people

and we've seen it, will end up

tonight sleeping on roadsides,

sleeping in ruined,

abandoned buildings.

Because there is simply

no place else to go.

This is the kitchen.

It's two families per stovetop.

This is the men's bathroom.

Same thing on the

other side for women.

We came to Saint Elijah Church

and were just on the ground.

The sun was beating down and

we were desperately hungry and

thirsty without even mattresses.

Then they told us about

this place.

We want to go back

home so our kids

can continue their education.

We want to go back to our homes.

The most important thing

is to go back.

We want them to

rescue us from ISIS.

We're praying to God to help

us and find a solution.

One of the most terrifying

things

that is happening across

the region in the Middle East

is kidnapping of Christians.

And it is especially

horrifying for women.

One day I was at the

door of our house.

A car stopped with

some guys in it.

Their windows were dark so

you couldn't see them.

Two people got out.

They grabbed me and

put me in the trunk.

They kidnapped me, and after

15 minutes took me out.

[sound of trunk opening,

body thud sound]

It looked like a farm.

There were houses.

It was a place for animals.

[sound of body dropping]

They put me inside and tied

my hands and legs

and put a piece of

tape over my mouth.

And there were two

girls with me.

One of them was a doctor,

and the other was 13-years old.

The doctor was about 35, 36,

like that.

The first thing they did to me,

my hair was long.

so they shaved my head.

And torturing, of course.

They hit us every day with

whatever they had at hand.

[Sound of match being lit]

They put out cigarettes

on my legs.

They cut us with knives.

They raped me.

The girl that was 13-years old,

on the fourth day

they raped her.

There were six of them.

She started bleeding

and she died.

To me, they used to say,

"Declare your faith in Islam.

Swear that there is no God

other than Allah, and

we'll let you go."

Of course, I wasn't

willing to say it.

So he cursed me, and

Christians, and Christ.

They told the doctor, "Your

family won't pay the ransom."

So one of them took out her eye.

He put a knife in her eye, and

she bled and died right away.

They held me for about

12 or 13 days.

Afterwards, they

called my family.

They asked for $100,000

from my husband.

He agreed. He said,

"I will pay."

Even after my husband

said he will pay,

they kept torturing me.

He gave them the money,

but still they didn't

untie my hands and legs.

He paid them, but they just left

me there,

and they left.

[sound of gate opening

and heartbeat]

A farmer that worked in the

area passed by and heard me.

He untied my hands and legs.

I said I had been kidnapped.

I gave him our phone number,

and he called my family.

I don't remember exactly

how they took me home.

I wasn't afraid of dying

or the torture.

My only wish was that, if I die,

I die as a Christian.

The Christian can always

save their life

if they will just convert,

if they will stop

being a Christian.

But they're unwilling to,

and so that's why, that's

why they're murdered.

Even in the middle

of all this devastation,

there is something

beautiful going on.

And it is the faith of

those believers.

To say I'm a follower of

Jesus Christ means to say

I'm willing to die for this.

But when you ask them

was it really worth it,

because you could have

converted to Islam

very easy and, you know,

kept everything,

and they say it was worth it.

And if we were given

the choice again

we will do exactly the same.

In many ways, what we are

seeing now in the Middle East

is quite similar to what

happened to the Armenians

a hundred years ago.

Although the Turks have been

massacring Armenians for

over two centuries,

and forcefully Islamizing them

under the cover of World War I,

they became a target.

The Armenians and Syrians and

other Christians in the region

who were brutally persecuted,

crucified, decapitated,

raped and so forth, was because

it was portrayed as a jihad.

The children, the younger ones,

they were seen as the hope,

as the hope for the

family to continue,

the people to continue.

So they would send

them off in batches.

A lot of times,

they would travel in darkness

and others would help them.

They would give

them a little cash,

some food in a bag, and

just something

that they would carry with them,

and they would walk.

My grandparents

traveled by foot,

and they traveled from today

east Turkey through Iraq,

through Syria, and they

settled in Egypt.

On my recent trip to Armenia,

Turkey, and Iraq,

we visited four refugee camps.

And when we were in

one of those camps,

I saw a young man

that was maybe 14.

And this young man had

lost both his parents.

He was there with

a younger sister,

maybe of the age

of six or seven.

And the weight of the world

was on his shoulders.

He was all of a sudden the

man of the house.

And all of a sudden, I

remembered my grandfather,

who had walked.

Now, I speak Arabic,

being raised in Egypt.

So I was able to speak in

Arabic and encourage him,

and tell him listen;

I'm here to show you hope.

My grandparents were exactly

where you are today.

Their family was gone.

Their belongings were gone.

Their home was gone.

Everything was gone.

They had nothing but

their younger sibling.

But they kept on with hope.

They kept on with faith,

and I exist today because

they didn't give up.

Within just a few decades of

the Armenian,

Assyrian, and Greek genocide,

the Middle East witnessed yet

another campaign

of ethnic cleansing.

[Instrumental music picks up]

Well, the Jewish communities

in the Middle East

and in North Africa were living

there for thousands of years.

In the middle of the

twentieth century,

all the Jews disappeared

from all these countries.

[Sound of crowds of people]

I was 16-plus

when we, my father

decided that this time

has come to try and escape.

And that is in the

backdrop of

the public hangings

in January '69.

There were nine innocent Jews

who were all hanged that morning

And their bodies were shown in

public squares

of Baghdad and Bosra.

People were dancing

under the bodies.

So by the time 1971 arrived,

we had no choice.

We had no choice.

There was not a life.

It was really a walking death.

So my father said we are

going to try and escape.

We will have a few days

until we reach safety.

I feel it as if it was

yesterday, how we set up,

how we left the house, how we

had to pretend that

we were just going around,

you know,

just for the couple of hours.

And how we got into the car,

final look at the house,

final look at all the things

that was in the house:

my treasured school reports,

my collections, my

stamp collection, my keyring,

my matchboxes, you name it

everything that we have

accumulated in a lifetime.

It was just going

to be left behind.

Then there were the checkpoints,

and the checkpoints

were terrifying

when they arrived because

you can see the slow signs.

And then you get there, and

then you lower the windows,

and the guns get into the car.

And then they asked my father to

step out with his paperwork.

And then you're

sitting in the car.

You don't know what to do.

You don't know,

my grandmother was

praying in a loud voice, and

we were begging her not to.

And my father would

have to convince them

why do we want to be

picnicking in that part of Iraq.

And my father would

assure them that

all we have to do is just

another few kilometers

and then we'll come back.

And so on and so forth,

until we had to cross the

mountains to Iran,

all in total and

absolute darkness.

Because these mountains

were exposed.

And if there was a light of the

car, then it would be shot.

So that was really the most

frightening part of the journey.

[sound of car stopping]

At one stage, the car just

stopped

right there was nothing.

There was just a hill.

And it was getting cold.

The person who was driving it

instructed everybody

to get out of the car,

completely out, out, out.

And we were saying are

you going to abandon us.

Where are we here?

And he said don't worry.

Now you are safe.

And we were like looking

at each other,

and it was the release of

almost eight years of hell.

They call this

ethnic cleansing.

This is the real word.

Let's face it.

Today, you can see the same

happening to the Christians.

If we don't care now,

the statistics later

will be mind boggling.

We must think not

about religion

or Christianity in the abstract.

We're talking about real people.

We're talking about families

who for generations have

lived their faith,

are wanting to pass on

their faith peacefully.

What is taking place

in the Middle East,

particularly in Iraq,

is genocide.

It meets the official definition

of the United Nations,

it is the

eradication of a particular

ethnic religious group.

And they are facing extinction.

One aspect of genocide

is the destruction of

historical artifacts

because these extremists

are trying to make it

as if these people

never existed.

[sound of explosion]

This video purports to show

the radicals destroying Nimrod,

one of the most important

archeological sites in Iraq.

In the past week, ISIS vandals

took hammers to ancient relics

in the nearby Mosul Museum.

We're seeing 5,000 years

of history being erased in just

a matter of a few months.

We're seeing this kind of

destruction of antiquities,

history that we can

never get back.

It is not by chance

that they are

targeting not

only communities

but also their very heritage.

Churches, mosques, shrines,

temples,

cultural historical sites.

The church that dates back

to the 4th century

in my village, doesn't

belong to my village,

and doesn't belong to me. It

belongs to the whole world.

These people have

lost everything.

They've lost their homes,

their land, their safety

their history.

And yet, when you visit

these IDP camps,

when you visit these refugee

camps, among the young people

there is still an incredible

resilience and incredible hope.

What do you want to be

when you grow up?

Teacher.

Teacher.

Doctor.

Journalist, so I can help my

people return to their homes.

All those people here, before

they have their big houses,

but now they

lose everything.

Two families.

My grandmother

sleeps on the floor.

We have no place to sleep.

What do you miss most

about Karamoja?

My friends, my teachers,

my class.

When we used to go on

journeys, picnics to school.

[Music Swells]

Mass immigration, to the point

where the lands are emptied

of its indigenous people

does not work,

for the very simple reason that

we are tied to our land.

They don't want to leave.

They want to be there.

They want to be in their

villages. They want to be where

their mothers and fathers and

grandmothers and grandfathers

and great-grandfathers walked.

And they shouldn't

have to leave.

We risk the possibility

that Christian communities

present in the Middle East

might cease to exist.

So right now you

have a very small,

faint candle flicker of a

light that is our people.

And for every church

that is blown up,

every town that is emptied

of indigenous Christians,

you are one step closer,

one flicker of the wind closer

to that little faint flame

being extinguished,

and us not existing anymore.

These fanatics hate Christians.

In the beginning, they

wanted to get rid of them

and chase them away.

If you allow them to continue,

and the world does nothing,

their final aim is to rid

the world of Christians.

This is happening,

first of all,

above and beyond

the Middle East.

This is in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The Islamist extremist

group Boko Haram

have said they carried

out a wave of fatal

Christmas Day bombings

against churches in Nigeria.

It's in as far as Indonesia,

the Philippines. It's happening

in even European areas

that have large

Muslim populations.

Scenes of carnage

at six different

locations across Paris.

At least 129 people were killed

in Friday's attacks

which Islamic

State says it carried out.

Breaking news from

San Bernardino, California.

The worst extremist attack

on America since 9/11.

A rampage

now believed to have been

inspired by the Islamic State.

Pledging allegiance to

the leader of ISIS

as the couple turned a holiday

party into a killing field.

Terror attacks in Brussels, and

tonight the casualties mounting,

with multiple explosions, at

the airport, and in the subway.

According to a new report,

ISIS has unprecedented levels

of support inside America.

ISIS terrorists

in all 50 states.

We must fight extremism,

not only for the sake of

our brothers and sisters,

but also because they are

at the frontline

against an enemy that

has clearly shown us

that it will bring the

fight wherever it can.

ISIS released a new video today

showing the execution

of 21 Coptic Christians.

The video shows the

Egyptian prisoners

being marched onto a beach

by militants dressed in black.

Then the prisoners are

beheaded brutally.

Christians in Egypt go back

to really the 2nd century

or even earlier.

St. Mark the evangelist who

wrote the gospel

of the same name is the

one who evangelized Egypt.

[religious chanting]

To the Coptic community,

faith is everything.

It's the one thing

that sustained

them throughout these 1,400

years of Islamic rule of Egypt.

And they were able to maintain

their religious identity.

They were able to maintain

their large, large number.

And to maintain that

number

throughout 1,400 years of

persecution for most part,

and discriminations for

the other part of it,

is all because of faith.

For me, growing up as

a Christian in Egypt

was a tough, a

tough process, actually.

Laws and regulations

and everything that was

on the books kind of treated

you as a second-class citizen.

For generations,

Copts have had to put up with

the unspoken rule that bars

them from holding senior

positions in the government,

army, or security services.

And during outbursts of

Islamist terrorism here,

Christians were targeted.

Churches are routinely

bombed and burned.

A car packed with explosives

and parked right in front of

the church, burst into flames.

The apparent suicide bombing

killed at least 21 people,

and wounded 97 more.

We've had over 60 churches

burned in one day,

on August 6th, 2013.

Mobs began attacking

Christian churches.

[mob chanting]

If the devil came down

with all of his soldiers,

he would not do to this church

what the Muslim Brotherhood did.

Looting. Destruction.

The church was an

exquisite masterpiece.

Coptic Cristian women and girls

are often abducted

and kidnapped.

On the 17th of August,

they declared me a Muslim,

and a couple of days later a

marriage contract

was drawn up in a car.

While the state does nothing

for Christian girls being

abducted and forcefully

converted into Islam,

Muslim converts to Christianity

face terrible consequences.

Muslim converts to

Christianity in Egypt,

and they are not few,

face a lot of persecution.

Muslims who wish to convert to

Christianity are often arrested,

and there's usually a

pretext given that's not

because they converted.

They'll say something like

sedition or something else.

And it can get to the point

that you get killed.

A PEW research survey

finds nearly 90%

of Egypt's Muslims believe

those who leave

Islam should be killed.

After I finished

my high school

I went to the law school in

Alexandria to become a lawyer.

I witnessed the persecution

and the discrimination

that took place against

the minorities in Egypt.

Especially the Christian

minorities in Egypt.

Which make me wonder why

there is persecution

happening to the

Christian minority.

It's my belief that you don't

torture or persecute somebody

unless you are scared from

the truth that they carry.

I started to read the Bible.

I started to believe in

Christianity.

I converted from

Islam to Christianity.

[sound of water]

On August 15, 1998,

I was arrested.

I was taken to Abu Zabel Prison,

what we call back

home "hell on earth,"

and I was tortured

for seven days.

[Gasping for air]

From shaving the

hair of my head,

to putting my head in

cold and hot water,

to hang me upside

down,

beating me, releasing

dogs to attack me,

to crucifying me for

two days and a half.

And at the end, they

made a cut in my

my left shoulder to the bone,

and they put salt and lemon

in the open wounds.

I don't know how many

people believe in miracles,

and how people doesn't

believe in miracles.

Before they released the three

dogs to attack me, I prayed.

And when they released

the three dogs,

the three dogs refused

to attack me.

They are trained to

listen to their master.

But it is in my opinion there is

no higher master than Christ.

And that's how

God saved me

from these three

dogs attacking me.

And this was

my miracle.

Until now I have nightmares.

My nightmares is not

about my torture.

My nightmares is about when

they put me in the prison.

It was a torture section.

It was underground.

And there was another nine

rooms besides my room

that they used to

torture the people.

And you could hear women getting

raped, men getting tortured.

And they would scream from pain,

and they would ask for mercy.

Until now, I can hear

them in my sleep.

The Egyptian government charged

me with three charges.

that I tried to

make a revolution

against the

Egyptian government,

that I tried to change the

official religion of Egypt

from Islam to Christianity,

which I didn't,

and that I love and

I worship Christ.

And I will tell you what I

told the judge in this day.

If loving and

worshiping Christ

is a crime, I am

guilty as charged.

And after that they give me

a death penalty,

which usually take

place by hanging.

After that, I was able to escape

before my death

penalty take place.

I escaped to Sinai.

And when I escaped to Sinai,

my friends told me

you cannot leave the country.

You are in the black list,

and you cannot escape to

any other country, really,

because Egypt is surrounded

by Arab Muslim countries.

So if I went to Libya,

Sudan, Saudi Arabia

all of these countries

will re-arrest you,

will torture you,

will send you back.

So the only country

that was not Arab

Muslim state was Israel,

the Jewish state.

And what I know about Israel

or the Jewish people

at that time, that the enemy

of my enemy is my friend.

It was simple logic.

So I took a jet ski and was

able to escape

from Taba to Eilat and I

became a free man in Jerusalem.

Many people aren't aware

that even Muslim minorities

are persecuted by

their fellow Muslims.

[bomb explosion]

A deadly car-bomb

attack at a mosque,

the explosion rocking morning

prayers and killing four.

Muslim Sunnis are

persecuted by Muslim Shi'ites,

in such places as Iran or Iraq.

Shi'a militias have killed

dozens of Sunni civilians.

Attacks against towns or

Sunni mosques are frequent.

And Muslim Shi'ites are

persecuted by Muslim Sunnis

in places like Saudi

Arabia and Bahrain.

A suicide bomber struck at a

Shi'a mosque in Saudi Arabia.

You're talking about

a disease that

is not affecting one

group alone,

but it's affecting everybody.

And that's something might be

controversial to some people

but this is the fact.

We cannot change realities.

This is the fact and we have

to protect these people.

Of all the non-Christian

minorities facing

persecution today, the

persecution

of the Yazidi people,

who've lived in Iraq

for thousands of years, is

possibly the most

painful to witness.

When thousands of Yazidis

fled an ISIS onslaught,

many brought with

them horrific memories.

According to a United

Nations report,

ISIS then gathered all males

older than 10 years of age,

took them outside the village

by pickup trucks, and shot them.

But the women suffer a fate

that may be worse than death.

Sold into slavery, sometimes

many times over,

to suffer unimaginable

brutality.

Captive women have been

bought and sold across

Iraq and Syria, like cattle.

He showed me a letter and said,

This shows any captured women

will become Muslim

if 10 ISIS fighters rape her.

Then Noor says he raped her.

After that, he gave

her to his friends.

She says each one raped her.

How many men did he pass you to?

One day there were

14 girls with me.

They tried to kill themselves

by drinking rat poison,

but they took them to the

hospital

and cleaned their stomach.

They told us, "We'll not

let you die so easy."

We're talking about child

sexual trafficking,

the rape and the sale of

children on a stunning scale.

They captured all of us.

They separated my

husband from me.

They forced him onto his

stomach and shot him twice.

We experienced

horrifying things.

The most difficult was seeing

women and girls

taken to be sold.

They took one girl for three

days. Ten men raped her.

She was 12-years old.

Someone grabbed me

and took my baby.

He said, "This is not shameful.

Now you're my wife."

They locked me and

my baby in a room.

He was crying.

There was no water

I shouted and banged

on the door.

I broke open the door.

I gave water to my baby.

I took a deep breath.

I closed the door and ran.

We had a lot of difficulties

until we reached safety.

When I got to the Kurdish

police, I called my brother

and he found me.

After, we decided

it's impossible to stay.

We must leave the country.

So we began preparations

all the papers and everything,

so we could travel.

Four or five days after

I was released,

my husband was in his car

coming back from work.

My son and I came out. We saw

another car behind him.

Four people got out.

They grabbed him.

They didn't ask for anything.

They beheaded him.

The threats kept coming.

"You must leave the house,

your stuff, your cars."

I decided I had to take my

children and escape.

Right when I decided to get

out, they came to me at night

three or four guys.

We had gold and

money in the house.

They took it and gave me

24 hours to leave.

So I had to take my children

and get out of Syria.

After my son saw his father's

beheading, he stopped speaking.

Syria is famous for its

churches and monasteries.

Lots of places you can pray.

I heard about a Monastery of St.

Takla. High in the mountains.

So I went up there barefoot.

The whole way up, I was praying

and crying.

During this time I also

lost my father.

I said, "It's over.

I've lost so many.

I just want my boy,

my child to speak."

And the very next morning,

he woke up, and he said,

"Mom, please make

me breakfast."

I was so happy.

I didn't want to travel.

I wanted to go back.

But while in Syria, I heard

about all the killing in Iraq.

I realized it's not

possible to go back.

And then I was approved to

come to the United States.

It was wonderful because my

children finally had a future.

Those who are able to

escape from ISIS

did not

do so unscathed.

Every refugee I've spoken to

has been left with scars

from a horror that they

will never forget.

Everybody fled Qaraqosh.

Everybody locked the doors

on their houses and fled.

They left all their

belongings and fled.

After ISIS took over,

the problem worsened.

They cut off our electricity.

And then they cut off our water.

And then they cut off the

supplies to our area.

After about two months,

when the army retreated,

ISIS invaded a little

after 5 in the morning.

[explosions]

My brother was running. He had

gone to the security forces.

He said, "ISIS is

going to invade."

We were scared to death.

The Peshmerga fired their guns

in the air to wake people up.

[gunfire]

So everyone packed

their things and we ran.

ISIS attacked with mortars,

which landed in

the middle of town.

[explosion]

The town was besieged.

[explosion]

[screams]

After that happened, we escaped.

We were seven people

in one small car.

my two children, my husband,

and my relatives.

The road was packed. Cars

bumping into each other.

Both sides of the road became

one direction, to flee.

Even the median was

packed with cars.

Any path that had room

had cars on it.

We had a very old car. I put my

children in and we escaped.

At the main road we saw the

bodies of dead children,

men and women who

had been killed,

corpses on the side

of the road.

I believe they shot over 100

bullets at us.

Many bullets hit my car.

The sound of bullets

was nonstop.

You didn't know if they were

hitting enemies or friends

You didn't know if it

would hit you

you or where it came from.

We were anxious for 11 hours.

Add to that our fear,

and the sound of children

screaming and crying.

I mean, the women, we

didn't know if at any moment

we might be captured

or we might escape.

My son kept telling me

that they will kill us

I kept calming him, saying,

"No, they don't kill us."

Eventually, we were all crying

uncontrollably and

just terrified.

We didn't know what to do.

We were low on gas.

[car beeping and

explosion sounds]

And our car had

about eight people.

The car was scraping the

ground.

Finally, we went off-road.

The car would've gotten stuck.

There had never been

a car there before

We cleared rocks by hand

and drove through.

People were fleeing and

leaving their homes behind.

Will they die of starvation?

Will they be killed?

Will they be sleeping

in the streets?

They didn't think.

They just fled.

Just running, car after car.

People just running and crying,

crying because of what happened.

That's how it was.

We felt like we looked

death in the eyes.

Though I'm here, I'm constantly

thinking of our people.

It's still hard to sleep.

They are all I can think about.

We think of their fear,

how they were killed,

and all that.

We fled and took what we

could because we were terrified.

We left behind most

of our things.

We fled with our wives,

our daughters,

our children, to escape ISIS.

We left our lands.

We left our memories.

We left everything and

ran for our lives.

The world many times over

has vowed "Never again,"

and then another atrocity comes,

and we say, "Never again".

If we're going to

say never again,

then we should actually

do something.

Often people will say it's so

overwhelming to read the paper

or to hear the news.

And they say what

can one person do.

There is a certain frustration.

I will be the first

to admit that.

Sometimes when you

see a massive problem,

you feel helpless.

You really don't know

what to do.

If people are opening their

hearts and minds to this,

and are learning about this,

they cannot walk away saying

we'll pray for them,

and we'll feel bad for them,

and that's all we can do.

You have a voice. And doesn't

matter how small is your voice.

You can make a difference, even

if you are just one person.

What we try to do is connect a

system where we can connect

from abroad to the homeland.

If somebody in the U.S. or in

Europe wants to

send any kind of help or

any kind of direct impact,

we're basically like a bridge.

I mean, that's our strength,

is abroad,

and if they can help us to

strengthen ourselves

in our homeland, y

ou know, why not?

There's a cry for

help from here.

And you know, these small

things like coloring books,

something as simple as this

a five-year-old child

will remember it forever.

And that's what we

try to focus on,

just making the kids forget

about their situation

for a couple of days.

Thank you.

[acoustic guitar]

[kids singing]

This new wave of ISIS is

not something new.

It's something that we've dealt

with for a very long time.

This is how,

the Middle East went from

being really Christian majority,

which most people don't even

know at this point,

to being almost entirely

Muslim in certain areas.

And so they're in fact,

there is regions right now

that have no Christians at all

that a century ago they did.

It's pretty much

unless something

fairy dramatic is done,

we will see the extinction of

Christianity in that region.

We're watching a real genocide

unfold in real time.

And when something happens

on the other side of the world,

we know it immediately here.

And that knowledge bears

with it responsibility.

All that is needed for

evil to triumph

is for good men to do nothing.

There are some things in life

that are worth fighting for.

Freedom is worth

fighting for.

Okay, protection of your

family is worth fighting for.

Stopping genocide is something

worth fighting for.

They are taking our land.

They are killing us, and no

one is paying attention to us.

Look at these people.

Why are they being killed,

forcing them to emigrate,

making them flee.

And the most powerful countries

are just sitting

and watching us.

And nothing is being done.

Why?

Why is this happening?

Let them stand with us.

"One hand can't clap

on its own."

Let them stand with us.

We will not be

silenced regarding our rights.

[Acoustic Music]

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