Kurd picked as Interim President, could be good news for Christians

Iraq (MNN) — With Sadam Hussein watching from his jail cell, the newly elected national assembly named Jalal Talabani as their Interim President. This is the first democratically elected leader in more than 50 years.

Voice of the Martyrs, USA Todd Nettleton says, “The interesting thing about this is that Kurds are one of the minority groups in Iraq, not one of the majority groups like the Muslim groups (the Shiites and Sunnis), so hopefully what this means is that Iraq’s minority peoples are going to be given freedom, are going to be given a voice.”

With the deadline of August 15th to have the country’s constitution written, the question is: “How will it look?” Nettleton says, “As they are forming that constitution I think it will be very important for us to watch and see, particularly in the area of religious freedom, of how the constitution will treat minority faith groups, including Christians.”

Nettleton says evangelical Christians say the time is now to ‘grow’ the church. “The church there has said, ‘This is a time where the doors are open. We have relative freedom from what we’ve had for the last few years.’ They are really determined to make this a time of great ministry (and) and time of great growth.”

Iraqis appear to be ready to hear the Good News. Nettleton says, “There is a great openness to the Gospel. I saw some videos from one of our teams handing out Bibles on the street and people were flocking to them. In times of war, in times of upheaval, people are asking questions of an eternal nature.” And, Christians have those answers.

People are needed to help send Bibles and Children’s Bible stories to Iraq. Volunteers are also needed to supply action packs to believers there. Click on the highlighted link above to get connected.