Little Zachariah went to be with the Lord May 27, 2022.

Zachariah and his younger sister were handicapped, physically and mentally. They lay in their tent every day, unable to speak, to move, to have a conversation … the two with their elder sister Fatima, age 13, their mom, and their grandma. They had no identity documents. Their father had died in the Syrian war, and they all now lived together in a refugee tent, the three children cared for by their mother. Few years ago, Nexus coworkers began visiting them regularly, spending time with the children and family, helping them every month buying diapers, milk, meat, and fruit juice. The family would wait for our visit every week, and the two handicapped ones knew us.

Together they experienced eleven years of handicap, hunger, and war. Although “outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18). Through the eyes of these three children, we have seen the “Perfect Christ.”

The last time we visited their family, Zechariah had a high fever, diarrhea, and a declining immune system. He was very underweight, and his condition had become worse than his elder sister’s.

On this visit, Zachariah was very weak and feeling depressed. He didn’t smile. When he saw us, he didn’t get excited as he always had before; and when co-workers tried to made him to laugh, they couldn’t. We prayed and gave him a bracelet with the name of Jesus on it. We said, “Jesus is with you and He’ll never leave you. He loves you!” Finally, Zachariah smiled. It seemed God had spoken to him through the coworker.

A few days later, their mother telephoned us, weeping, “I’ve lost my child. I took the kids out in the sun so they could get warm, but pretty soon I looked at Zachariah and saw that he wasn’t moving or breathing. I realized he had died already, but I left him there and ran to a telephone, not wanting to believe it. I called the Red Cross. They came and they told me he was already gone.”

His handicapped younger sister Haifa was devastated. She hasn’t been eating since her brother’s passing, and her health situation is getting worse.

Congenital Heart Disease and Atherosclerosis

The older sister Fatima (age 13) has congenital heart disease and atherosclerosis. In 2018 she had a heart operation at the hospital. But recently when she began feeling unwell, a medical exam showed that the operation had closed the hole between the heart’s two lower chambers but had not opened her blocked arteries.

This week she didn’t come to Nexus Center for school, and she urgently needs another heart operation. Please continue to lift up this family. And lift up the countless people all over the world who have no ID papers — people not seen by anyone, the “unseen homeless wanderers.”

Dear Zachariah — little angel, you can rest! You have changed us — we learned much from you! God has His ways to work — ways we don’t agree with … ways we don’t understand — and now God has taken His little angel home early! We love you forever!

“Jehovah is good, a Stronghold in the day of trouble; He knows those who take refuge in Him.” (Nahum 1:7)

Sincerely,

Johnny

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