Source: Mission Network News, September 1, 2026
Police arrested Pastor Nihad, the director of Kurdish ministry for Horizons International, while he visited northern Syria in late July.
“Our vision was to go and gather [Kurdish believers] together, see what the Lord is doing among them, see how open their friends and family are, and start to pull them together in gatherings,” says Horizons’ Executive Director Pierre Houssney.
“But Pastor Nihad wasn’t there long before some people stirred up trouble for him. They incited the government based on the internet crimes laws in Syria, which are very strict but usually unenforced.”
As the Lord often does, He turned a troublesome time into a gospel opportunity.
“Pastor Nihad was able to share his faith in jail. He was surrounded by people who were actually protecting him and treating him with dignity,” Houssney says.
“In the prisons, there are a lot of extremist factions, and so it’s a miracle that God protected him throughout that time.”
Quick legal action secured Pastor Nihad’s release, and he returned to his young family roughly two weeks after his arrest. However, questions now surround the future of church planting efforts among the Syrian Kurds.
Horizons International has ministered among Syrian Kurds for several years, combining humanitarian aid, evangelism, discipleship, and church planting. By 2021, entire churches in Lebanon were made up of Syrian Kurds who had come to faith through ministry among the displaced.
The full story includes photos and links to related news along with questions about what is next for the Kurdish church in Syria.
From East Asia: Please take a moment to pray for several believers in China’s Yunnan Province who were to be on trial today (September 16) for organizing illegal (house church) gatherings (Back to Jerusalem).
See also a short but sweeping article on the broader topic, The History of Christian Persecution (Global Christian Relief).
Another sweeping article explores The Modern-Day Prayer Movement, how God is orchestrating a historic phenomenon of worship and prayer on the earth in our generation (Presence Pioneers Media).