Syria: ‘Milad’ is Arabic for Christmas

How a little ray of hope brightened the darkness for a Syrian family at Christmas

The faces of the seven children look sad and serious. Somewhat tense, they sit next to their parents on the worn-out sofa. The living room has bare, light brown walls, from which the plaster is crumbling off in big flakes; in many places, the brickwork is showing. The children and their parents look at the visitors uncertainly. It’s not often that they get a visit, let alone visitors from the West.

Could they talk about their living situation? Their day-to-day experience? These are questions posed by a small delegation from Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), as they settle down on the sofa opposite them. It’s the only way that countless anonymous stories in Syria, which are all similarly bleak, can be transformed from abstract statistics into concrete faces and names.

In quiet, hesitant voices, the parents speak, while the children remain silent. The father used to make a living as a vegetable trader, but then the civil war began. In Kashkoul, the suburb of Damascus where the family lives, there were many explosions, the mother says. Rockets flew over the roofs. With nowhere to flee to, they had no choice but to stick it out in their apartment, hoping that they wouldn’t get hit, that the nightmare would soon pass. Sometimes, on quieter days, the father opened his little shop to sell some vegetables. But over time, that became impossible—the danger was too great.

“Even now, after the war, this area is not safe,” the mother explains, pointing to the eight stitches on her eight-year-old son’s arm. Four weeks ago, a child cut him with a razor blade while he was playing on the street. It probably wasn’t deliberate, but nonetheless, this isn’t a good area.

Overall, the post-war situation is even worse: the currency has lost a lot of value, and without the support of ACN, the family would not even be able to pay their rent. Since the day before this interview, the children had only eaten a piece of bread, and without ACN, that would be the case more often. “There is no hope here. The situation gets worse every day,” says the father, whose eyes are sunken. The mother adds, “The only thing I ask God for every day is that He protect my children and provide them with something to eat.”

Suddenly, the mother pulls herself together and beckons her six-year-old son, saying, “There’s something I want to tell you about Milad.” She explains that on Christmas Eve last year, Jesus appeared to him in front of the shabby, flaking wall and the worn-out sofas. Milad was frightened and began to cry. When he told his parents why he was crying, the father said soothingly, “Milad, everything is fine, you don’t have to be scared. Send Jesus a little kiss!”

Before Jesus disappeared, He promised Milad – whose name means “Christmas” in Arabic –that He would visit him again the following Christmas. Since then, Milad often dreams of Jesus. His mother says he has become gentler, and that through this event, a little hope has found its way into the family.

We may never learn if Milad will see Jesus again this Christmas. But we can pray that the family will always be assured that for Jesus, they are not merely one of countless anonymous stories, and that He is always with them, even when they can’t see Him.

—Sina Hartert