SYRIA: Reliable sources inside the country report four ambulances destroyed and five medics killed—shot execution-style by the side of the road—while attempting to evacuate wounded near Ras al-Ain (or in Kurdish, Sere Kaniye). Faith-based aid workers are on the ground assessing the situation and relayed a call by the self-administration zone in northeast Syria to “open a humanitarian corridor” for civilians trapped inside Ras al-Ain.

SYRIA: More than 200,000 civilians have fled Turkey’s invasion of northeast Syria, and at least 40 civilians have died—and Turkey-backed militias appear to be committing war crimes as they advance.

In his 20s, a man we shall call Bill read that Turkey was the largest least-evangelized country in the world. He thought about Paul, the disciple of Jesus Christ, who described in Romans 15 a vision of seeing the entire Mediterranean world—“from Jerusalem to Illyricum”—evangelized. And he adopted it as his own calling, to go where “those who have never been told of Him will see, and those who have never heard will understand.”

The Trump administration has announced a new ceiling for refugees admitted to the United States, starting with the new fiscal year Oct. 1. For 2020 the maximum number allowed will be 18,000 refugees, slashing a ceiling that for 40 years has averaged 95,000.

Historically the United States does not meet its own admissions ceiling, and it’s hard to see the Trump administration reaching even this new low. In 2018 with a ceiling of 45,000 refugees, admissions stood at 22,500, and admissions in 2019 will number about the same.

SYRIA: Turkish forces launched a bombing campaign across northeastern Syria on Wednesday, targeting civilian areas and killing Syriac Christians. Turkish bombardments appeared to target Christian sites and neighborhoods, including Mar Gorgios Assyrian Church in Qameshli and the town of Nusaybin, actually in Turkey but containing the oldest church in the region.

Turkish forces launched a bombing campaign across northeastern Syria on Wednesday, targeting civilian areas and killing Syriac Christians. 

The bombing campaign, launched less than 48 hours after a phone call between President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, appeared to target Christian and Kurdish enclaves in the cities of Qameshli, Kobani, and others. Shelling also hit the border town of Nusaybin, in Turkey, where the oldest church in a region once dominated by the earliest Christians is located. 

IRAN: Yousef Nadarkhani, an Iranian pastor serving a 10-year sentence in Tehran’s Evin Prison, has gone on a hunger strike after officials barred his son from attending school. Fifteen-year-old Youeil has refused to take Islamic education classes.

Nadarkhani is part of a lengthy list of Iranian clergy jailed for their Christian faith.