Skip Navigation

Journey to Baghdad

By S.G.D. with John Garrison* 8/27/03

Could a country be transformed? Could water run in the desert? In May, just weeks after the official close of the war in Iraq, an ABWE team drove to Baghdad to answer those questions. Four ABWE missionaries, one candidate missionary, and two interested parties were assembled to survey the need for aid in Iraq and research future ministry opportunities.

Finding a Way in

There were no flights into Iraq. The only way into the country was to cross the border from Jordan on foot or in a car. The roads to Baghdad were dangerous. In the power vacuum after the war, bandits had seized control of the desert roads, self-styled Ali- Babas who laid in wait for unsuspecting drivers, then robbed them at gunpoint.

First, the team needed to find a way to cross the border. They traveled to Amman, Jordan, where they met their contact, a man from a Bible society, who rented cars for them and procured passes. They knew only his first name and face. He handed them money to cover the expenses of the journey, $5500 in cash, saying, "You can pay us back when you return."

The team left Saturday night, at midnight, hoping to cross the border at 6:30 AM. At the Jordanian border, they saw their first glimpse of the Iraqi border, presided over by a massive portrait of Saddam Hussein, still intact. It was the only picture of his face they would see in the entire trip that hadn't been defaced.

"Is This the Day I Die?"

After passing the scrutiny of the American soldiers guarding the border, the team crossed. They tore through the desert morning, crossing mile after mile of sand. The driver of the team leader's vehicle had just navigated a hole in a bombed-out bridge, much bigger than the Chevy Suburban, without slowing, when he came to an abrupt stop on the other side. Without explanation, he jumped out of the vehicle.

"Odd place for a pit stop," thought some of the team members. Within moments, however, eight cars had materialized out of the desert. They screeched to a halt, surrounding the team. Their lone drivers, all young Arabs, leaped out. The drivers gesticulated, yelling back and forth.

A question flashed through the team leader's mind. "Is this the day I die?" He looked at his wife. Minutes ticked by. The yelling continued. Who were these men? Were these the notorious "Ali-Babas" who lay in wait to seize drivers and their vehicles? Had the team been set up?

Then, without a word, all the men suddenly jumped into their cars and sped off. In an instant the team's cars were flying at 100mph in the center of a pack of ten cars. Clustered three abreast, just feet from each other in all directions, the cars merged and melded fluidly, their drivers motioning frequently and barking to each other, darting and racing now ahead, now behind.

"No," realized the leader, "This is not the day I will die. This is our convoy escorting us to Baghdad. They are weaving around us to make sure we won't be cut off by bandits or guerillas."

Across the Desert to Baghdad

The convoy covered the 350 miles from the border to Baghdad at a blistering pace. Where they traveled near the Euphrates River, they could see glimpses of green as they tore past. But away from the river, the desert was utterly bleak. Sand upon sand, without a single tree or shrub or stone to distinguish it. The windshields were a khaki blur. They wondered how the drivers could navigate. Nearer Baghdad, they began to see destroyed tanks, vehicles abandoned by the road, smashed flat. On the edges of the highway ran long trenches, dug out by the Iraqi army.

Coming into Baghdad, the convoy was suddenly surrounded by crowds on all sides. It was impossible to move. Cars were packed bumper and bumper. People were everywhere. The team grew tense, aware of their vulnerability. What had happened just ahead? Would they be recognized as Americans? They pulled down the blinds in the cars, slumped down into the seats. But it was only a traffic jam caused by cars queuing for the gas station. Since the war, petrol had been scarce.

The team arrived safely at the Palestine Hotel, where the journalists had stayed during the war. They met their guide, a former general in the Iraqi military who had fled the country after the Gulf War. He was a Christian and had directly defied orders to shoot three Americans shot down. He had gone into exile, and had now returned, hoping to rebuild his country.

Eye-Witnesses

Led by this ex-general, the team toured hospitals, bomb sites, neighborhoods and institutions for two days. They talked to U.S. Coalition officials and Iraqis, medical personnel, soldiers, and religious leaders.

They witnessed the precision of American bombing.The bomb sites they visited were flanked on either side by perfectly intact buildings. Hussein had put ammunition in schools and hospitals. The bombs destroyed the ammunition depots, without touching the buildings beside them.

In the neighborhoods and hospitals, person after person told them about the suffocating atmosphere of fear in which Iraqis had lived so long. Friends, relatives disappearing. The resources of the country drained, intellectuals exiled, institutions reduced to chaos, hospitals crumbling from want of technology.

A Great Need

Most of Baghdad's doctors, nurses, and educated professionals had fled the country, driven into exile by Hussein's tyranny. There is a dearth of medicines and medical supplies. The handful of medical staff that remained in the country had been working almost for free. There was no money for their salaries.

In the aftermath of the war, these dedicated few kept vigil in the bare, narrow wards of their hospitals with machine guns, defending the little remaining equipment from looters, protecting the patients. They did not want the hospitals to be overrun as the museums and government buildings had been.

The team attended a coalition force briefing for NGO's at Saddam's chief palace, where they listened to a health care briefing describing the medical crisis in Iraq. The 58 hospitals of Baghdad are badly in need of trained medical personnel. Schools and hospitals throughout Iraq are almost two decades behind in their practices. There is immense need for medical education to bring health care providers up to date with common medical advances.

In one large children's hospital the team visited, there were 500 beds. But no improvements had been made to the hospital's equipment since 1986. The staff badly needed instruments and training. Children lay in the beds, many dying of cancer, their conditions unable to be treated because of the lack of medicines. Like the majority of the nation, they were Muslim. They would die without knowing Christ.

Water in the Wilderness

One thing was clear: there is an immediate window of opportunity to demonstrate Christ's love to the people of Iraq. A great spiritual vacuum exists in the majority Muslim nation. Hussein had been toppled, and his absence leaves a void. The question is how it will be filled in the coming years. The desert can remain arid, or run with the water of life.

The team met Christians throughout Baghdad, members of five evangelical churches in Baghdad. In Jordan, they encountered Arab Christians, Iraqis who had fled the country, but now yearned to go back, to rebuild the country, to share the gospel with those they had left behind. There are nationals ready to partner with ABWE, not only in mobilizing medical aid and training, but in establishing a missionary presence that would open the door for a church-planting ministry in a formerly closed country.

At the end of their short tour, the team left Baghdad the way they had come, driving in a convoy. This time, though, one of the drivers kept losing the convoy. "Drive faster, go faster," the team leader exhorted him.

They all made it safely to the Jordanian border. They were thankful for the way God had protected them. All their contacts had been trustworthy. But they were somber, too, full of the need they had seen, and thinking already, "How soon can we return, how soon can we begin?"

Look for more about Project Iraqi Relief in the coming months. ABWE has put together a team of doctors, educators, veteran missionaries, businessmen, lawyers, and those trained to provide theological education. We are planning short-term programs to help rebuild the medical and educational infrastructure of Iraq, such as refurbishing the laboratories in a children's hospital and providing supplemental medical staff education.

Our team is also seeking to participate in an "Adopt A Hospital Program" jointly managed by coalition forces and the Iraqi Ministry of Health. Participation in these areas will work toward establishing long-term ministry in Iraq.

*Not his real name.