How one Syrian woman discovered hope in a refugee camp

I visited Salma* in a poor suburb in Jordan, a stone’s throw from the Syrian border. Rubbish was piled high outside the building, but Salma smiled broadly as she welcomed me into her sparse first-floor apartment.

She beckoned me to a thin foam mattress on the floor – where the family sleep – and for an hour we sat, while she told me her story.

Salma's story

A few years ago, Salma and her husband ran a shop in Syria and lived a comfortable life with their seven children. When fighting began in their town, they left the country.

It was only an hour away by car, and they intended to wait until the skirmish died down, then head home. But that was three years ago. Their city is now rubble. The family lost everything.

Since she’s been in Jordan, Salma has relied on help from Bible Society to survive. Our team helped her find the flat where we met, they gave her food for the family. And, after a while – for Salma was a Muslim – they invited her to church.

‘I began attending the women’s group every Wednesday,’ Salma told me. ‘We studied the Bible and shared our worries. We spoke freely from the heart. It was at this group that I really met Jesus. It was also here that I received a Bible.’

‘The Bible is everything in my life.'

Salma

After a year of love, prayer and support by our team in Jordan, Salma became a Christian. Pointing to her heart and leaning toward me, Salma said, ‘My new faith comes from within.

'Completely from within my heart. I have never known that before. I have taken Jesus to me.’

The risk

It can be risky for Muslims to convert here. Salma tells me about a man whose wife left him when he became a Christian, and he ended up living in his car.

But for Salma, the risk is worth it. ‘Belief in Jesus makes life worth living, even though I own nothing,’ she said. ‘The Bible is everything in my life. I’ve changed. I believe God brought me here from Syria, to go from dark to light.’

It must be so easy for refugees like Salma to be bitter. But as I left that bare apartment, I had a sense of the remarkable power of God to turn sorrow into joy, to bring hope where there’s despair.

* Name changed to protect her identity

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