Father Ajim: A priest ready to serve
ISIS may not be in Germany, but we are all affected by the destruction it has caused and continues to cause. Millions of displaced refugees live in Germany alone. The almost 900,000 new refugee registrations in 2015 were the highest point in our country to date. The cultural face of Europe has changed rapidly in recent years, and we have no idea what the long-term effects will be. Little remains of the great Christian heritage of the once important city of Mosul, the Nineveh of ancient times.
Help for fleeing orphans
Father Ajim, a Catholic priest from the Christian city of Mosul, left the country when ISIS invaded and took control; Thousands were killed. But God entrusted Fr. Ajim with a mission: take care of the orphans fleeing destruction!
Christian children from many IS cities flocked to his orphanage in Alqosh. A Baghdad boy lost his parents because his father, a Christian shopkeeper, sold alcohol – reason enough for their Sunni neighbors to kill him. Six-year-old Chris an has seen so much destruction that he was petrified – unable to move – during the almost non-stop explosions and gunfire heard 20 kilometers away in Mosul. The only way for Father Ajim to calm him down was to wrap him in his arms. Only by rocking him back and forth and repeatedly reminding him of Jesus’ love did he manage to bring the boy back to consciousness.
After arriving in Zahko, he worked tirelessly until he found a Christian family to take in each child. After finding homes for all the children, he turned his attention to their continued Christian education – a greater challenge than ever before in this war-torn region of northern Iraq.
Christian education for reconstruction
Father Ajim quickly realized that he himself urgently needed additional training to meet these demands, and so he traveled to Rome.
Just last year, Father Ajim came to the Pontifical University of Santa Croce in Rome to continue his own studies. He will then go back to his country and help rebuild it, this country in which life and faith were almost completely destroyed.
If we want to help heal this world, we must bring Christ to it, we must give it well-trained priests. Then priests like Father Ajim – who is ready to teach, to make the love of Jesus of Nazareth tangible, to administer the sacraments, to heal this world and to sacrifice everything – can pass on the Christian faith to the children. So that a future becomes possible for them.