While our earlier update last week stated we did not currently have an open door to help in any immediate quake-affected areas, a door suddenly opened to help. What a difference a week makes!

This past week we’ve been hard at work coordinating a relief truck to deliver aid to about 100 families in Aleppo, Syria. This is a city already devastated by years of war, and further destroyed in the recent earthquake. The quake, though having its epicenter in Turkey, was not far from this area of northern Syria, and thousands have died there.

Due to our ongoing relief efforts with Syrian refugees in this region, by God’s grace we found the right connections to coordinate a truck from our host country to deliver to families in Aleppo affected by the recent earthquake. We had a lot of prayer, and a lot of help from local Christian organizations on the ground here and in Syria, which helped open this door to provide help to these quake victims!

The relief truck arrived a day ago in Syria loaded with about 5 tons of food, vitamin rice, blankets, thick comforters and mattresses. We did not have an inch of space left on the truck after loading it up!

There were over 900 blankets loaded up, along with 75 thick comforters, and as many floor mattresses as we could squeeze in the remaining areas. We got 200 food bags packed for families that included lentils, cooking oil, cracked wheat, pasta, tomato sauce, canned meat and other items.

We were able to load up about 1.6 tons of vitamin rice (approx 3600 individual bags) donated to the relief truck effort by a local group here which are family-servings of rice with essential vitamins infused into it. This is produced by a group called LifeRice based in Minnesota. This is something very important right now as local food supplies are struggling in quake-hit areas, and this rice fills a nutritional gap.

Just as importantly, this initial relief effort has helped build contacts on the ground in the quake-affected areas. It’s been done through partnering evangelical organizations for the witness of the compassion of Christ to hundreds of quake victims, distributed to all who have need regardless of religious background.

We do not know how long, or how wide, this door into Syria will remain open. As God enables us to keep helping, we seek to continue to do so. Pray for potential future teams to travel there to further assess needs and opportunities to serve in this new, difficult, dangerous and terribly needy field.

Thank you again for your prayers and support. This is a work bigger than any of us, but not bigger then God or His church! If you wish to be involved in any way, you can support TGI via our site, sign up for our relief updates e-mail newsletter to better know how to pray, or contact us if you are interested in knowing more about how to be personally involved.