On April 28th, 2016 the Holy See hosted an event at the United Nations about stopping mass atrocities against Christians and other believers in the Middle East. There, Jacqueline Isaac, the Vice President of Roads of Success eloquently shared an unforgettable story.
Jacqueline was describing how some parents with children in captivity received knocks on their door. When they opened the door they found plastic black bags with the body parts of their daughters, and a video. On the video was footage of their daughters being raped and tortured. Something no parent should ever have to witness. Then she told a story of one mother who got a knock on the door.
“A story of a beautiful mother named Rita. A Christian woman from Mosul also got a knock on her door.
The ISIS foreign fighters were at her door and they told her, “You have two choices. You are to leave now or pay the jizya.”
She said, “I will pay give me a few seconds my daughter is in the shower.” They said, “you do not have a few seconds,” and they lit the house with a torch from the bathroom their daughter was showering in.
Their daughter had four-degree burns. Rita took her daughter trying scrambling doing anything to save her. Rushed her to the hospital and her daughter died in her arms but do you want to know the last thing that Rita’s daughter said? “Forgive them.”
Forgive them. See in the midst of darkness there is light and it is that light that has us sitting here today because when there is light, there is hope.”
ISIS is trying to rob Christians of their dignity and their humanity. In the most unimaginable circumstances one girl did not let them succeed. She was burned alive and yet she entreated her mother to have mercy on her aggressors. She found the light in the darkness.
Jacqueline’s full testimony is in the video below.
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