We Escaped like a Bird from a Hunter’s Snare

As part of the GAiN (Glibal Aid Network) Disaster Relief Team, Andrea Wegener (Agape staff member in Germany) was in Iraq when IS gave Christians in Mossul an ultimatum: leave the city or be killed. Many of them left immediately, heading for Erbil, and some ended up sharing the same apartment where Andrea and other aid workers were staying.

During her first visit in fall 2014, she experienced first-hand how the refugee crisis became more dangerous every day as IS militias took more territory in Iraq, causing tens of thousands of Christians and other minority groups to flee. Andrea met personally with numerous people, taking time to listen to and then write their stories of terror, being violently chased from their homes and towns, fleeing, and also faith in God. For Christians in northern Iraq, this is a familiar pattern that did not just begin with the rise of IS. Another trip to Iraq in 2015 gave her the opportunity to hear more stories and gain insight to write this book.

Now she has compiled these experiences in a new book, Entkommen aus dem Netz des Jägers – We Escaped like a Bird from the Hunter’s Snare – taken from Psalm 124:7. In her new book, Wegener highlights the challenges, losses and hope of Christians fleeing the terror of militant Islamists through a mixture of reports, personal portraits and historical outlines of events leading to the current situation.