Kingdom Come

God told Daniel Leal to go to Syria.  He knew it was dangerous, but the prompting of the Holy Spirit was strong.  As a result he was the first Westerner to gain photographic evidence of the massacre which took place in Tremseh recently.

It was a Kingdom Come London prayer event organised jointly by 24-7 Prayer and Holy Trinity Brompton which propelled Daniel Leal into the bloodbath at Tremseh where a hundred and fifty people were killed on the 12th July.  I invited everybody to cry out to God for the situation in Syria, but sometimes I secretly wonder how much difference it really makes.  When we see the scale of the terror on the screens, the size of the tanks, the power of the military hardware, it’s hard to imagine that our little prayers can make any difference.

But as we prayed Daniel experienced a clear call from God to leave London and somehow try to get himself into Syria.  He didn’t know why.  Daniel obeyed and his evidence of the massacre has been featured by the world’s media outlets with interviews for the BBC and Al Jazeera, and photographs published in The Times, The Guardian, Le Monde and many more. 

When the Syrian Government tried to attribute the atrocity to rebel forces, Daniel was able to testify that he had seen clear evidence of a scale of military hardware which only the government forces possess.  Kofi Annan, the former Secretary General of the United Nations and official envoy to Syria, described the attack as ‘an atrocity’ and as a result within four days The Red Cross had upgraded their assessment of the crisis in Syria to that of Civil War.

In 24-7 we often talk about the link between intimacy and involvement, prayer and mission.  In this story we see how one encounter with God can change everything.  Daniel became Christ’s witness in a terrifying way that has now impacted ten thousands of people around the world, shifted public opinion and potentially helped to galvanise the political will to engage more assertively in Syria.