Casa Futura – a place of safety and security for Copts in Italy

Casa Futura – a place of safety and security for Copts in Italy

By | 2015-04-30T15:13:27-04:00 April 30th, 2015|Static Pages|0 Comments
Dear Voice of the Copts friend 
 
We see it on the news every day, the relentless campaign of terror against the ancient Christian communities of the Middle East — the pillaging, burning, raping, the selling of young Christian girls into slavery, the murdering of souls simply because they are Christian souls. 
 
The crimes are unspeakable. Along with many martyred individuals we are seeing the extermination of Christian communities that have stood for centuries. 
 
Egypt’s Coptic community is one of the largest of Middle Eastern Christians. Their quiet suffering has endured for millennia, but survived they have. However, with the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and other militant Islamic groups, we have seen their churches destroyed and their faithful undergo mass persecution. The news media blunts the swords and the West appears helpless or just ignorant as a multitude of Christian lives perish. 
 
Many Copts are leaving Egypt just to survive. Even as I write this, they are fleeing anywhere they can to find refuge. Many who have been victims of this persecution and forced to flee are young. Their entire futures are at risk because families have been torn apart or killed and their homes decimated. 
 
Some of these young people are children of neighbors or friends from my childhood in Egypt. 
 
As you know, my name is Ashraf Ramelah and my organization is “Voice of the Copts.” I was born in Egypt and grew up in Cairo. I remember a time when life for Christians there was difficult and full of challenges, but was still free from the reign of terror that has been so recently unleashed on my brothers and sisters and their children, young or unborn. Those days of relative peace are long gone. 
 
It is my mission, the mission of VOTC, to provide a place of safety and security for fellow Copts, especially the young. We all need to raise awareness, to write and speak out against the persecution of Christians around the globe. There is a growing concern. 
 
But you can help us now to do more than speak. You can help us actively implement a plan, supported in part by the European Union, to build Casa Futura, a live-in facility in Rome, Italy. 
 
Casa Futura will be a refuge, a safe haven for some of those who have suffered this terror and whose families have perished. We will help them adjust and start a new life in a strange land, but a land where they can be safe in their beliefs in Christ and proud of their heritage while learning to live in a new home. 
 
We need your help today. I appeal to you to join this life-saving effort. 
 
Faithfully, 
 
Ashraf Ramelah