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Dr. Hanna Massad was born in Gaza City and after graduating from Gaza High School, he worked in a private hospital for four years before God called him into the ministry. He was the first local pastor at Gaza Baptist Church where he pastored the church for 12 years. He went on to be the founder & president of the Christian Mission to Gaza (CMG). After the murder of his friend and fellow church member, Rami Ayyad, Hanna, and his family, along with 8 other families, evacuated from Gaza.
Christian Mission to Gaza (CMG) serves as one of the very few Christian organizations among nearly two million Muslims in one of the poorest and most densely populated areas of the world—an area that the United Nations warned recently would be uninhabitable one year from now.
The Gaza Strip is about the size of Las Vegas, with more than 3,000 people packed into every square mile. Forty-five percent of the population is made up of children under 14. Only three percent live past 65. Less than 10 percent of the water is fit to drink, with seawater, sewage, and chemicals contaminating Gaza’s overloaded aquifer. Electricity is available for only about four hours a day. Three out of ten people live below the $1.90-a-day poverty line. And eighty percent depend on charity for food. Among the 2 million Muslims are an estimated 1,000 Christians. Gaza Baptist is the only Evangelical Church.
At the same time, the CMG team works with more than a thousand Iraqi families and Syrian refugee families in Amman, Jordan. More than 100,000 Christians fled their homes in 2014 when the Islamic State invaded Mosul. The ones who remained were forced to convert, obey Sharia law, pay oppressive taxes, or face public execution.
Iraqi Refugees in Jordan are not allowed to work, so they desperately need rent and school money, food, and medical care. They have been traumatized by the invasion of ISIS terrorists into their communities and homes and by the loss of family members and neighbors. In addition to meeting their physical needs, Pastor Hanna and his team minister to damaged souls and spirits, which is even more vital to their survival and recovery.
Dr Hanna Massad holds a Bachelor’s degree from Bethlehem Bible College, a Master of Divinity degree, and a Ph.D. in Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. While studying at Fuller, Hanna pastored the First Baptist Church of Azusa. He now lives with his wife, Suhad, and two daughters, Joyce and Jolene in Connecticut and travels to Gaza & Jordan three times a year in order to support the church there, where he & his team help around 1000 Iraqi refugees’ families in Jordan (5000 individuals). Dr. Massad travels around the world to share the stories of these families, raising awareness and much-needed support.
The Massad family currently resides in the United States, where Suhad is a Biology and Chemistry high school teacher, and Joyce is a Senior in high school, in the high school graduating class of 2023. Jolene is in the high school graduating class of 2024 and Pastor Hanna serves the mission from the United States and travels to Gaza and Jordan 3 times a year.
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