Lins Honeyman spoke to Craig Parkes about the Scottish charity Steadfast Global and the album he and musical friends have recorded as STEADFAST GLOBAL BAND

Whilst it would be reasonable to expect a crisis of faith to occur due to witnessing the hardships that have been forced on countless people, it appears that the opposite is true. "Being over in Iraq hasn't made me question my faith," Craig asserts. "Instead, it's made my faith stronger as I get to see other Christians living by faith in difficult circumstances. We always think we're good Christians but, when you see some of the people and the work they're doing, it does make you assess how strong a Christian you are and what you're going to do to make things better in your own land when you get home. Being in Iraq hasn't made me question God, it's made me question myself more than anything. When you come home, you want to do things that little bit better for the Lord."

I ask Craig if it is difficult to reacclimatise whenever he returns to Stornoway. "It is a culture shock when you come home," he admits. "When I came back the first or second time, I remember sitting in our living room with my wife and tears were rolling down our faces. I was sitting looking around at everything we had and I realised that 48 hours ago we were sitting in a tent with people who had nothing except the set of clothes they were standing up in and another set on the line. It takes a few weeks to get used to being home again."

It seems that thoughts of Northern Iraq are never far from Craig's mind as he recalls a life-changing experience he had when he was recently working in the area which in turn became the inspiration for one of the tracks on the 'Songs And Poems From Iraq' album. "We were doing the Christmas blessings I mentioned earlier and we went into this one village. I saw a girl who was away from the rest of the crowd, sitting on the tailgate of an old battered jeep. I nudged one of my colleagues and pointed out the girl's face and eyes. Just looking at the expression on her face, we knew there was something the matter but we didn't get a chance to speak to her right then. Towards the end of what we were doing, we asked if we could speak to her with a translator. We were told that she and her family had been chased out of Mosul after living there all of their lives. The mother was taken by ISIS and abused and raped before being set on fire. She was then dumped by ISIS and a local church got her out after the father had received a phone call from ISIS to say that they'd dumped her at the side of the road. The church then phoned the father to say that she was in hospital but the family weren't able to get to her before she passed away.

"It was just a very, very sad and humbling experience to hear that story," Craig adds, "and that's where the song 'See It In Their Eyes' on the album came from. I was sitting in the hotel room and the words just spilled out. We have a picture of that girl on the Steadfast Global newsletter and I look at it every once in a while. When you're sailing along with life and thinking everything's tickety-boo, it does me good to remember the day we met her because it brings you back down to earth. It's a real reminder of what life is really like over there. These are the kinds of people that we really want to meet with, give a Christmas blessing to and sit and pray and cry with. Jesus would have done exactly the same - he would have gone into that village and given them what he could and that's what we try to do."

With every song and poem on the album being inspired by his time over in Iraq, I ask Craig to give some background to another song that stands out for him. "The song 'The Flag' came about from that photo with the ISIS soldiers standing next to the '12 kilometres to Duhok' sign," he explains. "One side of the mountain looks out over Duhok and, on the other side, you can see Mosul Dam in the distance. One time when I was up there, I just sat on a rock on my own looking out over the two views and I could see in front of me a Kurdistan flag - red, white and green with the sun in the middle. I was looking at that flag fluttering over the town and my mind was thinking of the 12 kilometres picture. Duhok is covered on three sides by mountains with a valley that goes into the town and that's the way ISIS tried to get hold of the area. The Peshmerga fought ISIS off about 10 kilometres from Duhok and I was thinking that, if they hadn't fought them off, there would be a black flag flying over the town instead of the Kurdish one I was seeing. That night, we were going to a Bible study with the guys we were working with and I asked one of them to explain a bit about the flag. He explained that the red was for the blood of the fighters, white for the colour of the sky, green for the fertile land and the yellow for the blazing sun and that's where the song lyrics came from."

With Craig mentioning areas that played host to a number of Old Testament prophets, walking on the same ground as them must also have been inspiring. "It was inspiring," he confirms. "We were at a place called Alqosh and that's where Nahum the prophet's tomb is. That's on the side of the mountains and you have the Nineveh plains right before you. These are Bible lands and it's where prophets like Nahum and Jonah walked - the evidence is there. As you read your Bible, it's all there in front of you and being there makes it that bit more real."

Whilst very few Christians in the western world will venture to places like Northern Iraq, I ask Craig what the believing community back at home can do to help support the persecuted church overseas. "When we do a presentation, we always say that people can first and foremost pray for the work of Steadfast Global and for the people that are there and are suffering," he states. "People can also tell other Christians about what we're trying to achieve. It's amazing - there are still a good proportion of Christians who don't really know about the persecuted church. At the end of our presentation, we say that it's between each individual and God what they do now with the information they've received. Our job is to impart the information and tell the stories of what we've seen first-hand."

In closing, I ask if a follow up to the 'Songs And Poems From Iraq' album is in the pipeline. "We've been back once or twice since and not a single word has come," Craig laughs. "I had the notebook and the pen out but nothing came despite seeing things that moved me every day. I'm fine with that - it makes the album we've done all the more special."