MAFRAQ, Jordan – American doctors and nurses on a medical mission to Jordan are performing badly needed surgeries and other medical treatment free of charge to thousands of Syrian refugees who can no longer afford basic health care.

ZAHLE, Lebanon – Balancing boxes and bags filled with warm clothes for his family, Malak Elias Mnayeri waited for a taxi in the near-freezing temperatures outside Caritas Lebanon's center in Zahle, close to the Syrian border.

Before Christmas last year, Wartohi Myrdijian had to worry about the bombs falling on either side of her house in Aleppo. She was most afraid of the crude, unpredictable, improvised bombs that came from the ISIS side of the conflict.

Christmas is a season of joy and hope but of the two hope seems harder to find.

Will Month 13 unsettle thousands of Syrian refugees who have already settled in Canada?

OTTAWA – A Senate committee has given mixed reviews to Canada's resettlement of thousands of Syrian refugees and warns government action is needed as sponsorship funding draws to an end.

QAA, Lebanon – When a series of bombs exploded in a Lebanese Christian village near the Syrian border in June, it not only changed the lives of the victims and their families, but also the lives of Syrian refugees living nearby.

VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis said those bombing civilians in the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo will be “accountable to God” for their actions as he renewed his appeals for peace amid an intensifying civil war in that country.

TORONTO – In just 100 days beginning last Sept. 8, the Archdiocese of Toronto raised $3.7 million and formed 105 volunteer groups in the hope of sponsoring at least 100 refugee families from the Middle East. Those sponsorship committees actually launched 154 applications to bring refugee families to Canada. A year later most of those refugee families are still living in limbo in Lebanon and Jordan while their paperwork piles up in Winnipeg.

TORONTO – For those looking to understand the situation in Syria as war continues to ravage the country, Fr. Henri Boulad suggests turning to the final book of the Bible.

VATICAN CITY – At a luncheon that was part reunion and part progress report, Pope Francis invited 21 Syrian refugees to join him at the Vatican Aug. 11.

It was February 2015 and American singer-songwriter Audrey Assad was working with fellow Catholic artist Matt Maher on his new album. She was sitting in Maher’s backyard when she came across the shocking video online. Twenty-one Egyptian Coptic Christian men were about to be beheaded by the Islamic State on a Libyan beach.

MANCHESTER, England – The Catholic Church in England and Wales has joined a government project to resettle an estimated 20,000 refugees from the Syrian war.

While many countries in Europe have sealed their borders to refugees, Germany has done the opposite. Last year, the country registered more than one million asylum seekers, including 425,000 from ravaged Syria.

TORONTO – The next generation of leaders needs to be informed about the plight of refugees, said Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace youth council member Amanda Cacilhas.