Voices from Syria
As a preacher I occasionally wake up in a cold sweat and wonder what it would be like to lose my voice. How would it feel, I wonder to be robbed of this one thing which allows me to influence the world, one soul at a time? On November 28th 1992, the day I was Ordained, the preacher quoted from Judges where “the Spirit of the Lord ‘clothed himself with Gideon and blew upon the trumpet”. Be that trumpet – is what he told me.
When refugee numbers soar, and our minds grow punch-drunk with the statistics, one of the things which happens is that we lose the human voices in the statistical noise. Who can hear one man or one woman. or the tiny voice of one child against such a wall of noise? One of the things which Tearfund does is to give people back their voices. Listen to them here as one speaks from the three bedroom apartment he shares with five refugee families in the Lebanon:
- Only God knows what is happening to us in this house
- We left our homes carrying nothing, no money, no food, no clothing, only the things that we are wearing, that’s all.
- I have an appointment with UNHCR but not until 11 June
- My sister is 23. She used to pray every day but since she got sick with her eyes she is doing nothing.
Click on the image below to see what you can do to help the people in the picture below, and thousands like them.
