We’ve all seen the images of the people the media are calling the migrants, walking from their homeland of Syria to try and find a better life. Men; women; children; some babes in arms.
My heart breaks for them. So many of us turned away from the image of the lifeless 3 year old boy’s body, washed up on the shore because it hurt so much.
It was a picture that for many would change their heads and hearts. This child could be anyone’s: mine, yours. Would you turn away if he was your son? Would you want the world to turn away if he was your son?
There are so many comments flying about in social media about the great migration. We are seeing history made in our lifetimes. And yet so many comments are negative and hurtful. These people are people, just like the rest of us. They are not trying to win over a quick entry pass to enter another country. Given the chance they would opt to stay in their homeland, but they are fleeing for their own safety and the safety of their families. Their worlds have been turned upside down over recent years, with war, terrorism, death on their doorsteps. They don’t just hear stories of terror; they have lived and witnessed terror first-hand.
Would you stay or would you run?
If you watched your husband beheaded in front of you, would you stay or would you run?
If you knew staying meant your wife and daughter will be raped at knifepoint, would you stay or would you run?
If your son was being coerced into an extremist terror group, would you stay or would you run?
If your children couldn’t go out to play for fear of them being gunned down, would you stay or would you run?
Could you live a life overshadowed by fear?
These people know the risks of getting on an inflatable dingy trying to cross the Mediterranean sea. They know they play roulette with their lives and the lives of their children as soon as the money passes into the hand of a trafficker offering to help them escape. They know the dangers ahead but staying offers just as much danger if not more. How would you prioritise the risks? Could you even begin to imagine how desperate a situation you would have to be in to even contemplate making the decision of walking away from everything you know?
These people don’t need our judgement over what’s wrong or right. They don’t need discussions over whose fault it is their country is under the hand of ISIS. It doesn’t come down to politics, religion or culture; it comes down to us being human and the fact that this is NEVER acceptable.
My faith is nothing if it isn’t love in action. So there will be no head turning in my house. We jumped to action as soon as we heard there was something practical we could do. We searched our house for clothes, shopped for toiletries and food and got packing. You wouldn’t believe how many coats were tucked in our coat stand that no longer fitted and needed a new home. A new home in a refugee camp for someone in desperate need.
The whole situation reminded me of stories my Nan told of the evacuee children coming to Wales from London in World War II.
I remember thinking how scary it must have been for these children to be placed with strangers while the war was happening and how exciting it must have felt for the families welcoming them into their homes.
Then Sunday Pope Francis calls people of every faith to open their doors and host a migrant family. It’s time for us to stand up and practice what we preach. The message #RefugeesWelcome has started to be scattered across social media. Our doors are beginning to open and our country is saying ‘Yes’.
Our Prime Minister is making plans to welcome some of the orphaned and vulnerable children from the refugee camps and we say, ‘Our home is their home, we open our doors to them.’ We each need to do our part. We laughed this morning when I asked my daughter how we'd manage sharing our bathroom if we took in 5 refugee children. I don't know where the number came from but filled with love, she replied, 'I think 5 may be too many to fit in this house. How about 1 or 2 or 3?' Our hearts and homes are open already.
The Assembly Member in my area has organised a donation collection point and stepped up to show we as a county care.
A local pub has offered their back room as a collection point so people can drop off their donations at a local point. Already people have started filling the space to show their support.
Our church has started a collection for Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders)who are on the ground offering medical expertise to some of the most vulnerable refugees.
Together we stand UNITED.
UNITED Kingdom - #RefugeesWelcome #WeWelcomeRefugees
There will always be some who question it all and claim it not to be right, but my question to them is, ‘if terror took hold in this country, would you stay, or would you run?’
