Refugees Are Suffering

Every volunteer contributes a drop to the ocean of humanity, and it is certainly true that the ocean would be less without these drops. It is so easy to look at the big picture; to see the thousands of suffering people, and forget that we can only do small things with great love - that the one person we serve at a given moment is Jesus. This was definitely apparent when on Christmas day we served food to thousands of people who queued so patiently at the church. This is a passage from an email I sent home: "There is a chilly cold in the air at the moment, and as I walk to work past bodies wrapped in sheets on the pavement - I realise how close to that first nativity we are here. when we give out blankets as we were this morning ... this is Christmas ... not fairy lights and tinsel. I find myself seeing the Holy Family on every pavement in this city - poor, needy and vulnerable; whole families surviving in this cold weather, on a patch of dirty pavement - one day to the next, one year to the next. They aren't busy preparing the turkey or wrapping last minute presents. They haven't sent any christmas cards this year, or decorated a tree. These babies know nothing of Santa-Claus, they don't have a stocking to hang at the end of their bed - yet they have something many people with all of those things will lack this Christmas. Perhaps it sounds cliched, but Mother Teresa was right, here people share ... they huddle under the same blanket; they share the little food they have with their neighbours. There is no room at the Inn for them either ... they live in the cold, rejected by the world - and they do so with humility. I was reminded this morning as we gave out blankets and rice, of the queues around the world in shopping malls at this time of year. People waited so long for these essential items, which they received with such gratitude. It is a lesson to us all