How a small ray of hope illuminated the darkness of a Syrian family at Christmas
The faces of the seven children seem sad and serious. Somewhat tense, they sit next to their parents on the worn sofa. The living room has bare, light brown walls, from which the plaster is peeling off in large chips; In many places you can see the masonry. The children and their parents look uncertainly at the visitors. They do not usually receive visitors, and even less so from the West.
Could you talk about your situation? Your daily experience? These are the questions posed by a small delegation from Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), as they settle on the sofa in front of them. It is the only way for Syria’s countless anonymous stories, all equally grim, to go from abstract statistics to concrete faces and names.
Christmas
In low and hesitant voices, the parents speak, while the children remain silent. The father made his living as a vegetable merchant, but then the civil war began. In Kashkoul, the Damascus suburb where the family lives, there were many explosions, the mother says. Rockets flew over the rooftops. With nowhere to run, they had no choice but to hold out in her apartment, hoping that they wouldn’t get caught, that the nightmare would soon pass. Sometimes, on calmer days, the father would open his small shop to sell some vegetables. But over time, that became impossible: the danger was too great.
“Even now, after the war, this area is not safe,” the mother explains, pointing to the eight stitches on her eight-year-old son’s arm. Four weeks ago, a boy cut her with a razor while she was playing in the street. It was probably not deliberate, but nonetheless, this is not a good area.
Overall, the post-war situation is even worse: the currency has lost a lot of value and, without ACN’s support, the family would not even be able to pay the rent. Since the day before this interview, the children had only eaten a piece of bread, and without ACN, that would be the case more often. “There is no hope here. The situation gets worse every day,” says the father, with sunken eyes. The mother adds: “The only thing I ask God every day is to protect my children and give them something to eat.”
Suddenly, the mother composes herself and gestures to her six-year-old son, saying, “There is something I want to tell you about Milad.” She explains that on Christmas Eve last year, Jesus appeared to her in front of the dilapidated, peeling wall and the worn sofas. Milad got scared and started crying. When she told her parents why she was crying, her father reassuringly told her: “Milad, everything is fine, you don’t have to be afraid. “Send a kiss to Jesus.”
Before disappearing, Jesus promised Milad—whose name means “Christmas” in Arabic—that he would visit him again the following Christmas. Since then, Milad often dreams of Jesus. Her mother says that he has become more tender and that, thanks to this event, a little hope has come to the family.
We may never know if Milad will see Jesus again this Christmas. But we can pray that the family will always know that to Jesus, they are not simply one of the countless anonymous stories, and that He is always with them, even when they cannot see Him.
—Sina Hartert
2023-12-20 05:41:22
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