Stuck

Believe it or not, there are refugees in this country - 15,000-20,000 of them! Only about 800 are recognized by the UN since it has a very narrow definition of what a refugee is. Most of them come from sub-saharan Africa. They are mostly economic refugees dreaming of a better future - in Europe, that is. They cross the Sahara - 1/3 of them dying along the way, and straggle into this country after having been abused and misused all along the way by the mafia-like groups who help get them across. Then they wait as close to the coast as possible for a chance to get to Europe - by boat, as stowaways on ferries, etc. Only about 1/10 of them make it. The rest are caught. There is huge pressure from Europe on this country not to let the refugees make it.

And so they wait, many of them for years, in the forest. Stuck in a country they don't want to be in and in a country that doesn't want them. They are set up by country - over here is Nigeria, several hundred meters away is Congo. Over there is Burkina Faso. Chad isn't home today, let's pass by. They camp under tarps, shivering in cold their African bodies have never experienced. Our church group bought a bunch of blankets and went to hand them out to those in the forest a few weeks ago. I really felt completely useless - I didn't even carry any blankets. But part of our purpose was to listen and to pray with them. And that we did. So many hard stories. But again, we were more blessed than they were. At the last stop, we walked in and the group of men gathered around and in their amazing, booming African voices sang songs like "Where would we be without you, Jesus?" What a beautiful experience.


This is the closest we'd ever been to the Morocco-Algeria border; the longest closed border in the world. No, they are not good friends, for many reasons which I won't go into.

After this day we went on to the beach town of Saidia for the night before Eid - when all through the night, the doomed sheep bleeted. Then we were awakened at 5:00 AM to listen to TWO hours of the Eid special "God is Great" Yes - I know - He is great - now can I get some sleep??? Then when we finally conceded that sleep was but a dream, we got up to three sheep being slaughtered in various directions as seen from our windows. We watched them put the bike pump into the stomach to bloat up the sheep so it would be skinned easier I suppose. That's when we decided we should head back home!

What an odd mix of a weekend. Refugees - cold - blankets - songs in the darkness - sheep - calls to God - the remembering of an ancient event - and back home, to our comfort zone -