War is hell.
When it ends do you just pick up where you left from. Go back to the house you lived in. Buy coffee from the people who attacked you. It's a game changer. A world that is pulled away from beneath your feet leaving you alone, destitute and permanently amongst strangers.
The strength that remains turns towards survival. Clinging to the little that you already possess and the ones you travel with. Their safety become paramount.
This week a family I know prepare to reunite with a daughter, a sister next week.
They were separated in the aftermath of a cruel war that claimed a brother and son and a husband and father. Shortly after the mobs came for more. Violating. Stripping dignity from this family. Helpless. Alone.
They are thrown out of their home. A battered mother and her four young children. A son and three girls. The youngest; a few years old. Their neighbours turning upon them.
The war ends.
Their lives are overturned. No going back. Spending the next few years in a slum like community. The peace keepers remain.
The mother is given an option to spare her youngest this life that ensnares them. The poverty is more than cruel. It's cold. It's hunger. It's hopeless. It's loneliness. It's boredom. It's powerlessness. It's welcoming the stares of pity. Salvation, however, is offered to spare her child. To give her a future. To allow her the chance to grow up free from this place. The decision: to allow another to take the child and raise them.
An indecent proposal.
Painfully and reluctantly she accepts under conditions to keep in touch. To allow a return and access to the daughter & sister.
The family say goodbye.
The deal doesn't work out. They are palmed off after. They misunderstood their terms and were misled. A family ripped apart once again.
It's hard to find anything of hope in all of this. Sometimes it seems the only thing to do is to stop and just sit down with each other. No words.
This week I've been asked to pray as well over a decade later this young girl, now a young lady, returns to her family.
One of the sisters said "Soon my dream will become reality and that's all thanks to God."
In our prayers.
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