With his beautiful fourteen-month-old son perched in his lap, Bilal lamented the current state of his life.
Fleeing from Homs with his wife and small daughter.
Moving from one dilapidated, price-gouging apartment to the next.
Having their baby on foreign soil.
Loss of family.
Loss of friends.
Loss of community.
Loss of home.
But he smiled as he showed us pictures his Whatsapp account. Several cousins had fled through Turkey and then paid brigands to smuggle them across the Mediterranean and into Greece. Now they were in places like Sweden, Germany and Italy. One friend, smile beaming from Bilal's Samsung screen, had made it all the way to Florida...to the promised land!
Bilal is now dreaming of taking that same journey. He wants to cross the sea to new opportunities.
To freedom.
To safety.
Images of Aylan Kurdi, the three-year old whose body washed ashore in Turkey, after he, his brother and mom drowned while trying to cross the Sea, flashed through my mind. I asked about his family but Bilal just smiled. "What can we do? I cannot stay here. My life is over but not theirs [nodding toward his small children] is not."
We spent the afternoon with Bilal. Sharing stories, prayingl, listening and sipping tea.
Thousands of Syrian Refugees are making this decision each day. Do they go overland to Macedonia or Hungary? Do they wait for a call from the UN saying they've been approved from resettlement? Bilal, he wants to go by boat. Please pray for them.
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