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Good morning. I have a friend who has just this week returned home from holiday in Greece. His resort was on a small island a short distance from the coast of Turkey, and he told me of the steady stream of refugees seeking asylum in Europe by travelling from Syria through Turkey to arrive on the shores of his holiday island, and many others just like it. Queues of refugees stood in the sun outside the village police station to be registered. All they possessed was the clothes they were wearing. Among them were doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers – people whose faces no longer fitted at home and who had fled the regime for their very lives.
Soon a group of tourists banded together and organised the purchase of bottles of water. They made arrangements for some spare clothing to be made available for people who were just like them, but who now possessed nothing. Then the refugees were taken to Athens, and others took their place in the village square hoping to be invited in.
A bottle of water? A spare shirt? It’s not very much and it doesn’t begin to address the crisis – but then Jesus did talk about a way of living where giving a drink to someone who is thirsty and giving clothes to someone who needs them, and inviting the stranger in, even if it’s a small gesture is like doing it for him.
Lord for refugees who have lost everything today we pray. May it be that some will be found to give them a bottle of water, a shirt to wear and a welcome to a place of refuge. Amen.