No Shortage of Sorrow on Earth

            

This is the photo which has been noticed by so many.

         There is no shortage of sorrow on this Earth.  This week, a picture of a small boy who appears asleep on a beach in Turkey tells a much more sorrowful story.   Following his kidnapping, Abdullah Kurdi decided to get his wife and his two small sons Aylan 3, and Galip 4, out of Syria.  He had tried to apply for refugee status for the family, to Canada where his sister,  lived in Vancouver and was willing to sponsor the family.  Apparently, the Canadians say the forms were not correctly filled out and so the family was not seriously considered.  In their desperation, Abdullah took the family on a boat to Turkey.  Heavy winds overturned the boat and twelve refugees died.   Abdullah's wife Rehen, Galip 4, and Aylan, 3 all drowned in the twenty minutes in which Abdullah struggled in the water to save them.

              Aylan's body was deposited on the shore in Turkey looking like a child peacefully sleeping on his tummy. He was picked up by a Turkish policeman where his picture was taken  Worldwide the pictures of Aylan have spurred sorrow and outrage.

Aylan and Galip in happier times. They were precious boys indeed.

               Today,  Rehen, Galip and and Aylan have been buried in Syria.   Abdullah as the only survivor of his family wants nothing more than to sit at their graves, read from the Koran, until a now welcome death comes to him too.  

                Please pray for this man.  I can remember well the days which followed the death of my own young son, and wanting to simply evaporate is a common yearning.   Please pray that he is supported in this terrible time. He has elected to stay in Syria where the family has now been buried.

                There are no easy answers with regard to the floods of refugees coming from the Middle East and from Africa.   Many countries can't feed and educate the people they have, and they cannot take more of them.  Then again, I so wish Abdullah's family had found his way to his sister's home in Canada or to somewhere else without war.  Please pray for all the little children tonight making a journey with parents and grandparents.  May God find them a place on Earth without war and without hunger.