Aylan Kurdi* has been haunting the world this
week. Images of the three-year-old-boy washed up on a Turkish beach has likely done more to communicate the
nightmare that is Syria than any rhetoric, reporting or study from in the last
half-decade. (I will not post the picture, but it can be seen on the provided link) He and his family were among
the masses of Syrian refugees fleeing their hell by putting faith in ferries, smugglers
and the prospect of life in Europe. It’s
a journey that I am aware of. A number
of my refugee friends have asked for my thoughts as they consider taking the
trek. I’ve heard the step-by-step breakdown
of a voyage that many thousands are taking successfully and many other
thousands are taking tragically. The
Syrian crisis has been going on for years and sucking millions of lives into
its terror. Now it may finally have a
name: Aylan.
I have painfully journeyed with this crisis from its
offset. My Syrian relatives have been
tossed into displacement while friends and loved ones have been lost to the
conflict. I have spent countless hours
listening to the refugees’ stories of plight, pain and despair. This is not new news to me. Despite all this, the picture of a three-year-old
on a shoreline opened my eyes to new depths of war’s true evil.
When I first saw the image of Aylan’s small,
lifeless body resting on a sandy beach I immediately thought of my own infant daughter. So often I see her in the same position sleeping
peacefully in a bed far removed from any encounter of violence and chaos. I know that she will arise from her sleep,
but Aylan never will. He joins the countless
babies, infants and children that have been taken by the vicious manifestations
of this civil war. They are both the true
innocents and the primary victims.
I can only uncomfortably wonder what it must feel
like as a man to take the risk of putting my wife and baby in a dingy boat and surrendering
them to the mercies of the waters with the hope that they will arrive to a
better place. How terrible could a
situation be to take such a gamble? How broken
must it all be to compel me to make such a move? I pray I never find the answers to these
questions.
Aylan’s story reminds me of another story from ages
ago. A young Hebrew mother in Egypt was
surrounded by an unthinkable carnage that threatened to strike down her baby. Faced with systematic killing by a ruthless
regime and murderous operations by terrorizing militants, the mother placed her
boy in a basket, set it in a river and surrendered the precious life to the
mercies of the water in the hopes that he will arrive at a better place. It was an act of faith-mingled-with-desperation
by a mother that had nothing and everything to lose. The baby, a beautiful boy named Moses,
journeyed well and eventually landed in the care of Pharaoh’s family. There in the courts of royalty Moses found a
promised land that would preserve him so he could someday lead his people to
the Promised Land.
Aylan did not arrive to his promised land. He was taken by the waters and spit out for the
entire world to see. But Aylan is not
unlike Moses for neither was ever truly at the mercies of waters, but at the
mercies of the living God. The flights
of the two children may have met differing outcomes, but God is not a god of
the outcome; he is a god of the overcome.
The hope for Aylan and every innocent life cut down by this world’s
ruthlessness is that God has overcome death through Christ and a cross and a
empty grave. It’s the only hope any of
us can claim of arriving at the final Promised Land.
This month Dar El Awlad will take new children into
its programs. Many of these will be
among the millions of Syrian children that have had their lives turned upside
down by displacement, death and destruction.
They bear scars that we cannot even begin to understand let alone
heal. But we trust in God’s mercies and the
unfailing love that has the power to restore and transform. We try to do our part knowing that He is ever
faithful to do His part. Our prayer is
that we can be a type of ‘pharaoh’s’ palace, a place of protection and
provision as God prepares these children for the plans set before them.
I wish I had no idea who Aylan Kurdi is. If lament that his family were in a position
where risk on the seas looked more promising than life on the land. I do not want to see any child’s life placed
in the mercies of the waters. I want all
refugees to return to their homes and rebuild their nation. In the meantime, I pray we at Dar El Awlad
can help alter few narratives from hopeless to hopeful and make ourselves part
of the solution rather than simply observers of the problem.
*Aylan’s real
name is in fact Alan Sheru. Kurdi was used by the Turkish press to note his ethnicity, and the name has
carried on in the press.
