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Walking Holy Week with refugees


Our church sanctuary has been transformed overnight.  Instead of a conventional worship space with rows of comfortable chairs, the space is criss-crossed with anti-climb heras fencing and barbed wire.  Fixed to the fencing are beautiful black and white images of migrants from refugee camps in Calais and Lebanon.  The photographer has sought to re-create the stations of the cross through images of the people he met in these camps.

The photographs were commissioned by Premier Christianity: www.premierchristianity.com .  Their website explains:

The Stations is an artistic re-interpretation of the traditional 'stations of the cross' through the images and stories of today's refugees. Creative director Marksteen Adamson met and made friends with many of the refugees he photographed in Lebanon, Calais and the UK.

I've walked through the exhibition once and I'm planning to go again - there's just so much to take in.  This morning I was most struck by the story of a Syrian refugee who is caring for her two disabled sons in a tiny flat in Lebanon.  I cannot imagine the difficulty of taking her children, aged 17 and 24,  on the dangerous journey from a war zone to their current temporary home.  Christ carried a wooden cross; she carried her children.  They are a precious burden, whereas Christ's burden was a terrible one; nevertheless, she knows what it is to struggle under a load almost too great to bear.

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