What would you do if woke up one morning with nothing? What if you had to leave your neighborhood and home behind, just to stay safe?
You use the last of your savings to buy a bus ticket and travel with an incomplete family to a new place in hope of a better life. But when you arrive, you end up with just as many hardships and troubles, struggling daily just to survive. This is the reality of the Sudanese refugees living North African countries.
Hope for MENA had the opportunity to visit the Zaki* family, a Sudanese refugee family from the Nuba Mountains in North Sudan. They had to flee when their tribe was scattered due to persecution and violence.
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The family
Although the family felt happy and relieved upon their arrival to North Africa, they worry about family members left behind in Sudan, still in a place of despair. The family consists of a single mother and her six children. Her eldest son is Amass, a student who also works as a house cleaner to help support the family; Amass dreams of becoming a doctor so that he can help the poor. His five siblings are Lina, Asheroff, Sammy, Sarah, and Kier, whom are all within elementary school ages. All the children are polite, a little shy at first, but very friendly once they get used to you.
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The inhabitable living conditions
The family’s living conditions seemed inhabitable, though they seemed pleased to be out of their last place – a burnt down apartment building, complete with ash heap.
Their “step up” was a rundown, concrete building. One walks up to the second floor and enter the apartment through a weathered, grimy door with no doorknob. The kitchen boasts a stove that looks to be from a garbage dump, an old sink against the back wall, and a small shelf holding a few cooking utensils. No food is to be found except for a small amount of oil in a can standing on a windowsill.
The next room had a single bed with a broken frame and a thin, dirty, worn out mattress. There were no pillows in sight, and a single blanket was shared among the six of them. The only light in the bedroom came from a “window” (more like a porthole), letting in sunlight for about five hours a day.
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The work started…
Once the Hope for MENA team saw the need in this family, they came up with a plan and got to work. Two young Sudanese men joined the team as we started to clean and fix the apartment.
By the time the younger children came home from school, we had finished painting most of the walls. Lina’s face lit up when she saw the colours of the walls in her room – purple and pink! Sarah broke into a smile as she caught up to her sister to admire the room. There was still work to do, so the smaller children were herded ontothe cramped balcony to color.
Within two days, all the walls were painted in colours chosen by the family, lighting was installed, water pipes were repaired, and the family was given two new mattresses, pillows, blankets, a table, dishes and silverware, cups, towels, soap, toothbrushes and toothpaste, and food to last a little while.
‘We came, we saw, we worked, and we left our mark, not only on the wall but also in the hearts.” - said one of the team participants.
Yet, the best gift we were able to give them was an Arabic Bible. Upon receiving it, Amass immediately started to read it aloud. What a treasure that can give hope for a brighter future! When we asked Amass how we could we pray for him, his only request was for the salvation of his brothers and sisters in Sudan.
Without God, this family would truly have nothing. But because they can rely on Him in the toughest of situations, they believe in a brighter tomorrow, filled with hope sustained through faith. So let us be lights in this world and shine God’s love in the darkness through our actions
Please consider supporting a refugee family like the Zakis.
*Name changed