Six Friends, Seven Miles, 69 Million Refugees

After three hours, we reached our destination,
the Rockingham County Fairgrounds.
(selfie by Amanda Basinger)

Earlier this year I had planned to walk eight miles from our house to the Rockingham Fairgrounds on my 80th birthday (June 30 of this year) to help raise awareness of the needs of refugees worldwide. That plan was circumvented when I learned I needed double bypass surgery, a procedure I had done on July 5 at the University of Virginia Medical Center.

Thanks to a remarkable recovery, a couple of weeks ago my friend Mark Keller (second from left in the photo) and I agreed to try to get some folks together to do a Prayer Walk For World Relief that would start at the Virginia Mennonite Conference Center near EMU and go to the site of the Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale taking place this Friday and Saturday, October 4-5. We were particularly interested in promoting the goal of raising $50,000 at the SOS (Sharing Our Surplus) Giving Table for MCC for world refugees, in addition to other funds raised at the event through food, auction and other sales.

Joining us for the Walk were Aldine Brenneman and Miriam Troyer Basinger of Harrisonburg (far left and far right in the photo), our son Brad,  who came all the way from Pittsburgh to support his Dad's effort, and Amanda Basinger from Stuarts Draft, Miriam's daughter-in-law.

The fall weather was warm for such a walk but spirits were high, and a stop for reflection and prayer every mile or so made the trek quite do-able. Mark had prepared a prayer guide that focused on refugees in each of seven different regions of the world, Syria (6.7 million), Afghanistan (2.7 million), South Sudan 2.3 million), Myanmar (1.1 million),  Somalia (900,000), Sudan (725,000) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (720,300).

All of us came away sober and tired but none the worse for the wear, each realizing that our walk was nothing compared to the plight of millions who have had to flee from their homes with only their children and whatever else they could carry with them--and most for far more than a mere seven miles.

In the face of such need, $50,000 seems like a paltry sum, the price of a couple of donuts and a cup of coffee for each of the 10,000 or so attending the Sale each year.

May God have mercy on all of us who are blessed with such abundance, but especially on the nearly one in 110  people who are displaced, homeless and often hungry around the world.

We are intended to be the living expression of God's mercy.

https://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2019/04/top-ten-reasons-to-support-our-fall.html