“Many refugees have told terrible stories of persecution: like the man whose brother, a priest, was kidnapped – and despite the family paying the ransom they killed the priest. They sent his family a box containing his severed wrist, tattooed with a cross, to show he was dead."
“We’ve been forgotten. We’ve been forgotten by other Christians, and we’ve been forgotten by the big international players. Christians on the outside should help us to be able to preserve Christian lands.”
“Our Muslim neighbors attacked us when the fighting started. I can’t forgive them. They destroyed everything we had.”
Every night, Ramola prays for peace in her country, hoping that everything “goes back to normal.” With that in mind, she tells the toddlers of the house about the life they once had, about the happy life they once shared in Syria, but she won’t hide the truth as to why they had to flee.
“We’ve heard so many stories of how they got here … the hardships they went through. Many today behave as though they’re still at war. The games they play are violent, aggressive. They sometimes hit each other, pretend to have guns. At the beginning, they’d refuse to take part in games such as dancing, because they wanted action, to play war.”