Across thousands of miles
to an uncertain future

A volunteer at the bookshop in Melilla, run by the Bible Society of Spain, tells the story
behind a casual encounter

MELILLA (enclave of Spain in North Africa) — One day in October last year two Africans, both in their mid-twenties, came into the Bible Society bookshop in Melilla. Thompson and Hama are two of the 750 or so illegal immigrants or refugees from sub-Saharan Africa whom the Red Cross here are currently looking after. Over a cup of coffee, they told me their stories.

Thompson had left his home in Uganda more than two years before and it was a year since Hama, from Niger, had seen his. Each had reached the point where they could no longer bear to see their families in hunger and poverty, and so they determined to cross Africa, start a new life in Europe and send home whatever money they could. The two men met while hiding from the police in the Moroccan desert and, as both are Christians, they soon became friends.

Slept in the open

By then each had entered five countries illegally; on their way through, they had slept in the open or packed into the back of trucks; they had seen friends die of exhaustion in the desert and seen others shot; at times they had begged in the street and at others they had been forced to eat roots and leaves to stay alive.

The last hurdle that awaited them on their arrival in Morocco was to scale the infamous fence – six metres high and covered in razor wire – forming the frontier with the Spanish enclave of Melilla. It didn’t leave them unscathed: when jumping back down to ground level on the far side of the fence, Thompson broke his leg. After trying repeatedly for seven months, they finally achieved their goal of entering Europe – in a political, if not a geographical sense.

Clear faith

Whilst I was struck by their clear faith and love of God, I must admit to feeling uneasy at the thought that these brave and resourceful brothers in Christ had deployed cunning and military-style manoeuvres to evade capture and press on.

Yet the God they love and seek to honour through providing for their families, is the same God whom I love and seek to honour through helping people in North Africa hear the Good News.

When they first came into the Bible Society shop they hesitantly asked if I had an English Bible to sell them. I offered them two, but No, they said, they only needed one. But their surprise on realising the Bibles were free turned into delighted smiles.

“Then two Bibles, please!” they said.

If I were thousands of miles from my family and had – literally – nothing, what would I try and get my hands on, I wondered.

Desperation

God taught me a great deal that day; Thompson and Hama may have acted illegally, but they acted out of sheer desperation. Leaving home and family to travel a great distance to an unknown fate and having only God to trust for guidance and survival is not an unfamiliar concept to the Christian. These men wanted only one thing and, thanks to the generosity of God’s people elsewhere, we were able to give them a Bible each.

We met in Melilla, but as each of us knew full well, even after all they had been through, their journeys were far from over. After an indeterminate period, Thompson and Hama would be sent on to somewhere else in Spain for further ‘processing’ – or be returned to where they had come from. (WR 401/11 - 04/05.06) [1 photo]