I was only a few years’ younger than his mother, when she handed him over to me. I was fresh out of school that day – a minibus picking me up from school and driving me to the airport; my school satchel slung carelessly on the back seat. We pulled up into the short stay loading bay, put on bright yellow vest with large fluorescing red crosses on the back, and waited.
They came out onto the airport forecourt a few minutes later, wheeling suitcases with clothing hanging out of the edges – evidence of what I was soon to learn was their narrow escape. We bundled them into the car, but the eldest child – a girl of no more than 10 with braided hair and big sorrowful eyes, whimpered that she needed the toilet.
That’s when she tapped me on the shoulder and passed me the baby; all dribbling and drooling. There was a permanent tiredness behind his eyes, a sort of apathy to the present as he drifted back to his daydream. I hugged him and sang to him whilst those he knew best came back.
We sat, staring through the windows, sharing the aching silence of language barriers, jet lag, and hope.
The family had travelled from Montserrat – evacuated just as the volcano erupted. They’d arrived into England with a few possessions tossed into a bag, and now clutched tightly by the scared children met at the airport by a kid in a school uniform and yellow hi-vis vest.
At the start of my ministry here in Manchester, I wonder what I’m prepared to hand over to strangers in my midst. I wonder whether I dare seek support for my most precious cargo; or whether I keep those things safe, preferring instead to stare out of the window and holding tightly to the hope that everything’s going to be OK.
In Black History Month, I wonder how I notice my power, and how I equip and enable those who are tired by systems stacked forever against them.
And as I now start to lean towards C-word planning, I’m reminded of a God who also handed humanity the precious cargo of a child. I wonder whether I dare see Jesus in some of the characters I face.
Black history month – give up everything
Bit like Jesus…