Wednesday, January 07, 2015

Old friends, new friends

A good couple of days.

Yesterday a young Afghan who comes to Zac's was granted asylum. He has been in this country for 7 years after fleeing his homeland where his brother and father were murdered. Since then he's become a Christian (because of his experiences with Christians on his journey here).

Two years ago he was arrested and sent to a Reading deportation centre. An appeal and campaign resulted in him coming back to Swansea but a few months ago his latest appeal - on the grounds that his life would be in danger if he returned, especially as he is now a Christian - was turned down and he was given one last chance to prove his case. A massive campaign was mounted and letters of support gathered ready for the hearing yesterday. He was told that the best he could hope for was a 3-hour hearing resulting in the judge saying that he would give his decision in 3 or 4 weeks. He was in court for 10 minutes, the only question he was asked was his name and then the judge declared himself satisfied and granted asylum. We celebrated in Zac's last night.
Tam with Mike and Cath Sheehan who have been leading the campaign.

Then today we met up for coffee with 'old' friends. Husband was best man at their wedding, which was a few years before ours, and over recent years, apart from Christmas cards, we've not had much contact. So it was time to catch up. And it was just like we'd seen each other yesterday. We all looked positively youthful of course, even though we  were discussing bus passes, grown-up children, the joys of retirement (especially staying in bed in the mornings) and motorhomes.
By the way I've put the old in quotes because Steve objected to it on my Facebook post!



2 comments:

Katney said...

"Long-time" friends?

Old is an emotion charged word for some of us.

Liz Hinds said...

That would be better, katney.