The Dean

Almost daily I receive updates from Canon Alan White on the dreadful situation in Iraq. His emails are usually brief, factual and although sometimes containing the most harrowing details are never morbid or melodramatic. He remains positive and upbeat in the face of a desperate situation. Andrew is caring for St. Georges Church in Baghdad and the congregation there is now made up almost entirely of local Iraqi Christians. These people are living in what can only be described as hell on earth not knowing who will be abducted or killed next. We can only guess at the horror and pain they are experiencing and hold them firmly in our prayers.

All this seems a world away from our comparative peace and tranquility and yet they are our neighbours 'just up the road', in the next parish, our brothers and sisters in Christ. This was brought home to us most acutely at the beginning of June when we here in Bahrain took the decision to cancel our fund raising dinner/auction which was intended to raise money to provide a day school teacher and resources for a year for the children at St. Georges. Perhaps the situation in Iraq is too much for us even to contemplate because one of the reasons for our decision to cancel was the lack of local support for our fund raising event. Secondly, other competing events on the same night made it unviable. Thirdly, Andrew White scheduled to be with us in Bahrain for the auction but as the news of the abduction of the five Brits in Baghdad unfolded (four of whom were well known to Andrew) he felt he was unable to leave Iraq. Similar events continue almost daily and Christians now seem to be increasingly targets of terrorist activity.

What can be done is being done by Andrew but that means he constantly puts himself at risk for the people he increasingly comes to feel are 'his' people at St. George's. According to the daily news, scores of people are being killed by suicide bombers every day somewhere in Iraq. Come of those people are the friends and relatives of Christians who gather at St. George's for support and a little relief from the awful realities of daily life. Sometimes those people at St. George's are themselves the victims.

Our response to their need was rather pathetic despite the effort that had gone into organising the auction. Maybe as events transpired it was not the appropriate thing to do. That does not exonerate us from our responsibility, firstly in praying for Andrew, the people of St. George's and Iraq in general, and for Andrew's involvement in negotiations to bring peace to this war torn land. Secondly to use our failure as a reminder that when events are organised by the church council to raise funds for whatever good cause then we all commit ourselves to support the event in good time so that we can turn our good desires into reality.

Alan Hayday