Foodbank tesimony
By Lisa Day, September 15, 2011
Tarik’s story
As you might expect the Coventry foodbank project elicits many comments and opinions from the general public, sometimes not positive. We frequently collect at supermarkets around the city and shoppers will stop and have conversations with us about the project.
The most common question is ‘who is this food going to?’
I quite instinctively know where this conversation is going. A recent Daily Mail article about the plight of 23 families whose children go Frederick Bird highlighted the prejudice. The article twisted a genuine need for food by 150 people into a jingoistic article on benefit scroungers. The article (which will be the subject of a press complaint) was a malicious twist of the truth into a lie.
Who is the food going to? Well the simple answer is; people in crisis in Coventry. 2,000 mouths fed in the first six months. And no you haven’t misread that, there isn’t an extra ‘0’ here. But sometimes I like to tell a shopper about a real person and to test where their heart is. So I tell them about Tarik.
Tarik, his wife and five children are from Libya. And that’s generally as far as I get before the shopper has declined our request; more often than not with derogatory statement or even a curse. But let me encourage you to read on…
Tarik and Nabila* are both educated Libyans. Tarik is now studying for a PhD at Coventry University and his wife is studying mechanical engineering. They are part of a community of 155 Libyan students in the city (representing about 350 people including dependents). Nabila recently gave birth to their fifth child (a baby girl).
It is and always has been their intention to return home once their education is completed. Their income comes from a Libyan sponsor, but, since the conflict started, getting money out of the country has become increasing more difficult, frequently delayed and sometimes not received at all. Then add into this mix that Tarik is from Misrata and Nabila is from Benghazi, both cities at the heart of the current conflict, so contact with family members is difficult in the extreme. I would doubt very much whether any of us live under this level of stress.
And their Coventry landlord is trying to evict them!
Tarik is embarrassed to have got to the point where he has had to turn to others for food help. As he said to me this week, as a Muslim he was deeply moved by the fact that the Christian community would step in and help a Muslim family!
Jesus said; ‘For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? ‘And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? ‘When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’
There are no caveats here, no legal position about whether it is right or wrong to feed someone. But there is a warning if you turn you back on those in need. Just read on in Matthew 25 v 41.
(Individual names have been changed to maintain anonymity)
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