I've been seeing this billboard and variations of it out and about around town. I am still not exactly sure what it means (and my poor photo doesn't show the small text well enough to help).
But it's something like, "he is in place; you decide whether he can help." So he's a Red Cross worker, maybe?
I've also seen this around town (posted informally, not a city billboard):
The refugee crisis took over the news this weekend, especially regarding a small town up north on the border with Sweden (and you know how far north you have to go to get an actual land border with Sweden? So far north). It's a town of only 22,000, and refugees are streaming across the border while Sweden looks the other way. Finland was putting the refugees up at some completely inadequate location I can't remember; now it looks like they'll use the high school.
Meanwhile, I just can't turn my empathy off. We've traveled a lot with the kids over the past few months, and every time we're standing in line or crammed on a bus or sleeping on an airport bench, I think of those families traveling in far less comfortable circumstances and my head and my heart ache for them.
Traveling is sometimes the worst, especially with kids. They want to know when you'll be there, what there is to eat, what they can do while they wait, where you're going, why there isn't room to sit down, why they have to wait in line so long. Even when you're on your way somewhere happy, as a parent, you don't always know the answers to those questions. I really feel for those parents who have escaped a war zone only to have to answer the above questions from their children: "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know."
And worse, to be thinking all along: "look, most of this is out of my control and while I'm trying to put on my happy face for your benefit, inside I'm just as nervous as you that there won't be room or the food will run out or they'll take us to the wrong place or we'll get separated." The unknown is the most stressful thing, and that's all that most of these people have.
In conclusion, I read a fascinating article today (forwarded to me by Ariana) about two Iraqi refugees who met in Syria years ago, and then ran into each other randomly in Utah. It's good to read about people who have made it through the tough times and come out on the other side doing ok.
