Jordan visit brings new hope, if not a new home

By Gordon Lambie
Jordan visit brings new hope, if not a new home

Returning from Jordan, Paul McLean is both celebrating a mission accomplished and frustrated at ongoing inaction.

“We went over there to lift their spirits, encourage them, give them hope, and make them feel special, we did that in spades,” McLean said, sharing that he and Steve King were very successful in bringing a little Christmas joy to the four families sponsored by the Hope Church and Saint James congregations in Lennoxville. Between the 5th and the 12th of December the two accompanied the four families on a “vacation” from their lives trapped in an apartment block in Amman, Jordan to the seaside resort of Aqaba.

“It was a great time. It was a fun trip,” McLean said, sharing that the two Canadians also brought gifts and played Santa for the two families while they were present. “The defining moment for me was on the Sunday evening when they put on a big meal for us. After dinner we’re sitting there just spending time with them, and I looked over at my buddy Steve King, cupped my hand to my ear and mouthed the word listen.”

What could be heard, according to McLean, was a sound of relaxed conversation and general fun that had been missing on their arrival earlier that week.

“They said they just forgot where they were for three days,” the Lennoxville resident shared.

Though the focus of the trip was on fun and freeing a group of people from the prison of their own homes while they await some news about their refugee status, McLean said that the visit was not without its tensions.

Read the full story in Friday’s Record.

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