Dominic Harris, a member of Christ Church Morningside, Diocese of Edinburgh, has spent the past six months completing his DipHE in Theology, Ministry and Mission at SEI. In the midst of those studies, inspired by the Spirit’s nudging while in church one Sunday, he has worked tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of Ukrainian refugees, making the journey to and from the Polish/Ukrainian border 5 times, in order to help transport refugees from the latter war-torn nation to places of safety and respite.
Thanks to his efforts and those of others like Markus Dünzkofer, Brian Tipa and Ania Grajek, many Ukrainians have found homes in Berlin, Newcastle, Brighton, Stuttgart, London, Hexham and Edinburgh.
Following each of the trips, Dominic wrote in his journal, interrogating and reflecting theologically upon the harrowing sights he had witnessed, the stories heard. In one such extract he writes about a grandfather, Sergei, who gave his all to rescue his family from Donetsk:
‘Sergei carries his granddaughter – she is horizontal; he carries her like a Pietà, stretched out Christ-like. Sergei limps the half-mile to the mini-bus. It seems like an age. No-one eats on the thirteen hour journey. I think that shock can do that. I will always remember the silence, the disengaged otherworldliness. But it is the silent children that will forever haunt me. I pray in silence. My encounter with those fleeing Ukraine has been marked by silence. I experience both spiritual euphoria and disorder in silence. Words betray, words sell short.’
In his reflections on the first trip he made back in March, written as part of a Practical Theology assignment for SEI, Dominic riffed powerfully on Philip Larkin’s poem Water 4: ‘my liturgy would employ/images of sousing/a furious devout drench’. To this end, Dominic is throwing ‘a really loud and riotous birthday party for the Ukrainian kids in Drumsheugh Pool’ in June.
He is also currently working hard and creatively to raise money to buy 4x4s for areas in need. He writes: ‘Our Ukrainian colleague and translator Galyna’s brother Vasyl came over to Edinburgh to pick up a 4×4 and is driving the first one back to Kharkiv. Right-hand drive is safer than left-hand drive as the driver is on the unexpected side if targeted by Russians. Roads are more often than not impassable in certain areas. We are looking for second-hand 4x4s that maybe need a bit of work and are maybe set to fail their next MOT.’
If you would like to support this effort, then please use the contact form on this site, with the Subject ‘4x4s’.
Photo: by Nataliya Smirnova on Unsplash
