Painting by Elizabeth Thayer
SEPTEMBER 2016
TSOS Team Member Elizabeth Thayer's painting, "Running Water," was awarded a spot in the 2016 Zion Art Society Competition. It was displayed in Utah and then with 24 other paintings in California.
Their whole lives were destroyed: comfortable homes, communities, families, studies, steady jobs, and hopes for the future. They fled, carrying little but the hope of a safer future with them. Now they wait, paused for who knows how long in tents on the site of an abandoned factory in Greece. Comparatively speaking, it is not the worst place to wait. This camp has the luxuries of a small school room, a medical unit, an electric strip for charging phones, two rows of port-a-potties and a shower unit… and running water from a hose for drinking and for washing. For most, running water used to be a common convenience that was taken for granted. Now, like the hope that keeps them going day in and day out, it is a precious, sustaining necessity. Barbara Kingsolver wrote, “The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.” And that is what these refugees do. They cling to hope in an ocean of uncertainty. In the words of Rahim, “Other than hope, we don't have anything else. Every day the refugees keep praying and nobody hears their voice except God. They are still waiting…But still, we have hope.”
"Running Water" is currently for sale ($5,000) with all proceeds going to TSOS.
