Meditations on a pumpkin
As World Vision’s A Night of Hope campaign draws to a close tomorrow evening Brand Marketing Manager Rowena Luis takes time to reflect.
By Rowena Luis, Brand Marketing Manager
My arms ache! Over the last few weeks I have carried and carved hearts in more pumpkins than I care to remember. Why didn’t we choose to do a campaign centred around a satsuma – smaller, lighter and still World Vision orange?
However, despite highlighting my worrying lack of upper body strength, as the weeks have progressed, the advantage of carving hearts over and over again is that after a while it becomes quite meditative.
Now, everytime I attack that giant autumnal squash, I think about the violence that the children of Syria have endured – horrific scenes no one should experience, let alone children.
As I fight through the tough pumpkin skin, I think how these little ones must have fought to look away; tightly closing their eyes and hiding behind mums and dads, as family, friends and neighbours were killed and tortured around them.
As I scoop out the seeds, I think of the millions of children who have been displaced, whether within Syria itself or as refugees and asylum seekers in foreign lands. Often they find themselves trapped in cramped, sub-standard conditions, surrounded by languages and cultures that they don’t understand and which don’t always embrace them.
As I start to tidy the slippery, slimy pumpkin mess, I wonder how we will ever ‘tidy up’ the mess that is the Syrian civil war and I think about the children’s futures. I try to imagine (but can’t quite) the fear these youngsters must have gone through as their old, comfortable, going-to-school and playing-games lives were ripped apart. The trauma from what they have witnessed and experienced must still haunt them. Will it scar them for life? What sort of adults will they become?
As I finish each pumpkin and place a lit candle inside, I realise that something that was a tough, messy process has been transformed into something beautiful. The glowing heart, a universal symbol of love, shines brightly in the darkness of a late October night and I am reminded that there is hope.
My prayer for the children of Syria is that they will know great love in their time of darkness – the world has not forgotten them. I pray that their fear will be transformed into hope and that they too will have the opportunity to once again be children and adults who can shine brightly in our world.
World Vision’s A Night of Hope culminates tomorrow evening, 31 October. You can show your support for the children of Syria by carving a heart into your pumpkin and sharing a picture with us on social media. Photos and messages that we receive will be added to a mosaic that we will share with Syrian refugee children living in Lebanon during a visit later this year. You can also donate £5 on the night by texting HEART to 70060. Donations will go towards schooling for some of the three million Syrian children who have had their education disrupted and their futures ripped away.
You can find out more about the campaign here »