This blog was submitted by ICC representative, Sylvia Thompson.
The distraught mother laid her head against the cold, metal, bars and wept. Her salt-filled tears dripped down her cheeks and plopped onto the concrete floor—slowly pooling around her bare feet. The Egyptian jail was eerily quiet—alarmingly silent.
“Have mercy on them!” cried the young mother, banging her fists against the metal bars. “What have they done to you?” she screamed.
Suddenly, a barrage of lights flooded the jail cell and the sound of angry footsteps could be heard coming down the hallway. “Shut-up!” shouted a red-faced prison guard, shaking his fist up and down. “Have you not had enough, woman? Shall I teach you to be quiet?” he screamed, shining his flashlight at the young mother’s face.
The bereaved woman winced with pain as the glare of the flashlight fell upon her red, swollen, eyes—eyes that had been mercilessly beaten the night before.
“Please, sir,” cried the young mother, falling to her knees. “Please, just feed my children. They are only two and four—mere babies.”
The prison guard glared at the woman with clenched fists and snarled, “Leave your Christianity and come back to Islam. Then we will feed your children.”
“I cannot,” breathed the young mother, beginning to sob.
“Then your children will not eat!” growled the prison guard, shaking the metal bars with all of his might. Then he flipped off the light switch and left the distressed woman in the dark—yet she was not alone.
“Lord, give me strength,” she breathed into the night. Then she clasped her weary hands together with renewed vigor and whispered, “He only is my Rock and my Salvation; He is my Defense and my Fortress, I shall not be moved” (Psalm 62:6).
