麻豆约拍

Good morning.听 It鈥檚 thirty years since I was taken into captivity in Beirut.听 Nearly a quarter of a century has passed since I stepped off an RAF hospital plane at Lyneham in Wiltshire and walked across the tarmac to make a statement to the press.听 My friend and former colleague, Richard Chartres, now the Bishop of London, had travelled with me on the flight and he advised me to make a statement before meeting my family.听 I put down a few headings on the back of an envelope and then descended from the aircraft to face a world from which I had been cut off for almost five years.
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As soon as I had finished speaking I went to a remote part of the base and was then reunited with my wife, Frances, and our four children, now all young adults.听 I don't remember what was said except for one thing my youngest daughter, Gillian, said to me.听 'Daddy, take all the help they will offer you here'.听 She knew that the journey back into mainstream life would take time and help was available to enable me, and my family, to make that journey successfully.听 Thanks to so many people at Lyneham and elsewhere we made that journey and can look back with gratitude.
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Alas, there are thousands in this world who have suffered major disruption in their lives and have not been as fortunate as I was.听 I think of people fleeing from their homes as a result of warfare.听 Or of prisoners who leave听 prison with a plastic bag containing their meagre possessions, a few pounds in their pocket and not a friend in the world.听 I have always had sympathy for the underdog but my experience as a hostage enabled me to turn sympathy into empathy.
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O Lord, deepen our compassion for those in distress so that we who have been wounded in body, mind or spirit may bring comfort and healing to others.
Amen.