Matt and Grace Huang are finally home after spending almost two years in a nightmare in the Persian Gulf emirate of Qatar after the sudden death of their daughter Gloria in January 2013. A case of international misunderstanding surrounding adoption, it also made me stop and pray often for their release. I’ve only met the couple once in Pasadena at Lake Avenue Church but I could sense how frustrating the ordeal must have been.
Being constrained and completely misunderstood and even set up for failure is emotionally taxing in any situation. As an adoptive parent and taking on the dual role of parenting my granddaughter, I often pleaded with God for their release and empathized with their challenge. My constraint is having so little time in the week that was my own schedule but yet I was free and not enmeshed in someone’s system.
Now that release is a reality but in the midst of the struggle they’ve lost their home and their finances are devastated. I’ll provide a link here to donate once I find the best place to donate. There’s a page through the Free Matt and Grace website.
They’ll be in the 9 a.m. service at Lake Avenue Church tomorrow, December 7.
I’m sure the healing process will take a while and neither will progress the same as the other. I’m eager to hear their perspective on what happened and the possible motivation for the prosecution to continue pressing for new charges.
Qatar is the site of the 2022 FIFA World Cup soccer tournament. Matt was there to work on an infrastructure project and ran into a devastating personal experience. Many guest workers from east Asian countries like India and the Philippines didn’t fare as well as Matt. An article from the Guardian in February 2014 says about 500 Indian guest workers have died there since January 2012 and work in slave-like conditions.
Now that Matt and Grace are home, it will be easy to lose focus on the location and yet many lives have been subjected to terrible injustices for the sake of the World Cup. I can pray that as Matt and Grace heal in the months and years ahead, that a healing will come to officials in Qatar so human life is treated with more humane respect, devoid of trumped up charges.
Don Simkovich 
Posted on December 6, 2014
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