A VICAR has opened his home for refugees fleeing warzones to live in.

Martin Reynolds, 67 of Stow Hill, Newport, was a vicar in Pontyclun before retiring in 1998 to look after his mother.

He and his husband Chris Iles, 64, live with nine other people in one house, though over lockdown there were 13 people in total under one roof.

In total, people from four different families live in the house, with one family consisting of refugees.

“We’ve always had an open house,” said Reverend Reynolds

“Lots of people have come in our home and shared it - it has always been an open door”.

The Rev Reynolds has worked towards helping others for a long time and has previously won a Care Forum Wales award.

He firmly believes it is his duty as a Christian to help those in need, such as refugees, homeless people, or people with special needs.

“What concerns me is that the British mentality is profoundly more comfortable with rehoming a dog than it is with a child with special needs or a refugee,” he said.

“So, to describe the role of the place of people, either as refugees, or as just plain homeless people, as fiendish is an understatement.

“We are finding ourselves in a society that is becoming less caring.”

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There have been difficulties in the past, with it actually being against church law for a priest to share their house with the homeless.

“I didn’t know that it was against the church’s rules to actually share your house with anybody,” explained Revd Reynolds, laughing.

“I only found that out later.”

The Rev Reynolds said the stories he has heard from refugees sometimes keep him up at night.

He said: “These people have come from the most unsafe places, where they’ve seen babies hacked to pieces with machetes in front of families who’ve offended them.

“They’ve seen people put into a car with three grenades and everybody was lined up and watched them being blown to pieces.

“Most people have no idea what it’s like to be in a difficult situation.

“I’m a typical white, well educated, theologically trained man.

“It’s very hard for us to see the writing on the wall and to see how vulnerable and how privileged we are, and how difficult life is from people who are not from our place.

“What I see in the reaction to people fleeing from abroad is demonic.

“It’s a wonderful world we live in, but it’s populated by some moronic, prejudiced people”.

The Rev Reynolds and his husband had volunteered to look after people with special needs, which has lead to one man staying with them for 29 years from the age of four.

“We provided a safe space for people in a place in a world that can be very unsafe,” he said.

“Most of us need to feel safe no matter how old we are, no matter how intelligent we are.

“In our relationships, in our work, in our environment – we need to feel safe”.

The Rev Reynolds wishes the UK was more welcoming towards refugees, with the current environment feeling particularly hostile.

“These people have come from the most unsafe places where they’ve seen babies hacked to pieces with machetes in front of families who’ve offended them.

“They’ve seen people put in to a car with three grenades and everybody was lined up and watched them being blown to pieces.

“They came from somewhere that was very unsafe, very dangerous and life threatening every moment of the day and some of them made harrowing journeys here in lorries and in containers on the seas.

“As we know many of them died, they were very unsafe.

“Unfortunately, the general principle of welcoming refugees is getting more and more anxious and angry and frustrating and difficult and expensive”.

Despite the difficulties, The Rev Reynolds loves giving people a home and has very few regrets.

He said: “The babies have given my husband a light in his eyes I could not conjure - we hope that by extending our house and making it more adaptable, even more will come and that joy will increase.

“We (The Rev Reynolds and his husband) did a government survey last week, the question was happiness and they ask you scale of one to 10.

“We both conducted the survey separately and we both said 10, for everything.

“It’s just our life is just so full of joy.

“If we have any regrets, it is that we didn’t do it earlier.”