Laura Waris, Helsinki, Finland

I remember the first time I met her, I was sure that we would have difficulties communicating. I tried in limited Kurdish, Arabic and gestures to install a new chip in her phone and help her call home from Jerusalem to tell her husband that she and Rawa had arrived safely. We did finally manage to make the call in spite of our language barrier. A curious thing happens once strangers become friends; they find other ways of understanding. Somewhere along the way, we found a means of communication, but not because my Kurdish improved! We began to trust each other, to spend time together. Sometimes Rawa was the only kid at the Shevet house, and we painted drums out of empty powdered milk cans, played memory games and kicked the soccer ball in the park. And sometimes his mother would join us. I can still see her seated on the park bench, watching her son twirling on the mini merry-go-round.

 

I lack the right words and enough space to adequately describe all that my time at Shevet meant.  It would mean we'd sit down to a huge cup of coffee with enough pastries and refills to last us a few hours. You would have to sit through my descriptions of the winter light on a crisp Jerusalem morning and what the church bells sound like on New Year's; of faithful mothers with questions in their eyes; of energetic children who learn to brush their teeth with flashy toothbrushes and become intoxicated by sea air; of eating tasty dolma with Baran's young parents at the hospital before he passed away; of the smell of dinner wafting through the house, feeding many a friend and visitor around our communal table; of a perfectly coordinated and beautiful call to prayer resounding in the ruins of Karak in Jordan; of mornings spent seeking God's face in community and waiting for his answers; of the push and pull of sharing space with many people; of the spicy market with its tasty dried fruit and nuts; and of each volunteer and child that wove the tapestry of my days with their own unique colors and words.

 

But you would also hear me tell you of what that time did inside of me. I went to Shevet wanting to just love and be of service, to forget myself. But somehow, mysteriously and gently, God showed me through that time just how he is intricately involved in my life and how much he loves me. The circumstances of service and the challenges to openness and growth were so tailored to the timetable in my heart that it can only be from the hand of my loving Father. Just thinking about it all makes me deeply grateful. There were windows in my life that were closed and shuttered. But now, the light floods in and a slight breeze plays with the curtains and fills the spaces inside with life and a broader perspective. It fills me with wonder,  kind of like that phone call did, from a mother communicating from so far away.