Sunday School, Drive-Bys, and Our Lady of Iraq

Today was hard to describe. It was in turn hilarious and depressing, silly, sad, and inspiring.

In the morning, I was teaching Chaldean Sunday school. I'm vastly under qualified to do this, and the sight of me leading Iraqi six year-olds in the Our Father is frankly ridiculous, but it's nevertheless a lot of fun. I was teaching them names of the saints in English, but I often only knew the Islamic version, and not the Arab Christian version. For example, Jesus is Issa to Muslims and Yesua to Christians, John the Baptist is Yahya Ibn Zakariyya (I love saying that) to Muslims and Yohanna to Christians, and so forth. Despite my repeated faux pas, they were entertained, and we ended with a round of Simon Says, which I suppose is the universal language.

In the evening, I taught these kids' parents and grandparents. The class itself wasn't noteworthy, but during a break, I talked to a new student, Bassam, about leaving Iraq with his parents. He worked for a tv production company with his father in Iraq. However, all tv companies officially were under the direction of Uday, the worse of the Hussein offspring, so after the war, they were targeted with death threats and drive-bys by people looking for revenge against the former regime. Bassam's father almost surely has some form of PTSD. On top of that, their last name translates to "Deacon," so anonymity in Iraq is not in the cards. They're stuck: Bassam can't find a job and only has his parents for company in Jordan. The UN told them to wait for refugee status. For how long they don't know. Maybe six months. Maybe a year. Maybe never.

The theme of powerlessness seems to be a recurring one in my work.

With that in mind, I should note that the Chaldean Church is preparing a garden. Father Raymond (my Abuna - the name for your parish priest) approached me after class. "Tiiid, can you write 'Our Lady of Iraq' for me?". With tributes to Mary "Miryam" in Aramaic and Arabic, he wanted to add some English to the shrine. Even in a rundown basement apartment in the unhip side of Amman, populated by people without a real home, there's some hope. And there's a garden growing.