Meeting Iraqi School Girls

We all have moments in life we never put out of our mind. A wedding, a graduation or the birth of a child are among the unforgettable experiences. Then, too, there are sad times known to many; the premature death of a child, a loved one who either suffers a prolonged battle with a deadly disease or has a debilitating accident. Along the vast continuum from joy to sadness, we remember certain events and the lasting feelings they stir.

Accompanied by four others from CPC, an unforgettable experience was shared this week. It occurred during a visit to a school in Amman, Jordan where we met eight Iraqi girls. Nothing could prepare us for that visit. It was raw, sad beyond description, and uncomfortable in the way that it brought about thoughts and feelings never before known. Through an interpreter, we exchanged thoughts, heard their stories of war and death, and answered each other’s questions. These are young girls who are innocent victims of war, now living as refugees in a foreign country.

The extent of life experience known to each of those girls, and their journey which ultimately brought them together with us in that schoolroom, is beyond what we could then discuss or ever imagine. In our brief encounter, and through the discussion we had, a glimpse of hope for a brighter tomorrow emerged. The cold sad exterior first seen on their faces eventually turned to warm smiles. One girl asked us to say something that would give them hope, and it seemed that God intervened at that moment. I noticed how others in our group were holding back tears like me. What greater hope can be offered than our common belief in a God that is big enough to forgive the broken ways of humanity and guide our path of reconciliation as we go forth?

We certainly wonder where God was when the bombs fell and the bullets flew in the close presence of these girls when they were at home in Iraq, a place each of them said they will never go back to. Lacking a real home and missing family members dead from war, we might ask what God does when injustice strikes the most innocent and vulnerable, the young people of this world. In our gathering with the Iraqi school girls, I got a sense that God does what we do; God resides amidst it all, with tears of sadness, yet with hope that does not surrender. I do not know where God was when the bombs and bullets went off, though I do know that God was with us in that schoolroom when the girls told personal stories about the war in Iraq and the effect it had on them.

As I departed and touched the outstretched hand of one young girl, her smile suggested "forgiveness". It was not American and Iraqi, Christian and Muslim, or middle-age man and young girl who looked at each other. We were two frail and broken humans who knew that we alone could not fix the situation. Only through the mercy of God do things that big happen.

CK