Mennonite Weekly Review

AMMAN, Jordan — Father Raymond Moussalli has grown accustomed to interruptions. When you’re the pastor responsible for a flock of 10,000, you learn to drop what you’re doing when somebody in need arrives at your door.

Father Raymond has agreed to meet us in his basement office next to the small church where he offers mass every day. Sixty plastic patio chairs fill the sanctuary and tell the life of a pastor to refugees.

How many of his parishioners are refugees? “All of them. This church is only for refugees. There are 10,000 Iraqi Chaldean Christians, all refugees. This is their church.”

Iraq has more than 4 million displaced people, half inside its borders and half spilled into the neighboring countries. Of those 4 million-plus Iraqis, 500,000 are Christians.

Father Raymond came to Amman from Syria in 2002, opened this center and set about his work. He describes that work in three points, like any good sermon.

“First must come education,” Moussalli says. The United Nations this year began providing money for education, and Jordan responded by opening their schools for the first time.

Moussalli hates to admit it, but money is a motivator in every direction. Governments respond to money. So do refugees. Many cannot leave Jordan only because the state imposes a fine for their being in Jordan. The fine accumulates for their entire stay, but isn’t collected until they are ready to leave. It comes to about $2 per day, every day.

“Second is health,” Moussalli continues. Health care is also not provided for refugees, but if the U.N. supported it as it now supports education, Moussalli is confident the Jordanian authorities will respond in like manner.

But the medical needs are not just for the body. They extend to the mind and the spirit. When families are split up and people are asked to live for long periods without hope, the pain can become unbearable.

Before he can get to his third point, two women appear at his door, weeping. He motions with his head for the women to enter. When interruptions are normal, you don’t apologize. He stays at his desk, rung on all sides with visitors, but focuses his attention on the women sobbing in front of him. He scribbles some notes so he can go meet the women in their home tomorrow.