It’s the start of a brand new year which inevitably means I’ve taken a few moments to look back on the past and ponder what the future could hold. Many things have changed but the fundamentals of “me” have remained unchanged. I’m still just a person making mistakes everyday and trying to figure out what to do with the time I’m given. In my experience God has a funny way of executing His perfect plan. Couple years back if you had told me where I’d be today I think I would’ve been shocked but also not all that surprised. One of the biggest surprises to me is the people God has surrounded me with in this country. About two months into living in this little Polish city loneliness began creeping into my daily life as I realised that making friends in America is a difficult feat for me and in Poland I’m at an even greater disadvantage with the language and cultural barriers. I prayed to God one day for the simple blessing of a friend. Someone who could decode my sarcasm, keep up with my stubbornness and tell me to shut up when I talk for too long. One week later God placed Rami into my life. Coming to Poland with an open heart and a subtle desire for an EU passport, it would’ve been no surprise for me to date a Pole, but a Syrian Muslim? It’s just another piece of my life that makes perfectly no sense to me unless I allow my mind to open slightly. Now it just seems perfectly normal to me that my Arabic is progressing faster than my Polish and I eat more Syrian dishes every week than I do Polish. I’ve been gifted the opportunity to learn so much and even reexamine my faith. Like I’ve asked myself, “Why couldn’t Mohammed have been God’s messenger?” After all, Christianity was only accepted by chance because of the timing in history during the Roman empire. By the time of Mohammed European Christians had already begun to distance themselves from Jesus’ roots as a Jew. Jesus became whitewashed to create distance and form a sort of “us” versus “them” mentality. I can’t help but ask myself why a God who makes no mistakes would give Ishmael as a son to Abraham for no reason. In Genesis God states, “But I will also make a nation of the descendants of Hagar’s son because he is your son, too.” Genesis 21:13 NLT. Ishmael is never again mentioned in the Bible despite this promise for of a great nation to rise up through him. Thousands of years later Mohammed rose up despite being an uneducated orphan, much like most of God’s chosen ones. This new thought has pressed on my heart in ways I can’t ignore, though if would be more convenient to stuff it away.

I guess my point is that my relationship with Rami has opened both our eyes and become a rebellion to everything we thought we knew. It has also pressed us both from the comfort zone that is a narrow mind. When I see Rami’s warm brown eyes I forget the generalisations about Arabs I was faced with before as a little white girl growing up in North Idaho where any race outside of “white” seemed odd to me. If fact I have come to learn that Syrians are some of the most generous people in the world. Something that seems weird to me given that in many parts of America a favor is expected to be repaid as quickly as possible so you don’t “owe” anyone. Rami went through such great lengths to ensure I had a good Christmas that he ran several kilometres all over town searching for milk and biscuits for hot chocolate and dessert since it was my first Christmas away from my family. It was probably the most unnecessary, kind thing anyone has ever done for me. I often come home to find Rami faced toward Mecca, prostrated in prayer. I forget the deep discomfort I felt as a child seeing films of people worshiping in any way other than kneeling with hands clasped. I guess I could say the worst part of having a Muslim boyfriend is the mess he leaves in the bathroom when he does ablution (a ritual purification process with water) before be prays in my apartment. Things become less foreign over time and the other day I came home to Rami lounging in my apartment listening to Arabic music and it somehow felt like the most natural thing in the world. I even made my first ever visit to a mosque here in a little Polish city, of all places. I also wore a hijab and ran into one of my students on my way to the mosque. She seemed wildly confused and barely recognised me but didn’t mention anything.

All of these experiences just remind me how little I know and how far I really have to go to grasp even the tiniest understanding of the cultures around the world. As well as rectify the prejudices I have subconsciously built up. New people I meet often ask me if I’m studying here and I have to correct them and say I am only working as a teacher despite my baby face. But I guess the more I think of it I am studying every single day. I just don’t have books and a syllabus like the others but rather I’m a student of the world. I study by asking Rami stupid questions about Islam, by reading and trying my best to not give up the incredible gift of being allowed to be a free thinker.

We all make choices everyday that foster this free thinking ability we all have…

Every time you allow your sense of curiosity to overpower your prejudice. Every time you choose to ask the question rather than assume. Every time you decide to build bridges rather than borders. Every time you make an awful attempt at a word in a new language. Every time you decide discomfort with unfamiliar cultures is just the growing pain of your heart stretching a bit bigger to encompass more people.