Future Teacher Learns from Seniors in Syria

by Kelly Hayes-Raitt

“I thought it was a normal day,” Sasha Sanati describes yesterday’s volunteering at the St. Gregorios home for seniors. “But Helena was crying. ‘What is this life?’ ‘Why am I living?’ I felt bad. She was really depressed,” said the sensitive 19-year-old, tearing up.

“It made me realize not to take anything for granted. I’m learning to appreciate what’s around me. She really touched me.”

Participating in the Middle East Fellowship’s Damascus Summer Encounter program, Sasha is here with her younger sister and older brother for one month. “I feel like I’m living here instead of just being a tourist.”

The young beauty is majoring in child development at a community college in her native San Diego and can see herself teaching in Syria one day. “I’d really, really like to go to Iraq,” where her parents were born and raised before leaving in 1979, she enthuses. “I’d like to adopt a child from Iraq.”

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To read more blog entries from Kelly Hayes-Raitt, please refer to her website: peacepathfoundation.org.