Rev. Jerry Zawada, OFM
Voices in The Wilderness
Baghdad

Dear Loved Ones:
Two days now till Christmas. May all good be with you as we celebrate the Birth of Christ. I’m desperate to connect with you and sorry it’s taken this long.

We arrived at our home in Baghdad yesterday afternoon about 1:30 P.M. It took less than 12 hours, quite remarkable for these times. Cynthia Banas suggested that we sing traditional Christmas carols along the way, which lifted our spirits. The four of us, Kathy Kelly, Cynthia Banas, Claudia Lefko and I and our dedicated driver, Sattar, chimed in and helped speed up the journey.

After crossing the border into Iraq there were extremely long lines of cars waiting for gas, more than 500 cars, more than 12 hours wait, in a country with enough petroleum to last 300 years! One of many a new phenomena since the occupation, effecting incredible suffering upon practically all the populace of this beautiful country.