Rev. Jerry Zawada, OFM
Voices in The Wilderness
Baghdad

Dear Loved Ones - Merry Christmas!

My five companions, Kathy, Cynthia, Claudia, Michael and Sean all dreaming of sugar plums. As I struggle to sing an English version of a Polish carol, a tank rolls by a half-block away. Cold, bitter cold here in Baghdad, no heat, electricity generally 2 hours a day, no hot water to bathe. I stink from a week of dirty clothes and smelly body. I heat up some water for coffee, munch on a few dates covered with peanut butter. What pleasure! I gaze out the big picture window over onto the street below and the hovels in the empty lot across the street, awful looking shacks, made up with bits and pieces of any material found on the streets, cardboard, tin, some bricks here and there, garbage strewn about (no decent place to put it) and then for me a revelation: I have absolutely no reason to feel sorry for myself. This coldness will not last. I do have layers of clothing to keep me relatively warm. I will be leaving for home in two weeks, back to comfort and surplus; friends, loved ones in both places. How can I possibly complain? My neighbors across the street and elsewhere, in Baghdad and throughout Iraq, Middle East and in so many other places - barely surviving on far less. How do I walk with these folks? How do we build hope for each other, for the scarred world in zillons of corners throughout the earth?

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.