(The Christian Science Monitor) Bayan Khatib’s earliest memories of Canada are mostly fragments of her daily struggles as a seven-year-old Syrian. There was the language she couldn’t speak and the food she couldn’t stand, namely pizza and ketchup.
Yet Khatib, who’s now in her mid-thirties, also remembers the generosity of a local church in Calgary that helped her family resettle there. The church found them a place to live and even stocked their refrigerator before they arrived. It’s the kind of compassion Khatib hopes to emulate as she prepares to help welcome the latest wave of Syrians to her adopted country.
“Once upon a time it was my family,” she said. “That's why I feel so drawn to help with the refugee crisis today.”
