Perspectives

“Sometimes the work is tiring, but I feel that our Lord is very much in this place,” says Rita Fawzi, 36. As a general supervisor for boys and girls, Rita oversees all aspects of their housing.

“I was not sure that I could deal with developmentally challenged people,” Rita says. “But when I began to work and live among them, I began to love them in a way I couldn’t believe.” Franciscan Elizabethan Sister Afaf Zarif runs Good Samaritan House, with the help of Sister Awatef Bakheet. Currently, Good Samaritan houses 18 boys and 14 girls. Nine of the residents are in college, seven are in high school, seven attend preparatory school, and eight are in primary school.

“I found my ministry in this place and this helps me to live religious life better,” Sister Afaf says.

Sister Afaf had collaborated with Father Ragheb, who died in 2010, in establishing the orphanage. When Father Ragheb asked her to join him in this new mission among vulnerable children, Sister Afaf had been serving as the director of the Franciscan Nuns School in Maghagha in Minya, Upper Egypt, for 18 years.

“I immediately agreed, and told him, ‘I am ready.’ I had always wished to serve orphans and continue my ministry with them,” Sister Afaf, 66, recalls. She left her position at the school and has been at Good Samaritan House ever since.

The pair announced their plan to open an orphanage in the local churches, and the churches

Sister Afaf Zarif chats with members of her family — young people of Good Samaritan House — outside their home in Cairo.

These are children of the King — Jesus. Giving them a sense of family is part of the mission of this house.

responded by sending them at-risk children in need of care. In a short period, eight children, then aged 2 to 5, were sent their way. Before the current location, the orphanage moved into three places in three months.

“We suffered a lot in the beginning, but providence was with us and many people stood with us,” Sister Afaf recalls.

Maryam Roble, 18, lives at Good Samaritan House. She is in her final year of high school. Usually, students in Egypt double their efforts in their final year, as it often determines a student’s future career. Maryam wakes up at five in the morning to study and waits for one of her housemates to wake up to go down together for breakfast in the dining hall. At the end of the day, they watch TV and spend time together as a family.

After the young people complete their college degrees, Good Samaritan House assists them in moving out on their own. The house helps by placing them in church-run hostels, until they can get on stable financial footing and can move into their own flats.

Romani Ishaq, 25, joined Good Samaritan House at the age of 3. He left the house in 2019, after completing his studies in computer sciences. That same year, he began his compulsory military service. On his last vacation during military service, he came to Good Samaritan House to visit his “brothers and sisters,” whom he considers his “first family.” They were happy to see him.

“It was a difficult feeling when I had to leave the house,” he says. “For 19 years, they were my family. You feel here like you’re in the safe zone. You feel the warmth of a family who takes care of your needs. Now I have to face life outside, but I will stay in touch with my brothers and sisters here.”

Sister Afaf says giving children a sense of family is part of the mission of the house. We want the children to feel that they are staying in their home, “not as orphans,” she says. “We want them to feel that we are a big family and, at the same time, we want them to live a normal life for children.”

“I say these are children of the King [Jesus], so they must have complete freedom, as if they are with their parents,” she adds. “We do not use the word ‘dar’ [meaning orphanage], but we say, ‘the house of the church.’ ”

The two Franciscan Elizabethan sisters, together with Bishop Bakhoum, are family to the children — and vice versa. The bishop took on the management of Our Lady of Peace in 2015, after Father Francis became ill, and then decided to reside at the home while serving as the administrative vicar of the patriarchate at the time. Father Francis continues to reside at the house in his retirement.

“I felt I needed to stay here,” says the 46-year-old bishop. “I needed the feeling that I belonged to a family. When I come back after a long working day, I find a family and children waiting for me. This takes me out of our priestly difficulties, and integrates us into a family.”

The bishop took on managing Good Samaritan House three years later.

“Taking care of 30 to 40 orphans, from the ages of 5 to 25, is not easy,” he says. “Each of them comes from a different background and reality, and the challenge is how we integrate them to form a family atmosphere.

“We are touching Christ’s blessing in this service,” he adds. “He who provides these children with a service will have blessings in his life.” n

She can face a better future, thanks to you

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CNEWA is supporting many efforts to care for poor and vulnerable youth. Learn more and watch an exclusive video from Egypt at

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Based in Cairo, Magdy Samaan is the Egypt correspondent for The Times of London. His work also has been published in the Daily Telegraph, CNN, Foreign Policy and other journals.

Perspectives by Msgr. Peter I. Vaccari

The March issue of ONE magazine is unique! For it appears in the month in which the Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA) began.

On 11 March 1926, Pope Pius XI founded CNEWA. He placed it under the care and direction of the archbishop of New York, then Patrick Joseph Cardinal Hayes (1867-1938), with service to the Holy See’s Congregation for Eastern Churches. CNEWA’s mission, a fundamental gospel mandate to walk with those people we serve like the crucified and risen Jesus on the road to Emmaus (cf. Lk 24:13-35), is accomplished as a papal agency. The current chair of CNEWA’s International Board of Trustees is Timothy Michael Cardinal Dolan, archbishop of New York.

So, today, CNEWA marks its 95th anniversary! And I ask for your prayers as we move toward our centennial celebration.

As I write this reflection, let us not forget that the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths around the world continues to grow. At this writing, some 113 million global cases have been recorded and more than 2.5 million global deaths. Let us remember in prayer all those in our lives who have been affected by this global tragedy and those who remain unknown to us.

Please remember in prayer, too, our Holy Father, who has just returned from an apostolic visit to Iraq. This was a historic undertaking, making it the first papal visit to Iraq. Iraq, located within ancient Mesopotamia, is so rich in religious history. It is the land of the Tower of Babel, Abraham of Ur of the Chaldeans, the great spiritual conversion of Nineveh, the presence of early disciples in the late first century, and today the home of Sunni and Shiite Muslims, Mandaeans, Yazidis and Christians. In this current issue, you will read about CNEWA’s work in priestly formation at St. Peter’s Patriarchal Seminary of the Chaldean Church in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan.

This issue also includes features that focus on CNEWA’s efforts to support programs for the care of children in Egypt and India — many with special needs — always in collaboration with the local church and its leaders. In addition, Father Elias Mallon, S.A., inaugurates a new series dedicated to the world of the Eastern churches. Finally, the issue contains a carefully researched and important piece on Ethiopia by Laura Ieraci. We share the concerns of so many for the violence that erupted in the Tigray region of Ethiopia in early November 2020.

In the December issue, I wrote of my intention to develop and offer for prayer and reflection major themes found in the recent encyclicals of Pope Francis, “Fratelli Tutti, on Fraternity and Social Friendship” (2020) and “Laudato Si’, on Care for Our Common Home” (2015). From my perspective, I believe that CNEWA’s papal character and radical fidelity to our gospel mandate will always serve to drive our noble mission in the ecumenical, interreligious and secular settings in which we find our work. It is an opportunity to witness to our basic Catholic identity in extraordinary and heroic ways.

As Pope Francis was writing “Fratelli Tutti,” the COVID-19 global pandemic had exploded. The pope was moved and concerned about the inability of nations to work together to address the horror of this vicious virus. He wrote, “For all our hyper-connectivity, we witnessed a fragmentation that made it more difficult to resolve problems that affect us all.” His desire is to hold

up the dignity of every human person so that we can cultivate “the rebirth of a universal aspiration to fraternity. Fraternity between all men and women.”

Let us pray that nations will collaborate in the dissemination of the COVID-19 vaccines throughout the northern and southern hemispheres.

We cannot go it alone. The human being, created in the image and likeness of God is, therefore, like God — relational! Pope Francis invites us to “dream … as a single human family, as fellow travelers sharing the same flesh, as children of the same earth which is our common home.”

This edition of ONE appears between the Lenten and Easter seasons. I invite you to re-read the story of the crucified and risen Jesus on the road to Emmaus. All the Latin and Eastern churches will listen to that gospel during the Easter season. Let us pray to experience what the disciples who were with Jesus experienced when Luke (24:30) writes that “he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them” — their eyes were opened and their hearts burned with the desire to witness to the world!

Let us dream together, CNEWA, as we move through our 95th anniversary toward our centennial!

With my prayers and gratitude,

Peter I. Vaccari President, CNEWA

Pope Francis is introduced to a religious leader at an interreligious gathering on the plain of Ur in Iraq, 6 March 2021.

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