Sister Raphael

The Rosary schools were known for their discipline and high educational reputation... To remain in my memory, more than lessons and books, were those morals that were the foundation of upbringing before education, and respecting the human being as a behavior we lived every day, far from slogans written on walls.

After the "Rosary," I moved to an Islamic school, and despite the difference in name and reference, I did not feel that I had moved to another world... I found the same values, the same discipline, and the respect that does not differentiate between one human and another... as if the two schools... were completing a single lesson within me, titled that morals have no religion... and true education is what shapes a human being before granting them a degree.

Days passed... and life carried me to the United Arab Emirates, where I met the name of the Rosary schools again... and I found the same good reputation... the same commitment... and the values I knew as a child in Jordan... carrying with them a humanitarian message that transcends geography and borders.

In the Emirates, the name Sister Raphael had a special presence.

I knew her from Jordan... and I heard many stories that make a person realize that some people do not need high positions or titles to leave a great impact on the lives of others.

Sister Raphael is one of those who give a different meaning to giving... As I knew her and heard about her, she never hesitated to extend a helping hand to those in need... and she never asked about a student's religion or their family's background before opening her heart and door to them... And how many stories were there in which she was the gentle hand that reached out to a student facing difficulty... or a person who needed someone to stand by them.

She did not see a Muslim or a Christian before her, but rather a human being who deserves care, attention, and dignity.

Sister Raphael is a living extension of authentic Jordanian values... and an embodiment of that deep human relationship that brought Muslims and Christians together on the land of Jordan... The church was not a stranger to the mosque, and the Christian neighbor was not different from their Muslim neighbor in love, belonging, joy, and sorrow.

And today... when I received the news of the terrorist crime that targeted a church in the Hamoud area in Karak Governorate during a funeral ceremony, in which innocent people fell as dead and wounded... I felt that the bullets went beyond targeting innocent, safe people to strike something deeper in all of our consciences.

It targeted the image of Jordan that we knew... the image of the homeland in which we grew up believing that the Muslim and the Christian are partners in land, history, and destiny... and that the difference in creed was never a barrier between hearts.

But what those with terrorist ideology do not realize is that this relationship was not created by official occasions or speeches of tolerance, but by generations of coexistence... in schools, homes, neighborhoods, and in the details of daily life.

It was created by mothers who taught their children to respect their neighbor, teachers who planted the value of the human being in the souls of children, and figures like Sister Raphael who made love a sustainable act.

Terrorism has no religion, and a crime committed by extremists cannot define a creed or a society... Whoever knows Jordan and its people realizes that targeting a church is an attack on every Jordanian home, and that the pain of Christian families today is also the pain of Muslim families, because Jordanian blood is one and pain does not ask about the religion of its victims.

Today, I return in my memory to my school desks and to Sister Raphael and every person like her who spent their lives building bridges of love in silence while others try to demolish them with a bullet.

Sister Raphael... I write about you today because you remind me of the Jordan I know and love, and of the Christians and Muslims who were never two sides of an equation, but were always family and one homeland.

The Rosary and the Islamic school will remain in my memory as two schools for one lesson, and Sister Raphael will remain a witness that what unites us is much greater than what terrorism tries to plant between us.

As for Karak, which pained our hearts today, it will remain a dear part of a homeland that is not divided by a bullet and that the hand of terrorism cannot undermine its unity.

May God have mercy on the victims of Karak, heal its wounded, and protect Jordan and its people, Muslims and Christians, as one homeland whose children know nothing but love and belonging.