Through It All: A Journey of Suffering, Hope and Perserverance

By Rev. Jamil S. Qandah

Life is a journey. Every journey has a beginning and an end. And every journey has a purpose.

God has a purpose for our life. Many people in this world live day by day without a purpose in their life other than to live and have pleasure. In other words, they live outside God's plan.

The author takes the readers on his life journey from birth to the time of writing this book. The journey straddles three continents and places. Each place represents a chronological stage in the author's life. That is why he chose the names of those places as titles of each chapter.

It all describes how God worked his plan in the life of the author throughout his life. God has a purpose, a plan for your life whatever circumstances you go through. May God reveal to you his plan for your life through it all.

May God bless your life as you read this book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9798886857788

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Through It All

A Journey of Suffering, Hope and Perserverance

Rev. Jamil S. Qandah

ISBN 979-8-88685-777-1 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88685-778-8 (digital)

ISBN 979-8-88751-359-1 (hardcover)

Copyright © 2022 by Rev. Jamil S. Qandah

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Shatana, Jordan 1

Amman, Jordan 1

Shatana, Jordan 2

Shatana, Jordan 3

Amman, Jordan 2

Busingen, Germany/Switzerland

Al-Zarka, Jordan

Bethany and Britain, Oklahoma

Larnaca, Cyprus

Chicago, Illinois

About the Author

Acknowledgments

First and foremost, I give thanks and gratitude to God almighty for the gift of salvation and all that he has done to me and through me. Through it all, I am indebted to him with my life. I thank the Lord for inspiring and helping me to write this book.

I thank my wife, my children, and my friends, who encouraged and supported me to write this book.

Introduction

Life in this world is a journey. It begins one day and ends another day. Although many deny it, life begins at the moment of conception. At that moment, the history of a new human life begins. Every life is a story written in the pages of history. Some stories are remembered; others are forgotten. Some are good; others are not good.

No matter what kind is your life story or mine, they are written in an eternal book. There, no one's life story will be forgotten.

As I ponder my life and read the Bible, I believe that no one's life is an accident or a fluke of history. I believe that there is a purpose for every life, no matter how long or short it's lived.

There were times in my life when I thought, Why am I here? Why was I born? What is the purpose of my life? You probably sometimes might have thought along those lines. The fact is that God has a plan for every life whether we recognize or not. God wants everyone to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. How we get there is his plan. If we don't get there, it's our plan.

Oftentimes I couldn't discern God's plan in my life, but it became clear to me later on. Did anything like this happen to you? However, there are things that we might never understand while we are on this side of life. I am sure that you and I have many questions that we will ask the Lord on the other side.

I would like to share a story here that I recently read. A thirteen-year-old teenager became pregnant. Her mother forced her to abort her pregnancy. However, no one knew that she was carrying twin girls. One of the girls was very tiny. The abortionist butcher dismembered the bigger baby while missing the tiny one. When the pregnancy became apparent, it was too late for abortion. When the girl gave birth to the surviving twin in the hospital, she was forced to give up her little newborn daughter for adoption. The baby was adopted by a Christian family.

Now that tiny girl who survived abortion is a young woman in her early twenties. Not long ago, miraculously, the young woman met with her birth mother for the first time. Now she is blessed with two wonderful mothers: her adopted mother and her birth mother. An awesome three! They are rejoicing in the Lord and serving him on behalf the unborn babies. There are no better advocates. They share their story wherever they could. Some of the readers might have heard them or about them.

The fact that a tiny fetus evaded the tools of butchery in the darkness of her teenage mother's womb is nothing less than a divine miracle. God almighty protected her in the womb of her mother because he has a purpose and plan for her life that no one knew at the time. Countless similar stories could be heard and written.

I am writing this book as a testimony to what the Lord has done in my life and as an encouragement to the readers. In a way, my life journey began even before I was born. Although I was not there, I relay what I heard from my parents and paternal grandparents. In this respect, this book is an unusual biography or autobiography.

The book is different in other aspects as well. Things do not happen in a vacuum. Life doesn't exist in a vacuum. Life exists in real time and space. The book follows a chronological timeline that begins before my birth till the time of the writing of this book. Also, the events move in places that are in harmony with chronological periods. The chapters titles and subtitles are organized according to the time where I lived in during each period.

The information in the book focuses on the spiritual aspect of my life and touch on other areas, like geography, history, religion, culture, and politics. I believe that life is shaped by all these factors.

So, in a way, I dare to say that this book is not your typical biography or autobiography. I pray that you will read, enjoy, and be blessed.

Shatana, Jordan 1

My country, Jordan, is an ancient country from biblical times. It was the land of the Ammonites, the children of Ammon, the son of Lot. The country is mostly desert and arid mountains. Throughout its history, the land was ruled by various world powers. The ruins and monuments throughout the country are living witnesses to the country's history.

The Greeks called the present capital city Amman Philadelphia. Then came the Romans, followed by Arabs, and finally the Turks until the First World War.

The history of the modern-day country of Jordan began in 1921. After the end of the First World War, the area east and west of the Jordan River came under the British mandate. In 1921, Abdullah, the youngest son of the Sheriff of Mecca, marched from Arabia through Jordan, leading an army to help his brother, King Faisal of Syria, who was fighting the French. The British governor met Abdullah and offered him to be made a prince of the land east of the Jordan River. Abdullah accepted, and the area was given the name of the Emirate of Transjordan.

In 1948, Prince Abdullah proclaimed himself a king, and the country was renamed the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. After the establishment of the state of Israel in the West Bank, King Abdullah unified what remained from the West Bank with his kingdom. Finally, Jordan gained its independence from Britain in 1956 under the leadership of King Hussein, the grandson of King Abdullah, who was assassinated by a Palestinian nationalist in Jerusalem.

Shatana is the name of my birthplace. That is where the story of my life was planted and sprouted. From there, it grew and reached many other places until it reached and settled in Chicago, Illinois, in the United States of America.

I was amazed to find information about my birthplace on the Internet. Shatana is a small obscure village nestled among the mountains in the region of Irbid in the north of Jordan. It is one thousand meters above sea level.

The village was inhabited three thousand five hundred years ago, according to ancient ruins and old caves. A few inhabitants of the village found ancient treasures. However, government officials excavated treasures secretly in the night, according to witnesses, including in lands belong to my family. But we have a saying, If the judge is your enemy, where can you go to complain?

Shatana is in the area called Gilead in the Old Testament, which was inhabited by two and a half tribes of the Israelites. Probably, there were Jews who lived in the village. On the northwestern outskirt of the village, there is a cave called by the locals as the Cave of Miftah. This refers to the biblical Jephthah the Gileadite, who was ostracized by his brethren because he was the son of a harlot. He escaped his brethren and dwelt in the cave. Later, his people sought him and pleaded with him to save them from their enemies, which he did, and he became a judge for six years.

The present inhabitants of Shatana descended from migrants who moved into the village in 1868 from several areas around it. All people were originally primitive farmers. The people belonged to ten tribes; some of them came from the same root. All the inhabitants came from and belong to three Christian denominations: Roman Catholic, called Latin in the Middle East; Eastern Catholic; and Greek Orthodox. Consequently, there were three different church buildings in the village. However, only the Latin church remains open and functioning due to emigration and immigration.

Shatana and another small town called Fuhais are the only two habitations in Jordan that never had a mosque in them. No Muslims own property or land in both places. Some Muslims live in Shatana from time to time as they worked as farmhands.

Now the population of Jordan is about eight million. The great majority are Muslims. There is a small Christian minority, less than 4 percent, scattered among several denominations.

The village was surrounded with oak groves. Few groves remained in the southwest of the village because of activity of the people of the village and outsiders. The trees used to be cut to make coal, firewood, and feed for goats in winter. Now what is left is protected by the government. On the other hand, the village is dotted with small gardens of olive trees and fruit trees like almonds, figs, apricots, plums, and pomegranates. Also, the gardens are used to plant vegetables and herbs.

For most of its history, Shatana did not have basic services like indoor or outdoor plumbing, garbage collection, paved streets, transportation, health clinics, running water, and electricity. In those days, the donkey was the king of the road. Water was collected from the rain. The flickering light came from a lowly kerosene lantern.

The present population of the village is about one hundred people. As new generations went to school and got to know the world outside the village, they started to leave the village and settle in other major cities like Irbid and Al-Zarka.

In the 1950s and '60s, most young men enlisted in the army. As they got married and had families, they moved their families to be near where they served, especially the town of Al-Zarka. Then the shopkeepers and other workers followed suit. Then followed by college-educated and high school graduates. Finally, people of all stripes started to emigrate to the west, especially to the United States, Canada, and Australia. Now there are more than one thousand five hundred people from the village living abroad.

Meet my parents

I was born to a poor Catholic family. My father was born in 1926. He was a third-grade dropout. At a young age, he worked at a British petroleum company called Taplin. In 1941, he was enlisted in the police force as a mounting police officer.

My mother was three years younger than my father. She lived in a different village. She was completely illiterate and never went to school.

Marriage used to be a family affair, always arranged by parents. My parents' marriage used to be a common tradition then but rare now. Two families would get to know each other directly, sometimes relatives or from the same village, or through a third party, as was the case for my parents. Then, they bargain. The two families exchange their sons and daughters. One family would agree to give their daughter in marriage to the son of the other family, and the other family would reciprocate in the same manner. Often, the two marriages would take place on the same day.

My parents got married in 1941. Two children got married. My father was fifteen years old while my mother was twelve years old. That was common practice in those days. I heard that my mother, in the beginning of her married life, couldn't even wash dishes. My grandmother used to tell me a funny story about my father. While the wedding celebration was going on, my father left the room and the wedding guests and went outside to play marbles with his friends. It took my mighty grandmother to bring him in and make him sit by his bride.

Here I come

I was born in 1948. The date is another story. My parents could not have children for seven years. When it was time for me to enter the world, my entrance was anything but easy.

The day I was born was a gloomy day. There was a snow blizzard. The ground was covered with about three feet of snow. My parents owned some goats like most of the families in the village. The common goat herder couldn't take the goats to the pastures to feed.

On that morning, my father had to leave my pregnant mother and wade through the deep snow to the nearest oak grove to bring a load of oak branches on his back to feed the goats. When he came home, my mother was in labor. There was in the village an old midwife who lived on a hill a long distance from our house. On that day, there was no passable path to bring her to our house. Again, my father had to struggle with the elements and wade through the deep snow, especially climbing up a hill to where the old midwife lived. He carried the old midwife on his back and brought her to our house.

Not long after that, I came out and proclaimed my entrance to this gloomy snowy world with a loud scream and protest. My mother wanted first to name me Thaljy, which means snowy. However, she changed her mind and called me Jamil, which means beautiful.

I don't know the exact day and month of my birthday. As I mentioned above, I was born on a blizzard day. Usually, we have this kind of weather during January and February.

The village had a caretaker called Mokhtar. Transportation in the winter was difficult. To register a birthday, the Mokhtar had to travel on foot to the next town and take a bus from there to the city of Irbid, the center of the region. Mostly, the Mokhtar would not take all this trouble for just registering the birth of a kid like me. He had to have other important errands to be worth the trouble. So my birthday was transferred from a cold snow-blizzard day in January or February to a sunny hot day on July 12, 1948.

From the beginning, my troubles began. My mother told me that I was a colic baby, always crying. She was advised by the old ladies of the village that the remedy for my fussiness was bloodletting from my back by the use of cupping. My mother would make small cuts on my back with a shaving razor, put pieces of burning papers inside some glass teacups to vacate the air from them, and press them on top of the cuts on my back. After a while, blood would be sucked inside the cups. The cups would be removed and the skin cleaned. Cupping is still used in the Middle East with or without bloodletting as treatment for pulmonary ailments. I don't know whether cupping and bloodletting helped in my situation. But I know that it was done more often than I could think of. At age seventy-three, the