Our Stories

Will You Join Us? A handful of you stepped up last week to help fund Lisa and the leadership team directly, and it means more than you know. The campaign toward our $8,000 goal is still open and every gift brings us closer. If you haven’t joined yet, now’s a great time to add your support. FIELD UDPATE I began to write about the August 3 memorial, but I got stuck. I had no words. I had run out of words. There was nothing to be said that had not already been said. I could not

URGENT Every story we tell in this newsletter is possible because our leadership team keeps pushing the SOHF mission forward. Currently, most of our donations go directly to the programs themselves, keeping them running and staffed. But we have a gap. Starting this week, we're looking to raise $8,000 in recurring donations to fund Lisa and the leadership team directly as they push the vision into new regions. You can learn more through the link below. We would love your suppo

FIELD UPDATE Among the three groups of special needs friends who participate in our weekly equine program, there is one that stands out. They are a small and diverse group of tent dwellers, some from inside the camp and some from tents scattered around the village. Their ages, backgrounds, physical abilities, and mental capabilities are all different, but they have something in common. They have grown to love and look out for each other. They enjoy being together. When they a

FIELD UPDATE Life in Kurdistan is community-based. The camps for the displaced are arranged around former villages in Shingal so as to keep the scattered communities together. This has both benefits and downsides. Take Qadiya Camp, for example. The atmosphere across the camp is incredibly heavy, to the point of depression. When we go to visit our students who live there, even for a brief time, we head home heavy in spirit and usually with a splitting headache. It's the camp o

FIELD UPDATE Today I want to share a story that Kazheen, our computer teacher and one of our core team members, told me. One of the greatest challenges I have personally faced while working with our students is their lack of emotional expression. The standard reply to almost any personal question is simply, "Good." So, whenever I speak with a group, I forewarn them: "Good is not an answer." Even then, it can be like pulling teeth to get any emotional response. Something is vi

FIELD UPDATE Hello dear friends, Due to the complexities of the region and of this period of history we are all navigating, I am trying to keep the weekly updates simple, which is not easy for me, as there is always so much to share. This week the platform goes to one of our Art Directors, Salam, and her student, a 14-year-old Yezidi girl who, like most of our students, has lived in a tent for close to thirteen years now. That is all she knows; a tent, one among thousands. Ch

FIELD UPDATE Being closely integrated with our village and tent community, we have worked closely with the local orphanage for a few years now and have become a second family to them, as strong and trusting relationships were forged with the orphanage staff, who allowed their precious children to come to the stables on a weekly basis. One of their Yezidi boys, Bewar, now 13 years old, carried much sadness, along with confusion and anger. I remember how, rain or shine, he wore

FIELD UPDATE Every step of our journey over the years here has been about inheritance. Our first property was in Waar City, a kindergarten abandoned by an international NGO. It was our first portion of land, our first inheritance. Once we discovered our inheritance - one of the expensive, well-illustrated books for four-year-olds teaching them how to slay infidels (such as ourselves) - we welcomed the assignment of establishing a kindergarten for Arabs who had fled from Mosul

FIELD UPDATE My plan was to write about our participation in the annual village festival, which is an event we look forward to each year, and maybe next week I will. I was on a Zoom call yesterday where the host briefly recounted some twenty years of his organisation’s history. That got me thinking about our twelve-year journey here in Mesopotamia. A book could be made of the stories that have been told and those that sit deep in our hearts that we have not shared. The comman

FIELD UPDATE There is one combine harvester for the Shariya Complex. When it’s harvest time, it rolls in with a quiet dignity of mission. There is a silent anticipation in the village. There are no grand announcements that it’s harvest week, but somehow tears always well up in my eyes when I see it enter the first field. Harvest is coming, and with that harvest comes responsibility. Our stables are situated in the old village of Shariya, a village which remains home to broken

FIELD UPDATE When I look at these men, the real Shingali dudes, my mind goes to one verse from Lamentations which is sung in the Shabbat service. "Restore us to yourself, Lord, that we may return; renew our days as of old." These are the men who walked for days in the scorching heat to flee Shingal and arrive in safety to Shariya. These are the men whose lives were fields of wheat and barley. These are the men who had orchards and vines. These are the men who had small shops

FIELD UPDATE Hello dear friends, this is Nurse Fawzi speaking to you this week. Mrs. Avya and I go deep into the heart of the camp at least once a week; Sunday being our first visit of the week. Yes, we go to visit patients who are unable to walk to the Hope Clinic. There is quite a distance between sections A and E, for example, but we also go to watch, to see what is happening in the camp, to listen to the voices, and find people who, despite the passing of almost twelve ye