Coptic Biography

Author's name: Sherine Hanaei

"The church is elevated a few steps above the ground, so some men climb first to carry the children inside, then help the women up. Rain is pouring down the mountain, carrying sand and small stones. The children are coughing and shivering. I rush to the heart of the church and look for blankets. Others look for food. The water is soaking the floor and making it impossible to sit on. It will be pitch black. I shake the lamps but find no oil. When was the last time we prayed here? A child screamed, and we all turned to her. Then a scorpion being swept away by the water caught our attention. The water is teeming with insects, spiders, and vermin of every kind." The Coptic woman raises her eyes to the sky and asks God: Where is the way? The familiar world collapses around her. The flood on one side, the torrents on the other, and Roman soldiers are setting fire to her village on the other. She raises her eyes to the sky and asks about the fate of those hanging around her neck. She is not a saint, not a princess. She is none other than the daughter of the village chief who found herself in the open, traveling on the backs of mules, boats, and ships, crossing rivers and mountains to where there is ice and death, followed by thousands of strangers, who see in her nothing but a sun that rose from the east to bring them out into the day.