Some Change

My loving friend Nicolas Nassif, who dwells with God today, had told me, as an advice, that, to invigorate my life, I should leave my place of residence as well as my ministry for a few days a year, for two or three weeks, to another expanse and other faces. This advice has guided me, to this day, for nearly twenty-five years. Every year, when September arrives, I leave for another place. When the idea of my traveling this year presented itself, one of the arguments raised to my face by my daughter-in-law was this advice, that traveling to new expanses and faces will give me this invigorating change. Here, the expanse is new. However, the faces, as I told you, were not all new. There are faces I know from our country who have been expelled by oppression, which is our daily bread, the oppression of politics, of vacuum, and of this painful truth: that for a person to live in his own country, he has to choose between two things, either be a parrot or be mute! Nothing strengthens us, in our land, like the love of friends and the hope in a new tomorrow.