This a day-in-the-life look at the Kuwait Branch, part of the Bahrain Manama Stake. The author, Harriet Petherick Bushman, wrote her observations for the Mormon Artists Group, which just published a collection of observations about the Mormon worship experience around the globe in its new book, "On Sunday," which is published on the group's Web site.
After years of living in London and waking up for church in the rain or cold, it is an undiminished pleasure to open the curtains on today's sunny Sabbath in Kuwait. It is Friday. The tiny kingdom of Kuwait is the northernmost of the Gulf States. It is situated at the very top of the Persian Gulf and flanked by Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Site of the 1991 Gulf War, Kuwait City is a mix of stunning sky-scrapers and infested slums.Our Sabbath remains pleasurable and relaxed until we get onto the highway and meet the traffic. One of the negatives about Kuwait is the suicidal driving. Young men, known as agaedis, in tank-like Hummers or gleaming Chevy pick-up trucks, weave around the highways at 160 kph (100 mph) often playing car tag in twos or threes and tailgating six inches apart. Our road to church, the Fahaheel Expressway, has more deaths on it than any other. The best strategy for surviving physically is to stay as far out of the way as possible; mental survival is only achieved by agreeing not to talk or complain about it.We arrive a few minutes late for church but our two boys, Raffy and Max, through force of habit, shoot into their places at the piano and the sacrament table just before the meeting gets going properly. There is usually a critical mass in place at 10 a.m., but the large majority of the congregation arrives during the ensuing half hour. We meet in a small detached villa in a crowded residential area called Jabriya in central Kuwait. It is a four-storey villa and, although many of our neighbours are Kuwaiti, the church sits next to the Voltaire Institute. Consequently, on all days but the Sabbath, the street is jam-packed with expensive cars and their drivers waiting for their young charges to come out of French lessons. Our meeting room, on the ground floor, is only about as big as the 12 red chairs in which the Apostles sit in the Salt Lake Conference Center, set in a line. There are six windows that look out onto a small parking lot and smaller garden, parched and dessicated by salt and sun — we are only a couple of kilometres from the sea. Not much grows here unless you are prepared to spend a lot of money on water and fertilizer. In the garden, there is a palm tree and a few struggling plants. Occasionally someone goes to the plant market (souq) and buys a tray of petunias or geraniums. These survive until the sun gets blistering, and then they stand shriveled and humiliated until they are uprooted and released from their misery. We have one Kuwaiti friend here who has created a beautiful garden with grape arbours, mango, olive and mulberry trees, banks of gardenias and jasmines and even a camellia bush (this last an astonishing achievement as this is hardly the Himalayas), but it is rare. There is a modest pulpit in our meeting room, a sacrament table and an electric piano with a wonky plug. It is not unusual to have to jiggle the electrical connection in preparation for the sacrament hymns. But since uncertain electricity is common in Middle Eastern life, no one worries about it. We sit in rows of five — a mix of Americans, British, Indians, and Filipinos. The mix is roughly 20 westerners to 40 others.Today is special because we are preparing for a visit soon from Elder Jeffrey R. Holland to reorganise a new stake presidency. The last time we had a member of the Quorum of the Twelve in the Middle East for this reason was 26 years ago, so we are very delighted and everyone is looking forward to the meeting. Our stake president, David Alexander, white-haired and patriarchal with a dash of cowboy in him, has been in the calling for 10 years, during which time he has scarcely spent a weekend at home due to the size of the stake area and the necessity of traveling around to the many different units. His wife, Sue, spare and elegant, travels with him as stake Relief Society president — we do that here because of the large area. They have served selflessly and brought great stability and leadership to the stake. The notices from the pulpit are largely about the light dinner that will precede the stake conference (we do a lot of communal eating here). Dee, a Filipina with thick, black hair that hangs far beyond her waist, conducts us in "Did You Think to Pray." The conducting is somewhat idiosyncratic but everyone knows what she means, so no one really looks. She works in a company that sends money abroad, and she sometimes comes to church in her crisp, smart air-hostess type uniform. In this country, where one of the biggest segments of the population is the immigrant worker, Dee sees a lot of money leaving the country, sometimes in pitifully small amounts. It is not unusual for our members to send all but a few dollars of their monthly salaries home, often keeping whole villages alive in the Philippines, India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and others.Our branch presidency consists of two Americans and one Indian. Our president, Rod Blackford, who is a geologist working in the oil industry, is here largely on bachelor status as his wife Barbara spends time at home in Colorado looking after children and grandchildren. Rod is a convert, a twinkle-eyed, deeply emotional man and the most generously serving person ever. He is also a semi-professional golfer. He is a very serious sportsman, having once been invited to play pro football in the U.S., and has taken many church members out onto the golf course to initiate them into the joys of The Green (one of the most expensive courses in the world owing to the fact that all of its water must be desalinated). Our son Raffy has become keen on the game owing to Rod's expert tutelage, and they play at least once a week. Our boys always know to beam their gaze on Rod when anyone starts telling a sad story from the pulpit; they are not usually disappointed. Rod blames his tender-heartedness on his errant but ultimately (and phenomenally to this writer's mind) righteous children and has stories to tell that are faith-promoting in the extreme. Today, he is in the U.S.A. for the marriage of his youngest daughter in a temple surrounded by all his children with their spouses. Terry Pohlsander, also from the U.S.A. who works in I.T., is here with his wife Julie. She is the leader of our branch choir and an experienced seamstress. She is currently designing and making costumes for our community production, conducted by my husband Richard, of The Mikado.Julie described to me what it was like to arrive at church in Kuwait for the first time: "I was surprised at how at home I felt. What happens is that you are greeted like you are in a reception line at an event. And when you get to the end of the line you take your place to greet the next one through the door. There are handshakes and kisses all around. Everyone is really happy that you are here; they really do care and love you. When you are not attending you are missed greatly. I have never before had as many friends as I have here. Everything you do is noticed and commented on by someone in a positive way."Bibao Tamang, second counsellor in the branch presidency, is from India and currently has his family living in Canada. This family situation takes him away quite regularly but he is a strong presence when in Kuwait. He has astonishingly shiny shoes — a legacy of his father's military career — and he is a great speaker who knows a million stories. Bibau occasionally shows an optimistic streak by wearing a tie with snowmen on it.We are listening to the musical number now. Jacob Pohlsander continues to amaze us with the rich beauty of his baritone voice. Hearing him makes me think that church music is pretty similar wherever we go: all nationalities love to sing the favourites from the Children's Songbook. My service last year in Primary was a treasured time. We usually have three or four children in Primary here, but when I was serving, owing to the temporary presence of a generous family with seven children, we had eight. Suddenly songs could be sung in parts and the great legacy of singing, for which the church is so well-known, was once again possible even in our limited numbers. A good deal of fun goes on in our Primary. The music is conducted and played by the two 19-year old boys of the branch, and they do a tremendous job. Because we are so small, we do not always get to have a Primary presentation. It can and has been done in the past with a very few children, but it is tough.One of the examples of this LDS musical legacy is Deborah Jones, the current U.S. Ambassador to Kuwait. Deborah has a beautiful mezzo-soprano voice, and when she first arrived and was asked if she sang, her response was "of course I sing, I was brought up as a Latter-Day Saint." Deborah is in a unique position in Kuwait's almost exclusively male business and diplomatic world. She is frequently the only female present amongst hundreds of men, and she has the experience, brains and wit to stand out amongst the brightest of them. Now we are being addressed by our high counselor, Juanito Lacorte, also a Filipino, who was until recently our branch president. I serve as Relief Society president, and his wife, Gloria, is my counselor. They are a strong couple and utterly dedicated to the gospel. In the beginning of our time in Kuwait, Brother Lacorte was quite difficult for me to understand, but I have grown accustomed to his heavily-accented English. There are other very committed Filipino families of several generations who came to live here a few decades ago and, having found that life in Kuwait worked out for them, stayed. I would say we are a tight branch getting tighter. In Relief Society, our class is two-thirds Filipino. These are wonderful spiritual women who know how to listen to Heavenly Father and act upon the promptings of the Holy Ghost. Kuwait is not an easy place to be a woman. To avoid trouble, non-Kuwaiti women keep themselves as private as possible. We dress conservatively, travel in at least pairs, if not groups, and never make eye contact with strangers; people have been hauled off to jail for much less. Human rights is an ignored concept here, especially where domestic help is concerned. Some of our church members have been in situations where they have not been paid, sometimes they are obliged to work seven days a week, 18 hours per day, or they may have been abused or sacked without compensation, their passports held.I look out over the congregation. I see these woman, many of whom have stories of faith in adversity that are astonishing. One of our teachers is Miriam Alcampor. She is a super-bright woman currently working as a beautician although she could probably have been a lawyer. She grew up in a very poor home, longing for education as a child although her family could scarcely feed themselves. Mormon missionaries taught and baptized her family. She later married and had two children. They owned a business in Manila. But after her husband became ill with Bell's Palsy, she was forced to go abroad to earn money to support the family. She told me, "Even though it's so hard to live apart from them, I just have to be strong to be able to sustain their needs." Miriam's son and daughter are in college now studying computer science and nursing. Both of them are active in the church. She says it is worth all the hardship to see them have a degree.Despite, but maybe because of, the tremendous hardships so many of them have known, these Filipino women are a merry lot who love to laugh and enjoy their life. Sometimes westerners find the things that make them laugh strange because their hilarity is so often linked with disaster, but this probably comes from living so close to serious poverty and shortage of even the most fundamental things in life, so one learns not to misinterpret it. Of course there is also straightforward appreciation and enjoyment of each other's company and eagerness to learn from the skills and experience of each different sister and with the Filipinos you know that where there is an opportunity to laugh and have fun, they will find it. They are truly leaven to the lump! Most of the sisters are here without their families and they are permanently lonely for their husbands and children, but still they may be the most inspiring group of people that I have had the privilege to work and worship with. Their faith is simple and rooted in the principles of the gospel, and they are loving and aware, sensitive and beautiful. We see hardships as opportunities here. As a family, one of our very best church experiences was when we held church at home in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, during the Gulf War in 1990-1991. Most of the westerners had gone home but I was pregnant, so we remained and met on Fridays with an all-Filipino congregation. Testimony meetings were unforgettable. Was there ever a more grateful group of people? One of the women in church today is Deliah Conor. She stayed in the Phillipines when her husband Cepriano arrived in Kuwait. He had signed a work contract to be a supervisor, but when he arrived, he discovered that he had been tricked and would be a laborer instead. Unable to join her husband, Deliah was stuck and alone. The branch president at the time, Donald Holt and his family sponsored her to come to Kuwait and live with them. She arrived a week before Christmas, 1992. The Conors now have four daughters. They have lived in Kuwait for seventeen years.Another family is the On family. They are our biggest church tribe with children and grandchildren living and working here. Sister Elena On is a petite, ultra-stylish and wise matriarch of a family with two returned missionaries, one of whom is now a bishop in their home country. Elena's daughter, Faye, also petite and stylish as well highly efficient and modish, has been bringing her flat mate, a Chinese girl called Yan, to church. Yan is a graphic designer and has brought beautiful Chinese art and music to church for us to enjoy. We are not allowed to preach the gospel to Muslims but we can speak in private to other Christians or non-religious people. Since Faye and Yan have rooms in the same apartment, Faye has been able to share the gospel more easily. Yan has been coming faithfully now for several months and has been taught the missionary lessons. She is now considering a baptismal date.Most of the branch wears Western dress to church. An exception is Linda Al-Shammari who often wears an Arab-style caftan. Linda has been here for 33 years and is separated from her Arab husband. She has extraordinary stories of her early married life — one where her father-in-law insisted that she learn to make flat bread the traditional Arab way over an open fire. She remembers having to stay up all night until the bread was considered satisfactory and edible. Linda is always colourful and is very well-known in Kuwait as she runs the radio Breakfast Show in English. We all know her distinctive voice. Linda has two daughters, one of whom has also married a Kuwaiti. Reem, her younger daughter, has the wonderfully rippling long thick hair so admired in the Middle East (and envied in the West) and doubtless knows the famous and unmentionable local secrets of how to care for it. People in the West might not realize how much faith and courage is required to live a Christian life here. For Linda, it would be an imprisionable offense by Kuwaiti law to bring the children of a Muslim father to a Christian church.We have one beautiful couple from the South of India, Joy and Simi, who have two little girls — Jenefer and Catherine. Simi occasionally wears one of her colourful saris and the girls sometimes have traditional Indian kohl around their eyes and on their foreheads. Jenefer wears jingling silver anklets. Joy was introduced to the gospel when he worked for some church members down on the Texaco compound in the south of Kuwait. It was a celebration when he joined and even more wonderful when Simi, who works as a teacher's assistant in the American school, joined a little later. The high point came when Linda Ahlberg, who works on the army base at Arafjan and is particularly close to Joy and Simi, took the initiative to galvanise the branch into helping Joy and Simi get to the temple with Jenefer and Katherine to be sealed. It was a very uniting time for the branch and also those members who had left Kuwait but were fond of Joy and Simi. Everyone contributed all that they could and former Kuwait Branch members in Texas, Utah and other states, despite hurricanes and electrical failures, fallen trees and other disasters that swept parts of America just at the time Joy and Simi embarked, welcomed the family as they travelled to the U.S. to be sealed in the Dallas Temple. In our sacrament meeting, I see Brother Neal Ostler. He has been in Kuwait for nearly eight months. He was raised in Midvale, Utah. His ancestors were all Mormon pioneers. Some of them planted the first seeds and built the first chapel in Provo, others lived in the first fort in Nephi, and others settled the community of Pleasant View just north of Ogden. Neal told me that he likes to think he is a pioneer too, in Kuwait, preparing the soil here for planting and harvest. I asked Neal how he got here in Kuwait. This is what he said: "Nearly 20 years ago, after I had been inactive for more than a dozen years and had lost my family through divorce and was living alone in a distant city, I made a bargain with the Lord that if I could have my family back, I would give up alcohol and tobacco, attend my meetings, and pay a full tithe. My prayers were answered when my ex-wife ran off in search of herself and, in consequence, I was able to find myself during the process of raising my children as a single parent and in keeping my side of the bargain I'd made with the Lord. I have been blessed to become remarried to a wonderful woman who was also raised in the church. I'm grateful for the branch here in Kuwait which affords me a place to Worship in the tradition of my Fathers."We are currently sitting in the basement of the meeting house having a Temple Preparation class, given by Richard, and we are discussing tithing and reading the fourth chapter of Malachi. This is quite timely as earlier today a newly-arrived sister, Flordeluz Ragasa, bore her testimony about her father who had had difficulty paying tithing and so could not go to the temple. Through incredible faith and sacrifice, he has resolved this issue and has just been called as bishop of his ward in the Philippines.Our branch president also has a strong testimony of tithing because he once urged a struggling brother to pay tithing when it did not seem possible. The brother paid, went to work the next day and was sacked because someone in his division had stolen some money. This was not the result that our branch president had hoped for, but as he had been led by the spirit to bear his testimony about tithing, he could not doubt. A few days later he was called by the brother to say that the firm, after investigating the situation more closely, had discovered that this brother was the only one who had not been embezzling funds and so they would give him a 10 percent pay rise including back pay. Our Temple Prep class is small, only eight people, two of whom are a young Filipino couple, Faye and Rene, who are planning to be married. Two young guys, our son Raphael and Jacob Pohlsander both 19, are getting ready to make the decision about a mission in their lives. Bill and Rhonda Skinner from Idaho are also planning to attend the temple once they return to the U.S. Bill comments that he remembers, when he was child growing up in Rockville, Md., the announcement of the Washington D.C. Temple, and the financial commitments required of the members before construction could begin. The teacher remembers a family home evening where his father said that everyone in the family had to think about ways to save and donate, and that if we could not reach our stake commitment, the stake presidency would have to pay it personally. Another brother remembers that in Rockville, every family was asked to donate one month's gross wage, saved up over about a year. In his family, his father was unable to save up that much, so his mother took a salaried job for the first time in her life, working from home as a solicitor for clothing donations to VFW. As he came home from school every day, she would be sitting upstairs talking on the telephone in order to reach their temple donation commitment. A member of the ward worked at the National Institute of Health and got their ward signed up to a scientific study, whereby members had to provide urine samples over quite a long period. Aaronic Priesthood boys and Young Women would come to church with a discreet bag to give to this brother, and were paid thousands of dollars, directly into the Temple Fund.All of our classes are small. In Relief Society we are about fifteen, Young Women, four and Young Men, one. It is always reassuring to think that even with small forces and different languages (there are two Sunday School classes, one in Tagalong and one in English) the curriculum and teaching manuals are the same and that we are on the same schedule as the biggest strongest wards in the church. Priesthood has about 18 in attendance. The men work on all sorts of different jobs. There are technicians, people in the oil industry, in banking fields, a pilot, hospital workers, diplomats and computer specialists. All but three of the westerners are living far from their families and work to be able to support their families back home. It is a far from ideal scenario. One of our recently-arrived brothers, Tom Murphy, epitomizes the challenges of living far from family. He told me that at age 53, he was let go from his job in California. He and his family drained their savings as he looked for work. They had joined the church in 1995, and when an offer to work in Kuwait arrived, Tom was worried that he wouldn't be able to continue learning of the gospel. Tom doubted that he could find the church here. The branch in Kuwait keeps a low profile. It's number is unpublished; it's meetinghouse is nondescript. Fortunately, a friend of Tom's in the U.S. tracked down the branch information for him through the U.S. military. He thought he would only be in Kuwait for three months, but the U.S. job market has deteriorated, and he is still here. Meanwhile, he wife is ill — doctors discovered a large tumor — and his teenage children are feeling abandoned. What is he to do?Every third Friday — the Arab Sabbath falls on Fridays — the whole branch eats together at 1 p.m. when meetings are over, and a quick, 20-minute branch choir rehearsal is galloped through. An interesting array of food appears usually based around a Filipino staple, glass noodles, with bits of chicken and vegetables thrown in. Some people who don't have time to shop or prepare might bring a roasted chicken — the Middle East excels in these spit-turned, burnished birds — or some inexpensive pastries from the bakeries that are to be found in every Arab neighbourhood. One of the main points about Pot Luck Fridays is to have enough left over for the less well-fed among our group to be able to take several meals' worth home with them. The national Arab meal is lamb, rice and green salad and occasionally sheeps' eyes (rare) and tripe. Richard has been at desert feasts where a whole camel has appeared on the meal mat in the centre of a circle of seated, cross-legged Bedouins, but this is not the way we eat at church. In our branch push for unity, love, and seeking to strengthen one another, we are meeting after church at members' houses to eat and simply be together. This is especially for all the members on single status (though all are welcome). Some of the western families invite the whole branch to come after church to cook together, eat and talk. The house is dedicated to the members for the day as they often have nowhere to go to relax and keep the Sabbath. The branch has become very close through having time to sit together and sharing the details of different lives.We are now in Relief Society in a small room with a white board and 30 chairs. A small table has a white cloth on it. Our teacher is Erica from the Philippines. She is a bright and pretty woman married to a non-member called Deo. She has decided to prevail upon the spirit to change her husband's heart and fulfil her dream to be married in the temple. She is going about this by fasting for him each month and holding a carefully prepared Family Home Evening to teach him the basic principles of the gospel but without driving him away. He currently attends a Baptist congregation and is reluctant to abandon the faith of his childhood, so, as a body of sisters in Relief Society, we are supporting Erica as she embarks on her mission to bring her husband to an understanding of the restored gospel and eventual baptism.There are many large congregations of other Christian denominations here. We went to hear an inspirational speaker in the Anglican communion — the vicar is a very dear friend — and we were truly inspired not only by what was said but to be surrounded, on Muslim soil, by so many devoted Christians. Our little group of Latter-Day-Saints seems very small by comparison, but we have a lot of strength because of the testimonies that people have developed.Sadly, we are preparing to say goodbye to one of our sisters, Melody, who is now returning to the Philippines. Melody is a great example of righteousness and an inspiring example of someone whose righteousness has resulted in family success. As a single mother, her husband died several years ago, Melody has brought up four faithful children, all of whom are active in the church. Her second son is now following his older brother into the mission field — a remarkable achievement for a sister who has had to work abroad and live apart from her children in order to pay for their education and living expenses. We will miss her but we are grateful that she is going back to a ward where another of our Filipino sisters, Cecilia, will also be. Cecilia lived here in Kuwait for 17 years as housekeeper to a wonderful American Kuwaiti family. When she was diagnosed with cancer, this family looked after her as one of their own, and many tears were shed as she finally left after so many happy years here.We will be able to have a leaving party for Melody as Enrichment falls on a weekday and we can do some non-Sabbath things. So many of our sisters work six days a week that we have a special dispensation from the stake to hold our Enrichment meetings after church on Fridays — often the only day that they are free. It is Kuwait's celebration of Independence from the Iraqi invasion in 1991, and so a national holiday is declared. We have chosen that day to celebrate as sisters. The Filipinos are keen dancers and so they will come in their national dress and bring their music. We will all bring food and also be taught to make jewelry. These are great moments for bonding between ages and nationalities. We are also making quiet books for the three little girls in our branch. I feel that these will be a revelation of imagination for their mothers whose present form of quiet book is a packet of crisps or a bunch of keys. Occasionally, when we are doing a classical concert, a musical or an opera, the Filipino church members love to come. One of the Sheikhas, the Gulf title meaning Princess, has devoted her life to culture, especially all things related to Islam, and has sponsored the building of a state of the art theatre and lecture/concert series. These range from the study of ancient Islamic calligraphy to a cutting edge Kuwaiti Shakespeare Richard III production — soon to be seen in Washington DC and all over the world; from sea songs sung, danced and played by the biggest pearl diving sea band of Piratically bearded men to treasures of the western classical tradition played on a full, albeit electric, organ by possibly the most eccentric organist ever experienced. And just about everything in between.One interesting cultural difference in church is the mobile phone. I think that today may have been the first time that someone's phone did not disturb the sacrament or a speaker, and it is always the loudest most obnoxious ring-tone in the deepest bag or fullest pocket. Occasionally long conversations ensue to the amazement of some of us and the complete acceptance of others. My own observation about this branch is that it is a happy, solid and colourful place. Ideally we would like there to be a bigger youth contingent, but apart from that, I think it is pretty close to perfect as far as congregations go. We are small enough to really know and care for each other and big enough for most people to have only one calling and not have to speak in sacrament meeting more than a few times each year. Most people are willing to share the burdens and help carry those who need it. I really feel that people love each other and that the Holy Ghost is present.