It was a sunny day, as usual. The olive trees had just been pruned, and Gladys and Hudson were making a fort from the branches.
“Dar zween,” they heard someone say. “Nice house!”

Gladys and Hudson turned around. There stood Raja’s grandpa. The kids grinned at their former enemy. Ever since they had won over Raja’s grandpa with kindness, he had been their friend. Sometimes he even greeted Gladys’s doll, Anna.

“How are you, little girl?” he would ask. “Ki dayira?”

Raja’s grandpa walked over and inspected their olive-branch house. He announced that he would buy it and move in right away. The kids laughed.

Just then, Gladys heard, “Allah akbar!” The voice of an imam singing blared out from a loudspeaker on a nearby mosque. It was the Muslim call to prayer. In a few minutes, all the men in the neighborhood would meet at the mosque. Gladys and Hudson knew the imam, the Muslim spiritual leader. Sometimes they peeked into the mosque as he led the prayers. The men would bow, kneel, and do other special motions. Women did these motions, too, in their homes. Sometimes when out visiting with her mom, Gladys saw her mom’s friends do them.
Raja’s grandpa slung his folded prayer mat over his shoulder and turned towards the mosque. Gladys was glad that she and Hudson hadn’t given up on “the grumpy old man.” Now he was their friend.

Just then, Jonah walked by. He lived on the other side of Gladys and Hudson, and he used to play with them. But now he was the one being grumpy. Jonah bent down and picked up a handful of rocks. He threw them at the fort. Gladys felt her face grow hot with anger as Jonah walked away.

A while later, Jonah returned with some other neighbor kids. Hudson tried to challenge the boys to a racing game, but nobody wanted to play. “Go back to America!” one of the children shouted. Another child picked up some pebbles and threw them at Gladys’s feet. They stung as they hit her shins.

“Go on,” said another. “We don’t like you. Go away! Go back to America!” Gladys thought she would explode. She sputtered out a few words in the local language, grabbed Hudson’s hand, and dragged him inside the house.

“It’s not fair!” she told her mom. “We share our toys. We’re nice. What more do they want?”

Mom sat down with them, and they told her what had happened. She sighed. “I’m sorry you had to hear those words,” she said. “Unfortunately, those are words that many immigrant people around the world hear. And I hope you never say words like that. But you know what? It’s not up to those kids whether or not you live here. That’s between us and God.”

That evening, Gladys lay in her bed. Protagonist, her black-and-white cat, sprawled out on her tummy. His purring comforted her. She strained her ears to listen: Mom and Dad were talking.

“This is getting ridiculous,” Mom said. “They can’t even step outside without being harassed. Some of the kids even climbed our courtyard wall to throw rocks at them. Gladys and Hudson are having nightmares. Should we just move?”

“Maybe,” Dad said. “Let’s pray for wisdom. God will show us what to do.”

For the next several weeks, Gladys felt like a prisoner in her house. She couldn’t go to the cracked-earth “yard” she shared with the neighbors without one of her parents. Once, when her mom went to answer the phone, Jonah even pushed Gladys into a thorn bush!
“Why are they acting like this?” Gladys asked her dad one day as they worked together folding laundry. “They used to be our friends.”

“They may be upset with us,” Dad said. “Remember that a couple of months ago they were doing some dangerous things? Well, I talked to their parents about it. The kids might not realize that those things could seriously hurt them or others. They don’t like that they got in trouble, but it’s better that their parents know so they can guide them.”

“But we only told you because we were scared for them. Mom even tried to teach them to make crafts. She knew they were bored because dumb COVID made the schools shut down.” Dad nodded sympathetically. Like a lot of kids, Gladys felt annoyed by the way the COVID-19 virus had changed things. “Mom tried to give the kids something fun to do instead of that other stuff. And we tried to play fun games.” Gladys picked up a cotton mask and folded it in half.

“I know, Gladys. We’ve all done our best to be nice to Jonah and the others.”

“Aren’t they ever going to be nice back?”

“I don’t know,” Dad admitted. “For now, it’s important that you only go outside with an adult. If we need to, we will move to a different village. But we will keep praying and being kind. Let’s wait and see what God will do.”

Gladys nodded, but she let out a big huff, too. She would rather just do what the kids said and go home to America. Then she could see her grandma and grandpa all the time!

But her parents were sharing about God’s grace with the Maghrebi people. Dad often came home from teaching English with a prayer request for a new person who was asking questions about Jesus. Recently he had even had a three-hour conversation with one of them. Besides, missionaries were supposed to have exciting lives. Maybe she could at least wait until something exciting happened.

Then Gladys remembered Raja’s grandpa. Kindness had changed everything. She thought of the elderly woman she bought milk from every evening. Helpfulness had changed everything.

But could anything change those bullies? Were kindness and prayers really enough?

To be continued.

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