Island Adventures
After waking up quite early, we drove off to Duncan, a small town on Vancouver Island. We had already spoken to Maryam about meeting the day before, and after hearing why we were coming, Maryam was more than exuberant to welcome us into her home.
At 11:15 on the dot (the time when we had set for our appointment), as we were getting out of our car, my phone rang.
"Hello?"
"This is Maryam, are you on your way?"
"Not only are we on the way, but we are on the doorstep!"
"That's great; I'll be waiting for you on the second floor at the elevator."
We followed her into her apartment and started talking. To make a long story short, to say that she was very interested in Judaism would be an understatement. Eventually, we started saying our goodbyes and looked at the time. It was already 3:45! We all couldn't believe that we had been chatting for over four hours.
As a parting gift, we gave her a set of candles that she would be able to light on Friday night. And since we would not be able to remain forever, we referred Maryam to chabad.org as a wonderful resource where she would be able to continue to learn about her heritage.
As we made our way to the door, I noticed the mezuzah. "I see you have a wonderful mezuzah. Have you opened it up to see if there is a scroll inside?" To Maryam's dismay the case was empty. So we reinstalled it with a kosher handmade mezuzah scroll that we had with us.
After some songs and more goodbyes, we were off to our next stop.
(Fast forward a few hours)
We drove out of town towards the freeway, and stopped to marvel at the beautiful sunset. Getting out of the car to stretch and eat an orange, we took some Torah books and sat down on to study together.
Suddenly, a car pulled up. A man got out.
"Shalom!"
"Shalom, I'm Marvin, and this is my son, Josh."
We sat down and talked as the sun sank below the horizon.
We all headed back to our respective cars, and drove back to Victoria, tired and happy after a long day on Vancouver Island.
