I’m CSPC member Abby Karadsheh. Here’s how I’m living deeply. 

“Growing up at CSPC, Mission Fest was the highlight of my year. I always made a beeline for the Middle Eastern ministry presentations. I couldn’t tell you why. I just remember sitting there as a little girl, completely riveted, soaking in stories about a part of the world I’d never seen. That fascination followed me to college at Carson Newman, where I roomed with a girl from Saudi Arabia. She was Muslim, the first friend I’d ever had from outside my own culture. She wore a full covering, and we never talked much about faith. (Looking back, I wish we had.) But she taught me so much about living missionally, starting me on a journey of loving & caring for immigrants. I actually had classes with many Saudi and Japanese students- a lot of them there to learn English. So I started thinking, ‘I could teach English, help people from other countries. I could do this.’ Carson Newman didn’t have an English Language Learners (ELL) undergrad program at the time, so I ended up doing early childhood education as my major. From there, I taught kindergarten at Lonsdale Elementary. Most of my students were Guatemalan who knew little English at first. Their parents were often scared. One mom told me, through tears, how afraid she was of being deported. What do you even say to that? All I knew was that she was made in the image of God, and she was precious, and I told her so. I just finished four years teaching at Lonsdale. My husband and I are expecting our first baby in December, and I’m stepping back to be home with him. But leaving the classroom doesn’t close the door on the passion God’s given me for helping migrants. It actually gives me more time, for now, to volunteer with a group called Women of Welcome- Christian women across Knoxville who love Jesus and love migrant families. We’re showing up with rides, groceries, and prayer for people going through things most of us will never have to imagine.

One Mexican woman’s journey, in particular, really stands out to me. She and her husband had come to the U.S. legally- he had a work visa and was doing everything right, going to his regular check-in appointments. Then the laws shifted, and at one of those routine appointments, he was deported. Just like that. When her husband got deported, this woman was left alone an hour outside Knoxville with three kids, including a newborn still in the NICU. She had no way to drive, no income. Our Women of Welcome group started showing up for her- rides to the hospital to see her baby, trips to the park with her older kids, help with groceries. My mom and I started visiting once a week. The woman spoke Spanish -I speak a little, nowhere near enough- but somehow, we built a real friendship anyway. She even came to my wedding. And she also taught me something about joy. I would have been furious in her position. She wasn’t. She was grateful for every small kindness, never bitter, steadier than I think I would’ve been. She was also a believer, and you could feel it- she simply lived by trusting God. Eventually, Women of Welcome groups all down the Southeast coordinated together to get her and her kids safely home to Mexico, without having to take a bus the whole way. I still think about that chain of women, most of whom never met her, making sure she and her babies got home with safety and some dignity. That story is why I can’t separate my faith from any of this. I think about Revelation- how one day there will be people from every tribe, nation, and tongue gathered together. The differences that divide us now won’t matter anymore. And I think God’s been using my work with Women of Welcome -and CSPC’s ELL program, which I also volunteer with- to expand my understanding and appreciation of this. But that same expanding love didn’t stay confined to ministry. It followed me straight into my own home- and eventually, all the way back to the part of the world I’d been fascinated with since I was a little girl at Mission Fest.

My husband, Salem, is from Jordan. We met here at CSPC, through a string of connections neither of us could’ve planned- his mom happened to hear a visiting pastor speak while in Germany, who happened to know someone connected to CSPC, the church Salem ended up connecting with as he was  finishing his medical residency here in Knoxville. It felt like the Lord tying a thread I’d been holding onto since childhood back to its source. I’ve gotten to go to Jordan twice now -once at Christmas, and again just this summer- and his family has welcomed me completely. There’s a hillside town where you can look out and see the Sea of Galilee, Israel, Syria, and Lebanon all at once. Our guide told us Jesus likely walked one of the roads there on his way between towns. I don’t know if that’s exactly true, but standing there, Scripture stopped feeling like just words on a page. I could picture where Jesus actually was. It’s made me love the people of that region even more, knowing this is who Jesus walked among and ministered to. Jordan is a beautiful anomaly in that part of the world- peaceful, with real Christian representation woven into its government (even though, like much of the Middle East, it’s illegal to evangelize there). Salem’s family threw us a reception with extended relatives I hadn’t met yet, and it felt like coming home to a place I’d only ever read about. Now I’m carrying our son, who will be half-Jordanian, and I want him to know both halves of who he is- to walk those roads himself one day, to learn Arabic alongside me, to know he reflects God’s image in two cultures at once. It’s strange to think the little girl who used to seek out the Middle Eastern speakers at Mission Fest is now planning her son’s first trip to Jordan. But in spite of my lifelong passion, it’s not like I chased this or planned it. I just kept saying yes to whatever piece of the world God put in front of me, and He’s the One who led me back to where my story started.”