A prayer for Pakistan

Arif Masih still sometimes dreams he is a teenager in Pakistan although he left his homeland 20 years ago, settling in New York where he now lives with his family of five. Every Sunday, the 53-year-old leader of the Pentecostal Church in Queens gives his mostly Pakistani congregants a sermon in Urdu. Masih is not alone in feeling a deep connection with the country he left behind so many years ago — this feeling is one that is shared by many Pakistani expatriates living in New York City, whose identities continue to be shaped by their country of origin.

Out of 27,000 Pakistanis living in New York today, 400 are Christians, and they are concentrated in the boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn. Most of them, like Masih, are those who moved here in search of a better life.

“I had multiple responsibilities like taking care of my parents and family. The money I was earning back home was not enough to take care of everybody,” he says.

Masih grew up in Gojra, the site of the 2009 riots where close to 60 houses and a church were set ablaze by a mob, resulting in the deaths of 8 Christians. But he himself led an idyllic childhood, working on a farm and studying for a diploma at the Christian Hospital of Quetta, before moving to Kuwait and then the US, years before Gojra became a synonym for hate and murder.

Every Sunday, up to 100 congregants fill the rectangular basement of the Calvary church in Queens. As the Pakistani congregants of the Pentecostal church greet friends that they haven’t seen since the previous week, three men sing in accompaniment to the music of the harmonium and tabla. The instruments are placed next to microphones, and the amplified music reverberates in the room, bouncing off the walls to find its way into the hearts of those who have gathered. Later, the Pakistanis and the handful of Indians listen engrossed to the sermon that Masih delivers in chaste Urdu.

Masih, who always looks as if he is on the verge of breaking into a smile, hopes it will remain this way at least during his lifetime: “The service will be in Urdu for our generation. We promote Urdu,” he says proudly.

One Sunday in March, Masih and his community are reminded of the situation back home when they learn of the murder of Pakistan’s federal minister for minorities affairs Shahbaz Bhatti. Just a few months earlier, Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer had been killed by his own security guard, after he called for amendments to the blasphemy law. For these expatriates, such news is doubly unsettling because many of them have experienced some degree of religious intolerance firsthand. It is a time to pray for the country and for their friends back home.

For Masih, life in New York is far removed from that world of religious conflict and fear. Apart from being a preacher, he is a nurse and is now pursuing his PhD in nursing at the State University of New York. Many congregants at Masih’s church are also nurses, and his two sons and daughter are following in his footsteps. He traces even the choice of this profession back to his home country.

“If you look at the background of the Christian community in Pakistan, there were not many opportunities to progress. Since Muslim girls did not come into the field of nursing, this profession had space that people from the minority communities could fill,” says Masih.

But despite the discrimination that Christians have historically faced, and the newer spectre of religious fundamentalism, Masih’s love for the country of his birth is still strong. A great advocate of Pakistani values and customs, he wears shalwar kameez with a traditional Kashmiri shawl and extols the virtues of wearing Pakistan’s national dress in public to show people his roots.  In the afternoon, when his youngest son returns home from work, he greets his father with a “Salaam.”

Sadly, even in New York, Pakistani Muslims and Pakistani Christians rarely mingle. Things have started to change over the past two years though and Muslim Pakistanis in New York have started inviting the Christian community to celebrate special occasions such as their country’s Independence Day and vice versa.

Masih is reminded of his Pakistani heritage at unexpected times. “When I send money to my family, the women at the bank always ask, ‘Why are you always sending money to your mom? Doesn’t your mom work?’”

“A Pakistani person would know why,” he says with a smile.

On Sundays Arif Masih’s son, Anil, drives to church with his brother. Though he has not had to struggle like his father, life for this second generation immigrant has not been a bed of roses either. While having to face discrimination in Pakistan for being Christian, he feels Pakistani Christians are discriminated in the US for their South Asian origin. A veteran of the US army, Anil says people were surprised at his decision to serve in the army because they didn’t expect to see a person of South Asian descent in their unit. “There were always stereotypes. People look at you with doubt, like ‘Why is he here?’ But by the time I left [Iraq], I was just like everybody else.”

There are additional difficulties. The Pakistani Christian community in the US is so small that it is often a challenge for young people to get married. Families frequently appeal to their relatives in Pakistan to identify eligible singles to marry their sons and daughters to. In recent years, several young women from the community have settled down with Indians or white men from other congregations but men rarely marry outside their community.

This close-knit community meets in smaller groups around the city every week for a prayer meeting outside of Church. In Ridgewood, Queens, the Masih family drives to their friends’ apartment to pray together. Ten people sit in the room, close their eyes and bow their heads as they pray and sing hymns. They sit on plastic seats around a table that has three Bibles on it, all translated into Urdu. In turn, each person shares his prayer out loud.

“In Pakistan, please watch over the country. Please fix the situation there.”

“Please keep your Name alive in the country.”

“Please keep us as one again.”

“Please shower us with your blessings.”

“Please bless the country we are in now.”

“For all those who are sick, please keep the sickness away.”

“For the Muslim girl who bows her head with us in prayer, please grant all of her wishes.”

“We pray for Pakistan, and for every family in Pakistan.”

Ameen, they say collectively.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, December 4^th, 2011.