Hana!”
Hearing her name, Hana left her cousins and ran toward the canvas canopy where Uncle Anwar sat peeling an orange with a well-worn pocketknife. Accustomed to the Middle Eastern heat, six-year-old Hana didn’t let the ninety-degree temperature keep her from playing outdoors. But when the family patriarch called, she stopped what she was doing and responded immediately.
Hana brushed a wayward strand of long black hair from her face as she stepped into the shade. Anwar, her seventy-four-year-old great-uncle, sat in a white plastic chair. The multicolored canopy was attached to the rambling three-story concrete structure that several generations of the Abboud family had called home.
“Yes, Uncle,” she responded in the courteous tone of voice her mother had taught her to use when addressing her elders.
“Greetings, child.”
Anwar cut a fresh piece of orange and handed it to Hana. Her uncle’s brown thumb revealed weathered scars from decades of work in the olive groves on the hills surrounding Nazareth. Hana’s father was a prosperous businessman who, along with his brothers, owned a factory that produced plastic irrigation pipe sold all over Israel and the West Bank. Their family lived in Reineh, an Arab town four miles north of Nazareth. Uncle Anwar still made his home in the much larger ancient city where Jesus spent most of his childhood.
“This is for you,” Anwar said. “Tell me if it tastes sweet.”
Hana knew the answer but bit into the orange flesh, releasing a cascade of warm juice in her mouth. The oranges of Israel were the best in the world.
“Yes, it is sweet and juicy.”
“Did you know that the Lord says to ‘taste and see’ that he is good?”
“No, sir,” Hana answered, her eyes big.
She’d watched in awe and fear as Anwar asked her older brothers and cousins questions that, to her mind, had no answers.
“He wants his goodness to be as real to you as the sweet juice in your mouth.”
“Yes, sir.” Hana nodded.
“Do you know why I called you by name to come to me?” Anwar asked.
“So you could give me a piece of orange?”
“Yes,” Anwar replied with a smile. “And because you’ve been chosen by the Almighty to walk with him all the days of your life.”
Hana thoughtfully swallowed the last morsel of the juicy fruit. “Like the boy Samuel,” she said, remembering the story she’d heard the previous week at the small church the family attended. It was the first time Hana had realized her name appeared in the Scriptures. The biblical Hannah was Samuel’s mother.
“That’s right. When Pastor Sadr read the story, I thought of you.”
“Not my brothers? They’re boys like Samuel.”
“God has a plan for Mikael and Nathanil, but this is about you,” Anwar said, leaning forward. “If the Lord wakes you in the night, do you know what to say?”
Hana’s precocious memory had already caught the attention of the adults in the family.
“Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”
“Good.” Anwar smiled as he sat back and carved off three more sections of fruit. “Take these to your cousins.”