Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.
—Helen Keller, in a 1903 article titled “Optimism.”
The Al-Shabaab terror group made headlines last month with its horrific massacre at the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya. However, Al-Shabaab has been terrorizing innocent civilians for over a decade. Try as they might, Al-Shabaab cannot break the spirit of all their victims. A mighty spirit is a powerful foe to those with evil intentions.
Ismail Khalif Abdulle in Harstad, Norway
One such mighty spirit is Ismail Khalif Abdulle, a young Somali who was a teenager when Al-Shabaab maimed him. In 2011, to escape the fear he lived with back at home, he moved to Harstad, Norway, 125 miles north of the Arctic Circle.
There, he had a clean, comfortable place to live, food to eat, access to the medical care he needs, and a chance to make a life for himself.
The climate and social atmosphere of his new home in Norway were about as different as you could get from the home he left in Mogadishu, Somalia—which is about the same distance north of the Equator as Harstad is north of the Artic Circle. Before arriving in Norway, Ismail had seen snow only on TV. In Somalia, his idea of “chilly” was evening temperatures plunging to 64° F (18° C). It was also quite an adjustment to move to a place where the sun never sets in mid-summer, and never rises in mid-winter.
But the biggest adjustment was cultural: moving from the familiar equatorial African culture in which he had grown up to the northernmost of northern European cultures. When he arrived in Harstad, its population of about 23,500 people included about 150 refugees, with perhaps a dozen Somalis in that number. In Norway as a whole, people of African descent account for less than 2% of the population.
Yet for Ismail, it was all worth it to escape the fear, horror, and pain he had suffered because of Al-Shabaab.
For more on suffering, struggle, and hope, please click here to read on.
Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life 