The Story of Nada

"Lifting the burden off my family"

What can a three-year-old understand of war? Loud ear-splitting explosions. Frantic fervently-praying mom. Gravely injured absent dad.

Only years later could little Nada understand what those terrifying impressions meant. Her dad had been critically injured in the war. He’d undergone 13 hours of surgery. And, the family had endured his absence and support for a year and a half while he was hospitalized. During those dark days, Nada’s mom had leaned hard on her faith to sustain her while she cared for the family.

When Nada was big enough to start helping lift the load at home full-time, her academic career ended. After sixth grade, she stopped attending school and began caring for her four younger siblings. Within a couple of years after leaving school, she was engaged, and a few years later, married.

Nada had watched her mother model devotion to her husband and family through thick and thin. Nada became equally committed to those same values. She openly states that her husband and family are of utmost importance to her. From that wellspring of love, she longs to lift the financial burden on her husband. However, Nada has few marketable skills and her responsibilities to her own and extended family limit her availability. Still, she knows her husband’s work as a taxi driver barely covers the needs of the immediate family. Let alone, her husband’s dad and extended family, and the needs of her own parents.

Perhaps it was working side by side with her mother as the oldest child. Or, perhaps it was the commitment to prayer that she grew up with. Or, perhaps it was her own ability to push beyond what she thought possible. But, Nada understands that there exists unseen resources that can be drawn upon and nurtured.

Thus, with no applicable skills, she jumped at the opportunity to work at 2B Design. She was convinced that if she tried hard enough she could learn what was necessary. It took her a full year and a half to learn to mix and paint patinas to match the natural colours occurring on the reclaimed iron of 2B design’s products. Nada still marvels at Benedicte’s kindness and infinite patience with her as she learned the ropes. After beginning hardly able to hold a brush, Nada is now a patina specialist.

With pride from a job well done, Nada is able to help lift the financial burden off the family, both nuclear and extended. And, because 2B Design accommodates her children’s schedule, she is able to continue that job. Nada knows that employment with any other company would be impossible because she requires special hours to fit her loved ones’ needs.

Not unlike the beauty that has come out of her difficult beginning, she uses her painting skills to reveal the unseen beauty of broken iron pieces.

Interview: Janice Haskell/www.dreamsindeed.org/sept 2011