Sneaking to Church in Saudi

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Orange dust blows into my eyes as I step out of the car onto the hot-enough-to-cook-an-egg sidewalk in the Diplomatic Quarter, or DQ as everyone calls it, of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. We are a few blocks away from the villa our “book club” uses as a church building. A house furnished with plastic chairs, a wood podium, and folding tables tucked away and pulled out only for occasional ward activities. Instead of housing a family, its function is a meeting place for the unofficial Riyadh Second Ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The place where us non-Saudi LDS residents can meet, if we choose. And we do, so every Friday we make the half-hour drive through the insanity of chaotic Riyadh traffic and walk into the 105°F oven to get to church.

My husband and three sons are dressed in long pants, not slacks, and button-up shirts—a couple white, one plaid, another blue. I peek down into my tote bag to make sure I have all four of their ties, then straighten my robe-like abaya, making sure my dress is completely covered. We can’t look like we are going to church. Instead, we have to give off an “everyday” appearance, as if we could be going to a restaurant or to visit a friend. A nearby minaret—a prayer tower attached to a mosque—begins broadcasting the call to prayer through a loudspeaker at the top. The Arabic chanting bounces down the sunny, dusty street we walk along, echoed in the distance by other prayer towers crying out in different tones. A communal worship singing throughout the country. It makes me wonder what it would be like to live in a place full of people with my same faith. Where almost everyone shares my spiritual foundation and understands my beliefs. Where it’s normal to live the way I do at church, or inside my home, in public too. With everyone. Would it make me stronger? Braver? Or lazy?

Up ahead, another family from our ward is heading to the villa. We slow our pace to keep our distance and pretend we don’t know them. Turning a corner to walk down a different street than the one they were taking, Shawn and I step over fallen dates that litter the sidewalk, while our sons use them as ammo. With a screech, one of the many stray cats that roam the streets of Riyadh darts out of the palms and across the street. I would be sweating, but it is so dry, any drop of liquid immediately evaporates. After about five minutes, the villa comes into view. Another family just went through the metal door in the stone wall that surrounds it, so we let it clang shut and pause a street away before moving toward it. We have to stagger our arrival so there isn’t a group of people seen heading into the villa at the same time and gathering. Because what we’re doing is, technically, illegal.

Religious freedom isn’t a thing in Saudi. It’s an Islamic state governed by a monarchy, where the laws of their country are based on the laws of Sunni Islam. Laws that influence their dress—men in their white thobes and women in black abayas and hijabs. Laws that dictate social norms and gender roles. Laws that say no pork is allowed in the country (a fact greatly bemoaned by my bacon-loving boys). Laws that ban non-Islamic public worship, proselyting, and even symbols. Saudi religious community encompasses everything about them, and everyone shares in it. So, it makes sense that in a place where it’s a crime, potentially punishable by death, for a Muslim to convert to another religion, other religions wouldn’t be allowed. However, the current law does say non-Muslim residents may worship privately and possess personal religious material. We were allowed to bring our personal scriptures, as long as we kept them to ourselves. So what if we keep church to ourselves? How private is privately? Maybe it is enough to keep our gatherings private from neighbors and other Muslims. And it seems to be. It is a fine line.

The secret meeting I’m going to could ruin a Saudi’s life, in one sense, if they tried it. But we’re Christian American expats, so we walk toward the villa door on that very fine line. A line that makes us refer to the Riyadh Second Ward as our “book club,” not only in public but also in phone calls, texts, and emails—since those are monitored by the Saudi government. The same line that motivates us to park blocks away and walk through the heat and be inconspicuous. A line that we, and the rest of our ward members, walk in order to meet on the Sabbath, which in Saudi is on Friday, and take the sacrament.

Once inside, I pass the ties out. Our fourteen-year-old gets his on by himself, while my husband helps the twelve-year-old, and I zip up the cheater-tie onto the ten-year-old. I hang my abaya with all the rest on the large coat stand next to the door, then we all take off our shoes and put them on the half-filled shoe racks lining the entryway before we head inside. Where there would have been a large dining room and living room, instead we have a chapel. A typical LDS wood podium resides at one end, facing rows of plastic chairs with a single aisle going down the center. We fill up five of the six chairs in a row on the left side of the aisle and as it gets closer to starting time, our oldest boys move up to the front right row to pass the sacrament—they, the only two young men in the ward of sacrament-passing age.

I look around the room; I know everyone here. There are only about thirty or forty of us. We are all expats displaced from our home countries on behalf of employment. An amalgamation of families from India, New Zealand, Philippines, and United States. No Saudis. Despite our varied backgrounds and cultures, we are bonded by our beliefs and subculture, though not the LDS subculture found in the United States in places like Utah. Here, we are a mix of so many countries and societal norms and rituals that our common culture is based on the gospel. Our Indian friends wear traditional saris, our Filipino friends brought delicious classic Filipino foods to a ward party and taught us stick dances, and our New Zealand members taught us a Māori haka. It’s a ward where sometimes a musical number isn’t sung in English, and the Spirit is stronger for the diversity. But still, our hearts are in common. When a child gets baptized, we all stay after church and participate as they go into the pool in the small backyard of the villa. We eat and celebrate together as a ward for one child entering those waters. Our common faith roots us in a borderless community as children of God in his worldwide church.

But these circumstances aren’t what we from the States would call, by any means, typical. For my family, only here for a couple years, it’s an adventure. But for some of these youth who are here long-term, it must be difficult. I grew up in Florida, where there weren’t many members. My close friends were the youth from church because they understood a deep part of me. When kids at school found out I was “Mormon,” as they called me, I’d usually get the question, “So how many moms do you have?” followed by snickers. I’d say “One” with an annoyed attitude, then shut it down and change the subject. But I had my church friends—my fellow support among peers. Even my small group was bigger than what these kids in Saudi have.

Shawn is a leader over the young men, of which there are four, half of them belonging to us. I’m over the young women, of which there are also four. Despite the age and culture differences, they all laugh and chat and play together at our weekly youth activity—their only option for interaction with LDS peers before they go off to the American school or the Filipino school or their compounds or apartments. To the places where they aren’t allowed to speak about their beliefs. Where most of the people surrounding them don’t even believe in Christ. While in the States we encourage youth to share their beliefs and invite friends, in Saudi we are reminded from the pulpit not to share, not to post, to be careful and keep our beliefs quiet. It must feel awfully isolating at times for these young people. I admire their strength and commitment to their faith when they choose to hold onto it even though they have to secret it away like a hidden book club.

Now that I’m back in the States, I sometimes wonder if that isolating circumstance has the potential to make one stronger. It would have been easier, even safer, to worship truly privately. Alone. Skip the traffic, heat, and risk. Just take a couple years off from the fight of getting kids dressed, fed, and in the car for church. It was a circumstance that tested us. Made us choose. And I think we became stronger because of it. Not only in a personal sense but as a group of believers in Christ. Our ward was tight, as they say. Because we had to be. We only had each other. Well, at least within our secret villa at our book club meetings. Aside from our faith, maybe it was our shared sense of being careful, of being “in it together,” that drew us close as a group. Is that what early Saints felt as they were trying to build the Church and were constantly persecuted and run out of town? Maybe part of the glue that held them close was their collective trial of living their faith in a time or place where it was not accepted, even in a country that was founded on a belief in God and proposes to grant religious freedom to all.

The United States has come a long way since then, from a place in the past where, like the Saints in Saudi, the early pioneers had to be careful and, at times, hide to a modern soup of religions scattered and tolerated throughout the land. But while no one can get away with tarring or murdering a “Mormon” these days, the atmosphere of tolerance varies by location. There are definitely more Christian places, like the South or Utah, where going to church and believing in God is accepted as typical, even expected. And then there are other places where, if you mention that you’re Christian you are labeled a fool or a bigot.

Before moving to Saudi, we lived in western Washington, about an hour north of Seattle. It was, in some ways, a personal version of Saudi. Be careful. Keep your beliefs to yourself, as it were. Almost as if the unspoken agreement was: While we have freedom of religion, we shouldn’t encourage expression of any one religion on the chance we may offend another. Or, if you’re Christian, you’re weak-minded and deluded. Or, you’re discriminatory. Or maybe even schizophrenic. Who knows. Those crazy religious people just need to shut up and keep it to themselves. That was the general temperature of the waters I observed from the shores of social media or school hallways or overheard grocery store chatter. So, I hid my book club unless I knew, absolutely, it was safe. My good friends were from church, and I didn’t talk much about my beliefs with people who weren’t. When someone would give me a $5 coffee gift card as a thank-you for volunteering at school, I’d pass it on to someone else rather than tell them I didn’t drink coffee and risk them feeling bad or judged, or judging me. I’d read my scriptures at home, but not in public. At home I’d pray over food, but not in public. Not like the Saudis who would close down stores and whip out their prayer rugs and pray for everyone to see. While legally and physically, I could, stigma and judgment and negative experiences kept me in a state of hesitant carefulness. Was it outside forces that made me huddle down inside myself, or inward ones?

In a place like Saudi, where many people share similar beliefs, it seems like it would be easier. Surely it helps some people keep spiritual focus and prevents religious contention or persecution. But then I wonder at the seemingly equal potential for that to lead to strength or weakness. If my country was built upon my religion, shared by most of the people, and enforced by my government, would my faith be bolstered or hindered? It seems more comfortable. Safer. But would we Latter-day Saints be more confident in our convictions as a people? Would we be a cohesive city of faith—a Zion community, thriving without the chains of worldly judgements and repercussions? Or would we become a “culture” of religion, scattered with hollow pockets of emptiness—a people more likely to fall into the pattern of putting on the appearance of religion?

Citizens in Saudi live a Muslim life in part by following the dress code and laws, including no delicious bacon, with no choice to do anything different. While I have no doubt that countless Muslims in Saudi Arabia are sincere believers and find great meaning in their religious tradition, I can’t help but wonder how many Saudis were going through the motions—saying memorized prayers at certain times but perhaps lacking a deeper faith. Saudi Arabia has a culture and legal system that makes it easy for some to seem devout without being devout.

I wonder if having that kind of bubble around us, and our Latter-day Saint belief system, would help or harm the depth of true conversion. It might protect us from discrimination, but maybe it would also make it harder to grow strong roots. To be sure of our faith. To test it. Exposure to different ideas forces us to confront our own, to strengthen them or abandon them. Maybe the freedom to choose is what makes our decided beliefs rugged and well-built, able to last past the lifetime warranty. Like a wind-blown sapling that digs its roots wide and deep and grows into a towering oak, as opposed to a plant grown safely indoors, its shallow roots requiring that it stay indoors or risk being ripped out of the ground by a gale. A bubble, whether it is one we make for ourselves or one imposed upon us, may feel good, but it could lead to us lacking a deep, heartfelt, faith-filled conversion. And it is that depth of conversion that gives us the fortitude to practice our beliefs alone, persecuted, or when it isn’t popular. When you have to sneak across a date-scattered, dusty, burning-hot sidewalk, acting like a spy to get to church.

Now I live three houses down from the church building in a Zion-like neighborhood in Idaho Falls. It is the closest I’ve ever been to a little LDS Saudi land. Our building is filled with people, so many that even after two years I don’t know everyone here, but the ones I do know are family because we share a deep foundation—our faith. Shawn and I are back serving with the youth, only here, our sons have a large pool of peers that share their streets, their schools, and their values. We are more open with our beliefs. Less afraid of judgement. Is it the location? Maybe. Feeling like we’re part of a larger culture here definitely helps. But maybe some of it is strength grown through experience. Whatever it is, I feel my roots taking up water.

As I walk to church, my not-that-high heels wobbling down the sidewalk, my neighbor goes whizzing past on her electric scooter, dress fluttering in the breeze. I wave to a Sunday-clad neighbor family zipping past on their golf cart. Boys dressed in suits ride past on their bikes. There’s no hiding who we are or where we are going. I’m not looking over my shoulder or checking for watchers. There’s no self-consciousness or worry. It’s freeing and connecting. But in a small way, there is a distance, one I only know because of comparison. The difference between a large, free congregation and the intimate, personal, and secret meeting of a small group in Saudi.

I think of my Saudi Church family, the ones who are still there, and wonder how their Friday Sabbath was. If the prayer towers sang to them as they snuck to church. If the dust was blowing through the date palms landscaped along the roads. If the small villa room was filled with close-knit hearts and borderless love. Even continents away, we are still connected. A worldwide community. Children of God.