Two Muslims drove the truck from Lourdes to Irak

The group Œuvre d’Orient, a French association dedicated to helping persecuted Christians, has sent 15 statues of the Virgin Mary from Lourdes to Ankawa, a suburb of the city of Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan, which has a majority Catholic population.

Once they arrive, they will be carried in procession through the town by Chaldean and Syriac Catholics, before being blessed and sent to their parishes.

Œuvre d’Orient say the processions will be a testament to Jeremiah 31:17: "And here is hope for thy last end, saith the Lord: and the children shall return to their own border…"

As chance would have it, two Muslims took turns driving the truck that brought the statues to Iraq. Jean-Mathieu Gauthier, a photojournalist, traveled with them. The first, a Franco-Moroccan called Walid, was touched by the load he was carrying: "He had known a Christian friend in his school who was a refugee from Iraq. He took the matter very seriously. With the second driver, who spoke only Turkish, the conversation was more limited, but he did take the statues to Iraq, despite all the complications at the Iraqi-Turkish border." 

Sources: catholicherald and Aleteia