This photograph was taken during one of the most dangerous and extraordinary chapters of my peacebuilding journey working in Iraq during the height of the ISIS crisis. Security on the streets was a matter of life and death. Nobody knew who was ISIS and who was not.  So I devised a plan that still makes me smile today.

I dressed like a Sheikh traditional head covering and all — blending in as best I could wherever I went. Each time I climbed into a taxi or was stopped on the street, I would tell anyone who asked that I was an Iraqi Black from Basrah, where Iraq’s Black community has lived for centuries. And if my Arabic, which was not always perfect, raised any eyebrows, I had another story ready: that I had just returned from New York, coming back to be with my suffering brothers and sisters in Iraq.

Of course, the clergy I worked alongside and our team members knew exactly who I was — a Rwanda-American peacebuilder far from home, doing whatever it took to serve people caught in the crossfire of war and terror.

But there was one moment I will never forget for as long as I live. Coming from Sulaymaniyah, a city which is located north of Baghdad, Iraq, I was stopped by men who intended to do me harm. In that terrifying moment, it was my secretary Ms. Vana Shamsaldin and fellow clergy members who stepped forward with extraordinary courage and vouched for me — putting their own lives on the line to save mine.

God protected me that day through the bravery of those remarkable people