Every third Thursday evening, an episcopal church in upstate New York transforms into an Afghan takeaway restaurant. It’s a “very foodie congregation”, says the Rev Marcella Gillis. The church does not charge the fledgling catering company overseen by Saida Faqirzada, a refugee from Kabul, for use of its gleaming commercial kitchen.

That decision, unsurprisingly, reminds Gillis of a familiar biblical parable. Several bystanders pass by a distressed person who has been mugged, who beaten up, robbed and left for dead. They say, “I’m not allowed to help them. I shouldn’t help them. Someone else will help them.” So they walk past.
a woman wearing a mask accepting a plate of food

“The person who eventually stops is a Samaritan, someone from Samaria, who in the context of the story would have been an outsider, sort of an untouchable. And they’re the one who stops. Gets them clothes. Gets them housed. Gets help for them.”

Welcome to Stone Ridge, where a group of modern-day good Samaritans have adopted two families of Afghan refugees who arrived in this country, like so many immigrants before them, with little more than hope.
...