This article was updated Aug. 31 to correct the name of the parish that sponsored Malku, Younan, and their family. We regret the error. — Editor
Adwar Malku and Najat Younan never opened their Pita Wrap Café on a Sunday.
The married couple worked from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays, serving Mediterranean and Middle Eastern food on Vancouver’s Dunsmuir Street. They shopped for fresh produce on Saturdays. But Sundays have always been reserved for going to church and gathering with their community.
“We have a hard life, but always God was with us. This is the main thing,” said Younan, who fled Iraq with her husband and two young children in 1994.
After living in limbo for several years in Jordan and Lebanon, they were sponsored by St. George’s Melkite Mission (at St. Francis de Sales Parish in Burnaby) to immigrate to Canada. They landed penniless in 1999 and within six years had opened a successful café and sponsored several refugees from Iraq and Syria.
But the Pita Wrap Café came to a bittersweet end in July. After operating for 16 years, COVID pandemic restrictions and rising rent costs forced Malku and Younan to close the business.
Despite the setback, the couple have confidence in the faith that sustained them from the hardships of life halfway round the world to their new life in Canada.
“We thank God. He was always with us and he led people to help us through the Church.”
‘No future’
Life in Iraq was challenging. During fighting between Iraq and Iran in 1981, Malku faced serious burns that required nine surgeries to his face and hands, and Younan feared for the safety of their children.
A few years later they sought refuge in Lebanon, where Malku worked as a security guard and earned a mere $200 a month to support his wife and now three young children. They had tried to apply for Lebanese citizenship, but for years carried on without legal status or enough money for medicine or other needs.
“For five years, nothing. No future, nothing,” he said.
Then a Lebanese priest and the Catholic community at St. Francis de Sales sponsored them to come to Canada. They moved into a two-bedroom apartment with two sofa-beds and little else, and Malku’s first job was washing dishes and cleaning a restaurant three hours a day.
“I said, ‘we don’t care if we only eat bread and tea, we don’t need anything else,’” said a grateful Younan.
When Malku had to undergo four additional surgeries in Canada related to his burns, his bandaged hands kept him out of work for weeks. Younan filled in, preparing vegetables and washing dishes so they could keep his job and income without applying for disability payments.
Eventually Younan was hired there too. Malku would work from 7 a.m. to about 4 p.m., then walk home to watch their young children while Younan walked down the same road for the 5 p.m. to midnight shift.
When God steps in
At every stage, Younan and Malku say God looked after them. Younan said after years of living in Lebanon wondering if they would be accepted into Canada, she prayed the Rosary with that intention.
“After 21 days, we got approved from Canada, and in six months we got our visa,” she said.
The family has been repeatedly surprised by the generosity of others, too. In Lebanon, a pharmacist gave them some medication for free, while a doctor they befriended gave them a book with $1,000 USD hidden inside to help pay for air travel to Canada.
“They don’t know us. We’re from Iraq. They are Lebanese. We are going to Canada,” said Younan. She asked them, “How do you trust us, that we will give you the money back?” The family just replied: “I trust you.”
At the time Younan often wore a necklace of Our Lady, made of gold. “I said, ‘take it until I pay you back.’ She wouldn’t take it.”
In Canada, the restaurant owner who hired Malku as a dishwasher came to trust him so much he gave him the key to the establishment, and local Catholics and volunteers gave them furnishings, food, and special items for Christmas and Easter. Malku sees God’s hand in it all.
“God is coming to tell you: ‘you should help that guy.’ This is the way. Some people don’t know this way. Maybe God is coming to tell you should help those people.”
Their big dream
Five years after landing in Canada, Malku told Younan he had a big dream. Malku had been a part-owner of a major restaurant in Iraq – one large enough to host three weddings simultaneously – and hoped he could own a food establishment again.
“He said, ‘I want to buy a restaurant,’” said Younan. “I said, ‘Why? We don’t have money!’”
Malku took the $4,000 they had in the bank, took out a bank loan and credit line, borrowed money from friends, and opened the Pita Wrap Café in 2005. It was a far more intimate business than the restaurant in Iraq, with just a few tables and fresh donairs made from scratch, and just down the street from Holy Rosary Cathedral.
Younan admits the first few months were stressful. “I told him I didn’t want to work there. I was crying every time I walked by,” she said.
“For the first three months, I couldn’t sleep all night because it’s a new thing. When you work in the back at a restaurant, nobody sees you. But here, this is in the front. You have to talk to people. Sometimes they ask questions that I’ve never heard. My English was not that good.”
In a handful of months, Younan summoned the courage to work alongside her husband. In two years, the restaurant slowly started making money.
“We saved money because we lived in a small apartment with food we cooked from the restaurant and brought home. We just paid rent and electricity. At that time, it was not that everybody had a cellphone. We had one computer at home,” she said.
“As our business became better, we could help people.”
Over the years, the pair hired many former refugees and created such strong ties with customers that they prefer to call them family. They bought a house in Richmond and watched all four of their children grow up and start working toward post-secondary degrees.
Paying it forward
Another of their accomplishments is the number of refugees they have helped begin new lives in Canada. With support from local Catholic churches they have personally sponsored 30 people.
The family estimates when they arrived in 1999, the local Chaldean Catholic community (a Catholic rite with roots in the Middle East) numbered about 40 families.
Now, thanks in part to Malku and Younan’s efforts and the snowball effect of sponsoring refugees who then sponsor their own relatives and connections, the community now numbers at least 1,000 families. Before the pandemic, this community was known to host 500-person outdoor banquets with homecooked Middle Eastern goodies and gather for Mass at St. Paul Chaldean Catholic Church in Surrey.
“We are blessed to be here in Canada and we worked hard and we did something for ourselves. We built ourselves. It was our dream to have our business here again in Canada and here we have it. We brought some people, as much as we can, and they brought their family too. Now we are a big community here in Canada.”
Dozens of members of the Chaldean community greet former refugees arriving at the airport with cheering and help them pay rent, furnish homes, and find jobs in the Lower Mainland. Malku and Younan have seen many newcomers go on to marry and have children and successful careers, where before they had little hope for a safe, peaceful existence.
They have also rallied support for a woman in Turkey who could not afford cancer treatments and a Syrian mom with twin girls in hospital and medical bills she could not pay.
“It’s nice when we, all together, help any family,” said Younan. “Not a relative to us. Just anyone. Canada helped us. Shouldn’t we help anybody?”
While the circumstances that led to the café’s closure were not what the couple had in mind, they are looking forward to the next chapter in their lives. Malku is ready to retire, and Younan said after spending most of her waking hours in a restaurant, she’s ready to settle in at home, renovate, and tend to her garden’s fig and olive trees.
“We never enjoyed our house. We didn’t have the time,” said Younan.
As the Pita Wrap Café chapter of their life closes, one thing remains constant for Younan and Malku: Sundays are reserved for going to church and gathering with the community.
The couple remains loyal to St. George’s Melkite and St. Francis de Sales, the church communities in Burnaby that first sponsored their arrival to Canada, and to St. Anthony of Padua, which became their home parish in Vancouver when they could not afford a car to drive to St. George’s. They keep ties with Father Ron Thompson, a priest who helped them settle after their arrival to Canada.
But occasionally, especially on special feast days, they take a trip to St. Paul’s Chaldean Church to celebrate Mass in Arabic and to be surrounded by one big extended family.
