Adib Khanafer:
life, it’s everything from A to Z,” she says.
These days, she is learning self-defense techniques t h ro u g h ma r t i a l arts courses and says no matter how busy she finds herself, she always makes sure to spend time with her parents.
And she never stops thinking about Hussein, who was her only sibling.
She carries a photo of the two of them and takes selfies of it when she visits different places around the world, like when she completed the hajj pilgrimage in August. She was one of 200 survivors and relatives from the Christchurch attacks who traveled to Saudi Arabia as guests of King Salman.
“Every day I feel like Hussein is with me,” she says.
Al-Umari, 34, has also been reflecting on the casual racism she experienced in New Zealand growing up. She first noticed it after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States.
“I remember at school I would feel like I was the one being blamed for what’s happened,” she says.
Al-Umari is steeling herself for the June trial of the man accused of the shooting: white supremacist Brenton Tarrant, 29, of Australia. He has been charged with terrorism, murder and attempted murder and faces life imprisonment if found guilty.
She’s been trying to heal her spirit and keep the memory of Hussein alive by writing about her experiences online, by overcoming prejudice with compassion.
“Words can be powerful. Words can be destructive,” she says. “But they can also be very restorative as well.”
Len lived next door to the Al Noor mosque and helped some worshippers escape. On March 15 last year, Len Peneha had driven home to pick up his daughter Jasmine when he noticed a man maneuvering a car at the end of their long driveway and then carry something into the mosque.
“We started hearing these noises. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang,” he says.
He wondered if it was construction scaffolding falling over. But then people began running everywhere, and Peneha knew what was happening. He and his daughter ran inside. Jasmine called the police and Peneha came back out and helped people climb over the mosque’s back fence and hide in his apartment as the shooter continued his massacre.
The images from that day will never leave Peneha, 54. He saw the gunman shoot a woman at point-blank range at the end of the driveway, and then drive over her body. After the gunman left, Peneha went to the mosque to help and saw bodies strewn in the foyer.
“I struggled sleeping for months after that. My brain was still on high alert,” he says.
At night he would hear the slightest noise from down the street or the