Every Friday morning, my mom would dress my sisters and me in coordinating smocked dresses. We would drive about thirty minutes to a guarded gate of a compound. My little sister, who had cute blond hair, would lie to the guards, saying, “They are taking me home.”

Sometimes the guards would wave us through, other times they would ask my parents to call the fictitious house, where we dropping her off. We always managed to make it into the compound, where the only Anglican Church in our city met.

I grew up in Saudi Arabia. Beautiful mosques that sang the Adhan -- the call to worship -- created the skyline. Signs of religion were everywhere, but the signs of our faith were kept hidden from the outside world.