Seeing how the other 80 percent lives

Catholic, Muslim families in New Hampshire town swap kids for a weekend

NASHUA, N.H. (RWN) - Timmy McGrady never was quite comfortable with his Muslim neighbors. Sure, the Assads, Monroes, Sharifs and Bechtels seemed like nice people, hardworking people, but you just never knew with ... those people.

But McGrady's kids played with the other family's children for years, and everything seemed right. So McGrady took his neighbor, Abdul Monroe, up on an offer.

Swap kids for the weekend. Give us Bertie and we'll give you Jack. Call it an educational experience.

"Best thing I ever did," McGrady said last week. "Jack's a nice kid and it gave me a chance to see what he believed in. You work side-by-side with the kid's parents at the quarry and you sometimes talk about beliefs, but having to obey them and live with them for a weekend is really an eye opener."

The swap was so successful that McGrady went to his church and Monroe went to his mosque and, together, they came up with a program to have Nashua families swap kids regularly.

"The more we can do to show people in other religions how we live - that we're not animals or aliens - the better off we'll all be," Abdul Monroe said.

The program now has about 100 families participating.

"I'm not going to lie to you, it takes being very, very secure in your Catholicism for this to happen," said Wendy O'Grady, a mother of two who participates in the exchange. "You have to know that your belief in your God is strong enough, and that your child's belief is strong enough, that a weekend of seeing another religion isn't going to turn someone from their path."

That's only happened once in Nashua, a Catholic girl embracing Islam rather than her native Catholicism.

"I don't think spending a weekend at her neighbor's house was really the issue," McGrady said. "She was a screwed up kid and this was just an act of rebellion. She'll be back when she's a little older."



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