In the United States, many people's childhood memories are a compilation of playing outdoors and skinned knees, of games with friends and petty fights - many children get the luxury of growing up relatively stress free.

But the Rev. Jonah Salim, a native of Iraq and former soldier in the Iraqi military, was not as lucky.

"I was watching TV sometime on Western children and teenagers - how they really have fun," Salim, 31, said. "So that was making me a little bit upset because I didn't have that kind of fun - just wars, bombs and inundations."

Salim was a guest pastor Sunday at Eastminster Presbyterian Church, 1315 Abbott Road, and gave a sermon to the congregation titled "Peace Not War." He discussed the effect the Iraq war has on both the Middle East and America, and the importance of peace in the world.

"The question is, how can we find peace?" Salim said during his sermon. "Peace is love, and love is sacrifice and forgiveness."

Marilyn Banghart, who has been coming to Eastminster Presbyterian Church for about 12 years, said it was nice to have a speaker with a different perspective.

"It was enlightening," said Banghart. "Certainly, something we all want is peace."

Growing up in Ninevah, Iraq, during the Iran-Iraq war, Salim was always searching for peace, he said. Although he was not raised with a specific religion, Salim said he identified with Christianity and its message.

"I was always asking myself when I was a little child, 'How can I get peace?' because I was born among different wars in Iraq, so it was very difficult as a child," Salim said.

Despite his ultimate goal of finding peace, Salim was forced to serve time in the Iraqi military - because it's a law, he said.

"The system is you must serve in the military. You don't have options. If you refused, they imprisoned us and tortured (us)," said Salim, who served a two-year term from 2000-02. "In 2000, I asked myself different questions. I began asking myself 'How can I get peace?' or 'How can I bring peace to those who are around me?'"

After two years in the military, which Salim said were good years to serve because Iraq was not at war then, he received a visa and was awarded a full scholarship in 2003 to study theology in Cairo, Egypt. This was his ticket to fulfillment - a possibility to bring peace to people.

Salim, who was teaching Christianity while he was studying, found one way to do that within his first three weeks in Cairo, when he was informed of a prison containing illegal immigrants from other African countries who were being held by the government. The prisoners were not being fed or treated for illnesses. Also, the prisoners - who are foreign and tagged as illegal within the country - are not provided any financial assistance for a plane ticket home, Salim said.

"I was raising money for their plane tickets, feeding some of them, giving them some medicines," he said. "I ministered them for 3 1/2 years besides my studies in Egypt."

However, when one of the prisoners Salim was working with illegally converted to Christianity, the Egyptian government found out and revoked Salim's visa.

"When the Egyptian government found out about the conversion, they forced me to leave Egypt because a conversion is not legal within Egyptian law. In that time, I couldn't go to my country and I couldn't stay in Egypt. They made me illegal," Salim said.

"It was really awful times," he added, saying that when a person is made illegal they cannot get a visa to leave, which made him feel like a prisoner in Egypt.

It wasn't until Salim sought help at an American embassy that he was able to obtain a visa to move from the country.

In November 2006, Salim came to America with an R-1 visa, which is for religious work and is currently being hosted by a Presbyterian church in Marshall, Mich.

He said although he cannot return to Iraq he is happy here - and is never homesick.

The Rev. Margie Osborn, pastor of the church, said she heard of Salim through a colleague who worked at the Presbyterian church in Marshall. Salim's story presented an opportunity she couldn't pass up, and he was asked to speak at the church.

"It was such a unique opportunity to hear firsthand from a fellow Christian what the situation is in Iraq," Osborn said. "I was moved by his inability to go home - he's a man without a country, in a sense, and the Presbyterian church has rallied around him."

It was by the grace of God, Salim said, that he received a visa to come to America because many Arabic people are not able to obtain one.

"I guess because I am a minister and I also have good recommendations from my church," Salim said.

"I also believe it was God's hand, and it was a miracle from God who really saved me from the problems there."

One of the reasons his message was so powerful, Elder Mike Quinn said, was not only the topic and the sermon but also who preached it.

"We feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to have a Christian minister from Iraq at this time to speak," said Quinn, who has worked at the church 28 years.

"When we say those same words as Americans we believe them, we know them, we find comfort in them. But to hear there is someone from Iraq speaking it makes you realize there is one human race."

Sarah Harbison can be reached at harbiso9@msu.edu.