The Syrian families brought back to Italy with Pope Francis say they can’t believe they were chosen, including the Essas, who were added in a “last minute addition”, according to NBC News.
"What's happening with us, it's like a dream," Nour Essa, a microbiologist, told NBC News on Sunday. "It's like a beautiful dream."
Hasan and Nour Essa joined two other Syrian families on the pope’s flight to start new lives in Rome.
The three families — all of them Muslim — told NBC News Sunday, that the pope's passion supersedes his religious doctrine.
Francis spent Saturday on Lesbos with Bartholomew I, spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians, and Ieronymos II, the archbishop of Athens and Greece. The three leaders heard stories of some of the migrants who fled ISIS tyranny in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.
