Pictures from TelKeppe by Detroit News Monday October 28, 2002

The Sacred Heart Church in Telkaif, Iraq is the point of origin for the Chaldean community in Metro Detroit which is the largest outside Iraq. Max Ortiz / The Detroit News

Father Asa'd Hannona give the host to the many attending the early mass service at the Sacred Heart Church in Telkaif, Iraq. Max Ortiz / The Detroit News

Christians pray as they listen to Father Asa'd Hannona's mass service.

Father Asa'd Hannona raises his arms and prays during an early morning service at the historic church.

Nuns at the Sacred Heart Church glance over their shoulders as they notice a photographer taking their picture.

 

Father Asa'd Hannona, left, and Priest Lucien Jamil stand outside the entrance of the Sacred Heart church as they greet vistors after their morning mass.

Carpenter Rabah Gabva'd Saiwa works on a church bench in an courtyard at the historic church.

 

Priest Lucien Jamil speaks about the history and how the Chaldean community has dwindled.

 

Father Asa'd Hannona looks over the Cemetery Telkaif from the rooftop of the Sacred Heart Church.

 

The cemetary's tombstones are written in Arabic.

 

Aramaic script is still read and written in Telkaif by the Christian community. In Metro Detroit the language is still spoken, but the written script is slowly being lost with the new generations of Chaldeans.

 

Jamdy Mohomed holds a tomato and sings at his vegetable stand in Telkaif, Iraq.

 

Tom Simaan, of the Iraqi-American Friendship Federation, stands where his family childhood home once stood and is today rubble. Max Ortiz / The Detroit News

 

Tom Simaan, right, shares a moment with a childhood friend Asaam Azou Polas in the neighborhood where Simaan grew up in the city of Telkaif, Iraq.

 

A boy and his mother sell bread outside the Sacred Heart Church in the exact same spot where Tom Simaan sold bread as a youth in Telkaif, Iraq

 

The City of Telkaif, Iraq, is the point of origin for the Chaldean community in Metro Detroit and was Metro Detroiter Tom Simaan's home town when he was young

 

A tractor travels slowly down a road in the heart of Telkaif. Many tractors and pull-carts are used in the narrow passages to deliver produce.

 

2-year-old Yousif Asaam peers from an ornate gated window of his parent's bedroom in Telkaif.

 

Children pick up items amid piles of debris a block from the Sacred Heart Church in Telkaif, Iraq.