"How was it?"

I should probably say first thing that I'm very happy to be received back by everyone and I hope I don't cause any kind of embarrassment to anyone by writing this out. It’s the question everybody asks, and I'm mostly reflecting on why it's so hard to answer.

The surreal feeling that I have experienced since landing in America is fading somewhat now, but in some ways I don’t think it will ever disappear. I have been using jet lag as my excuse for why I often feel disoriented or seem to zone out into space, but like I observed after moving to Bethlehem, it will probably require more than sleep adjustment to be fully resolved. I am also attempting to discern how much of this is strange but expected and normal granting reverse culture shock and how I am received at home, and how much is strange but not quite as normal being the product of certain experiences in the Middle East and the enduring life issues I have been addressing (many of which were waiting for me here). Whether this mental fog ever lifts, turns me into some mystic, or disappears and becomes a part of me that flavors my life as I’m praying it will, is too early to tell. It is very scary though.

It feels as though the day I left, one year ago now, I stepped into a time machine freeing me from the time and space of things here in California. I then spent one year accomplishing all the work I have undertaken, and then, as if not a day had passed here in California, I jumped back into this world. My reception so far upon returning, though I had very few expectations, has offered competing evidence for both my time machine theory, among more traditional ones. The most common question, which seems obvious, has been, “how was it?” But it’s a terribly confining one, because it doesn’t illicit a more detailed response than “it was ____.” It was good, it was terrible, it was beautiful, it was repugnant, it was faith destroying, it was seeing the face of God, it was life changing, it was normal; I could probably speak for hours about how it was any of these without contradicting another. “How was it?” is the same question people ask about a dentist’s appointment, a weekend vacation, or a week long missions trip, and probably the question someone might ask if I had stepped in a time machine and, in their time, appeared the next day. Part of the difficulty I’m sure is there is really no normal question to ask, it’s probably a task no easier than it is for me to answer “how was it?” in a word. After the initial fumbling over the question it seems that within a few minutes things return to how they were before I left; but even if there was no time machine, how else would people act but normally?

Perhaps in some way, “how was it?” is the question people would put to the Justin they knew before I left, and the hesitation is around discerning if I’m the same person. When I respond as a normal person, without some saintly missionary reply, the social dynamic returns to me being the same down to earth Justin as before I left, almost as if I hadn’t. I guess what I mean by a lot of this is that I am very much the same in most places that people might look for change or be concerned about, but there are many changes and fresh avenues for engagement, conversation, etc. “So tell me what it’s like to watch a child die?” is certainly a question I couldn’t meaningfully respond to before I left, and asked in the right way, is probably one I could answer more clearly than “how was it?”

The other implication is asking in past tense, which while again seeming like common sense, isn’t the way it feels to me. Geographically I suppose I am distant from where the aspects of my work that garners the greatest attention are accomplished, but I am still living it now. I feel no more separated from the experience here, and I am certainly still processing many things. You mean, “how is it?” Uncertainty about whether I will go back is probably due to my vagueness on the subject, but it’s something you get used to working in the Middle East that I realize doesn’t translate well back here. I am trying to go back, probably in early February. Whether or not I will be allowed into the country, how long I’ll be allowed in for, and detailed specifics about the work I will do there in the future is largely out of my control. Enshallah (God willing, or as God wills), is the best I can offer right now.

Safely Home

I’m 38,000 feet over Missouri as I write this. So far everything on the journey home has gone relatively well. Getting through Israel security on the way out was exactly what I expected; meaning it was everything. Upon entering airport security every person is assigned a number 1-6, 1 being for example the least threatening little old Orthodox Jewish lady who’s never left the country; 6 being someone extremely threatening and potentially dangerous, me for example. I received just about every test they could do that didn’t involve me taking off all my clothes (I was taking to a back room behind a curtain, where I had every inch of me patted down multiple times however). Every book I brought, which was in the neighborhood of 30 was opened and flipped through to see if anything was in between the pages, every item was tested for chemical weapons and explosives, etc. I even got a few interrogations, which I managed to make light hearted since I knew the security officers doing them were likely no older than me. After a couple hours I was through security and, having expected the worst from the security in advance, still made it on my flight with plenty of time. Whether you find it comical or something more, I thought people would be interested to see my bags stamped with 6, 6, 6.

I spent three days on the East Coast during my layover in JFK. My ticket was the same price if I took the next plane to Los Angeles a few hours or a few days later. Having never been to the East Coast, I thought it would be a good idea to stop off and see some sites and visit some of the graduate schools I’m applying to at Harvard and Yale. After purchasing my ticket, and as my arrival in New York City was quickly approaching I began to realize just how big of an operation accomplishing the East Coast adventure would be. Especially considering I was still in a mode of mental recovery I felt in over my head. But would you know it, the entire trip went without a hitch, and much better than I could have expected, thanks mostly to some family friends living in Brooklyn who took great care of me. My visits to Yale and Harvard went very well, I showed up at Harvard Divinity School without any kind of appointment, noticed a student tour passing by shortly after I arrived, and jumped right in. The student leading the tour was in the same program I'm applying to and is from Southern California so asking her questions was very helpful. I got a lot of great info from staff at Yale, and was able to sit down to lunch with some Divinity students; not at all the blue bloods I was worried about. I also had the opportunity to see a lot of sites before leaving NYC, Rockefeller Center, Time Square, Ground Zero, etc.

I'll be home for Christmas

I will be home next week for the Christmas season to visit, and to raise support and awareness. As my departure nears I am fighting a strong sentimental bond I have developed with this place during my short stay here. There is so much I have yet to do, and so much more I wish I could have done, though I suppose these feelings are common. It feels a bit ironic to be living in Bethlehem itself, and leaving it for Christmas; I hope you can appreciate the sacrifice in this.

Please pray for my safety as I travel, and that I will get through security with few hassles. I will be trying to get through security at about 8pm Saturday night (PST), please pray for this time especially. I will be back in LA sometime late Wednesday evening. Because the price of my flight was the same regardless of how long my layover in NYC is, I decided to take a few days, having never been to the East Coast, to visit NYC, Harvard, and Yale where I am applying for Master’s programs in Theology. Please keep this time in your prayers as well, as I attempt to make myself presentable facing 7 hours of jet lag, reverse culture shock, and having never been in the temperatures expected during my stay. I look forward to seeing you all shortly! If you would like to receive information about the work I am doing and/or support me and would like to meet in person just shoot me a message here, on facebook, email, whatever is easiest for you.

1,000th Palestinian treated through Save a Child's Heart Program

Save a Child's Heart (SACH) is the organization of doctors and support staff who perform the surgeries. The families showcased in the video aren't acting it up for the camera, they are all as thankful and nice as they seem.

The Other Side of the Wall

I’ve been living in Bethlehem for about a month now (more on that later). Some 20 years ago, I was barely 4, and Berlin had some big wall come down. I hear it carried the momentum to finally end Communism in Europe. I don’t remember much about it honestly, I know a thing or two about walls here though. I’ve been the the Gaza border probably 100 times at least. If I walk 30 seconds down the street I can see the wall to the East in the distance, blocking off a certain hill the Israelis built on without paying a penny to the Palestinian land owners who were subsequently blocked by the wall (probably the most well documented case). A 10 minute walk up the hill to the North and I’m at the Bethlehem wall itself. They call it a lot of different things, the Apartheid Wall by Palestinians, the Security Fence by Israelis, and neutrally the “separation barrier” or similar moniker by the media. Not going to stick my nose out and say anything politically provocative, but I think everyone can agree that making giant concrete walls covered in barbed wire with guard posts are not the proudest achievements a progressive culture can make, whether necessary or not. I’ll let the politicians…politic. There's not much to say that doesnt involve getting into big issues, so here are a few simple thoughts this wall has given me from primary experience as I pass by it:

“wow, I am not wanted,”

“there must be some kind of minotaur on my side, these streets are quite labyrinth like, I’m kind of worried!”

“it’s trying to keep inside,”

“man this thing is tall, they must really not want me to be on the other side,”

“there has to be something secret or valuable on that side,”

“it looks greener over there,”

“this is the world’s biggest canvas,”

“this thing has to be 30 feet tall, with barbed wire at the top, seems like a little overkill..,”

“I feel sorry for all these business right on this side with their brand new view of concrete and …more concrete,”

“I wonder, if we got enough people to march around this thing blowing trumpets for a few days..,”

“there are cracks in it, and it seems just as famous, maybe I should start sticking prayers in it”

“if they weren’t so…than this wouldn’t be… yeah but if they didn’t…no one would…”

“Jesus probably wouldn’t be too happy about this”


Crossing the border isn’t so bad, I’d take it over an LA commute for sure. Depending on the time of day there will sometimes be a line, and you have to go through a bunch of metal detectors…take off the belt and the shoes, put your hand on a handprint scanner, present an ID, walk by a bunch of heavily armed and very bored soldiers. Generally, I just do my best to look like some yokel tourist from America, patriotically flash them my US passport and they typically let me circumvent a lot of the security.

Escapees and Voluntary Prisoners

It was another Gaza day, but today I had another doctor that I was bringing out in addition to the usual one. This doctor wasn’t coming to treat patients with the Israeli doctors however, he was coming to be admitted at a hospital in Israel for cancer treatment. I was to drop him off at another hospital we work with after letting off our usual Gaza patients at another hospital. So here I was chit chatting on the drive from Gaza to Tel Aviv with two of the most distinguished medical professionals that live in the Gaza Strip. Many of the governments in the Middle East choose the jobs of citizens based on how well they score in school, and in order to be a doctor in Gaza one must score in the top few percent, so these men were also among the smartest and well educated. These two men are some of the few people that, if they wanted to, could get out of the Gaza Strip, make much more money, live in a much nicer place with all the things we daily take for granted, and certainly be far safer. And still they spoke about what they did as though they could do nothing else, to hear them speak and share their story, their compassion and desire to serve their people was very powerful. The doctor coming for treatment was in obvious physical pain toward the end of the drive but we soon made it to the hospital. Like most things in Israel the hospitals have security, but far tighter than most other places, with guard shacks and armed security at every entrance; they usually search the trunk and in the case of Palestinians their bags as well. This doctor was held up for probably 15 minutes while they checked his permission and searched his things, but when I finally dropped him he off unphased, and as very gracious and thankful as ever.

After dropping the doctor off, I returned to the other hospital where I had dropped off the Gaza patients. After all the tests and echocardiograms were finished for the patients I got them loaded up in my van to return back to Gaza. Before getting in, a father with his son of about 15 asked me if he could run to the hospital pharmacy to buy some medicine for his wife. Understanding their need and knowing how expensive things are in Gaza I told them they could go, but I told them to hurry since the other families were already waiting in the van, and I sent Erica our Gaza coordinator to escort them. When they got to the pharmacy in the hospital mall the father told the son to wait outside while he and Erica ran in to get what they needed. When they came out of the pharmacy they immediately noticed the son was not where they left them. The father turned to Erica and asked where he was, and after a moment of looking around them the father said they should split up to look. The father went one way and Erica the other. After almost half an hour of waiting in the van with the other families I called Erica to find out what the trouble was. She told me the situation and I immediately got out and began to look around the hospital myself. I told Erica that if we couldn’t find the son soon we should call the hospital security to search the hospital grounds for him. After another 15 minutes of fruitless searching I told Erica we would need to have security look for him. Erica called the Father on the phone to let him know, to which he replied “No, no, don’t call security, we’ll be at the van in five minutes!” We immediately realized we had been duped, we thought, like Gaza families commonly do, they were shopping and wanted to trick us to buy more time. Erica and I met up at the van again with the other exhausted families to wait, but again ten more minutes passed. Erica called the father again to find out where they were, only this time the line was dead, they had turned off the phone. We immediately got the attention of the security, many of whom I have become well acquainted with in this work, and informed them of the situation. After sweeping the hospital I met back with them where the disappearance originally took place, at the pharmacy. The pharmacy itself is only ten feet or so from an exit to the main street, and it was at that point we realized that there was no security check for people leaving the hospital. We approached the guard at that entrance, the security asked if he had seen the father and son. The guard said he saw them go down to the street and get in a taxi.

We had no choice but to alert the police and the security supervisor at the border that a father and teenage son from Gaza had escaped into Israel. When we brought the other families back to the border we informed the guard about the situation and he put the crossing point on notice as well (the only pedestrian crossing point in and out of Gaza)…That was the last we heard of them.

Noor

I’m crossposting this blog from one I recently posted for Shevet. My personal blog has been a little dry on Iraqis lately and I put a lot of the minutia which into this which I hope gives a true sense of the relationships and emotions. This is a little boy named Noor, “light” in Arabic, who had open-heart surgery through Shevet Achim about two weeks ago. Follow his entire story from start to finish here: http://www.shevet.org/nooriraq/

Noor was looking very good today when we visited him at Wolfson Medical Center. He was very excited to see the Shevet family and wanted to play right away. Noor is still pretty weak and needs to take it easy, so I thought a nice wheelchair ride around the hospital was in order. We stopped to enjoy the photos on the walls in the halls, and we waved “bye bye” to Noor’s mother as I wheeled him outside around the hospital grounds. We enjoyed the scenery and talked to each other the whole way, though we could scarcely understand a word the other spoke. Noor giggled the whole time and especially enjoyed the wheelchair being leaned back when we went up and down the curbs, and meowing at a cat we spotted resting under a car. We stopped by the play room on the way back and did some coloring and played on the piano.

When we arrived back at his hospital room a nurse told me some surprising news: Noor was to be released back to Jerusalem today! A doctor soon came in to do some checks and confirmed he would be allowed home today; Noor’s mother was very happy to hear this news. After the good news we enjoyed a hospital lunch together on Noor’s bed, and as usual Noor made sure I ate everything he ate. While we were waiting on a couple other things Noor decided he wanted to try out pushing the wheel chair, so I hopped in and Noor had a blast wheeling me around the room and crashing into things (and occasionally people). After about 15 minutes of this we made him stop so he wouldn’t exhaust himself, which he wasn’t happy about, but we were soon on our way home. Noor waved and said “bye bye hospital” in Kurdish as we pulled away.


On the day of Noor’s surgery, while it was taking place, I was able to get someone to snap a photo of the unique situation the Iraqi mothers and I found ourselves in. The photo below depicts all the mothers with hospitalized children in one place. The child of the mother on the far right had at this point unconscious post-surgery for more than a week, and struggling to survive. The child of the mother next to her was in the intensive care unit as well recovering from open-heart surgery. The mother in the middle is the mother of Bilal, the child in the stroller, who was enjoying his first opportunity to be outside since his surgery. The woman on the top left is Noor’s mother. Perhaps it isn’t very obvious without knowing these mothers personally, but the solidarity and even happiness these mothers exhibited during the time this photo was taken, in the midst of these terrifying times as a parent, is quite incredible. It would surely not be possible were but for their confidence in the ability of these doctors, their trust and friendship with us as we stand by them, and the supportive relationships they have built with one another.

Departure

She left a few nights ago. The past six weeks with Maddison have been wonderful.

The goodbye at the airport was terrible, though nothing like when I left her so many months ago. I convinced her that it won't be so bad if I come home for Christmas, all the while sucking back the tears myself. Who can find a woman like this, willing to stay with me after I left, never knowing when we would be together again? That would walk blindly off a precipice hoping that God would be faithful catch her.


God, through some generous supporters, did of course catch her and I both, some 6 or 7 months after I first left. When she was here it was like a day hadn’t past away from her, nothing between us had changed, and here for the first time I was able to try out just how exactly her and I work together in this kind of setting.

I don’t like to admit to learning anything from people less than 30 years my senior with anything less than multiple degrees in higher learning, but I find myself, half grumbling and half giddy, to admit just how much I've learned from her and how much potential there is for more in the future. Learning from a bubbly newly minted 20 something girl is something I can’t underestimated, or underappreciate. Where did she come from? It’s the sort of thing that makes me suspicious God has been interfering (thanks!)

We are full of plans for the future, dreams would probably be better. Ambitious notions that wouldn't be possible by one without the other. I Only wish I could act and feel in such a way deserving of this sort of attention. I've learned that in ministries such as this, where life lessons and prospects are extracted like soil is tilled, that all life’s rocks are forced to the surface begging for a toe to stub. For me they are more accurately a few boulders, and their impact more akin to life crippling. This is where I pray God (and Maddison) will deal graciously and gently with me, as I attempt shove off these limitations, or perhaps more realistically, become accustomed to their continual impeding.

It’s interesting, as gushingly romantic as it sounds, I love her more, and I’m closer to her with each goodbye. In such a way that I don’t know if I would be capable of this sort of depth of affinity to someone otherwise through any means available to me in the past. This is better, its different, closer, more legitimately God focused (however you take that), and it’s getting stronger all the time.

In the hours following Maddison’s takeoff I struggled with the temptation to follow her on the next flight, or book my next flight one way. While the latter is not out of the question, the next day, which I spent in the hospital I was reminded of how pure and meaningful this work can be, even in the mundane activities, and remembered that it was Maddison who helped turn my attention to this. She wants me to stay, as long as God would have me, because as I grow so does she, until we are reunited in His timing.

The house is filled with boys!

All of the children in the top picture of the last blog are healed and home. In their place we picked up 5 new ones, all of them boys from Sulaimaniya in northern Iraq, who I first met in Amman during the Jordan screening. Its been a long time since we’ve had boys this age running around the house, and so many! From left to right Mohammed (little), Mohammed (big), Ikram, Noor, and Bilal. It’s no secret that i find myself compelled by the 7-year-old boy inside me to do half of what I enjoy, so it’s great to have some boys my own mental age to play with. Finally children who understand that when presented with a doll and a toy car, you don’t put the doll in the car and drive around, you explore all the ways to run over the doll with the car.

We've spent the last week getting them Jerusalem, then to the hospital for all their tests in preparation for surgery. Hopefully we can get them all on the schedule for surgery by months end.

A Long Hard Road with a Good Good End

Two of the most miraculous stories since I’ve been here concluded last week, both with happy endings.

Mohammed Majib, a child rejected from hospitals in Iraq, Turkey, Iran, and even one hospital in Israel because the surgery he needed was “impossible,” went home last week completely healed. Mohammed’s heart worked by precariously balancing two coexisting heart problems, tipping the scales in either direction meant immediate death. One problem was a “transposition,” basically that his heart worked in reverse, pumping blood the wrong direction, a fatal condition in its own right if not reversed in infancy. But Mohammed also had a very large hole in the middle of his heart, and it was this hole that allowed the blood to mix (normally a very bad thing) sufficiently, that in spite of his heart working in the wrong direction, it still was able to limp along. There was no knowing how long his heart would last in this condition, but all signs pointed to not long. A particularly bold and compassionate surgeon who we have counted on in the past for these sorts of dangerous surgeries said he would take the case. The surgeon said that he believed surgery was possible, perhaps one now and another surgery one year later to complete the necessary procedures. Mohammed’s surgery was put off a few times because of the immensity and danger involved, and this played on the minds of both Mohammed and his father, now having spent months away from home began to doubt if they really should have come, if the risk was worth it.



After a lot of encouraging, both in the direction Mohammed and his father, and toward the surgeon, the first surgery took place and was a complete success. Not only was the first surgery a success, but the 9-year-old’s body was strong enough to do the second surgery less than a week later! After some Gortex, a piece of cow heart, and some careful reconstruction Mohammed was on the road to recovery, and less than a month after was going home!

Akram’s story, if you have been following the blog, has been an amazing one which has finally reached its beautiful conclusion. After more than a year and a half of being away from home because of his physical ailments, he is finally with his family again. After a year of tuberculosis treatment, a lung surgery, and an open-heart surgery, Akram bears many scars, but through them, a new life. Were it not for these very illnesses, Akram would never have met the Lord and understood Him in a personal way that many wouldn’t willingly undergo.


Strong bonds were built between Mohammed and I, and with his father as well. Akram and I shared a friendship that I pray will continue; I hope that I was able to demonstrate some shadow of an example of what it means to live out the teachings of Jesus. It’s very easy to lose this in the midst of the event of the surgery itself, but it was the day to day living together, loving one another, and sharing everything that the heart of a different sort is moved. When we all finally said goodbye it was painful and at the same time an incredible sense of accomplishment surrounded it. I’m certain the same conflicting feelings passed through Akram, his mother, and Mohammed and his father; each moved to tears during our goodbye but certainly so excited to return home.

For more info, pictures, and video of their stories, see their final blogs at these links: Akram and Mohammed

Vacation Picture Highlights

First day in Cairo




Sunset on the Nile


Relaxing by the Red Sea in Dahab, on the Sinai peninsula


Breakfast with an ocean view


Sunrise at the top of Mt. Sinai


The Burning Bush in St. Catherine's Monastary


Climbing a cliff face in Wadi Rum with ancient Nabatean drawings (pictured here perched precariously hundred of millimeters above the desert floor)


Jumping over a huge bush on the way down the Great Dune in Wadi Rum (click on the picture for a bigger version)


The Treasury of Petra

Half Written Blogs

In large part, my decision to focus solely on my personal blog is because I have so many half written blogs that never reach the polish I demand of myself in the time I have to write them. I hope that in eliminating the need to produce a regular newsletter I can focus on submitting what I hope are more reflective and in-depth posts, as opposed to the summarizations and brevity to which I am confined in a newsletter. I am afraid that because of the aforementioned problems I have done poorly at keeping everyone abreast of substantial happenings here, and for that I apologize. I’ve abbreviated in length and depth for the sake of getting out the information that is long overdue; here is what you have been missing, and what has kept me from writing.

Staff

Things at the house in Jerusalem have been tumultuous to say the least. Of the 10 full time workers who were here when I started only 1 remains. Apart from the founder himself there is only one person still working who has been on staff longer than me. In my time here firings, quitting, and leaving for other reasons have been nothing short of commonplace. Recently 2 board members left, a woman that co-founded this ministry quit, and the Jerusalem Coordinator announced their resignation which was effective last week. Surviving this transition has been tremendously stressful in its own right, but it has also forced us to take up a lot of extra slack, and rely heavily on short-term and new, potentially long-term volunteers. The work hasn’t slowed down a bit and this has required that on more than one occasion that I lead the Jerusalem staff in some capacity. My long coveted job description, which I finally received a couple months ago, is essentially null as we are forced to concentrate on only essential tasks.

Maddison

For those of you not in the know, Maddison, my girlfriend of a year and a half came out to volunteer with Shevet and support me in mid-July. Given that Maddison is one year away from a degree in Social Work, and intends to focus in the hospital setting, there could be no better match for her talents and the needs of this ministry. Indeed she has assimilated herself to the work with ease, and developed a report with the patients and hospital staff that has frankly made me envious. It has also been incredibly beneficial for me to have someone that is so concerned with my well being, and she has gone to great lengths to encourage me and take care of me when I have reached my end. Her friendship has also been a relief in this ministry which is now dominated by grey hair. Maddison expects to leave at the beginning of September to finish her degree, and begin her internship at a hospital in Southern California.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Finances

It was something like two months ago now that I first saw a doctor to figure out “what’s wrong with me,” some symptoms chronic, others new. Along with daily indigestion, food intolerances, hunger crashes and other problems I have encountered before, I began experiencing memory loss, lack of focus and concentration, and persistent exhaustion from doing even the simplest tasks. Long story short, after seeing a family care physician, a neurologist, having lots of blood work and other tests done, their best guess is that I have developed Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. If this is the case it is no doubt due in part to my responsibilities here. I say, ‘if this is the case’ because as of yet, I have not heard back from my insurance company who I need to reimburse the several hundred dollars I had to take out for the initial tests, so that I can move forward with further tests to reach a diagnosis and receive treatment.

After returning from my week off, I have done my best to daily leverage myself into a work load that is on the lighter side, as I haven’t yet had a return of the new symptoms. I doubt it will be possible for very long but I hope to find a manageable balance somehow.

Another financial burden has popped up as well in the form of student loans. Before I left for Israel I double and triple checked that I had all of my school loans accounted for and set them up to be automatically paid (and then had my resources at APU confirm my triple check, at least three times). Well, it turns out that all this effort was a catastrophic failure. In a packet of mail I received from my old home address in America a couple months ago were two bills from two different loan companies informing me that I was approximately 6 months past due on their loans. They had been sending the bills to my old home address and this was the first of them mailed to me here. All told I paid about $800 to get current on them, and I now have more than $100 in monthly expenses that I did not plan for when I raised support.

Vacation

When I could barely do anything without becoming exhausted, had my financial resources drained, and found myself perched precariously amid staff politics, I took a vacation for a week. It seems very counter intuitive in some ways and but I hope it makes complete sense in others. It wasn’t easy, I had been trying to get some time away for months, and I finally had an opportunity, and seized it. The trip was exhausting physically, but allowed me to recharge in the more important ways, emotionally and spiritually. It also allowed me time apart from the business to spend some quality time with Maddison.

Here is her update which recounts our ambitious journey, I'll try to upload photos soon:

8-20-09

WOW! What and AMAZING week I had! As I mentioned Justin and I were allowed a week off to travel. After a couple of weeks of trying to find travel buddies, we were getting discouraged when no one was able to come on this amazing trip we had planned. So finally after much prayer an consideration, our leaders at Shevet gave us the go ahead as long as we stayed in separate rooms.

So early Tuesday morning we were dropped off at Jerusalem Central Bus station, with our very detailed and ambitious week long itinerary, and only a backpack each! We took a bus to Eilat (the southern most point of Israel) and crossed into Egypt at the Taba border (we had already gotten our visas ahead of time) from their we went to the bus stop to take a bus to Cairo, and met up with 7 other young travelers waiting, who were already being haggled by taxi drivers, after getting a very good price and having a few laughs, we all decided to share a ride to Cairo.

We finally arrived exhausted in Cairo at 9pm, and luckily found our way on a metro to downtown where our hostel was. After making our way slowly through a crowded downtown Cairo we arrived at our hostel at 11pm, and crashed. The next morning we woke up bright and early determined to see Cairo in a day. We took a cab to the pyramids at Giza arriving at 8am, and they were breathtaking! We explored and took pictures, and finally rode on a camel to get a better view!

After the pyramids, we headed to the Museum and saw all of the amazing things in there, including the treasure of King Tut. We finished the night by getting some take out, and riding a felucca or sail boat on the Nile at sunset. After walking through the busy shops and streets, we headed back to our hostile to rest for more travel in the morning.

The next day, we headed to the bus station, and took a bus to Dahab, a beach city on the coast of the Red Sea on the Sinai. The travel took all day, and we arrived to our next hostel right on the beach! The next morning we woke up and had breakfast at our hostel’s restaurant, and laid on the pillows in the hut starring at the ocean waves. After a while we went snorkeling, and Justin (never having snorkeled before) was so surprised at the tropical fish and coral 5 feet into the water! That evening we went to a fancy open air restaurant on the ocean called Ali Baba, I got steak, and Justin was able to pick out the fish he wanted caught fresh that day!

You would think after that we would want to sleep, but we had bigger plans. At 11pm we went on an expedition through the hostile, and a group of 10 traveled 2 hours to the base of Mt. Sinai arriving at 1am. At this point we began the 3 hour hike up the mountain with hundreds of others! We stayed with our group and our guide, and made it up to the top. It was freezing cold until the sunrise, which lit up the entire area around the mountain. It was beautiful! After traveling back down in the heat, we visited St. Catherine’s monetary, and touched the burning bush!

After a 2 hour ride home, we arrived at our hostel at noon and slept almost completely through the next night! The next morning we woke up to travel again, we took a series of buses and taxis to get the Taba border, and then crossed back into Israel, only to continue to the Aqaba border and enter into Jordan! Finally we arrived in Aqaba Jordan and rested for the night, we even had McDonalds and never had we loved it so much! The next morning we took a short bus ride to the Wadi Rum visitor’s center, where we had prearranged an overnight tour of Wadi Rum and the Bedouin camps. We met up with a German couple, and convinced them to join us, lowering the price for all. We went on a bumpy jeep ride all through the Wadi, seeing the house of Lawrence of Arabia, and got our and climbed/hike everything we could, we climbed the great sand dune, and jumped over a bush, playing in the sand on the way down. That night, we all climbed to watch the sun set over the desert, and had a Bedouin dinner. We slept on mattresses under the millions of stars, and other than the mosquitoes it was phenomenal. The next morning, we headed on a bus for the ancient city of Petra!

Arriving in Petra, it is a mile long walk through a canyon to the city. Once through we were greeted with the massive Treasury carved into the mountain (as seen in Indiana Jones) it was breath taking (but that also could have been all the hiking we were doing) We spent the day exploring the old ruins of the city, stopping in the shade and talking for an hour with a teenaged Bedouin boy about his life, and trying not to die in the hot sun. A little girl no bigger than 6 was trying to sell me a rock necklace, and after talking with her for a little while, she mentioned that she liked my earrings and we made a trade! After riding on some donkeys and a horse or two we headed back to Aqaba for the night, and to Jerusalem the next day.

The morning we were heading back I got very sick, my insides were all messed up, I had bad back pain, and shortness of breath, and once we got to the house we realized I had a fever. As soon as we got back, I realized I would have little time or place to rest, the house was full or new people. A new family staying to volunteer, and Jonathon the head of the organization was replacing Alex at the house, as Alex would be moving on to other things, and new families were also staying at the house. Another Christian couple from Iraq was also staying at the house, literally every bed and room was taken by someone. There was no where to go to be alone, and we were also having a goodbye party for Alex. I tried to stay conscious through it, and then crashed for the night.

I slept most of today, and I am feeling a lot better now medicated. 3 of our most cherished children will be leaving us to Iraq tomorrow. Akram who has been hear nearly 7 months, Mohammed whose surgery I watched, and Hindereen. (all stories can be found in detail at Shevet.org) Tonight we nostalgically say goodbye, and there was a huge feast with desert and all. Sidra is home from the hospital and no brain damage was done, praise God.

This week will be a crazy one, please continue to pray for health for everyone hear, and safe travel and reunions for the kids leaving us. Pray for Justin, as Akram was one of his closest friends over his months here, and it will be had for him to say goodbye. A GREAT praise for my sister Emily. She had her second MRI, and was able to meet with the doctor immediately following, he said he was extremely encouraged that there has been zero growth in her tumor, and that means she will have another MRI in 2 months, and then again a few months after that. So continue to pray, but this is great news to give us all a little relief for the time being. Thank you for all of your prayers and support, and as always feel free to pass this on to whomever you would like!

In Him,

Maddie

Updates from Maddison:

I haven't had a chance to write in the blog for a while, Maddison came out here about 2 weeks ago and has been doing updates herself. Here are her updates, as good as anything I could write about the past two very intense weeks, and provide an interesting (flattering) third person perspective on me. What could be better?!

Week 1:

Shalom!
I thought I would give you all an update on everything I have accomplished in the week that I have been here! I have barely stopped moving since I have been off the plane, and by the grace of God I have experienced more in this one short week than most will ever get to in a lifetime!

My reunion with Justin was more amazing than expected, although I was nervous (we have not seen each other in 6 months!) I was greeted with many hugs, roses, strawberry belts on my pillow (my favorite), a walk around the music and lights of downtown Jerusalem, and a nice dinner at a beautiful restaurant of humus and pita! Little did I know this was the most time I would be spending with Justin the entire week.

The following day we started with our morning meeting which includes prayer, worship, a bible study, and the daily assignments and updates. The Shevet House is in Jerusalem only a few minutes walk from the Old City and an hour from the hospital in Tel Aviv. The “house” includes sleeping areas, offices, a kitchen, and a whole separate living space for the Iraqi mothers and children staying with us. 9 year old Mohammed recently out of surgery was asking for Justin and he spent the day visiting at the hospital, I literally spent the day recovering from jet lag and worshiping and praying. Every night the staff eats a meal together.

The first half of the week a missions group from Texas came and helped clean, and do work projects for us, so we were able to build relationships with them, and they were a huge encouragement to me. We were able to do crafts with the two Iraqi moms and kids staying here at the house, and it was good because we all were able to get to know each other a bit better.

Tuesday is the craziest day of all here. In addition to the Iraqi children living at Shevet and receiving surgeries, every Tuesday we provide transportation and service to certain sponsored children who are allowed in for certain tests and check ups for the day from Gaza. This requires multiple trips to the border and hospital and back (3 total) This week was especially crazy because in addition to the Gaza run there were 3 major surgeries that happened to fall on the week I arrived (they are usually more spread out)

Thursday was personally the most incredible day for me, in the morning I decided to go and visit the hospital and see the kids that I already know well. There are children in the ICU, intermediate ICU, and the ward, and I have been able to find my way around the hospital fairly quickly considering everything is in Hebrew! It was supposed to be a short visit when we suddenly found out that one of our Gaza patients baby Hala was going in for surgery. Alex (one of my supervisors) had to leave and take the van, and he asked if Mary (another brand new and older woman volunteer) and I would “cover it” and take a bus home. “Covering it” requires us to meet and wait with the mom, escort her to the doors of the OR and pray with her if she allows, take pictures before and after surgery, and find out as much information as we can for the blogs written later (these can be found at Shevet.org). I was excited for the challenge, and Alex quickly introduced us to the mother who we could not communicate with at all, and we walked with her as she watched her 3 month old be wheeled into surgery.

As we were walking to the waiting room, a doctor passed us in the hallway, and I was able to ask him a little bit more about the surgery she was about to undergo. He explained that this is the first of a series of 3 surgeries she will need in total, and that they were waiting to see if she made it through this one before they talk about the future. Hala is only 3 months old, and has only one valve where she is supposed to have two, and this was causing a lot of excess blood being pumped into the lungs, and not enough in to the rest of her body. The Doctor explained to me that this surgery was to tie something around the valve in order to decrease the flow of blood into the lungs, and that the risk came in deciding how tight it needs to be.

Hearing we were apart of Shevet Achim, the Doctor invited me to come and watch the operation, and I was able to watch the entire thing very closely (less than a foot away!), even getting commentary in English, from multiple Doctors, about what was happening throughout! I was asked a lot of questions myself, and was able to explain a little more about Shevet Achim, and what we do. A specialist was called in to determine exactly how tightly it should be tied, and I was able to pray for Hala throughout the surgery, while she was less than a foot away! Praise be to God, the surgery was an overall success, and she will have two more to come.

Another huge blessing was as they were still stitching her up, I was able to quickly leave, and report the good news to the anxious mother and Mary who were waiting in ICU. Soon after Hala was wheeled out, and her mother was by her side again. I was also invited by the doctor to come in for the next surgery this coming Sunday. Once I got back to the house, I was told by all the staff members that being invited in rarely happens, and that the relationship between Shevet Achim and the Doctors has been a long process this was a big step!

Today (Friday) I was final able to breathe a bit, we rested, and went out to dinner and Shabbat began, which means I will be able to rest more tomorrow as well. After dinner Justin and I were finally able to spend some more time together and walk down to the Old city, through the Damascus gate and to the Western Wall (Wailing Wall) it was incredible, and my heart was literally filled with joy. It was an awesome end to a crazy week!

Please continue to pray for Justin and I and the children here undergoing surgeries, but also be encouraged God is doing amazing things here! Also continue to pray for my sister, the latest news is that we are getting a better MRI image, and are simply waiting for insurance logistics to work out, but she is doing well. Thank you all again for your support, and feel free to pass this along to whomever you please!

In Him,
Maddie

Week 2

Shalom! Wow another crazy week! (Pace yourself it is a long one)
Shabbat was restful, and Justin and I went to the missionary church that most of the Shevet staff goes too. We rested a lot after that, and walked more around the old city that night, climbing to the roof tops of the houses in the city where we could see the Dome of the rock. It was a restful Saturday, and I bet it was because God knew we needed it with the week ahead.

Sunday started off bright and early at 6am with watching 9 year old Mohammed’s 5 and a half hour heart surgery. Because of my familiarity with the OR layout and staff, I was able to bring in another Shevet volunteer Emily who also wanted to watch. She is also from Azusa Pacific University, and has been here for 2 months already. Before the surgery I was able to connect with my new friend Alina, the anesthesiologist I met last time, and we talked more. We made friends with one of the nurses who was going to be operating the bypass machine and she was able to keep us company and explain what was going on when Dr. Sasson couldn’t. We were able to talk with her about Shevet and exchanged information for her and Alina to come to Jerusalem to visit!

The doctor was excited to show Emily and I the pictures of Mohammed's heart before and after his previous surgery. We were able to see how small the aorta was, and what an amazing job they did in enlarging it. The results of the first surgery were so amazing and unexpected, and his recovery went so well, they decided to go ahead and do this second surgery and repair the hole in his heart.

The hole was in between the two ventricles and needed to be repaired with
Gore-tex so that blood could not mix and flow between them. During the surgery Mohammed was put on bypass, which is basically an artificial heart and lung machine that pumps oxygenated blood to the body during the surgery, completely bypassing Mohammed's heart so that they are able to stop it and work more effectively on it. Once the doctors were able to open the ventricle and get a better look, they saw that the hole was a lot bigger than they had originally thought. However, this didn't seem to slow them down, or worry them in the slightest and things continued right along.

We were able to walk with Abu Mohammed as they wheeled his son into the ICU, and we were all there as Mohammed slowly started to wake up. The surgery went extremely well, and this little boy who was turned away from multiple hospitals earlier in the year, should recover and be completely fine soon!

However there was another problem, during the operation, Emily (see picture below) kept complaining of severe back pain, and eventually had to leave the operating room. Our nurse friend and I continued to leave and check on her, and the pain got so sever we decided it would be best for her to be checked out in the Emergency room. After being checked out the doctors tested her kidneys and thought she had a kidney infection and was admitted to stay the night. More tests were going to take place later on. But even with strong medication Emily’s pain remained very high.

The next day, I was able to go to the hospital and sit with Emily and visit the other patients as well. All updates on individual patients and their entire story can be found at Shevet.org under “Children now in Israel” Emily was fine and we talked for hours until her meds wore off and then I could see how sever her pain was. She had thrown up, and had spiked a fever. The doctors had her on antibiotics, but continued to test other things. At the end of that day the doctors decided she had pleural pneumonia.

However during the night we received word that Emily had deteriorated, and had major breathing problems, they were now testing her for Swine flu amongst other things, and moving her to ICU, anyone who wanted to see her had to wear a mask.

Tuesday was another crazy Gaza day, we brought 5 kids and a parent each to the hospital and got them all checked in and settled. Visiting the other kids we had in the hospital, checking up and Emily, and then returning the 5 kids back to Gaza. The border was closed for a prisoner transfer, and Justin and I waited wit the moms at the border for 2 hours, we had some fun with the little ones though. (See pictures below)

One of the Iraqi children that is very close to my heart is Sidra. She was staying out the house the first night I got to Jerusalem, and had her surgery the first week I was here, she is ALLLways smiling, and Justin and I love her tons, at this point she seemed to be recovery great. (See pictures below)

Thursday was a long but happy day. Most of our Iraqi patients were discharged and able to come home to Jerusalem with us. Including Mohammed! Sidra, Hindereen, Mohammed, would be joining Deya and Hewr at the house, and it would be full of kids again! We brought them all home, and were very excited.

Friday we were going to have dinner all together with the families to say welcome home, but we were completely out of food, and had to do a weekly market run. Emily’s condition was not improving much, and her mother actually flew from the United States to be with her. At least they ruled out Swine flu. Donna one of our head volunteers stayed with the mother in Tel Aviv, so this left us with 4 people at the house to do the shopping (which is less than you realize when you see what we have to do!) One of the 4 is a new staff member from the UK named Tim, he as gotten a crazy introduction as well. We drove to 3 different markets, the Co-op where we got things in bulk, the Arab market where we got veggies, and the Jewish market where we got meat. At the Arab market Justin dropped us off to circle the van, the rest of us ran into the tiny produce shop, and Robin yelled out how many kilos of each thing we needed, and we all ran to bag it up. It felt like a scavenger hunt. Feeding 5 children, 5 parents, and 7 staff takes a lot more food than you could ever imagine. We got that all done, and headed to the Jewish market. Justin had saved the Jewish market to go with me so we were experiencing this together, and let me tell you it was an experience! Hundreds of people, yelling, pushing, the smells, and the sights it was amazing. We ate lunch their got the meat and had a blast!

That night we al had Iraqi food prepared by the mothers, and we rested a little more, going to sleep a little early not thinking anything because Sabbath was tomorrow however, once again, God must have known we needed it. My Sabbath was far from restful. I was actually supposed to lead worship at the church we go to with some other staff, but instead I was awakened at 4:45am by a pounding on my door. Donna our lead staff was still gone, and as I woke up I hear Mohammed’s father outside the door. He was trying to get my attention without coming in out of respect, and all he said was Sidra, Sidra. I sprung out of bed, threw on some clothes and rush to the families sleeping area. Baby Sidra had not slept all night, had thrown up, and labored breathing. I went and got Justin, who called the Ward and were told to give her some Tylenol like medicine, and bring her in. Always smiley Sidra was crying and in a lot of pain. Justin and I worked together to mash up the pills mix them with water, and put them in a syringe for her to drink. We loaded her in the van, and took her to Tel Aviv. After we got their they admitted her, did blood tests and an X-ray. At around 10:30am Justin and I drove home, and exhausted passed out. When we woke up we got news from Donna that Sidra had fluid build up around her heart, they had re opened her chest, and she went into cardiac arrest, she actually died on the table, and they revived her, she is sedated in the ICU now.

Later that night, it was brought to our attention that Mohammed and Hindereen had fevers. We took their temperature, and it was very high, while Justin called the Ward, I set them up with a the fan, and cool wash cloths. They advised us to bring them in, and we did. When we got to the hospital around 10pm, we were told their was no room, apparently there was a virus going around the hospital, and many of the kids had fevers already. After waiting for a long time, and getting them check out they were both admitted, Hindereen was put on a bed in the hallway! We prayed with them both before we left, and arrived back at the house after 2am.

This morning I got word that they are testing the whole hospital for Swine flu, but that Emily is doing better and they are moving her out of ICU.

We have today off to rest, and Justin and I might try and see some more sights. Please continue to pray for all the kids and staff here. Also continue to pray for my own sister Emily and my family back home, the latest news is that Emily will be having another MRI in the next few weeks and then a lumbar puncture eventually, but as for now she got her wish of an uninterrupted time at Hume lake Christian Camp! Have a great week!

In Him,

Maddie

Perspectives

The last few weeks when I have done my Tuesday Gaza runs I’ve brought out one of the Gazan cardiac pediatricians. He has come along to learn from and talk with the head of the cardiology department at the hospital, where the children we bring out are admitted. It’s under this Israeli doctors leadership that all of the Gaza children we sponsor are treated. On the hour drive from Gaza to the hospital, the Gazan doctor recalled to me his boyhood spent in an Arab village outside where the now heavily fortified military border is, long before it was constructed. As we drove he would point out places where Arab villages once stood, where his father’s village and farm were, now demolished. One of my favorite ruins along the road, a lonely, one room stone building, seemingly plopped haphazardly in a rolling field, the doctor informed me was once a mosque. In the calmest way I've ever heard an Arab discuss the subject he told me how stupid he thought the Jews were for how they are treating the Gazan people. That day, the mother of one of the sick children got to see her sister for the first time in a decade. One sister lives in Gaza, the other I believe from the West Bank. When the sister from the West Bank heard that the other would be able to leave Gaza for a day, she traveled to the hospital in Tel Aviv to see her for the few hours she would be there.

After we made it to hospital and all the patients were treated and ready to go back to Gaza, I told the Israeli doctor that I would need to call a contact I have at the border to see if a protest was still going on. That day was the 3 year anniversary of the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit, a Jewish soldier still held hostage by Hamas, and exploited as a powerful gambling chip. When I picked up the families and doctor in the morning, protesters were standing in front of the gates leading into the Gaza border, and as I found out later, were blocking trucks with humanitarian aid (though the only one I saw while at the border, they let through). Walking through the midst of these protesters with a half dozen Gazan’s, children with severe heart problems no less, would not be possible. So as I was seated waiting for a return call to hear if the protesters had dispersed, the Israeli doctor told me that he had been listening to the reports of the protests all day on the radio. He, also remaining about as calm as I’ve heard a Jew talk about Gilad Shalit, expressed his outrage at how unfair and uncompromising the Palestinians Authorities are and how gracious and compromising the Israel government is to them. He told me to imagine being one of Gilad’s parents, or his brother, what it must feel like for them.

Short and Sweet

I feel like the blogs I've written recently (and intent to write shortly) are a shade macabre. Here is a happy story, about as long as I can muster right now. Click the pictures to see them larger.

Shadi after 1 heart surgery:

Shadi after 2 heart surgeries:




He still has one more to go in a few years.

Dignity

Mohammed Hamdan died the other day, less than a week after returning to the Gaza strip to be near to his family as he went. The quickness in which his condition deteriorated once at home was much more rapid than we expected. It took several weeks to prepare to take him home. The 28 medications he was on needed to be changed to those available in the Gaza Strip, and he was taken off of the ones with a narcotic effect, and arrangements for direct ambulance transport needed to be arranged. His last day at the hospital was spend making sure all of his meds were in order, saying goodbye to everyone in the hospital, and the most surprising thing: making him human.

The appearance of Mohammed in the ICU has been that of a corpse, blue and nearly bloated beyond recognition. The ICU patients lay there nearly naked like cadavers, with various parts missing and instruments plugged into them; a cable from the skull, amputations and black extremities, IV holes and chest wounds which do not heal. So gruesome that when they look up at you or cry for their mother you are startled that what is before you really is alive, it’s not some sick plastic doll or horror movie prop.

But, because he was not on certain drugs the day he left, he looked like a little boy. His mother bought him a new set of clothes for the journey back home. It was not until after I had dressed him that I realized that in the 5 months he has been here I had not once seen him wearing clothes. There, seated before me, was a human being. It was surprising to me how much a little normalcy and dignity go in making the weak and helpless endlessly more human.


I have often felt guilty for giving up hope on Mohammed Hamdan, so much effort is put into sustaining him and there was so little chance that he would survive, and I found myself put to shame by most of the doctors who faithfully assessed him every day and treated him like any other patient. I would always pray for him, for his mother, and the situation surrounding them but I always struggled to get specific. I still do not know if it is right to pray that a child might die in this circumstance, that their suffering would end, that it would just be finished. To think of him as the moving cadaver in the ICU or the little boy dressed his finest to go home adds much to the question.

Riots on the Streets of Jerusalem

I try to avoid posting political stuff as much as possible, but I feel that sharing this story is valuable in helping those who are not in Israel understand just how different the political arena is here, and why it is perhaps so difficult to convey the complexities of it to someone without the same exposure to it. So rather than stating an opinion or taking a side on anything, I just hope to convey, it is different.

Last week, there were circling helicopters, streets blocked offed for a kilometer around, and 6 police officers injured by stones thrown by Haredi Jews who gathered in the thousands at Jerusalem city hall. There were two squad cars blocking the street right in front of Shevet, the city hall is only a good stones throw away (pun intended).

Why were they rioting? Because the city hall decided to open its parking lot on Saturdays of course!

Here are some links to articles about it:
Jerusalem Post 1
Jerusalem Post 2
Haaretz

Schnitzel Baguette and a Liter of Coca-Cola

It was a few days ago now during my rush to get things done in the hospital that Mohammed Hamdan’s mother approached me at around 2 o’clock (we refer to the mothers of patients as Im (Arabic) or Um (Kurdish) followed by their child’s name). Im Mohammed has been in the hospital now with her son for about 5 months, so we have gotten to know each other fairly well. She has also apparently gotten used to the often frantic nature of my routine and recognized that if I was still running around at 2 o’clock that I probably hadn’t eaten. When I finally got a chance to sit down, she walked into the room with a foot long schnitzel baguette and a liter bottle of Coca-Cola from the hospital mall, just for me. This was an incredible gesture, most people in Gaza live in poverty and here she had spent close to $10 US on me for lunch. This was one of the most powerful gestures anyone has done for me since I’ve been here. Afterward I found out that one of our Iraqi patients of about 9-years-old, who I was helping in the hospital that day, didn't understand and confronted her about why she would buy food for me, she responded by scolding him saying "because he is a good man!"

The doctor’s have exhausted all options to save Mohammed. After his first heart surgery he needed to get strong enough to undergo a second surgery, and he simply has not gotten any stronger. The doctors have just been waiting for him to become stable in his present condition to be transferred to a hospital in Gaza where, in all likelihood, he will not live long. Mohammed and his mother will likely travel either Sunday or Monday back to Gaza, please keep them in your prayers.

Sometimes our Gaza families get left out of some opportunities we have to minister to and connect with our patients because they are not legally allowed to leave the hospital grounds, while our Iraqi families actually live in the same building with us. So a couple days before I left for Jordan, when the rest of the staff were starting a picnic with the Iraqis on the hospital lawn, I ran through the hospital ward collecting the Palestinian mothers and their kids to join us. They were very grateful to be included, and once again made a bit of a scene having an entourage of half a dozen Palestinian women following behind me as I showed them the way.

Back Home Safe from the Jordan Screening

All the families made it across into Jordan; I had faith that they would, but it would have been quite a feat by earthly standards. 60 people without visas, crossing a militarized border, it's just unheard of. Not only was everyone allowed to cross, but the border guard brought our Jordan coordinator a gourmet coffee while he waited,..wow.

To recap, the screening in Jordan is done once a year for the potential Iraqi patients. Jordan is more or less a neutral ground. We coordinate the entire trip and get them to Amman to be screened by an Israeli cardiologist who determines if and when a surgery is necessary or possible for each child.

Read all about the screening here: http://shevet.org/screening/

As for my personal involvement, I drove to the border from Jerusalem with the rest of the staff in tow at around 6:30 Monday morning, made good time to the border, and even better getting through (not having a bunch of Iraqi's with you helps). We made it to Amman in time to drop our stuff off where we would be sleeping and get to the screening site in a very nice modern church. We spent the evening briefing the families on what would be happening, sharing some encouraging words, meeting them, eating a meal together with them all, and prepping the facility for the screening in the morning.

We made it back to the place we were staying around 11pm and went straight to bed for the big day which would begin at 5:45am for me. I couldn't get to sleep because of the combination of heat and tormenting mosquitoes; my options were to sleep uncovered and be eaten alive, or cover my whole body and sweat out the night. I chose the latter, and found myself finally dozing around 2:30am when the air finally cooled. Needless to say it was a rough start getting going on the big day.

My duties involved doing all the photo documentation for each child so we would have something better than a lineup photo to present to potential sponsors, as well as pacifying/entertaining the families while they waited (usually hours) to be seen. This was no easy task given the number of children with separate handicaps, including violent behavioral issues and mental retardation. Despite this I managed to create some meaningful bonds with many of the children.

We finished the screening at around 1am on Wednesday, about 19 hours of consecutive work later. I've worked exceedingly long days before, but the amount of energy required for this, in addition to the lack of sleep, countless nagging bug bites (I'd estimate around 30), and a spontaneous fit of allergies that had me blowing my nose every 10 minutes for 15 hours, made it pretty grueling. It was all worth it in the end. 21 children were invited to surgery in Israel, as well as another 3 that are possibly savable, 4 children who need no surgery, and 3 were found to have no medical hope for treatment. We should have 5 with us in Israel within a couple weeks.

Wednesday was nearly as long as the Tuesday screening. Wednesday we collected all the families at their hotel, informed them of when they would be coming to Israel, and got them all packed and off to the airport once again. I spent a few precious hours playing with the children, and praying for the terminal ones, before seeing them off. After finishing the remaining work, and packing everything up, we left for home and made it back to Jerusalem around 1am Thursday.

Since I was the photographer, I have all the pictures of the children at the screening cataloged and named here for you. Just click below, and please keep them in your prayers.

Jordan Screening 2009

Something Urgent to Pray for

What do you do when you have 62 impoverished Iraqis, half of whom may be deathly ill, with non-refundable plane tickets, flying into Jordan when they have not yet received a visa to be there, and need to be allowed into the country in order to receive evaluation and treatment, which unless received could spell their death in mere days?

I’ll let you know Monday…

A More Casual Note

My best friends at the moment are (in this order more or less):

• A very accomplished 2,013 to 2,015-year-old Jewish Rabbi (proud to call him friend)
  
  
• A woman who shared the awkward gift and task of being 7,000 miles away and also being the one whom I happen to be in love with
  
  
• A mentally challenged middle-aged Arab Christian man
  
  
• An emaciated 17-year-old Kurdish young man
  
  
• Half a dozen conservative Muslim mothers
  

Newsletter 5-20-09 Available for Download

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Crossing Jordan

I spend a lot of time waiting in this work; anxiously is an adjective that can typically accompany it. Now is not a particularly anxious waiting, I am sitting at the Beit Shean border crossing waiting for our Iraq coordinator to come across with his wife and her family. I anticipate them being held up perhaps not for having an Iraqi with them but for Americans to be living in and/or traveling from Iraq. But, I am sitting at the other end of the border and can say with a sigh of relief that for once this isn’t my problem. So I'm sitting here, and too under the weather to study, so I will write.

I haven’t had time to blog or send a newsletter out (working on it) due in large part because my responsibilities have been amped up, due both to necessity as well as to, at least what I'm told, is a confidence in my abilities. A few, couple,… time flies, it’s hard to remember, weeks ago was a test of this, when, on my own, I escorted two of our Iraqi patients Rasan and Bruska, and their mothers across this same border and delivered them safely to our Shevet house in Kerak, Jordan. The ordeal began about 7am and ended at 7…8…9 at night when we arrived at the Kerak house and got everything unloaded.

“Bureaucratic nightmare” is a term that continually comes to mind when talking about getting across these borders. There are perhaps a dozen windows to deal with to get into the Israel border itself, then the Israel border, then at the Jordan side, then getting out of the Jordan border. Vehicle wise, after a two hour drive from Jerusalem to Beit Shean one must get permission to bring their vehicle into the border to unload luggage (a particularly obscene amount in this case because Sheilan, mother of Rasan, had been in Israel for nearly a full year), then must park their vehicle outside the border after again securing permission to take the vehicle out of the border into Israel.

From there we go through Israel customs, get the usual confused looks as to why a young American man is taking two Iraqi women and their children into Jordan. All our paperwork is in order though so they haven’t stopped us yet…even though some of the Iraqis visas are months overdue by the time they leave. Saying something to the effect of “they were in the hospital having open-heart surgery they couldn’t make it to the visas office” has sufficed so far.

Then all the luggage and people must be loaded onto a bus which travels perhaps 200 yards across the Jordan River and into the Jordan border. Everything must then be unloaded from the bus where the Jordan border customs nightmare begins; every bag x-rayed, opened, every passport examined, visas issues, etc. Once all that is finished one must take a taxi from the Jordan border about a quarter mile to where the Jordan ends. We had to take 3 taxis to fit all the luggage. From there we all piled into another taxi which then drives to Kerak. I haven’t even gotten to going the other way from Jordan back into Israel. An American with 4 Iraqis leaving Israel isn’t so bad, but coming in security is much tighter, and in my experience, involves some kind of interrogation, intimidation, even with all the paper work in order.

The scenery on the ride to Kerak was beautiful, passing through the rolling hills east of the Jordan which would have belonged to the tribe of Gad, then hugging the Dead Sea for its length, then climbing up through a parched gorge of sedimentary salt rock and potash which finally reached Kerak in what would have been Moabite country. Our taxi driver was an interesting character, a believer, very friendly and kind, made the ride very pleasant and interesting. On the long drive we listened to a sermon (English being translated into Arabic), he helped me work on my Arabic, and when we arrived at the Shevet house in Kerak he stayed for dinner. There is a pretty impressive Crusader castle in Kerak, but unfortunately I was too busy to go to it, maybe next time. I noticed driving on the way to Kerak and in the markets in Amman there is a communal atmosphere there that is worthy of envy. At dinner time, all the roads are lined with people picnicking, perhaps more so given that it was a Friday but this is the cultural norm.

The stay in Jordan from Friday until Monday was nearly nonstop work. After getting through the border Friday, Saturday was another four hour drive from Kerak to Amman to get Rasan, Bruska and their moms on a plane for Iraq. The details aren’t especially interesting. This was one of the more difficult goodbyes, Sheilan had been with us so long she was nearly promoted to staff, she was here when I first arrived and everyone has watched Rasan both be healed through his multiple surgeries and also grow and develop like the joy a father must have watching a son learn to recognize them, learn their first words, learn how to clap and hold your hand. Bruska was also a difficult goodbye. She was an emergency case that probably would have died if we waited even a day longer to bring her. She had surgery immediately and was put into a medically induced coma afterward. From the time she was released from the hospital until she got on the plane home to Iraq I was largely responsible for getting her to all her appointments and I spent a great deal of time playing with her and getting her to do her exercises to combat the cerebral palsy from which she now suffers likely due to the lack of oxygen to her brain because of her heart condition. We made all of her exercises into games and she would often begin doing them spontaneously whenever I came around because she enjoyed doing them with me so much. After doing the exercises for a few minutes she would be laughing hysterically and could keep going long after I was exhausted. I made sure to do them with her on Friday night one last time before she left. There was so much about her that tugged on my heart, it was difficult to see her go.

The rest of the weekend was spent running errands like buying live chickens in the market where I observed that every man selling his wares who saw a child walking past would pat them on the head and say hello, the communal love for children was pleasantly conspicuous. More errands, carrying and chasing our Jordan coordinators children around (easily the most exhausting), and dropping off a baby crib to a mother in one of the Amman slums; but there were a couple moments that were at least somewhat recuperative. I ate some delicious American style pizza, which you essentially cannot get in Israel because of kosher rules and a lack of American brands. Also, in the midst of running back and forth across Amman I was able to stop in one of their large Western malls for about 15 minutes to go to Starbucks. There are no Starbucks’ in Israel, so I got the largest coffee I could buy and relaxed just long enough to enjoy it.



At any rate, I successfully managed the entire process. Got them there and on their way to Iraq, and brought two new Iraqi children, Mohammed and Hamza, now in Jerusalem, here for heart surgeries.