Dancing with the "Enemy"

Mohammed celebrated his 9th birthday today with us in Jerusalem. After a pleasant dinner with all the Shevet Achim staff and Hamza and family we decided to walk down the street to the local gelato ice cream shop. As we approached he shouted in English, “ice cream!” Once inside his face was nearly pressed against the glass trying to see all the flavors; he decided on a chocolate cone. By the time everyone was collected to sing Happy Birthday he had nearly consumed his entire ice cream. Mohammed climbed a stool as tall as he was, and all the Shevet staff and our Iraqi guests sang Happy Birthday to him.

While we were eating we heard some music playing across the street and noticed several people dancing, so we all decided to go over to see what the commotion was about. It turned out to be a number of Orthodox Jewish men dancing to some Hebrew music, a sight the Iraqis had certainly not seen before. After a few minutes of watching and some encouragement, Mohammed, defying any appearances of any heart difficulty, ran in and began to dance with them. In a few moments time he took the hands of one of the Jewish men and they began dancing together. It is not every day you hear about Israeli Orthodox Jews and Iraqi Muslims dancing together in the streets, but this child, when spinning in circles with this man was not weighed down with any of the thoughts that perhaps enter our minds. Instead, Mohammed took flight in the arms of a supposed enemy and thought to do nothing but smile and laugh.



Mohammed's father was told that his son's heart condition was inoperable, and it will kill Mohammed at any moment. He went to both Turkey and Iran, and the hospital that was supposed to take him here in Israel all said the surgery was too dangerous. However, through our connections, we were able to have a doctor at another hospital here perform an exploratory surgery today to see if they think he is operable. When the surgeons immerged they said, "...we can do it." this will be a high risk surgery, if it fails at any level, it will be fatal, if he does not get the surgery, it will be fatal. Please pray for Mohammed.