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.

Ala'a's Progress

Ala’a was a little girl I brought across from Israel to Jordan on her way home during the first week I was in Israel. We had to take her to the border by ambulance, and I wheeled her weak little body through the border in a wheelchair, all the while hooked up to an oxygen tank I had jury-rigged to her chair. I remember especially carrying the 75lb oxygen generator machine through the border which she would need in Iraq, and having it inspected by every supervisor and their supervisor to make sure it wasn’t a bomb. Special arrangements had to be made with the airline for the plane from Jordan to Iraq because they feared liability if she died on the flight. I avoided asking the other staff much about her because from the look of her she was a failed case. One of the children on whom the surgery hadn’t been successful and who would now have to be connected to a machine for the rest of their life. I felt too sorry for her at the border to take a picture of her directly; she was so frail and weak, but so sweet and happy in spite of it all. As we were crossing the Jordan river on the border bus, a great flock of cranes took flight from the bridge out over the river, just behind Ala’a.

A couple weeks ago some of our staff visited her and her family in their home in Iraq. They took this footage of her. She is up and walking around, and was strong enough to serve them tea and chocolate. The family has sold the wheelchair and she now only needs to be on oxygen at night when she sleeps. I could hardly believe my eyes, every time I look at this video of her I can barely believe what I'm watching. Seeing the video myself helped me imagine what it would be like to be one of the characters in John 9 who struggle to make sense of the blind man’s healing. Praise the Lord for the life of Ala’a.

Bombs over Bet She'an – A Trip to Jordan

Went to Jordan last night, it’s not much to write home about. We were getting 3 kids across the border to go home into Iraq, altogether the journey was an exhausting 13 hours. It was quite an ordeal, lots of red tape and a bureaucratic nightmare. One of our beautiful baby girls going across, Alaa, is required to be on oxygen almost all the time, and we (I) had to lug an 80 pound oxygen machine through the border. We had quite the time explaining what it was to the border guards, but you would be amazed frankly at the compassion and grace the guards on both the Israeli and Jordanian side had on us because of the children. It’s not every day they let a massive machine through the border, let alone tax free. We were worried about getting Alaa across in time as she is reliant on her oxygen supply, we brought two tanks worth that had to last her whole journey into Amman. To not pass in time was quite literally a matter of life and death.

The ride there across Israel was beautiful as we parted the kibbutzim of northern Israel through the Sumerian hills, a flock of large birds flew off the railing as we crossed over the Jordan river on a border bus. What was on the radio on the Jordanian bus you ask? Johnny Cash of course.

Standing outside getting luggage together for the mothers while Dorothy (another volunteer) handled the visa negotiations inside I realized some deep pops I was hearing were not fireworks. Most of the attention on the war going on now is on Gaza but there have been rocket attacks coming from Lebanon as well and I can't imagine what else but mortar and rocket fire could produce these noises. The border was probably the safest place to be as any ordinance would fly overhead to the respective sides rather than in the middle. During the hour or so I was alone packing luggage on the Jordanian side I was serenaded by the sound of hounds baying at every thump in the distance.

Basic Info about Shevet and What I Will Be Doing There

shevet.org

Shevet Achim is a Christian organization founded in 1994 and is based in the oldest children’s hospital in the Middle East. Shevet Achim (“Brothers Together” if you have trouble with Hebrew) is taken from the Hebrew of Psalm 133, “How good and how pleasant for brothers to dwell together in unity...for there the LORD commanded the blessing—life forevermore.” To live this out we seek to "go and do likewise" as the Good Samaritan, who crossed lines of division to show that an enemy is in fact a neighbor also loved by God. About one in 200 children are born with congenital heart defects and in recent decades surgical advances have been made which make most of these problems completely fixable. However few places in the Middle East have access to the specialized centers which can perform open heart surgery. With liaisons across the Middle East Shevet Achim seeks out children in the region who need life-saving heart surgery, regardless of their background, and brings them to the advanced medical centers of Israel. Places such as the Gaza Strip, Iraq, and the West Bank which are unstable do not have access to the same medical aid that the Western World takes for granted and without the aid of Shevet Achim and treatment available in Israel they will certainly die. Once in Israel, Israeli doctors and hospitals are willing to rescue these children, and in most cases bear a majority of the expense themselves. Shevet Achim’s role is to find the children, transport them to Israel, and raise financial support as needed. In one of the most hostile regions of the world a Christian organization is working with Jewish doctors to help save the lives of Muslim children, supported by donations from around the world.

While what each worker does at Shevet Achim is always contingent on what the needs are at that period of time, this is my present understanding of what I personally will be doing. I will be one of a couple people that lives on site with the children and families at Shevet Achim who are available 24 hours a day for whatever needs they may have. This can take the form of administering medications, driving kids to and from the hospital, comforting family members during these difficult times, assisting with transporting people to and from the borders of Gaza, the West Bank and Iraq, updating the blogs of the children daily, and certainly many more tasks. For what this ministry does, this role is absolutely key and bears a great deal of responsibility. This position will certainly give me many opportunities to exercise my gifts and strengths, the very same that you my community have been nurturing in me. I am so incredibly excited to be able to jump right in to the heart of what this ministry is about!