Mother’s Day In Palestine

Gene Watson at the Elderly Center in Beit Sahour

Marie and Janet painting the wall at Wi’Am

Meeting at Wi’am

Bethlehem Bible College

The first day of Spring each year is when the people of Palestine celebrate Mother’s Day! We were fortunate to again enjoy the day with the people at the Elderly Center and Wi’am.  The director of the Elderly Center, Elen Qassis, also serves on the Municipality for Beit Sahour and allowed some of us to go along with her as she presented gifts to the female employees at the Municipality. Elen is a remarkably giving woman and seems to be very well known and respected in the community. During the morning hours, the center received visits from the representatives from the municipality of Bethlehem, the children from the SOS Children’s Home in Beit Sahour, had performers come in and share traditional dancing with the members, and an organization called “Operation Blessings” presented the members with certificates to purchase supplies and food products from a local business.  We again enjoyed dancing, eating and visiting with the staff and the members of the Elderly Center.  Gene Watson made a special friend today as you can see from the photo above.

The other part of our group returned to the Wi’am Conflict Resolution Center and continued their work in the garden and play yard for the children.  Richard, Janet and Marie have been working very hard on the artwork that Janet is doing on the wall and as you can see from the picture above, they are doing a wonderful job.  Others have been busy painting, moving rocks, picking up garbage and pulling weeds.

 We were able to sit down this afternoon and visit with Imad Nassar at Wi’am and learned more about what they do.  Wi’Am was established in 1994 and serves as The Palestinian Conflict Resolution Centre. They train teams of mediators to help with conflict resolution.  This could include conflicts within families, working with police regarding crimes that may have been committed, etc.  They also recommend counselling to people in need of those services.

After having a wonderful lunch at Wi’am, we all started walking down the street to the Bethlehem Bible College.  The college is partnered with the United Methodist Church.  After touring the facility, we heard from Alex Awad and learned more about the history of the Palestinian conflict. 

We again had a very enjoyable and informative day.  We closed the day with our devotion time as a team and Carol Jean reminded us all to be thinking about the fact that we are traveling in this Holy Land during the Lenten Season.  We have a lot to be thankful for and a lot to think about.

Blessings,

Carol Garwood

Just one photo to share

Camel kisses all around. And yes, just to be clear, we did get the camel’s name. It’s Michael. There’s a video of me getting a kiss, also, but I can’t seem to get it to post here.

– Marie