Gaza visit July 6, 7, and 8

Brothers Andres and Lorenzo and I went down for three day arriving at the same time as Cardinal Mc Careick. We joined the men from the parish who welcomed him at the frontier, Sabah met us and we went to the parish where the Cardinal celebrated the ten o'clock Mass. Scouts with bagpipes playing welcome the him. His homily was great, as he encouraged the people in their faith despite the difficulties of life now.
This first day we visited Musaddar School seeing the added rooms on the second floor, which are great. Moh'd told us about the four micro finance programs which are going on there, which interested us greatly. We visited some poor families after and returned to the parish for the evening.

The following day we visited families and had a ten thirty appointment with another local NGO who gives loans for micro finance where the ones we heard about yesterday gave grants. After this we visited a shop where three doctors have donated their time to examine and to give 46 children glasses for a very low cost. This project was sponsored by Italian parishes. These people have been so generous; they will do the same for us in the fall. Near was a shop which was a micro finance project which previously Sabah had given this man a camera and the needed equipment to open a photo shop .He has been quite successful covering weddings and such so that he now makes a good living. It was a real success story.

The third day was a Moslem feast and many places were closed, still we were able to visit two centers where women were baking filling food orders to sell as other income generating project. Near was a center where women make lovely dresses for special occasions such as weddings so we saw this center. This day the Little Sisters joined us so we visited the Byzantine ruins near the sea and went on to the Musaddar School again so the sisters could see the programs going on there.
We finished the day with visits to several rural families of the area. One family lived in tents, no running water was available the heat was terrific All the families which we visited are receiving food monthly. To witness their poverty was heart rendering. Some had small income generating projects such as raising poultry. We went home very grateful for the great hospitality shown us and for the information gleaned.