Our Christmas Greeting for our benefactors

                 Christmas Joys and Blessings!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Dear Friends and Benefactors,

“A Light will shine on us this day; the Lord is born for us.”    Ps. 97

These have been dark days for the very poor of Gaza; your generosity has brought light to many families. 

Our families have received food packages, and chronically sick children and adults received urgently needed monthly medicines. Four pre-schools were able to feed 400 children six days a week with nutritious meals. Being it is Christmas and the three Kings shared their wealth with Jesus; you made it possible for us to add some toys with the 150 bags of food this month. If you could have only seen the many little faces lightening up as they discovered the ball or toys in their food bag. Four hundred and fifty children received new coats.

Youmade it happen because of your generosity, allowing us to be facilitators who are trying to give a Christian face of true love and caring in their moment of need. We gave very basic things such as noodles and rice, blankets, winter coats, roof repairs and repairs to cover holes in the walls.

Be assured of our daily prayers of gratitude from the five of us; two Brothers and three Sisters who go to Gaza monthly. We also ask the Lord to bless you and yours.

 You have been a blessing to many families of Gaza and their daily struggles.

Gratefully yours,

                                           Lorenzo, Martino. Sandra, Julianna, Susan

P.S. The pictures show a group of children with new winter coats which they received last week in one of our pre-schools. Another photo is of the teachers serving a falafel sandwich to the children and the third photo is of a family receiving food.

  

Visit December 2018

December 11 and 12th visit
This was a two day visit this time where we were able to visit two pre-schools the first day and two pre-schools the second day. We were fortunate a in each school we witnessed the children receiving warm winter coats. At first they were surprised and it took them a while to realize that these were their own coats and that they could take them home. Each school had a different color for the girls and boys and a different style.
We also witnessed the children getting a nice warm meal which included meat. The children were all hard at work learning their numbers or letters. A couple of schools really need toys as in each classroom one group plays on the rugs and another two groups work at the tables.
We visited four families and brought them a bag of food. Two of these families’ homes are in terrible condition. One of these homes is flooded up about 80 cm when it rains as the rain from the street runs into their home which is lower than the street. I don’t know how they manage. We will try to find help for them.
As usual we stayed the night with the Missionaries of Charity who are always so welcoming. We had a nice visit with Fr. Mario, the parish priest and he had said Mass for all of us that morning.
Lorenzo and Martino went down a few days after us and they visited the homes which need repair and the two homes which are being repaired.
In January our team will have a meeting evaluating how things are going. Sabah, her husband and daughter will hope to travel to see the rest of the family abroad and be away a month

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Visit October 2018

 

My Gaza Visit in October

This time during my Gaza visit we centered on visiting two of the Kindergartens around the outskirts of Gaza city and also some families where we brought their monthly food bags to them.

The first Kindergarten which is called Hanna’s School we visited was one that had very poor possibilities and according to the sharing of the teachers, this meal is the only meal the children are able to eat during the day. There are about 100 children and they received their meal during our visit, the pictures speak for themselves. I have never seen children eating with such respect and dignity for their food. You could not hear one word during the meal. Even when the meal was distributed, each one waited its turn to get the meal, and it seems to me that the children were thinking and asking themselves in silence - will tomorrow have another meal? The Kindergarten class is very basic in this building, with no possibility for toys or material for the children, but the room is very clean and also the children were all clean. Their behavior was outstanding!

  

  

The schedule of food is that they receive food daily during kindergarten. Two times a week is a meal is with meat, once a week there is fruit and 2 times a week a sandwich of cheese or egg. Once a week the teacher can decide what they will give the children to eat and that depends on the money that is left for food during that week. So it could be another meal or it could be only a sandwich. 

The second kindergarten which is called the Musaddar School has 200 children and its place is within a development center and again it reminded me of my life in Egypt, when Caritas was giving health courses and doctors were checking the health of the children and of the village people. The people are helped to improve their daily life by education and awareness programs, yet many of their problems are solved among themselves. The people in Gaza are all educated and do not need to have programs for people to learn to read or to write as we would have had that challenge in each village of Egypt.

  

Visit September 2018

Visit September 4^th. – Day Visit

I went down alone as our three members of our team were busy and I went for the day only. As usual Sabah met me at the border. We went immediately to Fawyeh’s School as it is very near the border. The children were being entertained by Mario the clown who is terrific with the children. We pay his transport and each day he goes to one of our schools. The children having been only four days in school they were a bit shy and adjusting. Most of the children are new in all our pre-schools as kindergarten is obligatory only for the 4 and 5 year olds. Few parents can afford to send the three year olds now due to the increases poverty.

The second school, Zahar School, which we visited is in the Sagyeh area a very poor section of Gaza City. Last year we encouraged the directress to try to registered more children as they had only 40 to 50. This year they have registered more; the problem is that there are many Hamas pre-schools in the area where the children get free uniforms, school bags, transportation and such which this Zahar School cannot afford. We were disappointed in the disorder we found there; the classrooms had not been prepared for the opening of the school. New teachers were hired as due to the low salaries last year’s teachers went to other pre-schools where they received a better salary.

We visited two families both in the same area, and both are very poor and we brought with us a bag of food for each family. This month we are able to provide 200 families with a bag of food containing 14 items. The first family are seven, their home was very clean and orderly despite hardly any furniture. The second family are six with a very disabled little girl of 3 and ½ years old who is very thin. They family was very dirty and they lived very closely with other families who also were dirty. The child needs special milk and therapy. We tried to open them up to having the child put with the Missionaries of Charity who can study her needs with a pediatrician and provide better care for her.

I finished the day with work in our office and a visit to Sr. Delfina to ask her to visit or to receive the family with the little girl who needs care. She agreed. I was also able to visit their new building which is great that will be for the chronically ill both men and women.

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