Holy Week begins tomorrow with Lazarus Saturday, so before the onslaught of new experiences, I thought I might air my thoughts from the last couple weeks.

My work at Shevet Achim has picked up quite a bit. I mentioned it in my last post, but Shevet Achim is a non-profit organization in Jerusalem that works with Arab children from Iraq, Kurdistan, Jordan, West Bank, and Gaza who have congenital heart disorder and will die if they do not receive the medical treatment they cannot afford. So Shevet Achim, when it is made aware of these children, provides the necessary travel documents, transportation, lodging, and finances in order to get these children from their homes in one of the above countries to the operating table in Tel Aviv, which has the best medical facilities in the Middle East. The branch in Jerusalem (there is another one in Amman, Jordan) is a resting halfway house where the children and their mothers prepare for or recover from operation.

Last week I went to the hospital for a day in Tel Aviv because Bakr, boy, age 5, Kurdistan, was scheduled for open heart. We also admitted three other children that morning. These kids don’t speak English or Hebrew, and only seem to have a vague idea of what is going on. But the mothers, you can see it in their eyes, feel the gravity. In the morning I spent time with Bakr playing building blocks and trying on cool sunglasses and making animal noises. Then the doctors came and took him for operation. His mother was rocked, weeping. Myself and Donna, another woman who works at Shevet, took her to the café for a coffee and biscuit, and thanks to the saviness of Google translate, were able to let her know what the doctor had said. Later, as I was running an errand across the hospital for someone, I ran into the surgical unit that was rushing Bakr from the OR to the ICU. Between the team of gowned men, I saw him for just a two-second window. His face was completely covered over with a clear tape, perforated by a tube to his nose, and his chest and neck were smeared in red. I was not at all expecting to see him, and when I did, and like this, I was stunned. I couldn’t even comfort his mother. I’m thankful Donna was around for that. I, I just stood there, without word or sentiment. What do you say? The boy you played building blocks with a couple hours earlier was just ripped savagely apart, from naval to throat. There are so many problems: medical, familial, metaphysical, theological, emotional.



Dimon, girl, bob haircut, big eyes, wears a binkie on a necklace, also Kurdistan. That day in the hospital happened to be her third birthday. I remember my third birthday – it is my earliest memory – carrot cake with green frosting, my mother’s early 90’s perm, and singing “I’m so glad Jesus made me three!” It was a happy day. If Dimon’s third birthday is her earliest memory of life, it will be very different from mine. She will remember tubes and machines and ladies rushing around in white, looking very serious, speaking a strange language.

Padua, girl, 7, Iraq, hilarious, sparkling. This is the sweetest girl I know. Today I saw her, and she ran up and gave me a big 7-year-old-girl hug, burying her head in my stomach. We then played for two straight hours: I chased her around screaming with a pillow (she never gets tired of this), we made bracelets with yarn and beads, and then we sang and sang (I played a four-string plastic guitar, mostly Beatles and John Denver, and she played a xylophone, using a yellow magic marker as her mallet). Padua has been teaching me something: how to play. You see, I am a 22-year-old graduate student. I do not play, anymore. The other day someone asked me: “Ryan, do you even like to play anymore?” The answer to this, sadly, is no. I don’t. I don’t know how. But Padua has been teaching me, reminding me, how to play. She shows me that we can fight suffering with laughter. Life is, perhaps, fun. She reminds me that, even though we speak a different language and have grown up under different creeds, the language of love is understood by all. And another thing: I am by nature pessimistic. My checkerboard world is white on black. I wish this weren’t the case, but when I read about the overcast history of our species, or even just today’s gloomy issue of the Times, I can’t help it. But Padua, gently, unknowingly, has been suggesting to me that perhaps optimism is a legitimate outlook on life.



There have been other things going on as well: I’ve been travelling the country, seeing sights of ancient and modern interest. Last weekend I was up in the Golan Heights, exploring old Israeli bunkers by headlamp, looking at “Danger! Mine Field!” signs on the side of the road and watching Apache helicopters (aka “tank killers”) hover overhead. I’ve spent time in the desert, which feels like the ocean for its enormity, only laced with themes of struggle and death. I’ve mudded up at the Dead Sea, “exfoliating,” I think, for the first time in my life. I’ve swum where Jesus walked, met a lot of random people, and had successful bartering forays. But I choose to share in this post about my experiences with children with holes in their heart, because it is this that more than anything is taking a hold of me, teaching me, inspiring me, changing me.

Now for Holy Week in Jerusalem…