The Story of a Special Needs Teacher~

• Find joy in what you do
• Help people
• Work hard, regardless of who is watching
• Give out of goodness
• Stand up to those who wrong others
• Trust God in everything

(I was asked not to include names in this post)

Since I have been here, I have been seriously contemplating what I want to study in university when I go home. My desires have shifted from the lofty world of politics and ever changing international relations as I have had my eyes slowly opened to all the needs here, on the ground level, among everyday people. Currently, my interests have veered in the directions of education and medicine- today my writing is directed towards education

I have had the ability to spend quite a bit of time with a former teacher recently- more specifically, a woman who devoted twenty years of her life to teaching mentally handicapped children. Any person whose heart reaches out to those with special needs is, in my opinion, already an inspirational person. But this woman inspired me on a deeper level.

To give some background, this woman was born and raised in the West Bank. She has lived through periods of violence, fear, and pain (including both the first and the second Intifadas). Today, she is the most generous woman that I have ever met. I have watched her constantly sacrifice her desires, in order to help other people. So, it is a privilege that I have gotten to spend time with her. Sitting with her and listening to her story and experience with teaching is something that I want to share (she gave me permission to post this).

Teaching brought her joy. She loved the children. She loved teaching them. She loved helping them. She would do anything to give them a better chance at having a bright future. Listening to her talk instilled in me a deeper appreciation for teachers who teach selflessly, and pursue all sorts of non-mandatory courses and trainings that they feel would help them give their students a better education. She told me how she took an anatomy class at a university once during her career. The class specialized on what muscles are used to form the different sounds we use when we speak. After the class, she took what she had learned, and began to help some of her students whose disabilities included speech impairment, develop and build the strength they needed to speak understandably. She laughed when she recalled how she would put chocolate around the mouths of some of her students and tell them to lick it off, so as to work out and strengthen their tongues. She talked about once, visiting an American school where she learned how to teach using objects and employ a more ‘hands on’ teaching method (kinesthetic learning), and how she was able to get these objects and supplies for her own students when she saw their need for them. The way she explained the school was amazing. The school provided money and food for the ‘care mothers’ who took care of the boarding students. The students themselves were kept clean and in good hygiene, they were fed balanced meals, and they were loved by the staff. She told me that sometimes, the children would go to the office of the director just to give him a hug, and how he would welcome them in. This school was a good and safe place. Only six students to every one teacher and classroom was permitted so that teachers could pay close attention to every child. However, in cases with students who had severe handicaps, the school only permitted three students to every one teacher, to ensure the children’s safety.

Eventually, things began to change. A new school board was brought in, and a new director was hired. This new director changed everything. She told me how he did not like the children to touch him, and that sometimes he would hit them. He had no patience with them when they did not understand him, or did something that they were not supposed to do. Under his authority, the boarding students were only bathed once a week, and were given a meal with meat in it only once a week as well. He stopped paying and feeding the care mothers- but the more he stopped providing for the school, the nicer his car became, and the bigger his houses got. Classrooms were packed with more students, and nine severe-case students were permitted to a classroom with one teacher. This woman recalled a specific time where she had closed and locked her classroom door (since some of the students would try to wander out onto the street), pushed all of the desks aside, rolled out a carpet, and allowed the children to sit on the floor so that they could move around and interact with what she was teaching. When the director came by, she unlocked and opened the door for him. He reprimanded her for having locked the door, and confiscated her key so that she would not be able to do it again. He also did not approve of her allowing the students out of their seats so that they could sit on the carpet. The next day, when she came back to work, he had removed the carpet from her room.

One of the deepest frustrations that she expressed was how the director changed personalities when international tour groups or donors would come to visit the school. “We saw [him] have two faces in one hour.” she said. When visitors came, he would hug the students, smile, and treat everyone kindly. Eventually, she had had enough. She started protesting the director’s actions and decisions. She saw how he did not come to the school to help the special needs students, but to make himself rich. So she began to speak out, and eventually shout at him. He did not like that he could not control her, and he wanted her to be quiet, so he fired her.

She tells me now that many other teachers were either fired or left since then, and that the number of students who attend the school has significantly decrease. And she tells me how she misses teaching, and how she misses her students.

Once thing that she says she wants international people who donate money to schools like these to make sure of is, that they know what really happens inside the school and behind classroom doors. To know that the directors may lie and adorn a facade in order to get money. And to know where the money truly goes after it is donated.

Despite everything, into God’s hands she has, and continues to put everything- all of the good, and all of the bad. Her dedication, her courage, and her faith inspire me, and so now, I want to share her story and invite others to be inspired as well. Be inspired to:

• Find joy in what you do
• Help people
• Work hard, regardless of who is watching
• Give out of goodness
• Stand up to those who wrong others
• Trust God in everything

My Host Family~

When I first decided to come to Palestine through Holy Land Trust this summer, the thing that I was most nervous about was the family that I would be placed with. I wanted to know if the family would have kids, if the kids would be my age, if there were any smokers in the family. What felt like a million questions flew around my head, and as the day that I was to leave for Palestine drew closer, I became more and more excited to meet my ‘new family’, and have all of my questions answered.

My mom was in Israel/Palestine a few months ago, and during her trip she met a woman. This woman and my mom became friends, and she offered for me to stay at her home while I was here. Because I had planned to stay in Palestine for two months, I decided that I really wanted to stay with a family for the first month, and then maybe stay with this woman for the second. The morning that I left for the airport, I received an email from Holy Land Trust telling me that I would be staying with the woman my Mom befriended in Palestine for my first month. I was a bit disappointed, because I had been looking forward to living with a family. However, it ended up being the best possible thing that could have happened.

The night I arrived at my host family’s house, I was exhausted from traveling and I missed my family back home. My Mom's friend (and now my host mom), her husband, and her father were the only people living at the house and they all seemed like very kind people from the moment I met them. That night after dinner, I had a small emotional breakdown (in part because of being tired, but mostly because I missed my family). My host mom comforted me and told me about how much she had cried when her daughters got married and left her home. Her patience with me while I was an emotional wreck after only having known me for about an hour helped me to realize that I had been very blessed by being placed in that family for my first month.

My time with my host family so far has been amazing. They take me to meet all of their uncles and aunts and cousins, and when their daughters and grandchildren Skyped them in the first few days that I was there, they introduced me to all of them. After living with my hosts for four weeks, I feel like I am part of their family. Because their three daughters used to live at home with them, my host mom is constantly giving me clothes and jewelry to wear that used to belong to her daughters. I honestly never want to leave!

One thing that I am very thankful for, is how flexible my host mom is. She gives me complete freedom to tell her when I don’t want to do something, she is ok when I don’t eat everything on my plate, and she is perfectly fine if I want to go out with friends and end up coming home late. However, the freedom that she gives me does not translate into her seeming like she ‘doesn't care about me’. During my stay with my host family, there were two consecutive nights that I was away from home, and when I came back, I was greeted by my host mom with, “Habibti, I missed you!”. I have found myself reflecting on how thankful I am for how hospitable and welcoming my host family is almost every day.

I am about to end my first month here, which I thought would mean having to leave this family that I have become so close with. However, recently my host mom sat me down and told me that they have loved having me live with them, and that they would like to have me live with them for another month. I was overjoyed when she told me this, because changing families was not something I wanted to do anymore. I was able to talk with the people at Holy Land Trust about staying with my current family, and now I will get to live with them for the whole two months that I am here.

One of the specific reasons why I think that it is important to have a host family that you become close with, is because it eases the intensity of the situation. While it is very important to experience what it is like to live here, and see the daily struggles that people have to overcome, the constant visual reminders of injustice and hearing how fear affects so many people can be very overwhelming. Being able to come home every night to a house where you feel comfortable and safe in can enable you to process and even talk about the emotions, struggles, and frustrations that the day brought. In this way, having a host family that you are able to connect with can help you to work through all of what you're experiencing, as opposed to keeping it bottled up inside.

This is my host family. They will never be my 'real' family, and we will never be related. But the love that they have shown me goes beyond the love of someone who is just passing through your life for a small window of time (even though in reality, they are). I think this is when the line between real family and host family becomes a little blurred. I have always had a great 'real' family, and since I came here I have been blessed with a great host family as well.

So to conclude, I am so thankful for my host family, especially my host mom. I have been shown nothing but kindness from them, and I feel very taken care of in their home. One of the reasons why I have been able to enjoy my time at Holy Land Trust so much, is because I have a wonderful family to wake up to and go home to every day, and a place that I feel one hundred percent comfortable and loved.

All Things New~

This has been a month full of newness. New country, new family, new social expectations, new foods, new people, new environment, and new discoveries. In 4 weeks, it has been a lot of ‘new’ to take in. As an outsider, learning to live and to function in a society under occupation has been the biggest struggle for me. Witnessing racism and human right violations, and seeing people live with a sense of fear is so hard to see. However, at the same time, these same people open their homes to foreigners, pour out generosity, smile and laugh and live fully- and this juxtaposition has been very emotionally taxing. There have been days since I arrived here that I have been so angry and so sad, and the questions of ‘How could the world let this happen, where one people group controls and abuses another?’ and ‘How can people who have been deeply mistreated, still live with such kindness, and for the most part a lack of bitterness?’ continue to revolve inside my head. With the anger and the sadness comes a type of guilt that I haven’t had before, and so I feel like inside of me a disconnect has formed between these deep and new emotions, and my ability to express them. So I will take to writing, which sometimes is a good way to let everything out and to organize thoughts (which I have many of).

I feel guilty as an outsider. I come in and I tour refugee camps, I walk through villages that face eviction, I listen to people speak about their personal struggles. I come and then I go. I can’t help but wonder what these people are thinking when they see a bus full of internationals coming to look around their homes, almost as if it’s a tourist attraction. The image that comes to mind when I think about this is a zoo. Zoos are filled with interesting and exotic creatures, and you go to a zoo so that you can see animals that you wouldn’t just ‘happen’ to see walking down the street in everyday life. You go up to the exhibit, you take a few pictures of the animal, and sometimes you might read the little description beneath the glass that tells you the animal’s name, where it is found, if it was bred in captivity or not. Sometimes you leave with a burning passion to study zoology, because the animals that you saw were so fascinating and cool that you want to know more. But a couple of hours later, a couple of days later, there are no more thoughts about the animals you saw. Maybe you kept the pictures you took, but maybe they get deleted. You come and then you go. You come to learn more, to feel like you’re involved and you promise yourself that you are going to do something about what you’ve experienced, but more than likely you won’t. I cannot imagine what that would feel like to another human being, to be treated- not intentionally, but never the less- as a zoo exhibit.

I feel guilty as a Westerner. I have never had to worry about someone shutting off the water to my house in the summer. I haven’t had to worry about my heating being shut down in the winter. It was never dangerous for me to walk to school in the mornings. I have never had anyone in my family taken to jail without a legitimate reason.  One thing that I was made very aware of in my second week here was that I have more freedom of movement in Palestine and Israel than the Palestinians do. When I want to go into Israel, I don’t need a special permit. I don’t have to get off the bus at the checkpoint to be questioned and searched. I get to use all of the roads. I get to go to any religious or historic sight that I want. The Palestinians do not. So I was left with the realization that even though I have been in this country for less than a month, I have more freedom of movement than some people who have lived here all of their lives. I am having a hard time writing this right now, because this notion makes me angry. I am an eighteen year old American girl, who is just here for two months. How is it that I can move more freely than a man who has to cross the checkpoints separating Palestine and Israel everyday in order to work to support his family? I have no answers, but the injustice leaves me speechless.

I feel angry at God. "But I say to you, love your enemies and bless the one who curses you, and do what is beautiful to the one who hates you, and pray over those who take you by force and persecute you." {Matthew 5:44} ... But how? I have no real enemies, so in the past, this was an easy verse for me. In reality, I still have no real enemies. The occupiers of Palestine have never hurt me or my family, they’ve never mistreated me- in fact, I often get ‘special treatment’ because of my blonde hair, white skin, and green eyes. So if someone like me who has never been persecuted or mistreated doesn’t even want to forgive the people who have occupied this land and this people, how do the people that have actually been subjected to this injustice forgive? How does a good and a just and a kind and a loving and an all powerful God let this happen? But I think the beautiful thing about God is that he meets you in your anger. He meets you in your heartbreak, and he meets you when you are overwhelmed and confused. God is good. I know that, I feel that, and I believe that even when almost everything makes it seem like he is not. I am blessed to be here. I am blessed to have an amazing, generous, and kind host family. I am deeply blessed. So, to the God that has opened the doors for me to be here, who has surrounded me with people who help me process these feelings, who has allowed me to make some pretty awesome friends here, who has reminded me time and time and time again that when I feel like I am falling apart, his love has not left me, in him my heart and my soul (no matter how chaotic they feel) always find rest. The song verse “Then sings my soul, my savior God to Thee, how great Thou art? How great Thou art?” is really resonating with me at the moment, because even though I feel guilty, angry, sad, and confused, I can come back and be ‘anchored’ in the fact that God is good. This doesn’t imply that I don’t still wonder why this could be allowed to happen. I still struggle when I question why God would let this come to pass. I would love to have all the answers, and to know the reasons behind everything- but that’s not how faith works. So while I continue to live here, and I continue to feel like I am an exploding ball of emotions, and I continue to figure out how to live in a place where people are being ‘born in captivity’, I hope my soul will still sing of God’s greatness. 

So if you read this all the way through, I’m sorry for how crazy and disorganized this was, but thank you for looking through my thoughts.