Amazing opportunity this week!

OK so this picture

has absolutely NOTHING to do with Jerusalem, but I love it. This is the story of a young koala named Phantom whose mother Lizzy was hit by a car and needed surgery for a collapsed lung. Phantom would not leave his mother so he stayed attached, wrapping his arms around her neck even during her surgery and recovery! I think that this is a great photo and story, so I’m starting the week off with it :o) Here in Jerusalem I have a picture of a koala with bright blue eyes as the sign for my bus, so that students know which of the many buses to get on.

One of the highlights for this week is that we got to go to Ramallah. It is a major city in the West Bank and so generally we do not have permission to go there. The Church’s LDS Charities has a program where they "provide lifesaving training and equipment for birth attendants to help resuscitate babies at birth, support the care of newborns, and improve maternal survival following births.” “The World Health Organization estimates that one million newborns die each year from breathing difficulties" (ldscharities.org). So this week Dr Anderton and his wife came and spent a week at the Jerusalem Center. They were providing training at a number of hospitals in Ramallah. The purpose is to train people who will then go out and train others. A number of people from the Center go and help with the training. On Tuesday we received permission to go there as well. It happened to be Dr. Anderton’s birthday so we got to watch the handing out of the certificates to those who had completed the course and then sing Happy Birthday to him.

 The next picture is Tina, Sis. Anderton and Sis. Heiner after the meeting.

Afterwards we were able to visit Yasar Arafat’s grave.

This was a great opportunity. The Palestinians believe that this is only a temporary burial place. They believe that one day he will be buried in the Al Aksa mosque in Jerusalem. I was hoping that while we were in Ramallah we’d be able to go to Bethel, which is only 5 km away, but unfortunately that didn’t eventuate.

My last photo is of Elias Feinzelberg and Ancilli. Elias is the 97 year old Holocaust survivor who comes and speaks with the students each semester. Ancilli is his caregiver who is a member of our Branch. I’ve mentioned him previously, but I realized that if I didn’t get a photo with him this time I’d miss my opportunity. A new story that he told this time is that while he was in the concentration camps they were given black bars of soap to use. They later found out that the soap was made from the ashes of the people killed in the gas chambers. I still don’t understand how people can do these horrible things. Anyway, Elias is proof that you can survive dark, dark, days and come out with a love of life and a positive outlook.