THOUGHTS ALONG THE JOURNEY

The amazing lad in this clip lives in Bethlehem and is supporting a family of six with his wage of $4 USA per day. His father can no longer get an Israeli issued pass allowing him to enter Jerusalem (a whole 8km away) where he worked for over twenty years. He is the only member of his family in paid employment ….. and one other thing, he is intellectually disabled.
Whenever I enter Bethlehem the Israeli built wall surrounding the city makes me feel as though I were a caged chicken. A combination of the incompetance of the Palestinian Authority and the bans imposed by Israel results in people living in extreme poverty. It is just like entering a third world country. And, as is often the case in third world countries it is the disabled and children who suffer the most.

Peter and Chloe are two amazing Australians who I met for the first time in Waverley Sydney doing something concrete about the suffering. They import and sell olive wood products made by the older kids in the ‘School Of Joy’ which is a school for intellectually disabled kids, most of whom would be on the streets were it not for the Melkite Catholic priest who runs the school from his family home. I literally bumped into Peter and Chloe in Nazareth a few weeks back. Peter was born in Jaffa Tel Aviv, he was here showing his Aussie in-laws around the country of his birth.

When I get back to Oz I will be doing a lot more talking about (and soliciting for) this amazing school that runs on the smell of an oily rag. You can check out their web site: http://www.schoolofjoy.org/index.shtml

PS. I have discovered how to insert youtube clips onto my blog - how cool is that!
PPS … and paragraph breaks too, but saderly stihl no spel checke.
PPPS. The wall is properly called a “security fence” and is over 17 metres high and one metre wide in some parts, made of solid cement.