A home of peace

“Little by little we help them to build peace, it is very, very important.”

On the mountain slope below our house, you will find a half built large house hidden. It does not have any signs, and is very modest in its information. It sits there quietly, and it is not an easy road to find it, in fact we at first walk past it. With the help of our Palestinian friend, we finally find the Home of Peace.

Welcoming us are two impressive women, who have a certain dignity and glow about them. It is not for their veil, or fragility that they immediately demand your respect and admiration, it is because of their dedication to care for others. They have spent, 51 and 35 years working in the Holy Land, and never know what the next day will bring. Sister Rafaela came here in 1961, and remembers the Six days war of 1967. “The children suffered a lot. Absolutely, we had to be ready for accepting the children. Many of them had lost their parents, and were scared. We took the children in to the convents, the schools and our homes, the children needed help.”

“We start little by little, if you need more you pray some more and you will get it.”

Originally the home for the children was only in Jerusalem, but then they were given land by the Catholic Church to build a second home for vacation activities in Bethlehem. Bedouins were living on the land and Sister Rafaela explains how she felt bad for kicking them out. Instead they were given another piece of land, but the problems with the building did not end there. Then they started building the wall. It became difficult to travel, so the home instead became a permanent home for children in the local area. Rafaela comments on the negative development she has seen during her 51 years in the country and says “now it is like living in a prison without a roof.”

“At the beginning of the occupation people had hope. But now people are tired. We go to houses too, and see that they are destroyed. It is hard for the families to stay together, especially when they no longer have a home. We try to help all the children, and do not separate between boys and girls, or divide them in to age. How do you separate when they are together? How can you separate the ages, or the genders? If a girl of four comes with her eight year old brother, and they have lost their mother, then they must stick together! “

“This is not an orphanage, this is a home. It is not the same. Here we are a family, a home. One young woman, she is 21, she had her second baby and he was very little, only weighted 1.2 kilos at birth. It was difficult for the family, and she and her husband almost divorced. She wanted to send the child to us, but her husband refused. For him, like many of the parents, they have themselves been in an orphanage, and they remember nothing good. For her it was different and she said to her husband, I know this place, it is good. I, myself carried her as a baby on my arm, I used to fed her. We said it was best for her baby to stay with the family, but we tried to help in other ways. Before they almost got a divorce, now it is much better.”

I find the sisters providing not only a home of peace for children to take refuge in. It is also a home filled with love.