Today, I received a sad message from Hank Dannecker at One New Heart in Jerusalem. One of the Palestinian children they are trying to save in collaboration with Wolfson Hospital in Israel has died.
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"Dear Friends and Family,
Early this morning we received a call from
Wolfson Medical Center that they needed our help.
A baby, one year old
girl named Lama Elmatsri, was admitted to the hospital and underwent a
catherization on August 29th 2012. She returned to the hospital on September
18th, 2012 for a operation called PA Banding. On September 22 she underwent
resuscitation after a pulmonary hypertension event, she was stabilized but after
a few hours she had another event of pulmonary hypertension but long
resuscitation efforts did not succeed. Lama passed away on September 23, 2012 at
1 AM in the morning.
Because this baby was sponsored by the Palestinian
Authority there was no arrangements made in case of death. 1 New Heart was
called by the ICU to see if we would be willing to transport this mother and her
dead baby home to Hebron in the West Bank. We immediately rearranged our
schedules and we made ourselves available for this mournful journey.
When
I arrived at the hospital Lama's mother was crying and being consoled by several
other Muslim women. I put her bags in the car and an ICU nurse drove with us to
the morgue where we picked up her daughter's body. She held her daughter's body
all the way to Hebron where family members met us on the main road to complete
the journey to their village. As they parted my company Lama's mother was filled
with sadness but made it known that she was very thankful for our
help.
Please keep Um Lama and her family in your prayers."
Grace
& Peace,
Hank
One New Heart
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This is not the first child One New Heart has lost. Yet, they have been instrumental in saving others. Congenital heart defects are much higher than average in Palestinian society due to inter-familial marriages. This program teaches Palestinians-one family at a time-that Christians and Jews are not evil.
If you would like to support this program, you can find their link under "Worthy of our support".
The L-rd giveth;
ReplyDeleteAnd the L-rd taketh away;
Blessed be the name of the L-rd.
I am always amazed by the left calling Israel an Apartheid and Cruel nation, yet they strive to help others.
Findalis,
ReplyDeleteThe point here is that we and the Israelis and their supporters are not the haters. It is the other side that hates. One new Heart is a concrete example of positive effort to change minds. Will this be a deciding effort? Probably not, but it certainly contradicts the messages of hate coming from the Palestinian side that calls for the slaughter of Jews.
Thanks for the update, Gary, even though it's very sad news. I just learned very recently that some heart problems run in my family. I hope that someday we Jews and Palestinians will work together to fight medical problems rather than fight each other over religion and territorial disputes.
ReplyDelete