Greetings from a bus winding through the desert on the way to the Dead Sea.  The team is in good spirits and looking forward to the sites and sounds we will experience today and the people we will meet.

I promised yesterday to give you a recap of the day on the way up to Nazareth.  Yesterday was a great day that started with gift delivery at the Al-Basma Center for Children with Special Needs.  Al-Basma, as some of you may recall, is a center which gives job training for children largely excluded from society because of the stigma associated with their disabilities; the children learn skills such as making carpets, olive wood Christmas ornaments, and Christmas cards from paper they recycle by hand.  

The team loved being at Al-Basma and we  enjoyed giving gifts and sampling the amazing food Al-Basma’s staff prepared for us.  The children and the team played and danced together and everyone had a great time getting to know one-another.     

Following Al-Basma we visited the Dheisheh Refugee Camp Kindergarden.  What a blessing it was to be there!  Last year, the team was in tears when we left because of the disrepair the center was in and the lack of educational materials available to the children.  This year, we arrived to children singing and dancing as they danced with a clown we were able to provide for the school.  The children enjoyed a  fun party with music and puppets, some sandwiches, and finally Christmas gifts! 

The school’s principal was grateful for the gifts and for the heater and gas BCP will be providing for the winter.  One of our friends made this purchase possible.  You know who you are and we are grateful for you, just as we are to everyone who made the project possible this year.  We very much wish all of you could have been with us to see how happy the children were.

We finished gift delivery for the day with a great meal at the SOS Children’s Village- an orphanage for Bethlehem’s children.  At SOS, the team split up and went into homes for a nice meal and to give gifts.  Later on, we played with the children in the courtyard before heading to Jerusalem for some down time. 

It was a good day.

By the time you get this update we would have already visited the Dead Sea, Qumran (site of the Dead Sea scrolls) and had dinner in Nazareth with Messianic and Arab believers.  I will not be blogging tonight and it may be difficult to do so the next couple of days.  I will try but it may be difficult to do so with our schedule.

Many thanks for your prayers, the team sends their greetings!