Dear Friend

Dear Friend

The first time I crossed a checkpoint with my son Marcel, he was just a few months old. He screamed when the soldier stopped the car. I was sure he didn't understand what was happening but began to worry about how I will explain Israel's system of checkpoints and walls, manned by soldiers with guns, as he gets older. Luckily, I am surrounded many wonderful parents with older children to turn to for advice. But deep down I am still hoping he will never have to learn to live this way. I want him to grow up playing on the beach in Yafa and on his great-grandparents lands in Beit Jibreen, the beautiful village they were forced to flee in 1948.

Nearly 10 years ago, my work at MECA began taking me to Palestine for extended visits a few times a year. That’s how I met my husband and why I find myself living, working and raising a child in Bethlehem. I’m very aware that, unlike most other parents in Palestine, this is not my ancestral home and I could leave and raise my child in the US. But like other parents here, this is where my family and my community is now. Palestine is my husband and my son’s home and it has become my home.

In March, my son turned two. Like all parents, I marvel at how fast the time has gone, how quickly he learns new things, and how much he has changed my life. There are the normal bits like considering 5am an early but acceptable wake-up time or celebrating when I manage to make my way through a whole book. But having a child and becoming a part of a family has also changed my outlook on daily life and work in Palestine in ways I never imagined.

Over the years I have known young children who were arrested by Israeli soldiers, I have listened in horror to parents whose children were attacked by Israeli settlers. Marcel and his many cousins on his father’s side have erased the safe distance. When I hear about a six-year-old arrested in Silwan I think of my six-year-old nephew Hamouda and how truly young and fragile he is. I think about what it would be like for all of us as a family to comfort him and try to offer him some semblance of safety. I know now the arrest of a child is not a single incident with an end. It will haunt the child and family for years and years.

I have heard and seen so much about life under occupation but I have also celebrated with families during weddings and graduation parties.  Now when I congratulate families on a child's graduation, the reply is always "Akbal Marcel," wishing him the same success in his future.

I have started taking my work more personally, too. I have really gotten to know and care deeply abut many of the people who carry out the work MECA supports in Palestine. Some of the children and families have become part of my extended family here. Just last week I ran into a group of girls I've known for 10 years and traveled with as they performed debka in cities across the US. They were on their way back to the refugee camp they call home, for now, after a full day at the university! And when approaching something as simple as books for a library, I think about the messages I want Marcel to take from books. When I talk about a healthy food program for children, I am thinking about the breakfast we prepare for Marcel every day at home. I want the best for my child. But I think and hope he has also helped me understand how to want the best for all children. Not just ok. Not just better. The best. They deserve nothing less.

For this Mother's Day, please consider a gift to MECA as we work to give Palestinian and Syrian children the best.

Thank you,

Josie Shields-Stromsness
MECA Program Director

Mother's Day ecard!

Give a gift in honor of your mother and we’ll email this lovely Mother’s Day card to notify her of your kind gift. Please make a secure online contribution by Saturday, May 10, 2014 at 12noon PST.

Please be sure to include the correct email and name for the recipient in the "in honor of" section.

Give a special Mother’s Day gift for…

Mothers who have fled Syria and need the most basic things themselves and their children.  Your gift will provide medicine, diapers, hygiene products and more.
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Mothers and grandmothers who get up every day at dawn to prepare healthy, traditional snacks and meals for hundreds of schoolchildren in their West Bank village.
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Mothers, social workers, and teachers to participate in professional Let the Children Play & Heal trainings and learn how to help children cope with trauma in Gaza. DONATE NOW