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As war between Israel and Hizbollah in Lebanon broke out in yet one more chapter of the intractable, tragic story of conflict, death and despair in Israel/Palestine, the Windermere Centre played host to 17 Palestinian children from Jerusalem and some of the villages of the West Bank, together with three counsellors. This was Kids for Hope, an initiative to equip the next generation of Palestinian Christian leaders for building a new kind of society – a society of justice, peace and human flourishing.
Brave words. Good words, but words which risk sound hopelessly idealistic in the face of geo-political reality. After all, if generations of adults have failed so spectacularly to solve the enormous problems of peace, justice, security, oppression and terrorism in the region, what chance do children have? How could spending 10 days in the Lake District possibly make any contribution to this – however beautiful the weather and scenery, and however delicious the food at the Centre? Enter Jerusalem Arc in the form of Khalil and Eliane Abdinnour.
the vision
Khalil and Eliane are Palestinian Christians, living in Jerusalem and members of the congregation at St George’s Cathedral, Jerusalem. They run Jerusalem Arc as a not-for-profit organisation that works to ensure the active participation of the indigenous Palestinian Christians in the wider Palestinian community. Kids for Hope is their youth programme. It is an ambitious vision. Listen to Khalil on the subject: ‘Kids for Hope, through its camping and summer programmes, goes beyond giving children a respite from a life of distress. It offers young people a glimpse of hope for a brighter future, exposes them to a new outlook on life, and plants them in their communities as seeds for renewal and reconciliation’.
This is a deeply Christian vision of children in the life of their communities. It expresses Khalil’s conviction that children are more than ‘adults-in-waiting’. He sees children literally as the ‘hope of the future’. They have not yet been blinkered by despair, cynicism and bitterness. They have the possibility of imagining and working for a radically different way of life and relating. The Wall may have shut them into their towns, but it has not (yet) walled in their imaginations and their capacity to dream dreams of a brave new world of justice, peace and genuine community. Their energy hasn’t yet been sapped by the endless cycle of dashed hopes.
There’s something else going on here, too. Khalil is convinced that the Christian faith has something vital to offer in the business of community- and nation-building. Values of justice, peace, neighbourliness, democracy, mutual respect and tolerance are not uniquely Christian, yet Jesus’ values of the Kingdom of God and the presence of the Holy Spirit bring unique resources of grace, forgiveness, self-sacrifice and reconciliation. Kids for Hope seeks to nurture the imaginative possibilities of new ways of doing things, and growth in Christian faith.
Turning that potential into reality requires enormous reserves of time, energy, money, patience and goodwill. Jerusalem Arc runs two Kids for Hope camps annually. The first is held overseas – in the United States or here at Windermere, for example. They work with churches, schools and orphanages to identify a group of disadvantaged older children (11-15) with leadership potential to take overseas and experience life in free, democratic countries first-hand. While there, they are trained as youth leaders, and take part in the second camp in Jerusalem, where they act as junior counsellors to the younger children.
getting here
The group arrived in London on 12 July. That was an achievement in itself! The Israeli secret service denied them permits to fly out of Tel Aviv just a few days before departure. The group had to rearrange flights out of Jordan, but this meant extending the trip by four days and paying an additional $200US per ticket. Together with the extra travel costs, bridge-crossing fees and extra accommodation costs, the travel budget virtually doubled overnight. Here in the UK, we had to arrange a London-based stay at either end of the visit, as earlier arrivals and later departures than planned meant that the Centre couldn’t accommodate them. Thanks to the tireless work of Jane Rowell and the generous help of Roberta Rominger and the Thames North Synod, we were able to make this happen – though not without a great deal of running around and nail-biting anxiety. The group travelled from London to Windermere by bus and arrived, bursting with excitement and enthusiasm about their night flight on the London Eye. It was the start of 10 days of fun, tears, growing, learning, changing and exhaustion!
comprehensive programme
Q: How do you combine a respite from war, a holiday, experiencing another country and culture, personal development, making friends with English young people, leadership training and spiritual growth?
A: Take a group of Palestinian children, add eight English URC children, pull together a local leadership team, and spend time on outings, activities, prayer and reflection, and work sessions that are deliberately designed to make a coherent journey of discovery and growth!
The URC young people came from Sheffield, Durham and the south. Khalil and Eliane brought Michline, for whom the trip was the first time away from her husband and children. Jane Rowell, Lis Mullen (minister of Carver), Leo Roberts (NW Synod YCWTDO) and I made up the senior leadership team, responsible for the delivery of the programme. Yet the key to the enormous success of the time lay with the trio of young men who joined us: Patrick Moore (who had been a leader on the Jerusalem camp last summer), Sam Jolly (who went out to Jerusalem for this year’s camp) and Matt Legg (son of one of our ministers, who was staying at the Centre doing geology research). They organised endless soccer, volleyball and badminton games on the lawn, drew alongside the kids and talked to them, played with them and counselled them.
Soccer games, especially, became an informal but vital part of the programme. For the Palestinian kids, it was a chance to play with children from other villages – something impossible in their own places. This was something the ITV television crew picked up on when they came to film the programme for an extended news item. They also filmed the preparations for a Palestinian evening, in which Eliane and Michline took over both the Centre and Carver kitchens to prepare a delicious Palestinian dinner with the kids. Members of Carver, local people and the Centre staff and their families were invited to the dinner in the church hall. After dinner, the Kids for Hope sang, danced and gave PowerPoint presentations of their villages, as well as presenting the Centre with local gifts from their home towns.
A lake cruise and visit to the aquarium, an evening water fight in Sheriff’s Wood and a coach tour of the Lake District gave kids from both Palestine and the English cities a unique chance to experience the natural beauty of God’s creation – and to have a lot of fun! A morning’s orienteering in Grizedale Forest and a day at Low Bank Ground Outdoor Centre built team and individual skills. A highlight was the trip to GoApe – a treetop rope course, 70” up in the trees of Grizedale Forest, where the kids (and their adult supervisors!) had to learn to confront fear and overcome it.
Woven throughout the time was a series of sessions with Leo on personal development and leadership skills. These were extraordinary times. They worked on developing positive self-image, decision-making, living with disagreement, debating skills, democracy and community-building. It was hard work – often an all-day activity – and yet the kids cited these as some of their most enjoyable and memorable experiences.
growing faith
Each day began and ended with prayers. Lis and Jane had devised a theme around the rainbow, with the different colours representing different emotions: red for anger, orange and yellow for hope, green for guilt, blue for water (not an emotion, but fundamental to life), indigo and violet for courage. These were times and places when the kids could begin to explore what was happening to them and to others, to relate it to God and faith, and to pray. We had a blow-up globe that was thrown around the room; each person who caught it had the chance to pray. Very soon, nearly everyone wanted to be sure of catching the globe each day. One afternoon was spent in bible study on forgiveness. It was astonishing to hear the insights that the various groups came up with – they’d put most biblical studies students to shame! Evenings were times for reflection on the day, singing, a short time of prayer and a story before bed. They were rich times.
not always easy …
It wasn’t always easy and fun-filled. What would have been easy would have been to provide a space for the young people to forget completely about their home situation for a while – a 10-day ‘distraction therapy’. However, the aim was to empower and equip the kids (both Palestinian and British) to go back into their own environments to make a difference. That meant providing a ‘safe space’ to engage enough with the things they found difficult, while at the same time ensuring that we didn’t open up issues that were too difficult for them to cope with or which required specialised help. The morning prayer times were particularly constructive in this regard. Many of the Palestinian kids were severely traumatised by their experiences. Several had lost at least one parent; others had lost more than one family member. They had experienced violence, war on the streets, invasion of their communities by the army and the military occupation of their homes. Underlying it all is the ongoing experience of life in the ghettos created by the Wall, with all the restrictions on freedom of movement and endless, anxious waiting at military checkpoints.
The trauma surfaced at unexpected times. We went to the Stavely village carnival during their first weekend. As the bus drove into the village, we were stopped by the Police and directed to the car park. When the kids asked why we were stopping, and the driver said, ‘Police check’, the fear and anxiety was instant and palpable. Later, walking down the main street in Stavely, an old Triumph motorbike started up with its customary ‘Thud! Thud!’, and several of the girls screamed, thinking that they were being fired on.
In a ‘getting to know you’ session, they spent time in small groups, questioning each other. This was a traumatic experience for the British kids. Several were in tears. ‘We didn’t know what it was like!’ they said. ‘Imagine not being able to sit next to your bedroom window in case you got shot at!’
Being away from a war situation wasn’t straightforward for many of the kids, particularly in light of the conflict in Lebanon, where some had families they were worried about. Several evenings were spent clustered around the television, anxiously following every report on the progress of the conflict. In addition to the understandable worry about the safety of their families, many of the children found that they had to cope with a deep sense of guilt at being away and being able to relax and enjoy themselves, while friends and families were suffering and in danger. One of the girls looked particularly upset after being on the lake on a glorious, hot afternoon, in which the Lakes were at their spectacular best. ‘Are you alright?’ we asked, and she just looked at us mutely with tear-filled eyes. ‘Aren’t you enjoying yourself?’ we asked. She just shook her head. ‘Why not? What’s wrong?’ She answered, ‘It’s too beautiful!’
taking it from here
The Kids for Hope took the final Sunday service at Carver Church. It was a wonderful experience for everyone, and was followed by a BBQ at the Centre. Members of the Church joined groups of children on the lawn, and then applauded as each of the young people was presented with a certificate of completion of the course. Saying goodbye was incredibly distressing for everyone – the kids, the leaders and the Centre staff. Leo and Sam were due to go out to Jerusalem the following week to help on the summer camp there, and one of the Centre staff members wanted to pay her way out to Jerusalem to help as well.
We’re in the process of working out what happens next. Khalil and Eliane were thrilled with the quality and level of the input the kids received and are hoping that we will put the material into a form that can be used as the basis of the training the Kids for Hope receive, deliverable here, in Jerusalem or the United States. The kids will then receive a certificate of completion, with the course being validated through the Windermere Centre and the United Reformed Church.
The kids themselves have devised their own website since returning home. This will be a means of communicating with young people throughout the West Bank and their new friends over here, and provides a possible platform for teaching and training other Palestinian youngsters as movement becomes more restricted with the completion of the Wall.
Jerusalem Arc is looking for core funding for the programme to enable it to continue and develop. They want to establish strategic partnerships with churches in various parts of the world that support their aims. The Centre is planning to convene a group next year to look at the possibility of establishing a British ‘chapter’ of Kids for Hope to enable further visits. The hope is to run a camp in the summer of 2008.
Please keep Kids for Hope in your thoughts and prayers. What was most distressing for us all was the realisation that when we watch reports about the Middle East conflict, we are watching war being made on children. And now we know some of those children by name.
Lawrence Moore is the Director of the Windermere Centre
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