Hello Friends and Family,
Days seven and eight were spent at the Ramallah Preschool - 6th grade.
Front of the School Director of both schools
Again, Jeanne went first to the Special Needs program. These photos are for my friends at school following our journey, too. These are pictures of how they modify the lessons for their students. Since Arabic words combine symbols, they have color coded them to separate them.
Special needs director and room. Most of their students are mainstreamed, also, and they go with them into the classrooms.
4th grade class - Sara is in the second row - I miss her already. Kindergarten class
She got her report card that day - Mostly A plusses and 1 B plus
1st grade teacher Students at break - Sara on far right
More kids at break
Preschool dying Easter eggs Preschool in music class
Every Thursday is English day and the classes are all taught in English. This English day, the 4th, 5th and 6th graders did a 2 hour program about grammar, parts of speech, the continents, different jobs, etc. It was delightful. The 6th graders ended with the play, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". I see that I didn't get a very good picture of the dwarfs.
That evening we met with community people. We were blessed to meet very prominent people. One of the men appears often on CNN to talk about Palestinian affairs. Across from us was an architect and his wife, a concert pianist. There was a historian who taught at the University and his wife, who is well known for her work in Gender Studies, a prominent physician, and many others. They shared their stories with us. The Physician, who works in Jerusalem must leave for work three hours early because of the checkpoints. And that means another three hours at the end of the day. He is lucky enough to have a pass to Jerusalem, but must still brave the checkpoints each time. The fear they live with each day is incredible. The next photo is of our dinner with them.
Our host family has a Nanny and she invited us to her house for tea before our dinner. She has 7 children. Her family was so gracious and we had a lot of fun visiting them for a short while.
Nanny with three of her daughters Salam (host Mom) and a friend
The next day we spent with our host family on the trip to the country and that evening we had dinner with all of us and all the host families. 
Host Families Salam and another host family mother
This was days 7 and 8. We are having such a wonderful time. It's hard to put it into words. We are learning, growing and changing in our relationship to God and others. We are amazed at God's grace, and the priviledge we have to share in these people's lives. They have shown us great hospitality in the middle of a difficult situation. We'll never be the same from our experiences. We are anxious to share what God is doing in our hearts and lives.
Hope to get another day or so mailed off tonight so that we can get you caught up to where we are. We're off to have dinner where we are staying at the Cosa Nova Guest house in Tiberias. We always eat so late, 7 or 7:30. The food is sooooooo good, especially the breads, which we have a lot of. They always start with salads, which you eat with the bread, and then the main meal. We are anxious to get you acquainted with their style of cooking. This is where most of our olive oil comes from, which they use like butter. So, we had to bring some back for our gourmet cooks, Eric and Jerri. Actually, our host family gave it to us as a gift and we are returning it to Eric and Jerri because Eric was kind enough to give us some "Spoonman" gifts for them, which they LOVED!
We love you all,
Mom and Dad, Jim and Jeanne, Mim and Papa
That made me a little homesick.