Widows and Orphans

Yesterday we went with leaders of United Muslim Relief to deliver food boxes to 175 widows and their children in the Zarqa area east of Amman.  It was a very emotional event for everyone.

There is very little hope for the women who have lost their husbands and their homes.  Feeding and caring for their children is a challenge with the little bit they receive from charities.  

Some have lost their minds with grief and worry.  Others lash out in anger and frustration.

Their little children have sadness in their eyes.

Many women go on with their lives and adjust to their circumstances.   

This woman invited us to her home for dinner after she received her food box.

Everyone lined up to receive the food (oil, beans, sugar, rice, and a few other essentials)

Volunteers helped carry the boxes outside to the waiting vehicles.

An old man helped load the boxes into a taxi.

This is what Lynn had to say about his experience: 

 "A woman dressed in full burka with everything covered but her eyes, stood aside and touched my arm.  I couldn't understand what she was saying so I called an interpreter.  The interpreter told me she said 'thank you for providing food for me and my family.  I will pray for you every day.'  

It was very touching to me to hear this faithful Muslim woman expressing her gratitude to me; but my thought was, her gratitude should not be to me.  I am simply a representative of the thousands of faithful members who contribute to the humanitarian fund--and also a representative of the Savior who restored His church and among other things, focuses on providing for the widow, the poor and the needy."  

Thank you... 

Volunteers "feeling the love"

"Anna Bahabic, sadiki Khola"

(I love you my friend Khola)

Khola is a volunteer at the center for widows and orphans.  She is also caring for her own family, plus the three little children of her daughter who passed away.

Advice from Grandpa

Take time to ponder.  Ponder the right things.  When you read the scriptures, ask yourself, "what did I just read?"  "How does this apply to me?"  Then ponder (or think about) the answer.

Pray and ponder before and after you read the scriptures.

Steps to wisdom:  DESIRE > STUDY > LEARNING > KNOWLEDGE > PONDER AND PRAY >  UNDERSTANDING (comes by the power of the Holy Ghost) > WISDOM.

Wisdom is knowledge and understanding applied under the influence of the Holy Ghost.

Taxi!!

This week we took our car to Amman for some repairs.  We knew it would take a few hours, so we asked the Hammonds to pick us up.  Later, when it was time to pick up our car, the Hammonds couldn't take us and they suggested we take a taxi.  "Ok" we said, "no problem."  Then we went outside, stood by the street and waited.  After about 10 minutes a driver came along and stopped for us.  He didn't speak English, but we had the directions on a piece of paper.  He indicated he could take us there and took off in the wrong direction.

We didn't panic too much, because we thought he might know a better way to get there, but when he took the road to Salt and ended up in a neighborhood we knew we were in trouble.  We really knew we were in trouble when he pulled over to ask a guy for directions.

About this time I remembered the GPS in my bag, so I pulled it out, punched in Kia and we were on our way.  "Doreen!!" (straight ahead)  I yelled from the back seat.  "Ishmael!!" (turn left),  "doreen!!" (go straight) and we followed the GPS.  Finally, miraculously, we arrived at our destination.  "Shukran"  (thank you)!  Lynn paid him 5 Dinars and we ran into the service center just as they were getting ready to close.

Whew!  We are to thankful for the GPS, our modern day Liahona.  We really don't know what we would do without it.

"And it (the Liahona) pointed the way whither we should go into the wilderness."   1 Nephi 16:10

The Wrong Song

I made a mistake and played the wrong opening hymn in church.  The congregation tried to match the words they were singing with the music I was playing but were having a difficult time. The singing sounded horrible, but I thought it was because they were singing in Arabic.  Then I thought they didn't know this one so I played louder.  I'm not sure how we did it, but we got all the way through the first verse before Morad got up and told me what was happening.

"Why didn't you stop me?"  I asked Sewar who was conducting.  Her reply:  "I thought something was wrong but I wasn't sure what it was."  I just had to laugh.  Our western hymns are so "foreign" to them.  Sometimes they sound really good, sometimes not so much.

Intolerance

Samah comes to church dressed in her nice Sunday clothes.  Before she leaves she changes into pants and a shirt.  If she went into her neighborhood dressed like this she would be harassed.

Huda, our Relief Society president, has a son who ready to get married but when his fiancee's family found out he's a Mormon they refused to let them marry.  The reason?  "Mormons worship Satan."  There's no more discussion.  Her family refuses to listen to anything more about it.

Virginia wraps her head in a scarf when she leaves the church.  She says it's for her safety.  Samaya does the same thing.

Morning in Ramtha

We've been a bit concerned about going to Ramtha, about 10 miles from here, because of the reports of bomb shells accidentally coming across the border and landing here.  Someone said as long as you go in the morning, there shouldn't be any problem.  Arabs terrorists stay up late at night and sleep in in the morning.

The hills in the background are in Syria

The city seems quiet.  Not a lot of traffic.

We went to the Altkaful Health Clinic to meet with the director and discuss a donation from LDS Charities.  The clinic has completely run out of medicine and supplies, and the Syrian refugees they service are suffering.  We saw pictures of wounds that were horrific and being left untreated.  It breaks our hearts.  The major donors for Alkaful are in the UAE, but they have diverted a lot of their funds into Yemen. 

We can't do everything, but we wish we could.  We will try to do something.

Save The Children

We had a meeting with the program director for Save the Children this morning.  One of their areas of responsibility is education.  We wanted to get more information on what is being done to educate the children of Jordan and the Syrian refugee children.

We already know that the tremendous influx of families from Syria has put a big strain on all the resources of Jordan.  They are doing a lot, and many charities are helping, but they are still having a difficult time accommodating everyone.  Several years ago a split shift schedule for schools was started, but it isn't enough.  One NGO has been offering evening classes at 53 centers and 1,000 people are attending.  Ideas for home schooling, mobile schools and summer schools are being considered.  It's estimated that 80-90,000 children are out of school.  Many problems result from this.  We will try to find the best way to help.

"We can't do everything, but we can do something."  We just don't know what that is yet.

The Citadel in Amman

The children of Ammon or Ammonites are the descendants of Benammi, one of the sons of Lot  The Ammonites went northeast of Sodom and settled in the hills in the area now known as Amman.

The land of the Ammonites was important in the time of Moses because the Lord warned Moses to turn away from the land of the children of Ammon.  The reason for this was (1) it was a land given to the descendants of Lot as an inheritance and (2) there were reported to be giants living in the land.  That's a frightening thought.  The steep hills of Amman suggest that it would be a city that would be difficult to invade. Rock towers still in existence around modern Amman were part of a warning system for the city.

Today the area known as the Citadel sits on the highest hill in Amman.  The Citadel was built in the Bronze Age and was a fortress for thousands of years.

Look closely--on the far right in this picture are the fingers of a stone hand of Hercules.

How did they get that stone way up there?

 Sweeping views of the city of Amman on all sides.

All the buildings look the same to us.

The old and the new of Amman

Dad: Be Humble

Dad gave a great lesson in couples meeting today.  Here's what he had to say about humility:

"Humility is not a sign of weakness--it is a sign of spiritual strength.  It includes submitting to the will of the Lord and being grateful for His blessings.  The Savior is the supreme example of humility."  

"Pride is the opposite of humility.  Pride is bad.  We should not be concerned with WHO is right but concerned with WHAT is right."

We are going to try to be more humble.  Sometimes we realize that being on a mission isn't just about projects and charity work for others.  It's very much about us learning how to become better ourselves.  In that respect, "We are the project."

Dinner With Our Pharmacist

The local pharmacist, Ali, and his wife, Fatima, invited us to dinner at their home today.  We said, "ok."

Fatima served mansif, the traditional dish of Jordan, and thankfully she made it with chicken and not lamb's head.  It was delicious.  They are typical Jordanians--so hospitable and giving.  We were invited to come back whenever we want.

(Can you find Brother Tolley in this picture?)

A Good Sabbath Friday

The North Jordan Branch is like a lot of other branches in the church--it goes up and down.  Sometimes we think there's no hope at all, and other times we get really excited with what's happening.  Today was one of the "excitement" days.

Meshal Azrai attended for the second week in a row today.  He's a delightful, charismatic young man and brings a good spirit.   He sat with two young men (also less active) and had his arms around them during the meeting.  They loved it.

Meshal went on a mission a couple of years ago and returned early.  We've heard that his father demanded that he come home, but we don't know if that's true.  Regardless, Meshal stopped coming to church after he came home and hasn't attended for quite some time.  Then last week he just showed up, wearing a suit and tie, looking pretty sharp.  We're not sure what made him decide to come back--but we're so glad he did.  His mother was a member of the church and she passed away a couple of months ago.  I like to think she's working on him from "the other side."  She must be smiling today.  He said he's trying to turn over a new page in his life.

Nader, the young military man who asked for his name to be removed from the records of the church, also attended today.  He is smart and knows a lot about the scriptures and the gospel.  He is a lot more active now that he's decided not to be a member.  He always hangs around after the meetings and is the last one to leave.  Lately we almost have to push him out the door so we can go home.

Howazen is a beautiful young woman who very seldom attends meetings.  President Amer asked her to give a talk today and she did it!  Everyone said it was really good.

I think these people who come and go are feeling the Spirit when they attend the meetings.  We hope they can make the commitment to stay and be active.

We're Thinking About Winter

It's not too early to start thinking about winter.  If we want to get a good price on winter clothing (coats, gloves, hats) we need to start now.  Last year LDS Charities provided 10,000 winter coats to refugees and poor Jordanians.  

These pictures were taken last October at the distribution.

Today we had a meeting with the General Union of Volunteers Society (GUVS) to discuss the possibility of doing the same kind of project again this year.  We will get their recommendations and submit a proposal to Salt Lake for approval.

Ideas for Educating Syrian Children

Farrukh Mirza, the education coordinator of UNICEF in Jordan invited us to meet with him in his office in Amman this week.  He is a delightful man, full of energy and passion for his work with the Syrian children.  His organization heads up a group of about 25 other NGO's who are trying to assist the refugees in a variety of ways.

As education coordinator Farrukh works with the Jordan Ministry of Education to try to accommodate the large number of children in the school system.  At the present time, classes are being held in the mornings for the Syrians and in the afternoons for the Jordanian children using the same classrooms.  There is a shortage of classrooms and teachers as well as students.  Attendance among the various age groups is low for a variety of reasons.  The number of children not enrolled or attending school is alarming.

Farrukh explained one of the ways they would like to address the problem is to provide a mobile school van that would go around to the various groups living too far away to attend school.  The van and teacher would visit 3 times a week and have a standardized curriculum approved by the Ministry of Education.  Participation certificates would be given for 1st, 2nd and 3rd level completion.  We really like the idea.  Save the Children is working on the details and we will meet with them next week.  It's something we have been thinking about doing with United Muslim Relief.  Perhaps this will be a project LDS Charities can help "make happen."  It looks promising.

Would it look like this?

Food Boxes and Eid Clothing

We have struggled with the fact that we made the decision that LDS Charities can no longer provide food to the Syrians who are living outside of organized camps in Jordan.  As much as we would like to feed everyone, we realize that LDS Charities cannot continue this program forever.  It's still a hard thing to do, but knowing that refugees can get food by moving into a camp makes it easier.

We discussed the situation with UMR officials several weeks ago and told them there would be no more food boxes from LDS Charities.  UMR understood and agreed that they cannot continue either but decided to continue their program 3 months on their own and give the people time to prepare.  We have just been heartsick.  Our leaders  and after discussing the problem with our leaders, we decided to ask them  if they would approve continuing the food boxes for just one more month.  The cost is $12,500 for 250 boxes.  Today we received approval.

The scriptures remind us again and again to take care of the poor and the needy, but it must be done in the Lord's way.  We never want to create a "dependent" people, and hope we can help others become self-sufficient.  We don't know how to do that--but the Lord does.  That's all we need to know right now.

CLOTHING FOR EID (Muslim version of Christmas)

We were happy to hear that our after-the-fact proposal to donate $2,000 toward UMR's project to buy Eid Clothing for refugee children was also approved.  We are very impressed at the support our leaders have given to the Muslims as they celebrate their religious holidays.  "Eid Mubarak" means "happy Eid"

What Will The Refugees Do?

As we mentioned in an earlier blog posting, the World Food Programme  (WFP) announced that they will be discontinuing providing food to refugees living outside of organized camps effective August 1.  This announcement will affect over 440,000 refugees who have been receiving a small monthly stipend for food and now will receive nothing.  We are wondering what will happen when people actually realize there isn't any more food for them if they are living outside of a camp.

In the last few months it has been reported that about 3,000 refugees have moved into the camps.  The other 400,000 are still living out in fields, with relatives, in barns, in tents, etc.  Many have used up all their savings and have nothing left so what can they do?  With no jobs and no food, they are forced to take desperate measures.  Families are sending their children out to beg.  Angry, frustrated fathers are abusing their families.  Going back to Syria is hopeless and dangerous. They don't have a lot of options.

So why don't the refugees want to go into the camps?  We're not sure.  They certainly must have good reasons, but we can't understand why they wouldn't want to go there.  The camps provide shelter, food, schools and medical assistance.  The conditions aren't ideal, but many good NGO's are working hard and doing a lot of good things in the camps.  It doesn't make sense.


This article published in the Jordan Times, Aug. 11, 2015 states:

"Syrian refugees are legally barred from working in Jordan, but some are managing to find jobs while others are going back to the camps due to high living expenses, and a good number are reportedly returning to Syria. . .Also, there are those who are going back to Syria where they have fields to cultivate or they have some links. . .

We are estimating that in 2015, there will be around 50,000 refugees going back to Syria from Jordan. . . the reason for this trend are not exactly clear, but some are reportedly returning to reunite with family members.. . . also, the difficult living conditions at the camps, especially in terms of hygiene, water and electricity services, are elements that are causing this trend.. . . at present, thousands of Syrian refugees are trying to be smuggled to Europe, incurring high risks and endangering their lives, in the absence of work opportunities in their country and in the region in general.

The target for the International Organization for Migration is to help 50,000 Syrians be resettled in third countries during 2015.

Birthday Boy

This week was Lynn's birthday.  He got so excited about the birthday phone calls he couldn't get to sleep and stayed awake all night!!

Celebration at our weekly couples meeting.  Cute hat!!

Dinner at a Restaurant in Amman included Chocolate Lava Cake....We wanted to lick the plate.

Blazing Hot

It's really really hot in Jordan this week, and we are grumpy.

114 degrees outside our back door.

93 degrees in the hallway inside our apartment.

Thankfully we have three wall air conditioners that work sort of good, not the best.   We try not to go outside very much, but when we do go out we don't see very many women--mostly men.  I think that's because Muslim women are required to wear scarves and coats in public.  TOO HOT!!

North Jordan Branch Coming and Going

The last 12 weeks have been difficult.  Lynn has been carrying the entire weight of the North Jordan branch on his shoulders while President Amer has been in Thialand.  It hasn't been easy and he has worked tirelessly to keep everything running.

 We know the Lord has helped him and we're very grateful.

Today President Amer was back (!!!!)  We were so happy to see him, we gave him a big hug and a kiss on each cheek.  It was truly a special day because we not only had our branch president with us again, but we also had a couple of real genuine investigators (!!!!).

Watching the branch members "fall all over themselves" with the investigator couple was really cute.  Every comment was directed to them.  The Sunday School teacher changed her lesson and taught Joseph Smith and the first vision.  Amer took all the time in the Priesthood/Relief Society combined meeting to preach the plan of salvation and a variety of gospel topics.  The visiting district clerk stood up and told about a spiritual experience he had (and even drew pictures on the chalkboard).  Brother Fayez got involved and preached something--we're not sure what, but it was very sincere.  We don't know if we scared the new people or if they were converted on the spot.  We'll find out.

Nadar, the young military man who wants his name removed from the records of the Church attended and participated in the discussions. He even gave the closing prayer.  Afterward he went into President Amer's office and wrote the required note asking for his name to be removed from the records of the Church.   I wonder, how can a person do that?  Nadar thinks he cannot progress in his career in the military as long as he's a Mormon, so he decided to quit the Church.  How can someone turn his back on everything he knows is true in exchange for a promotion at work?    Ahhhhhhhh!!!!!

*Just as an explanation in Nadar's defense--94% of the population in Jordan are Muslim.  Christians (mainly Greek Orthodox  or Catholic) make up about 6% of the population.  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints isn't officially recognized here and keeps a very low profile.  For young LDS men working in the military, the people they work with are suspicious and probably perceive the LDS Church as a cult.  The dilemma LDS young men face is--quit the Church, keep their jobs, get promotions, and avoid harassment--or stay true to the faith, come what may.  Many feel they cannot be true.  Personally, I have faced the disapproval of an older Muslim woman because my head was not covered with a scarf.  It wasn't fun.