Bedouin Babies

Eleven of us took the morning to go with Sr. Sophie to a Bedouin tribe's village in the desert. The Bedouins have historically been a sort of wandering tribe of shepherd-nomads, following the rains I imagine. The current situation however is such that the many well-guarded political boundaries no longer allow for such movement- together with that and other factors, this tribe has a relatively permanent settlement now. The ride itself was quite an experience, as you can imagine that the roads through the mountainous Judean desert are narrow and without guard rails! Sister speaks French, Arabic and Hebrew, so with much effort we deduced that she has been living and serving in the Holy Land for 18 years! We followed a medical van which goes to the village every Thursday, primarily in order to offer checkups to the pregnant women there (Sister told me that every woman in the village is pregnant).
The village was a hillside with scattered random dwellings: some concrete, others tin, a few tents. The school was a low whitewashed building with beat up chalkboards and smiling kids. We gave the students shoes from the back of our van in a disorganized process, then handed out some candy. I noticed that some of the smallest children were barefoot: two and three year olds walking on the gravel, and very dirty! Obtaining tanks of water is a month-to-month kind of situation for this village, so we took up a collection among ourselves and gave it to Sister today when we got back. (enough for two years’ worth, I think)
We drove past Tekoa, the town from which the prophet Amos came. Amos had been a shepherd, and preached about social justice. He spoke about God’s anger at the sin of ‘trampling on the heads of the poor’ like dust, and of denying justice to the oppressed. (Am 2:7)

This afternoon some of us went to the orphanage which is a counterpart to the same ministry. We had gone there to put on a Christmas Party for the kids, and we were glad to return. I was very impressed with the caring staff, but as you can imagine these children don’t get very much one-on-one attention; and they’re so young! There was even an abandoned baby there only 10 days old. I held another little girl who was crying and she couldn’t have been more than two years old. Most of the kids appeared energetic and happy- but this particular baby was very weak and ill- she could barely hold her head up, and she had a very loose grip. I think she may have had a muscular disorder of some kind. It was difficult to visit for such a short time; I was able to hold that little girl and keep her from crying, but only for an hour!

-Mike