Three weeks with the children of Saint Rachel Center: a school of life

The journey to the Holy Land began in our hearts many months ago, when our dear Fr Andres Bergamini invited us to launch out into an experience that wouldn’t be only a time of visit and prayer but also an experience of service. A group of ten youths, from the region of Bologna, was formed through the link to the San Lazzaro parish where Andres is a parochial vicar, and through various friendship connections.

We said yes, eager to know the land of the Lord, through the beauty and the contradictions of its history, curious to experience Jerusalem, a crossroads of cultures and religions. The fire of our twenty years (or even 30 ...) led us to believe that it was an opportunity not to be missed. We knew we would find something more, perhaps compared to the "usual" pilgrimage that some of us had already done.

We therefore prepared ourselves from the historical-cultural point of view and, above all, in setting up a proposal for the Hebrew-speaking catholic children of the Saint Rachel Center where we would spend our days. We engaged all our experience as animators, chose a theme, prepared games and activities and, on the plane from Bologna, took with us Noah with all the animals of the Ark.

Our days were thus marked by alarm clocks at dawn, prayer, some quick morning visits to the holy places, and intense moments at the Center. Putting our feet into this reality was stimulating, enriching, and even tiring at times. We met and met Sister Claudia and Father Benedetto who, with patience and confidence, believed in us and introduced us to the wonders and difficulties of this reality.

The children who frequent the center from 9.00 to 17.00 are mostly children of migrant families o asylum seekers, from the Philippines, from Eritrea or Ethiopia. On average, around forty children came every day, from 3 years up to 11 years old. Our first difficulty was the language, none of us spoke Hebrew! Helped and supported by Sister Claudia and Don Andres we tried to make ourselves understood, slowly learning some sentences of everyday life that could to be useful for our activities. Fortunately, besides English, there was a universal language that helped us a lot, a language that all children speak: that of affection and joy.

Our steps therefore had to take the rhythm of these lively little children so eager to play and be loved, but bearing inside themselves precarious and difficult family experiences. The story of the Ark of Noah involved them and accompanied us in the afternoon games and manual laboratories. We played with the sheep, the panda, the shark and finally the dove, symbol of peace. We ran, played guards and thieves, bathed in fountains. We had to change game when it wasn't really their style. We learned the numbers in Hebrew in order to call for the robbery of the flag. They taught us new games. Having left Italy with the desire to do well, to leave a mark, we also had to learn to stop and reprogram ourselves in order to follow their pace.

Very nice was the chaotic moment of lunch, to eat with them, to exchange two more words, to try to increase the harmony. For the little ones, it was followed by the bedtime, to rest a little bit, pampered by so many caresses. We were not the only ones providing their service. We shared the adventure (and the secrets of how to cook pasta) with volunteers from various parts of the world. This too was a great treasure for us. The Masses in the Hebrew-speaking community - that welcomed us warmly, were precious for us. The celebration made us feel part of a really great journey. Evenings and weekends were dedicated to visits and meetings. We listened to the Word of God by going to the main sites of the Gospel: Bethlehem, Nazareth, Capernaum, the Lake of Tiberias, the desert. We were able to deepen our reflection and see for ourselves what the difficult political situation entails, by visiting some places in Israel and Palestine. We tried to understand.

We were struck by the many encounters, by people with really special and profound stories, by those you love in spite of the different religion, by those who decided to follow Jesus to the end, by those who decide to dedicate their lives to the care of the poorest, by those who accompany children to school to protect them from stones, by those who tell us what it means to be Arab, Palestinian and Catholic. In Jerusalem you meet different worlds and the world enters you, making you open your mind and your heart, training you to reason, to wonder, to cross borders.

At the end of these three weeks we understood what was the reality that fascinated us more from the outset. When you are twenty years old, you want to leave a mark, but when you spend your life, you discover that it is others who leave a mark in you. It is their faces and smiles, with names and stories to remember. It is the children. It is Sister Claudia, Benedetto and the staff who love those children every day. Through them we have known the Holy Land, and we are convinced that it is Holy because, through them, Jesus continues to bring the Good News to His land.