This week we are preparing for our apostolic experiences with mixed feelings: happy and sad because we will separate from one another. We are pretty sure that we will enjoy these experiences. This week Geymi from Ecuador asked us to take care of Sophie her daughter because in the Kehila community where she used to leave Sophie with the volunteers who take care of the children is closed this week because they went camping. Our community accepted her request to take care of Sophie for 3 days. Now, finally we can say that our house is finished. We have been working in our garden planting flowers and vegetables. How lovely seeing our garden green and colorful! On Friday evening Sister Maureena Fritz invited us to have the Sabbath meal in her house. Before that we went to the Synagogue called Kol Haneshma wich is a progressive Synagogue. A young lady was leading the prayer service and for me the prayer was amazing! I noticed that all their prayer was from the book of Song of …

This has been a month full of surprises and visits! We began our month with a one-day session on finances, with Sr. Trudy and Sr. Phil, which was really good. We had questions for reflection and we were divided into two groups to share what we had learned through our experiences as well. The following day we visited the school called “Hand in Hand”. This school brings together Arab and Jewish children. It is one of the five “Hand in Hand” schools – in Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Haifa, Galilee, Wadi Ara, and Jerusalem. They are centres for Jewish-Arab Education in Israel which enable peaceful coexistence between Jews and Arabs through the development of integrated, bilingual and multicultural education. In four of the schools, the number of students at each grade level is balanced equally between Arab and Jewish children. Students at all grade levels are taught in both Hebrew and Arabic. Victoria looks forward to the challenge of working full-time as a volunteer in the first and second classes helping specially the Jewish children to learn …

Joy is much visible to everyone´s face, one of the highlight experienced that we had last week was seeing Sr. Collete´s reaction upon recieving her first Apple Air tablet. Our community decided to have a surprise gift for her so that she may be able to contact her family and the Sisters across the world through email and skype. Her eagerness to learn and her memory to remember how to use the tablet gave happiness to our community and also an inspiration to address the need of others. On that same day we also bought our shoes/sandals as a symbol of our apostolic year. A big thanks for this wonderful gifts from the Congregation and for all your unending support in many ways! Last Tuesday together we celebrate the St. Patrick feast day with the Apostolic Sisters and Brothers. The celebration was prepared by Sr. Phil and Sr. Collete, our night ended with an Irish coffee. The other day we went to the Holy Sepulchre for our overnight prayer vigil, what a memorable experienced! While …

We visited the school called “Hand in Hand”. This school has Arab and Jewish children. It is one of five schools that they have . (Tel Aviv- Jaffa, Haifa, Galilee, Wadi Ara, Jerusalem) Hand in Hand: Center for Jewish-Arab Education in Israel furthers peaceful coexistence between Jews and Arabs through the development of integrated, bilingual and multicultural schools. At our four schools, the number of students at each grade level is balanced equally between Arab and Jewish children. Students at all grade levels are taught in both Hebrew and Arabic. The Mission of the school Hand in Hand is to create a strong, inclusive, shared society in Israel through a network of Jewish-Arab integrated bilingual schools and organized communities. Jews and Arabs – learning together, living together – and inspiring broad support for social inclusion and civic equality in Israel. The numbers of the children are 620. They are sharing the feasts together. We finished the Vow of Poverty and we noted that it is the most difficult Vow to live in our daily life. …

Dear All The month of February began with a three-day session on “Non-violent Communication” with Fr. Guy Theunis, using the teachings of Marshall Rosenberg. Fr. Don Anderson continued that week with a session on managing fear and anger. The destructiveness of fear and anger along with its positive power was an eye-opener for us. Fr. Guy began by encouraging us to be realistic and to see that we live in a world of violence. Violence is a reality of daily life in families, in schools, and elsewhere. We are born into a violent world and violence appears to be normal behaviour. Non-violence is not normal; we have to begin to learn non-violence. Modern non-violent communication and behaviour is founded on the wisdom and example of Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, but Jesus might be seen as the master in non-violence. We learned that “jackal / wolf language” and “giraffe language” indicate ways of behaving and acting, and we can find in them illustrations of our own behaviour. The first rule of non- violent communication …