Your gift this Lent and Good Friday will help support vulnerable women, youth and children in the Diocese of Jerusalem.

AID’s 2023 Lent and Good Friday Appeal supports the work of the Anglican Diocese of Jerusalem via the outreach of the Ahli Hospital in Gaza and a new youth empowerment project.

This Lent we bring you the story of Shorouq, a young mother, who lives in one of the most marginalised parts of Gaza City. Her two-year-old daughter, Hala, was screened and selected to be part of the Ahli’s child nutrition program to address her malnutrition.

In Shorouq’s words, “My husband is unemployed, and we are living in deplorable conditions. We are unable to meet our fundamental demands. We are completely reliant on [United Nations] food assistance, which is insufficient because we also require medicine and cash to purchase other necessities.

“I heard about the free nutrition program that Ahli Arab Hospital implemented…The Ahli was a compassionate and delightful place for us as they cared for my daughter and provided us with the necessary medications, vitamins, and biscuits that supported her quick recovery.”

As well as being good news for little Hala, the Ahli’s program was also good news for Shorouq on a more personal level, as she received health and nutrition training both in her home and her community from women community trainers (mobilisers) who have been especially trained by the Ahli.

Shorouq continues: “I acquired more and more knowledge; my health awareness increased through the Ahli’s ‘woman-to-woman approach’. Their community mobiliser visited me twice a month, correcting my misconceptions and wrong health behaviours, and improving my communication skills, and gender and protection concepts. All of this knowledge and skills positively impacted my life.

“After participating in the individual awareness workshops, I became stronger, I can face the injustice that may occur, and I can protect myself alone. My awareness of my rights and responsibilities was raised; I am capable of solving my problems alone now. I have good communication channels and dialogue with my husband… And I succeeded to change some negative behaviours for myself and my husband such as helping me in the home, since I have a risky pregnancy.

“Many thanks to the Ahli Hospital and to AID, and to all the people who care for vulnerable groups and provide assistance to the needy,” Shorouq remarks graciously.

Your support of this appeal will empower many vulnerable women like Shorouq, and will give their children a much greater chance of a healthy life.

Our Good Friday Gift this year will support the training of young Palestinian Anglicans to gain greater knowledge of their cultural heritage and to strengthen their leadership skills. At a time when more than one third of Palestinian youth desire to leave their homeland and emigrate overseas, this training aims to strengthen the young people’s attachment to their land and culture. The training targets three different age-groups via workshops, cultural visits, and a children’s camp.

As part of this program, a group of young people from the diocese visited the Church Synagogue in Nazareth where Jesus read from the scroll of Isaiah and proclaimed his good news for the poor. This was the good news which included “release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free” (Luke 4:18).

Your gift this Lent and Good Friday will help to bring God’s good news to vulnerable women, youth, and children in the Diocese of Jerusalem.

We pray, Lord,

for all those who live in the Holy Land,
that whatever their race or creed
they may find creative ways
to live together in peace and with justice,
rejecting old enmities.

We give you thanks for the Ahli Hospital in Gaza,
for all the work of healing done there in your name.
May the children involved in the nutrition program
live long and healthy lives
and may their mothers’ lives improve as a result
of their engagement with the program.

Bless the Diocese of Jerusalem’s young people,
the next generation of ‘living stones’
and send your Spirit to encourage and inspire them
that, whatever they do in life,
they may glorify you.

Through your Son’s suffering and death on the Cross
on a hill in the Holy Land,
may we share in his everlasting victory.

We ask this through the same Jesus Christ our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
One God, now and for ever.

Amen.