THE OLIVE BRANCH FUND
Due to the actual difficult situation of in instability in the Holy Land and the current economical crisis that we pass through since last October, many families lost their source of income and are really in need of basic daily bread. Our people in the Holy Land is living gloomy days during which the dream of peace which seemed very close, is now vanishing away. Violence, retaliation, fear, death, unemployment, the end of the peace process summarize our situation today. The absence of pilgrims rendered our Holy shrines empty and sad. Many of our young people were working in the pilgrimage and tourism sector. Besides, the difficulty in moving between Palestinian cities and the closure of the Palestinian Territories rendered the economical situation very bad.
We pray the Lord that the mediation and support of our brothers and sisters Christians all over the world will be more efficient in the future. Otherwise, the Holy Land, the Christian Community and our Catholic institutions will deeply suffer. Thousands of families do not have enough resources to cope with the requirements of human dignity.
In the last months, we felt the strong solidarity of our sister churches through their statements and clear positions concerning Jerusalem and the peace process. But still their material solidarity is not enough or sufficient, therefore, we appeal to all the communities on behalf of the bereaved and needy families, the wounded, the homeless, the Catholic Schools of the Latin Patriarchate and Bethlehem University which are struggling to keep upon.
To tell you the truth, we are trying our best to help through the existing Christian Relief Agencies such as Caritas, Pontifical Mission for Palestine, Catholic Relief Services and World Vision. But, the needs are more than our capacities. Therefore, I would like to suggest new ways of helping our people:
1) All the catholic and private schools are in a huge deficit because families who normally have several children in the same school are not able to pay the small amount of scholastic tuition, which normally doesn’t cover half of the expenses, and in this year the deficit doubled. Therefore, the program of “Student sponsorship” promoted by the Holy Land Ecumenical Foundation could be great, through which a family can sponsor a student in our schools by paying around 300$ per year. Please contact:
2) Many people lost their jobs and don’t have any kind of income, especially workers who used to work inside Israel can’t anymore enter because of the closure, and all those who were working in the tourism and pilgrimage industry lost their jobs due to the absence of tourism. Therefore, either you encourage people to come back and visit the Holy Places and this is the best sign of solidarity with our small Christian community. Or you help us to promote some small development projects in order to create some job opportunities. Through the new-founded “Olive Branch Fund” we opened some projects such as animal farms (cows for meat and milk, Chickens for meat and eggs, rabbits…and many other projects. The principle is the following: to help them to help themselves according to the popular and very well known saying “Don’t give fish to peter but teach him to fish”. Therefore, we give some loans which will be refund and we try to teach them to share with poor people according to the principle “Love is not to talk or to give but to share”, so they pay a small part of their income to poor people so that we will be able to use this revolving fund in order to help creating other projects, in a spirit of what we can call the “Communion Economy”.
3) I see that many old people in our country don't have any kind of income because we don't have any kind of social, health insurance, and unfortunately, when they become old, they loose their jobs, they spend all their money and at the end they have to lay on their children who are mostly poor and cannot afford to help. Therefore, I have the intention to create a kind of a fund which will provide them with some money through our parish priests... this would be great if a family can sponsor an old woman or man… you can promote this idea among old people in your country because, usually they have everything provided by the state and they can share with other families in need abroad.
4) The last idea: We need to keep the remaining small community in the country because many have already left. Immigration was always a temptation... The church is trying to provide young and poor couples an apartment with a very low rent by building some housing projects in our parishes... and here, if any family or parish could sponsor such projects it would be great, especially that we have actually three or four projects which are stopped because of the lack of money... We can suggest that a parish will sponsor an apartment, which doesn’t cost more than 50.000 $... In this way we can finish some projects that we have which is normally around 30- 50 apartments, this means that 30-50 young families will remain in the Holy Land.
Practically speaking, I will dare to tell you that we have already initiated and created the “Olive Branch Fund” and I dare also to ask your support and help, by choosing one of the up-motioned fields and sharing with whatever you can. You can also spread this message around you, in your community, parish, village… or to any charitable institution in your country.
Of
course we will provide any donor with full details about how his money was
spent and with acknowledgement letters signed by the Patriarch himself.
The best way is to send the money to our account in Jerusalem... and this money
will be directed to the Olive Branch Fund which will have a special account
that will be part of our account of the Latin Patriarchate registered in the
name of the Patriarch Michel Sabbah himself so that he will be aware of each
step we do. I am working with our general administrator of the Latin
Patriarchate Fr. William Shomali who will supervise this account with the
control of the accountant manager. This means that you will be sure that every
single penny will be spent in the right direction according the intention of
the donor.
You
have two possibilities to send your contribution, but we prefer the first
because it is the easiest:
1) Bank wire or transfer to our special account of the Olive Branch Fund under
the Latin Patriarchate account, to be sent to the following Bank account:
Mercantile Discount Bank
East Jerusalem Salah Edin
Branch No. 638
Latin Patriarchate - Olive Branch Fund
Account No. 982-01-946915
2) Check endorsement in the name of Latin Patriarchate - Olive Branch
Fund,
to
be sent to the following address:
Fr. Raed Abusahlia
Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem
P.O.Box 14152 Jerusalem 91141
Israel
You can chose that your money be used for one of the following four needs:
1) Student sponsorship of one of our students in our Catholic Schools.
2) Small development project for a needy family.
3) Health and social assistance to elderly, sick and handicapped people.
4) Apartment in a housing project for young and poor couple.
We thank you for whatever you can do to alleviate the suffering of our people and we rely on your prayers and material support to our Christian Community of the Holy Land.
With sentiments of gratitude and prayerful best wishes,
Feel free to contact me at the following address and visit our homepage for more details:
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Fr. Raed Awad Abusahlia
Chancellor of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem
P.O.Box
14152 Jerusalem 91141
Tel. 00 972 2 6282323/6272280
Fax 00 972 2 6271652
My personal E-mail: nonviolence@writeme.com
Latin Patriarchate's E-mail: Latinpat@actcom.co.il
Visit the Latin Patriarchate's Homepage: http://www.Lpj.org
Visit my "Nonviolence Homepage": http://go.to/nonviolence
Visit Fr. Labib's Homepage: http://www.al-bushra.org