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Sara Enjoys a Visit from U.S. Supporters Who Funded Her Surgery
March 9, 2010 by Jeremy · Leave a Comment
As cute as the babies are, we do enjoy interacting with these older kids. Watching them work through their fear, and seeing them come into their own in a foreign culture, is a real joy. Plus, it seems like the “mark” we’re leaving for life will be more profound for these adolescents.
If you’ll remember, Sara’s family comes from Kirkuk, Iraq. One of her cousins left Iraq over ten years ago and currently lives in Istanbul. So we’ll be discharging Sara into the care of her cousin this week so he can show her the sites and so they can reconnect a bit as a family.
But before she leaves, we were honored to host one of our biggest advocates and long-term supporters, Chelsea Pershall (center), and two friends (Erin [left] and Ashley [right]) for Spring Break in Istanbul. They came specifically to meet Sara, whose surgery they funded through a widespread grassroots effort on the Baylor University campus via FWCM.org.
Sara’s family was so grateful to meet these three girls and beyond the life-saving money they represent, found a lot of comfort from hours of broken English conversations and card games.
Do you know someone who might be interested in joining us for a summer of this kind of work in Turkish hospitals and Iraqi homes? Click here to consider our Summer Internship.
Follow Sara on Twitter: @SaraMuaeed. Subscribe to Sara’s updates via RSS HERE. Follow Sara’s thread of longer stories (with pictures & video) on the PLC blog HERE.
The Great Eight (Taban)
February 12, 2009 by Erin · Leave a Comment
After only 2 weeks in Iraq, working with families who’s children need heart surgeries to grow into adulthood, it was an exciting day to come face to face with two of these families and their children. Both families, whose children are 11 and 13 years old have known since birth that their children have serious heart conditions.
It was wonderful to be the bearer of such great news and tell Taban’s family, who has been waiting for 13 years to find a way to help cure their daughter, that she will be able to leave for surgery on Sunday. In just a few short days she will be on her way to Turkey where she will receive the heart surgery she desperately needs. I have been very touched by the kindness and devotion of these families to do whatever it takes to help their children get the surgeries they need. They are willing to entrust their children, their futures, and even invest their hope in us, The Preemptive Love Coalition.
As we shared several glasses of tea with them, they took the time to welcome me to their country and their village and thank me for leaving my home in America to come and help their children. Although these two children urgently need surgery, the Doctor reviewing their cases is very hopeful that their surgeries will be successful.
Not all of the children we have seen this week have as much hope for a full recovery, or even that they are eligible to receive surgery. And even in the midst of being the potential bearer of wonderful or terrible news for these families, I would not choose to be anywhere else in the world than here in Iraq sharing in the joy,
sorrow, hope, pain, and healing of these children and their families.
Follow us on Twitter
February 3, 2009 by Jeremy · Leave a Comment
The Preemptive Love Coalition has been too busy saving lives to maximize our Twitter account. But we’re ready to dive in fully!
With regular tweets from around the world [Texas, California, Iraq, Istanbul & Ankara (Turkey)] plus travel tweets as we hit up Europe & the UK for more preemptive love for people of Iraq, we hope we can connect with you and learn from you in our collective effort to increase dialogue - and love - between international communities at odds.
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