Last week

So what’s up this week? Thank you to Moritz mammy for allowing some of us on their little trip to beiteddine – Amazing but who was to know that museums, palaces etc don’t open on Monday. A lovely walk was had! Then off to Deir El Quammar for service followed by the synagogue hunt, these tour guide books have a lot to answer for – 45 minutes up a few hills and we had no clue where the synagogue was! We eventually looked up to the sun and realised that we would have a good 1 hour trek to get on the right road- Mission Aborted as we were rushing to spiritual meeting. On the same evening, Marwan the president of the Lebanese Order of Malta came with Dr Issa to speak with Caravan. We admire and acknowledge Marwan and Dr Issa honesty with us – we appreciate you both and look forward to seeing you again soon. Poor Dr Issa was subjected to another Caravan dinner of pasta, egg plant, onion and garlic! He brought the most amazing ice- cream which made up for the dinner– Yum!  Service in Deir El Quammar was amazing but I won’t hesitate in saying we were a bit tired after it, we had great fun doing theatre with the girls dressed up as kings, queens, princesses, princes and 3 unknowns. Also our infamous singing rounds with Chabrouh classics as well as our Caravan classics always enlightens the day. What happens on Tuesdays – well now we had university where we are studying Druizism – it is a very interesting lecture and insight into Druizism, we also had an amazing service in Deir El Salib, Most of us went to the garden to adore the sun – the boys where all in great form, Chamel is practicing his walking yet again with slight bribery. Ok he got Suzie and Lucas chewing gum to chew for the corridor walks. He nearly ran with pleasure after that treat. Many of the boys are coming along well in their walking nowadays and we see great improvement with balance especially Simon , Ayla , Eli , Chamel , George , Kassem , Mostapha A and Raed  .  On Wednesday , we had university , Deir El Salib and Jamhour – our schedules are often busy seeing us out of the house from 8am-8pm between driving to university , service etc.  On Thursday, yet again we had university where we had our last topic of Druze- this course was very insightful on the Druze religion although the secretness and refusal to answer questions was rather frustrating. Service in Antellias this week was lovely,

We were also very fortunate to receive an invitation to visit the archbishop of Damascus, his eminence Samir Nassar. A thorough and deeply insightful private reception was held for Caravan and we are grateful to Matthieu for organising this visit. The insight that his Eminence gave about the Situation in Syria, Lebanon and indeed throughout the whole Middle East was hugely important, a very interesting thought crossed my mind as we sat there. That just 2 hours from our location there is a conflict beyond all reason, thousands are dying or been displaced, their are no human rights and the suffering is insurmountable with life. There are violations taking place that at this time we cannot do anything about although we can continue our prayers for peace we are not assisting those in most need.  And in Caravan fashion we where super excited to be on an outing and fortunately Fawzi did not mind stopping for us to get falafel, schwarama and fries.

Ok so Friday – well what a busy day it was, service in Deir El Salib and then departure for the spiritual retreat. So what can I say , the boys in DES love to keep us  on our toes – a beautiful day in the garden was just coming to a close when Johnny decided to have an epileptic seizure . Always testing the first aid skills that we learnt either on prep camp or before! He recovered very quickly and was eating dinner just 50 minutes later- ah the young are so resilient. We left DES knowing what awaited. A weekend of peace, tranquillity and spirituality under the watchful and astute guidance of Abouna Romanus. After arriving in Sourat and finding a new road there, we entered the monastery at 7 (cough cough Michel was the lead car followed by both Fawzi and Father Romanus!  and noone realised that we where directionally challenged) we settled in and prepared ourselves for a light supper and a meeting. Fr Romanus explained the use, purpose and idea of a spiritual retreat and it was quickly decided that we would remain in silence for the duration.... um how that is possible with 10 Caravanistas, Michel and Fr Romanus????? – Well actually there were times to break the silence, prayer, personal counselling and conclusion of the day talks. Also it would have been rude not to say Hi to Dr Issa, Fr Andre, the residents of Sourat, the flowers, the birds and of course the wonderful trees that some Caravanistas felt the need to hugJ. What transpired this weekend was nothing short of miraculous, silence just blissful silence. To seek, to explore, to strengthen and to gather our thoughts and build, rebuild, create or maintain our relationships with our Lord. Fr Romanus words offer peace, comfort and reflection in an otherwise turbulent world .I cannot begin to tell you how important this retreat was for the morale , strength and rest of the team.  We are grateful that Fr Romanus will become our spiritual mentor for the next 3 months, and furthermore that Fr Tom Sicking will also continue as our spiritual mentor.

Organic week was also the topic for this week – Amelie – I hope you are reading ORGANIC week not bad taste. It started off with some choice outfits, no showering, linen bags, showering in a spring. As you can imagine some took it far more serious than others – although we do not yet have a winner for this week, we proved albeit for half of the week to be a lot more organic then the Lebanese. We had many ideas that gratefully we did not follow up on – I heard mention of a campaign in the middle of a busy highway to promote organic week – phew I cannot even imagine the reaction of those responsible for us if we tried to pull this off.

Anyways over and out for another week!

Caravan x