Update From Sderot 11/13/10

The mystery man strikes once again. A week or so ago, Hope for Sderot received a notification from PayPal that a donation had been made to the organization. Shortly afterward an email arrived from an unknown source. The email sender introduced themselves and said they had just sent a donation via PayPal and hoped that there would not be any problem in the processing of the donation. They then continued on to tell the story behind the donation.

The family, was from Israel, and were vacationing in Rome, Italy a few weeks back. During their travels the wife had gone into a little shop to purchase a new scarf. The shop sold a variety of items, including Italian leather bags and wallets.

The proprietor of the shop, having recognized the couple as Israeli from their accent, engaged them in a few moments of pleasant conversation about Israel. When it was time to pay for their purchases, the owner of the shop would not accept any payment from them, but instead insisted that they make a donation to Hope For Sderot in an amount equivalent to their purchase when they returned home.

The email went on to explain that the donation was in the amount of their purchases in that little Italian leather shop, plus a little extra. Cool story, right?

The real cool thing is that on at least four or five other occasions, donations have been made all with a similar story. They are in Rome… they wander into this little leather shop… the owner recognizes them as Israeli… and when the time comes to pay for their purchase, the proprietor refuses payment… but asks them to send the purchase amount to Hope For Sderot when they return home.

We don’t know who the mystery shopkeeper is or how he knows about Hope For Sderot, but we are thankful for his faithful heart for Israel and his generous spirit. So if you’re ever in Rome….

This past week, Deanna a nurse from Canada, came to help us for a few days. She had come as a volunteer before and had returned to Israel to participate in a week-long training conference. The conference focused on Israeli medical response protocols in time of crisis. As a trauma nurse, Deanna has been to Haiti twice to help and is planning a third trip. Her training here was to prepare medical personnel who would be able to participate in teams that would come to Israel in time of war to replace those Israeli called back to active duty.

We are thankful for the few days that Deanna was able to volunteer with us and for the 116 beautiful handmade baby blankets that she brought with her. May Ha’Shem bless the loving hands of all those women that spent the countless hours making them.

We plan to distribute the blankets at the children’s ward of the medical center, an orphanage, and to those families that we serve who have little ones. We already paid a visit to Elana our new mom and her twin girls.

L’hit ra’ote!