“We deem our relationship as Divine Grace.”

All Saints school and parish continues to be the heart of HOPE. It began in 2006, when All Saints invited a delegation of five eighth grade students from the Latin Patriarchate Schools in the Holy Land to visit their school and live with their families. One of those students was suffering from Trichotillomania, an emotional problem that raised our awareness of the suffering of the children in the Holy Land. 

Words are not adequate to express our  thanks to Fr. Dennis Jaspers and All Saints for their continued support of HOPE, and for welcoming Fr. Faysal to speak at all of the Masses a few weeks ago to raise awareness of programs that are continuing to grow in the Holy Land for the benefit of the LPS children, especially Talents Unlimited.

For anyone who is interested in supporting the project of Talents Unlimited for the teachers in the Latin Patriarchate schools, you may make a tax-exempt donation to HOPE (Holy Land Outreach Promoting Education). One $40 donation will cover the cost for one teacher to complete the TU course, which will benefit countless children.  Any amount one chooses to donate is deeply appreciated. May God bless you for your support and especially your prayers.

HOPE                                                                                                                                                             c/o Fifth Third Bank

5540 Cheviot Road

Cincinnati, Ohio 45247

Father Faysal’s homily:

What must I do to inherit the Eternal life?

All of us are looking to give sense to our lives, looking to realize ourselves, we are looking for happiness….  What must I do to give sense to my life, to realize myself? This is the same question of the young man to Jesus in today’s Gospel. What will Jesus tell us today? He will give us the same answer He gave to the young man. He will tell us, “You know the commandments, you shall not kill, not commit adultery, not steal…”

What is the meaning of this answer? If you are going to find happiness, you need to realize you cannot be isolated and think only of yourself, you should go out of yourself and look to others,  to take care of those who need your love and compassion.

Let me today help you to discover some other people that I know, they are your brothers and sisters from the Holy Land, the Land of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

In that Land live people from three religions, Muslim , Jewish and we Christians.  They all believe in God,  but  all of them need to  give sense to their lives.  You  know , they kill each other in the name of God. They are fighting for Land. These days incidents happened in Jerusalem , Bethlehem , Nablus, killing each other.  In Syria they kill the others.

Your brothers and sisters – the Christians of the Holy Land and in the Middle East,  have a mission to accomplish,  they help the people of the Holy Land to look to each other instead of killing each other.  This is our identity, to give love and respect.

Through education we can achieve that, you know we have Catholic schools, and in our Catholic schools we have students from different religions.  We try to educate them in Christian values,  so they are able to build a society of peace based on human dignity and human rights.

Through education we can give sense to our teachers and our students, this is our goal –  to give hope to all. We are here with the Hope program, Holy Land Outreach  Promoting  Education to give love and Hope.  Hope started with you here, let me thank Fr. Dennis , Deacon Madz Lim, Wilma, Sandi Trembly and Sister Marietta  and the hosts of our students in 2006. All of you are a  grace from God for us, for our teachers and students.

We try to keep our schools in a good way , It took three years, but now two of our teachers are now trainers for Talents Unlimited program. This is a program that teaches children how- to go beyond memorization and give Hope to the children.  Since May we are applying this program to 285 teachers who are acquiring new methods and skills in teaching, and the students are acquiring the potential to interact with the skills to limits beyond cognition and other life skills such as the ability to solve problems, planning, making important positive decisions instead of poor decisions often made by children who are suffering under occupation.

Our relationship with you is giving us HOPE and strength, so I want to thank you for your love, generosity and your contribution to HOPE a few months ago. Every penny of the $5,000 received went toward helping two of our teachers to receive the necessary training to spread the Talents program to our students.  But in order to continue Talents, we must pay $40 a teacher and so far the cost of educating 286 teachers has been $11, 440 and we still have over 250 more teachers to in-service.

I am asking you today to please adopt one or two of our teachers so we can continue the work we have begun and which is making a difference.  You will be happy to know the pastor at St. Joseph’s in Nablus hosted Deacon Bob and Maryann in 2014  and Dan Stringer sat with the teachers from Nablus  and was trained in Talents side by side with teachers from the Holy Land . Only God could have made these amazing connections with All Saints because on  Friday and today All Saints  hosted 7 schools from the Archdiocese of Cincinnati including All Saints for Talents training and it  included  educators from Jordan, Palestine and Israel.

God is the One who has made these amazing connections for the benefit of His children and that is why I call HOPE “God’s Project.”  But without the generous support and love of All Saints these connections would never have happened. We deem our relationship as Divine Grace.

Through our relationship we will not be isolated and we will be responding to Jesus in looking to each other and opening to the needs of love for each other.

God Bless you and I will be happy to meet you after Mass and answer any questions you may have about how we are using Talents in our schools or any questions about the Holy Land.