Greetings! After two days of trying to figure out how to change the "dashboard" tags that were in Arabic to English, I am now on, thanks to Edmund the late night watchman at the hotel- a genius!

After a good night's rest in Jerusalem and a walk around the Sheik Jarrar neighborhood where settlers have ousted Palestinian families in the past year, I caught the local sheroot to Beit Jala and walked up the steep hill that enters the town of Bethlehem, my sort of home away from home. As I climbed the hill,I wondered how long it would take me to adjust to walking the hills here. It usually takes a good week of marching around. As I entered the hotel, the desk clerk greeted me with "hello William" it's good to see you back! I knew was at home again and a good place to "lay my head" so to speak. It's so nice to be able to hang a few clothes and stow some underwear and know where it will be tomorrow. This will only be a brief respite as I leave for the farm on Wednesday to greet friends from Arlington, and the IFPB delegates.
I met my friend Christy today, and accompanied her down to Hebron to discuss publicizing the Wheel Chair Project that she has launched. There were members
of the Hebron government there as well as people actively engaged in the project who represented several interested parties. Watching Christy manage the various permissions required and the numerous actors involved was sterling. After a year of talking with local village health care workers and identifying needy clients; getting permission from the ever present Israeli authorities, local government officials, customs agents, Palestinian Authority officials, ministers of government in Jordan etc. the project may actually happen this week! Such persistence and skill,
and a male world too! She is very respected by everyone, and that is impressive. My church is supporting the project and it was great to see how the funds will be used. There was also a role for me to play too as a teacher of special needs students for most of my life, and of course the experience of having a brother who was disabled also helped. It was a good day!

Olive Harvest 2011

Greetings to the faithful! I've lost count on the number of times I have sat in a computer in a local internet cafe, or hotel lobby in the wee hours of the morning, but I have just arrived in Jerusalem now about 20 hours ago. After sleeping for about three hours, I awoke feeling rested, but anxious to get on with things. I leave this morning for Bethlehem where I'll be for a few days until the IFPB delegation arrives. Much of my waking time this morning was thinking about what I will say on Wednesday when the delegation comes to the farm. Besides the usual background of history, the origins of Friends of Tent of Nations, I hope to share the
new vision that Daoud sees and shared at our Steering Committee meeting in our home
in Arlington on Thursday, the 27th.

What is really exciting is that we may be in a new phase, and Bill Mims, our Secretary and local MBA offered a new formation of our organization which would center on education. As Daoud described it,we are entering the third phase of our work. The first consisted of building an infrastructure and linkage to the broader world. That phase is done, but of course, we still need to
continue to build connections with others. But the farm is a long way nearer to
self sufficiency than it once was. The electrical and water systems are in place,
and new technology with the use of gray water is the final step. The second phase
is building an education center "without walls" as the difficulty for getting building permits is a major hurdle. In the meantime, education continues as Daoud travels, the thousands of visitors share their own stories, and fotonna continues its
outreach to churches, Congress and the State Department. The third phase is building
of the Education Center whose designs are already complete.