{"id":1035,"date":"2016-05-31T11:27:16","date_gmt":"2016-05-31T08:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/?p=1035"},"modified":"2016-08-02T03:52:55","modified_gmt":"2016-08-02T00:52:55","slug":"the-school-that-father-elias-chacour-built","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/2016\/05\/the-school-that-father-elias-chacour-built\/","title":{"rendered":"The School that Father Elias Chacour Built"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
Tuesday, May 31. \u00a0We’re going to visit more students and teachers today at the Mar Elias School — the school that Father Elias Chacour founded.\u00a0 This time, we’ll be with younger students.\u00a0 I wasn’t so sure it would be as interesting or rewarding as it was.\u00a0 I’ve seen my share of schools — first as a parent and then as a substitute in all grade levels and then in the high school working with students who have special needs.\u00a0 This was, however, much more rewarding than I had counted on.\u00a0\"IMG_4940\"<\/div>\n

Starting with joyous fourth graders — we got to watch them in action reading aloud in English and even answering questions on the reading and working on moving between the singular\/plural versions of words.\u00a0 This was amazing because they don’t even start working on English lessons until the 3rd grade with just the rudimentary letters\/numbers, etc. \u00a0 The teacher told us she had never seen the students as quiet before and that we could come back anytime.<\/p>\n

Moving on to the 8th graders — typical 8th graders wanting to take pictures with us of course, but it was impressive to see what great attitudes they seemed to have.\u00a0 Someone in our group commented on how they may be more motivated than some of our American counterparts at home.\"IMG_4967\"<\/p>\n

Later, we had time to talk with some college students training to become teachers.\u00a0 They spoke candidly about the day to day issues young people face because of the injustices — even if just the fact that when they went to the mall to shop, they very well might get stopped and have their bags searched assuming they would be a threat.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Our ‘housemother’ for our stay at the school, Samar (meaning person who loves Jesus and one who bring joy), gave us a tour of the Greek Melkite church that Father Elias Chacour built on the property.\u00a0\"IMG_4978\"<\/p>\n

It is the largest Melkite church in the country and it was clear how much love he poured into it so that it could be a peaceful place to meet and worship. We learned that the Melkite Church uses icons, not statues, to inspire their faith. Next we walked back to have lunch at our dining room with students and teachers.\u00a0 Again, I wasn’t sure how much I would enjoy this experience — it not being in my comfort zone to sit with others I don’t know at all and who don’t share a common native language but … again I was pleasantly surprised.\u00a0 Their openness and generosity of spirit has been inspiring to me and made me want to look deeper at myself – remembering them and seeing how I can be more open and generous in my love for all.<\/p>\n

~ Anna Lee<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tuesday, May 31. \u00a0We’re going to visit more students and teachers today at the Mar Elias School — the school that Father Elias Chacour founded.\u00a0 This time, we’ll be with younger students.\u00a0 I wasn’t so sure it would be as … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2016-may-june-pilgrimage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1035"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1041,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1035\/revisions\/1041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}