Community. Love. Healing.

Since I've lived in Dubai, one thing that has been a constant complaint of mine is that I just don't feel like I "fit" here. In three long years, outside of my work family, I never really felt like I found my "group" here, and I very much need to feel a sense of community and oneness. Everything seems so shiny and brand new that you are constantly questioning its integrity, "soul" and sincerity. This has been at the core of my displeasure in living here.

Until now.

Even though I've been sponsoring a child of the PCRF for the last two years, there is nothing like getting personally, physically involved with a charity that you are passionate about. And I only "thought" I was passionate about these little guys before. Now, that I've touched one, hugged one, heard one laugh, seen a sweet little girl with one eye blow kisses goodbye to me and tell me in Arabic that she loves me.....I'm hooked. I feel like I have finally found the "community" of sincerity, integrity, "soul" that I was looking for. These people are not concerned with a life that revolves solely around themselves, their schedules, their own successes and finding ways to constantly get, more and look like "more". They are concerned with the lives of precious babies who have no way to take full care of themselves - not now as children, and without the organization, perhaps never even as adults.

To see the work that they are doing is beyond miraculous. Children come in with no legs and leave with two prosthetic legs. The little girl I visited yesterday came here with one eye that doesn't see at all and the other that has only partial sight. She will go home with a normal looking left eye and a right eye that has almost full sight.

Each year, the organization provides more than 150,000,000 USD of surgeries for children affected by the war in Gaza and they only need approximately 1,000,000 USD in order to fund this work. The money goes strictly to the transport and care of these children in hospitals around the world where the doctors are performing the surgeries pro bono.

This is why I say that Angels exist. I have now seen them with my own eyes.

Yesterday, after spending about 4 hours with little Lana and her mother, I walked away feeling THANKFUL that I was in Dubai so that I could know about this organization and have the opportunity to be apart of it. I felt THANKFUL for my eyes, my legs, my nose, my sight, my independence, my ability to run and play like a normal child, my ability to play the piano having had all of my limbs, fingers and toes. I walked away feeling "whole" again...and thankful for it. After becoming involved in a group that's sole interest is to heal those who cannot heal themselves, I found that not only did I see healing happening with these precious little children, but I felt it inside ME.

And that's the wonderful thing about Love and Community, isn't it? You get back what you give ten-fold.