OR  AKIVA WORK DAY #2 (Final)

Today we went back to the Daycare center to finish up.  We finished the murals on the walls, painted the door, and in the bathroom, we added hand and arm prints in celebration of the Helping Hands Coalition.  Some of the group cleaned weeds and trash from the playground, and some cleaned the windows.  I'm not sure the high windows had ever been cleaned, and what a difference it made when they were cleaned.

About 12:30 the floors were cleaned and swept, and we met with one of the teachers, who helped us put all of the furniture back where it belonged.  We had several visitors.  The Municipality service director came by, the head of the after school program throughout the city came by, and a guy pretty high up in the Helping Hands organization.

Then about 1:30 the head teacher came in.  She was almost in tears as she saw all of cool things our people had painted on the walls.  30 minutes later the children began to arrive.  They were overwhelmed both with what we had done, and just our presence there, So after a few minutes we left and headed back to the hotel.

At 4:30, we headed over to the "warm house" where we had dinner with about 20 Holocaust survivors.  The were almost women, with about 4 men.  The were all misplaced out of the borderlands and eventually ended up in the interior around Siberia and made their alyiah about 20 years ago to Israel.  It was so sad to hear all of their stories. Of course they spoke Russian and a little Hebrew and we speak neither so Don had to translate for us. We tried to hold conversations with them but it was difficult. All of the people there were over 70 years old. One lady at our table was a hoot and she is 82 years old!  Don and Marta had prepared a chicken and rice casserole, with an Israeli salad.

After dinner we heard a few of their fascinating stories. Then they sang a bunch of songs. Overall they seemed like a happy group of people.

Tomorrow we will have a travel and tour day as we head to Tiberias.  

Please pray for safe travels as we tour tomorrow,  Good night!