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By
CHRISTOPHER QUINN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published
July 26, 2007
Behind the bad news coming out of the
Middle East, there are brief flashes of hope, and this Georgian has a
role in those.
Donna
Petrel, spends part of her year at home near Dalton and the rest of it
negotiating tricky passages between Iraq, Jordan, the West Bank, Gaza
and Israel.
She doesn't travel alone.
Her
job is to
escort Palestinian and Iraqi children with heart disorders and their
families through the tangle of border crossings and security checks and
into hospitals in Israel.
There, the U.S. nonprofit
organization
she works for, Shevet Achim, and an Israeli charity, Save a Child's
Heart, sponsor and perform life-saving surgeries on those who know
nothing of politics, but only that they are not like other children.
"It's
a complicated issue to get across the border into Israel for heart
surgery," she said.
It can take as long as 12 hours.
Sometimes,
as during the Israeli's 34-day military incursion into Lebanon last
year, things shut down completely. Then there is waiting, rescheduling,
and trying again for Petrel, hoping that the kids she helps don't die
in the interim.
Petrel said the two charities are
changing hearts and minds one at time in this tense region of world.
When
someone from Gaza, Jordan or Iraq sees their child's life saved by
Israeli doctors, who operate for free, the changes in attitude can be
remarkable.
"We have an opportunity to reach into
each culture and area and touch a lot of lives," Petrel said.
Shevet
Achim means "Brothers Together" and comes from a biblical passage,
Psalms 133:1, "How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together
in unity." (New International Version).
Shevet Achim
is in the
tricky position of being an evangelical Christian faith-based
organization bringing Muslims and Jews together.
It
was started
in 1994 by Jonathan Miles. He was a journalist living in Israel whose
life changed when he visited the poor in Gaza. He set up the
organization to help sick children and raise money for travel and
living expenses for them and their families, and for the $2,500 the
hospital charges to cover costs.
Petrel met him in
2002 when Miles was speaking to a Bible study group near her home.
After
they got to know each other, Miles asked Petrel, a former teacher, to
manage the U.S. nonprofit. She did, and got a chance to do some work in
the Middle East in 2003. The work there has occupied more of her time
since 2006. She now spends months at a time in the Middle East with
other Shevet Achim staffers.
"We see the sons of
Isaac and
Ishmael (biblical sons of Abraham, from whom the line of Jews and Arabs
sprang) coming face to face and seeing who they are, and it changes
their lives," Petrel said.
"It makes a huge
difference. They are literally reaching out and loving their brothers
as they love themselves."
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