Avivah Werner

Author: Avivah

  • The joy of being known for who you are

    You know what I think one of the hardest things about being a new immigrant is?

    That you become a one dimensional person without a past.  Every time you meet someone, they have no frame of reference for who you are or what you’ve accomplished.  Every conversation is about you presenting yourself and being evaluated, which is humbling and exhausting. This is true of when you move to anywhere new, but particularly to a new country and culture.

    Last night I went to a bar mitzva in Beitar.  I lived in Beitar for six years in the earlier years of my marriage and moved from there to the US fifteen years ago.  I visited for a Shabbos over four years ago but almost all of the people I was friendly with I haven’t seen in a very, very long time.

    It was a beautiful bar mitzva.  And it was personally very enjoyable for me.  You know why?  Because I met person after person who I had a history with.  Right after I walked in, someone looked at me and said, “I know you… you’re the shadchan (matchmaker)!”  She didn’t remember my name but remembered I was the one who introduced the couple (over fifteen years ago!) who was making the bar mitzva.

    I met someone else whose first birth I attended, three women who attended my childbirth classes, a friend who babysat my daughter when I was still a working mom, a friend who hosted the first parenting class I attended, someone who attended the weekly tehillim gathering in my house.  Last week I was at a wedding in Jerusalem and someone across the table looked straight at me and said, “Avivah, don’t you remember me?”  Of course I did.  Not only did I remember her, but I attended births of her sister and sister-in-law.

    It’s really different having conversations with people who you have a history with.  Here’s an example.  When I tell someone I have a history with that I’m homeschooling, the attitude is that homeschooling is unusual but must be okay if I’m doing it.  When I tell someone who I don’t have a history with that I’m homeschooling, I sense people trying to size up if I’m a normal person who is doing something unusual, or a weird person doing something weird.

    Our identities are built on years of relationships and activities, and when I moved to Israel I didn’t think about how hard it was going to be start over without the years of accumulated social collateral.  It was hard not to be known for who I was when I moved here, and it’s shifting very quickly now that I moved.

    Another reason to be grateful for my move here!

    Avivah

  • Living in RBS and loving it!

    I’ve been so busy since moving to RBS – much more than I expected – and it’s really making it difficult to find time to write!

    I love living here.  It’s like I was living in the shadows for three and a half years when I was in Karmiel, and now I can step into the light.  I can be myself without concern that some aspect of my beliefs or behaviors doesn’t conform enough to the Israeli charedi community expectation and having it affect the abilities of those around me to see the person I am.   Karmiel is a great place to live for young families who want to raise their children with Israeli charedi norms,  and I really appreciate having families around with older children who have similar values as us.

    When we talked about moving, I asked the older kids their opinions and they all basically said it doesn’t matter to them where we are because they’re not living at home.  But actually it’s affected them all positively.

    Ds21 comes home much more frequently now that we’re so much closer.  He came home about every three months.  Now he comes for Shabbos about every three weeks!  Dd20 moved home a few weeks ago and no longer has to rent a room in the home of a stranger, and dd18 is home for Shabbos more often.  She can come home when she has a day off from her studies whereas before it wouldn’t have been worth it since she would have spent most of her free time traveling.  Now it’s very easy for them to invite friends so we’ve already had a number of their friends for Shabbos.  Dd18 is in a dorm now but when seminary finishes in another month, she won’t have to worry about finding a living situation, which caused a lot of pressure for her last year when she was in an Israeli seminary with no dorm.

    Ds16 has a much shorter commute to high school (he used to spend five hours in each direction when he came home for the weekend) and he told me that school is easier for him now that he’s not so tired from traveling and having to miss classes.  Within a week of being here he already socially felt much more comfortable here than in Karmiel (and this is a son who is fluent in Hebrew, has gone to school with Israelis since we moved here and knew a lot of people in Karmiel).

    Since the younger kids left behind very good friends, I was concerned about how the transition would be.  But they’re doing great.  We have one bedroom less but more outdoor space than in our Karmiel home, and having the space for them to run around without having to go to a local park is really nice.  We’re all much more relaxed without the pressure of keeping our neighbors from getting upset about noise.

    It will take time to make good friends but the boys (12, 9, 7, 6 and 34 months) are getting to know people.  For ds12 it was really hard socially where we lived since he didn’t go to the cheder and the boys there stuck together in and out of school, so there was no way for him to be involved with them.  There were no extracurricular activities for religious kids and there was no one his age in our neighborhood, which was limiting in terms of being able to meet people and make friends, .  Here he’s part of a boys’ youth group and even before joining that met several nice boys.  On his own initiative he began going to shul (synagogue) three times a day (usually by himself) once we moved here whereas in Karmiel he didn’t feel comfortable and would only go on Shabbos. It really, really makes a difference to be in a place where you don’t feel you’re being judged all the time.

    Dd14 is meeting a number of girls her age.  I don’t think it makes up yet for leaving her best friend, but they speak on the phone and the girls she’s met are all very nice.  And that there are girls to meet outside of the school framework is amazing, because this didn’t exist before.  She knew girls and had friends, but again, all of the social stuff for kids in Karmiel was through school and we no longer have that limitation.  We hosted a teen girls shalosh seudos last week that went really well and are considering doing this on a regular basis, maybe every three weeks (depends on our girls since I don’t actively run it).

    There are so many lectures and activities that you could be busy all the time!  I’ve gone to several lectures since being here on a variety of topics, in English and Hebrew.  Last night I attended a shiur and was afterwards asked to volunteer at a womens’ event tomorrow night which I hope to do.  I was asked to give a shiur for Shavuos and initially agreed but now have some hesitation about that.  If I end up speaking, I’ll let you know.

    Something I didn’t think about at all was how being closer to the center of the country would reconnect me to old friends.  I’m now able to share in celebrations that before I would have just sent my good wishes and apologies that I couldn’t make it.  Since being here six weeks ago, I’ve been invited to three bar mitzvas and one wedding, all of which I can attend now that I’m not so far away.

    I’ve bumped into women who recognized me – twice they were girls who were two grades below me in high school!  I met a seminary friend I last saw twenty years ago and then a classmate from sixth grade.  Someone told my husband that when you move to RBS, you reconnect to your past and it’s true!

    Last night at a lecture a blog reader approached me and asked me if people are recognizing me all the time now that I’m here.  Not all the time but it happens, but what was a first for my husband was when someone recognized him from my blog!

    My husband is also enjoying having so many like-minded people here.  He’s getting to know local rabbis and making time to connect with them.  We are hopeful of finding a rav for our family here; it will take time but it’s important to us and with so many wonderful community rabbis, we’re optimistic that we’ll find someone we respect who will also be able to understand and respect us.

    Ramat Beit Shemesh is a different world than Karmiel and as nice as Karmiel was – and it really was nice – I love it here.

    But I don’t regret for a second moving to Karmiel.  We had challenges that olim here would think are grossly exaggerated because it’s so different making aliyah to a place with very few supports for new immigrants.  RBS isn’t perfect – nowhere is – but having lived in Karmiel helps me appreciate RBS in a way I couldn’t have appreciated it if I had moved directly here from the US.

    Avivah

  • My kids didn’t do anything special for me on Mother’s Day

    mothers dayYesterday was Mother’s Day and if I hadn’t popped onto Facebook, I would have been oblivious to the date.  I mentioned it to my husband, and my younger boys heard me and asked what that meant.

    I told them it’s a day that people try to be nicer to their mother than usual.

    How did our family celebrate?

    We didn’t.

    None of my children made me cards or special meals, bought me flowers, took me out or shared any special wishes for the day.  No one posted pictures on social media with comments to the world at large about how they have the best mother in the world.

    I guess I could feel like I was missing out.  That my children don’t really value my efforts.  That they don’t care about me.

    But I didn’t feel that way.

    What I value more than once a year celebrations or declarations of love are the ongoing interactions I have with my children.  Sometimes I get the bonus of mature children sharing their appreciation for how they were raised.

    Ds21 recently told me that because I always believed in him growing up, it helped him to believe in himself.  Do you know how I agonized over this child?  As my oldest and first to be homeschooled, I used to lay awake at nights wondering if I was harming him irreparably by choosing an non-mainstream educational option.  I didn’t harm him – far from it.  He’s a thoughtful, intelligent, caring young man who I feel proud and grateful to have as my son.  But he didn’t call me for Mother’s Day.

    My younger kids make me pictures and create things for me on a regular basis.  They make me smile and laugh, they ask me to play with them, they hold my hand when we take walks, and they thank me for little things – like letting them play an educational computer game, making them a meal they like or taking them on an outing.

    My older kids end every phone conversation by telling me they love me.

    They all do things just because they want to make me happy, even when it means more work and less fun for them.  They’ve cleaned, painted, renovated, babysat, cooked – without asking for payment or allowances.  They voluntarily bring food and drinks to me in my room when I’m tired or sick.  Daily they do tasks they don’t want to do because I ask them to do it.

    Every day.

    Not one of them mentioned Mother’s Day.

    And I didn’t miss it a bit.

    Avivah

  • The absurdity of the high functioning label

    Recently a guest, after observing Yirmiyahu (2 3/4 yr) for a while, asked, “So, is he high functioning?”

    Should I proudly say, ‘yes’, as if he’s better than someone who doesn’t get this lucky label?

    People are not machines or vegetables that are sorted according to quality and priced accordingly.  Inanimate objects can be rated with cold, measurable terms like ‘high functioning’ for the retail market but this is totally inappropriate for human beings.

    I understand why people ask and it’s intended as a compliment.  They see Yirmiyahu doing well and use this term as confirmation of his abilities.  But Yirmiyahu is not high functioning.  He is not low functioning.

    He’s a living, breathing person with his own unique strengths and abilities, as well as his own challenges.  Like every one of us.

    Did you ever stop to think what in the world does it mean to be ‘high functioning’?  Who gets to determine what the standards are, to check off the abilities of a fellow human being on a paper grid?

    Is childhood a competition between the haves and have-nots, between those who can and those who can’t?  Are we so arrogant as to think that because we or our children are blessed with certain abilities that it makes us better than those who have different abilities?

    Defining success in life is individual.  Different people want different things and will need different strengths in order to have lives that are meaningful to them.  We have each been created with the abilities we need to fulfill our unique purpose in life.  We aren’t meant to be the same and we shouldn’t be rated as if we are.

    The reality is that people with disabilities are being rated from the time they’re born.  They’re constantly being graded on a scale of performance that may or (more likely) may not be relevant to their individual lives.  That same scale will ignore any strengths that haven’t been determined by some official somewhere who doesn’t know the child or his life, and the child is then rated according to his functioning.

    Fair?  No.  Accurate?  No.  Is someone better than someone else with a similar condition because he’s been labeled ‘high functioning’?  No.

    So why do we use these ridiculous terms?

    Are you wondering about how Yirmiyahu is doing?  He’s awesome.  He’s smart and communicative and he’s living life on his own timeline.  Sometimes that looks impressive and sometimes it looks like there’s a delay, but none of it means that he’s ‘functioning’ better or worse.

    If you never thought about these terms until now, join the crowd!  I’ve thought a lot over the years about the importance of giving a child space to develop at his own pace and this has informed my approach to homeschooling and parenting.  But I didn’t question the usage of terms like ‘low functioning’ or ‘high functioning’ until I had a child with a different developmental curve; it was then that it became alarmingly clear to me that we limit and damage our children when we label them in this way.

    Avivah

  • How to protect our children from sexual abuse

    Last night I attended a deeply powerful evening of talks to raise awareness about the dangers of sexual abuse.  The talks were given by a psychologist, a Beit Shemesh police officer in charge of sexual abuse investigations, and three survivors of abuse who each shared part of their personal stories.

    I took notes to share with you what was said but to sum up each talk would take away from them all.  Instead, I’ll share what I felt the takeaway messages from the event were.

    Sexual abuse is pervasive, it is deeply damaging, and it is only by becoming educated that we can combat this horrific scourge.

    The first step towards protecting our children and community from sexual predators is understanding what the problem is.  Sexual predators are in every community, in every city and they don’t look like the pervert that you learned as a young child to stay away from – you know, the derelict wino with a bottle in a paper bag and grubby fingernails. They usually look just like the kind of person you’d trust your child with – they work very hard to cultivate this image because it’s this facade that gains them access to children.

    80 – 90% of abusers are someone the child knows.  To me, this means that a big chunk of our efforts and awareness needs to go towards making sure that adults or older children whom our children spent time with don’t have have unsupervised one-on-one time together.  Please read what I wrote here about the grooming process; it’s critical to understand how predators operate.

    Years ago when I was about 11, I remember a classmate sharing some information with me.  Being the age that I was, I heard what she described but wasn’t able to process what she was saying.  I now understand that she was raped in the public bathrooms on a class trip.  At that time, I told her to tell the teacher; she then shared with me that the teacher told her she was making it up and not to talk to anyone about it.

    This response sounds really horrible – and it is.  And unfortunately it’s very common.

    How in the world can we rub salt on the gaping emotional and physical wounds that abused children have already experienced by responding like this?

    We deny what is uncomfortable because it’s easier to look away than to deal with the uncomfortable truths in front of us.   It’s easier to blame the victim than deal with the abuser, easier to say a child is making something up than to believe that someone we think is trustworthy is capable of horrendous actions.  This is part of what this evening was about, to get people to stop looking away and denying the pain of victims and start recognizing and taking steps to limit the damage of sexual predators.

    The religious Jewish community has unfortunately historically been more supportive of abusers than victims, but this is changing as people become more educated. To make our communities safe for children we need to stop keeping sick and unhealthy secrets; we need to stop pretending that this doesn’t happen in our communities.  It does and it happens much more than it should because we’ve been focusing on looking good and keeping our image untarnished rather than on doing good and confronting evil.  Looking away empowers and protects predators and dramatically increases the risk for our children.

    After hearing all of this information, it leaves a parent saying, “Okay, we understand how serious this is, but how in the world can we protect our kids from something so pervasive?” It’s frightening and overwhelming – after all, we can’t watch our kids every minute and it seems that short of that there’s no way to keep our kids safe.

    A very helpful booklet filled with information was given out to attendees that covers prevention tips, red flag warning signs of potential sex offenders, boundaries, common tricks and lures, 10 proactive strategies for parents, facts and statistics, an explanation of grooming and more.  You can go to www.safelyeverafter.com to read more information.

    The part I personally struggle with about talking to my kids about this is not scaring them.  As a parent I have to do my part to proactively protect them, but there are situations when I’m not around that they need to know what is appropriate or what isn’t, and how to respond when something doesn’t feel right to them.

    I don’t want them to feel the world is filled with scary, dangerous people waiting to hurt them but I also don’t want to casually give over information and downplay it to the point that it seems I’m saying something unimportant.  So what to do?

    Rather than this being a bigger conversation that takes place a couple of times a year, I think an ongoing conversation is a way to discuss this in a way that doesn’t feel so intense and scary.  Talking about it in this way also increases the likelihood that our kids will better internalize the information.  Our focus should be on how to empower our kids with this information.

    I’ve always stressed to my kids to listen to their instincts even if logically they can’t understand why they feel that way.  I’ve also continually stressed to them to respect one another’s boundaries, that the parts of the body covered by a bathing suit are private and that if anyone tells them to keep a secret to tell me right away.   These are all included in the ten basic rules.  Something I haven’t done but after reading the handouts is to practice with them different responses they can use if they felt uncomfortable in a situation.

    Avivah

  • RBS homeschooling group

    >>How many people in RBS are homeschooling?<<   

    I can’t how many people are homeschooling, only those connected to the group.  There are always those who are homeschooling who aren’t actively connected to the larger homeschooling community.  For example, I was told there’s someone a few buildings away from me who is homeschooling and there are probably others like her who don’t come to the meetups but they aren’t visible if they don’t hook up with other homeschoolers.

    >>Do people from surrounding areas come as well?<<

    There are three families from the Beit Shemesh area other than myself who attend, and so far two families from other areas who have come that I met though I’ve been told that others sometimes come as well.  Homeschoolers want to attend activities when they know that there will be someone for their child to get to know, and due to the wide age range of kids at our group, I anticipate that the number of families attending will grow.  It’s a very nice group as it is, though!

    >>Are there other anglos in the group?<<

    All of them are Anglos but Hebrew speakers are welcome to attend.

    >>What has the local reaction to your homeschooling been?<<

    People have expressed that they’re very glad that we moved here.  Every family adds something to the group dynamics and we add a lot of boy energy.  🙂  There weren’t many boys before we came and we shifted the ratio by doubling the number of boys in attendance.

    The families I’ve met are all lovely and we’re enjoying getting to know them!

    Avivah

  • Sexual abuse awareneness events in RBS and Jerusalem, April 26 and 27

    childabuse517_2EAC_extended_web[1]Sexual abuse is deeply damaging to a child with numerous long term ramifications.  It strikes at the heart of who they are and affects their sense of security and trust in the world forever.

    As parents, it’s critical that we learn as much as we can in order to protect our children from sexual predators.  When we keep quiet about this sensitive topic, we give our power to the people who want to exploit our children.

    This Sunday night (April 26), there will be an evening of education and awareness in Ramat Beit Shemesh that I plan to attend.  There will be another event on Monday night, April 27 in Jerusalem.

    Below are details copied from the Jewish Community Watch (JCW) website:

    For the events in Beit Shemesh and Jerusalem, JCW will team up with Magen, a child protection organization from Beit Shemesh, Israel. Magen was founded in 2010 as a response to a series of cases of child abuse in Beit Shemesh and out of concern of the alarmingly low levels of reported child abuse, indicating that many incidents were not being reported to the authorities.

    The upcoming events in Beit Shemesh and Jerusalem will be mostly in English and the speakers will include:

    CEO of Magen – David Morris

    Founder of JCW – Meyer Seewald

    Abuse survivor – Eli Nash

    Chief of Detectives – Dudi Katz

    Trauma Psychologist – Dr. Norman Goldwasser

    An anonymous abuse survivor and member of the IDF

    Founder and CEO of JCW Meyer Seewald said: “JCW was founded in response to ONE case of abuse in ONE neighborhood in Brooklyn NY.  In less than four years, it has grown into an international organization. The reason is that the Orthodox community is sick and tired of the cover-ups, and sick of protecting the abusers instead of our innocent children.  We have started seeing a turnaround in the attitude towards abuse in the Orthodox community in the U.S. and we will work with our partners towards the same results in Israel.

    “Israel presents a unique set of challenges, because there is a far stricter censorship in the media and there is no sex offender’s registry.  Many parents are therefore unaware of abusers living in their midst. In addition, despite Halachik rulings from some of the leading Rabbis, many communities do not report abuse to the police. There is also the very troubling reality that Israel has become a safe haven for Jewish predators from around the world.”

    David Morris, CEO of Magen said: “The shame, isolation, and pain suffered by victims of child sexual abuse is universal and in all our communities. This follows victims and survivors the world over. Therefore, the solution must be to join forces and tackle this devastating problem on an international level. We are therefore excited that Jewish Community Watch, pioneers in Jewish child sexual abuse victims advocacy in the U.S.A., will be joining Magen, the child protection agency here in Israel, to break through the silence and to bring increased awareness of the terrible issue of child abuse to our communities. We are planning that this will be the first of many opportunities for Magen to work together with JCW in support of victims and survivors of child sexual abuse.”

    The day after a previous event in the United States, JCW received the following message from an attendee: “Last night’s event was probably the most important event I’ve ever been to. The honesty, rawness, humanity and bravery that was shown by every single speaker and survivor affected me so deeply I really can’t describe it. [The speakers] who were so courageous in sharing their stories just saved countless lives. I have never been prouder to be Jewish than I was last night, when we all stood together and sent a message to the abusers and cowardly murderers that they will never again be free to lay a hand on anyone, with the help of JCW.”

    Event Details:

    Sunday, April 26 at 7:00pm, Ahavat Tzion Hall: 2 Nachal Timna Street, Ramat Bet Shemesh

    Monday, April 27 at 7:00pm, Yeshurn Synagogue, 44 King George Street, Jerusalem

    For more information about Jewish Community Watch, visit http://www.jewishcommunitywatch.org/

    For more information about Magen, visit: http://magenprotects.org/

    I wish sexual abuse wasn’t a reality but it is, and ignoring uncomfortable topics only puts our children at risk.  Please join me in attending one of these events to learn how to protect our most precious gift, our children.

    Avivah

  • Feeling unsettled about moving but it’s short term discomfort

    People have asked how we’re settling in to our new home in Ramat Beit Shemesh, so here’s the update!

    Right now I’m feeling uncomfortable and unsettled.  It’s normal to be uncomfortable and unsettled after you move!  I’m giving myself a year to get acclimated.  Of course it would be wonderful if the kids all had friends and I had friends and I knew where to go for whatever I needed as well as how to get there.  But for now I don’t and it’s okay for it to take time.

    Life is busy and while I appreciate any and all efforts to welcome us, I know that I can’t expect those who are already here to reach out to me.   I need to be proactive and reach out to others.  I was sick for the last couple of weeks and had very, very little energy but now that I’m feeling better I’m thinking about how to best do that.

    Despite the short term discomforts of moving, everyone is happy we moved here!  We love our new apartment, my husband and older boys quickly found a shul that they’re comfortable at, there’s a weekly homeschool meetup  that we’re participating in and I love that it’s so much easier for our older kids to get home to spend Shabbos with us with their travel time being drastically cut down!

    I could go on at length about the challenges of moving and I could also go on at length about the things that I love about being here, but instead I’ll say that while it will take time until I’m fully settled in, I can see that there’s a lot of potential for connection and contribution here.

    Avivah

  • Surgery for Yirmiyahu postponed

    This morning my husband left with Yirmiyahu for the hospital (since I was sick).  He called me after traveling several hours to get there and then waiting at least another two hours, saying that there had been a technical error.

    It seems that Yirmiyahu was scheduled for a different procedure than the surgery he was supposed to have.  After they got the logistic mixup straightened out, the doctors checked out Yirmiyahu to see if they could go ahead with the surgery today.  Yirmiyahu has been congested for the last couple of days, and the anesthesiologist said they won’t perform the surgery today since they’re afraid that he’ll come out of the surgery with a lung infection due to pooling mucous.

    I had scheduled an appointment with his pediatrician the day before we moved, exactly two weeks ago, to get the necessary blood work done and to speak to her about the surgery.  I asked her while she was doing the blood draw if she could tell me anything about what to expect and she said, no, she didn’t know anything.  “But,” she said, you’re good at figuring things out for yourself.”  In disbelief, I told her that I didn’t think this was something I should have to work out for myself.  Wasn’t there anyone who could tell me about the surgery in advance?  “No,” she said, then patted me on the arm and with a smile wished me luck, telling me she had other patients to see.

    When someone from the hospital finally called just before the last day of Pesach and told my husband it was only an overnight hospital stay, I heard about it later in the evening and wondered aloud how that was possible.  It didn’t make sense to me that it was a minor procedure that a very short hospital stay implied.  I kept thinking, this doesn’t make sense.  With no way to reach anyone at the hospital to get my questions answered, I rationalized that perhaps they were going to use newer larascopic surgical techniques that are supposed to cut down the recuperation time.

    So the surgery didn’t take place, and we’re not sorry about that.

    A couple of good things came out of this twelve hour trip that would have otherwise seemed like a huge irritation and waste of time.  Firstly, a surgeon spoke to my husband at length about what to expect from the surgery, drawing diagrams and detailing the entire process.  The surgery is complex and will take several hours; we’ll need to expect at least a week long hospital stay.  It was good to finally get solid facts.

    Secondly, I’m going to get referrals and find the best possible surgeon in the Jerusalem area to perform the surgery.  I’m very unhappy with how badly all of this was handled every step of the way and will not take Yirmiyahu back to that hospital in the north.  This delay gives us a chance to get ourselves organized medically locally and make sure Yirmiyahu will get the care he deserves.

    We’re all so happy to have Yirmiyahu back home – he was only gone for 12 hours and the house didn’t feel the same without him!  I’ll be sure to let you know when the surgery is rescheduled – I assume it will be sometime in the summer.

    Avivah

  • Traveling back north for Yirmiyahu’s surgery

    Pesach was wonderful but I don’t have much time to reflect on it since I’m due in Haifa by 10am Sunday morning!

    Back in January, the surgeon put Yirmiyahu (2.5 yr.) on the priority list for surgery after I told him we planned to move to RBS in the summer.  (The surgery is to correct vesicoureteral reflux of the bladder that has caused kidney swelling and scarring; the doctors were hoping it would improve on it’s own but it’s remained at the level five degree of risk, which is the most severe.)

    Surprisingly, just a month ago I got a notification that Yirmiyahu was scheduled for surgery immediately after Pesach – I didn’t expect something that soon.  At that point I reevaluated if it was a good idea to move before Pesach since this would complicate things for us.  But we decided to go ahead with the move and also go ahead with the surgery as planned rather than have to find a new surgeon in a different part of the country and wait months before it could be rescheduled.  It’s important to have this done and we don’t want to delay.

    We need to be there a day before the surgery is scheduled to take care of the prep; the actual surgery is scheduled for Monday morning.

    Yirmiyahu and I hope to be home in three days.  I won’t have online access until we get back but I thank you in advance for any good wishes and prayers!

    If you would like to say a prayer that the surgery is successful and that Yirmiyahu has an easy and complete healing, I would deeply appreciate it – his name is Yirmiyahu ben Avivah Michaela.

    Avivah