Saint-george-taybeh]

Dear Friends of St. George Taybeh,

Greetings from the Holy Land!

Just a little note to wish you a blessed and wonderful day and also to tell you, today, I had the great honor and pleasure to be at the 103rd Graduation of the Friends School in Ramallah where the Friends Girls School and the Friends Boys School were founded by the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) over a hundred years ago and still continue to strive as leading schools for excellence in education.

Rev. Dr. Naim Ateek, the founder and director of Sabeel, the ecumenical grassroots liberation theological institute in Jerusalem was the guest speaker for the graduating class of ninety-two students. All three of my children attended the Friends Schools but today I saw my nephew, Canaan Nadim Khoury, receive his high school diploma and will be part of the Harvard University class of 2013. We suffer to make it from the village to the city to attend school because of the illegal settlements all around us but today was truly a rewarding day. In spite of the insanity of the brutal occupation to have military checkpoints within Palestinian occupied areas, we are still trying to be normal people.

In Christ, maria