Tuesday was Valentines Day, which SACH marked with their Give Your Heart Out Campaign – a campaign to raise $80,000 and provide life-changing heart surgery to eight children from around the world. A number of Valentines Day events were held, which, combined with the fundraising efforts of SACH supporters worldwide, has seen the campaign reach approximately $30,000 – so a great effort! The children at the house also got into the Valentines Day spirit, by creating red hearts which were then used to decorate the venue for SACH’s official Valentines Day party on Tuesday night.

In other big news, we are finally moving!! This Sunday (hopefully!), we are moving to the new house in Holon, which is very exciting for everyone! The current SACH house is barely recognisable, with everything already over at the new house for the arrival of the children next week. The house in Holon has been purpose-built for Save A Child’s Heart, and has the capacity to hold double the amount of children that the current house does – so expect SACH to just get busier and busier!

The rain this week has meant lots of time spent indoors, watching movies, dancing to music, and playing games. On Friday, the children went to the American school, which were hosting a 48-hour hockey tournament in their honour. On Sunday, we all went to the hospital, where a youth peace choir performed for all the children. All of the children had a wonderful time, singing, dancing, and making music with different instruments. The show was extra special for the Palestinian children and their mothers, and the Angolan children and their mothers, who recognised many of the songs, and were able to sing along. We have also had visits from a German/American group, and a Birthright group, and will no doubt be having many more visitors during the week!

Hopefully by the time the next blog comes out we will be in the new house in Holon, complete with a new group of children to write about! Until then, lots of hugs and kisses from the Save A Child’s Heart house!

Jade Lewin

(full time volunteer- Australia).

We did many exciting projects this past week. We colored a lot, and made fun masks. We also had a few dance parties, where we got to see Stephano (4, Tanzania) break out his awesome dance moves. We had a nail polish party, too, so now everyone has pretty pink nails (including Stephano…..) Everyone is looking forward to moving into the new house in Holon soon. Looking forward to another exciting week!

We have had a few groups come to visit this house this week, and have had many volunteers come to spend time with the children and their moms. We’ve also done many exciting art projects! We made stick figures out of colorful shapes and wooden sticks, drew many beautiful pictures, and made big wall flowers to decorate the house. The older kids also designed snowflakes that we have hung on the wall (see the pictures!)

The children are also learning many new things while being in the house! Milembe (1.5, Tanzania) is learning how to wave and say hello and goodbye, Obama (3, Angola) gives big hugs and laughs when people tickle him, and Gavriel (8, Romania) is becoming an expert at putting together puzzles and taking pictures. Many of the pictures that you see are taken by him!

The new SACH house is Holon is almost ready to move into! We have started to bring various things into the new building, and are hoping to transition over there in the next few weeks. It is looking beautiful!

That is a quick update of the what’s been going on at SACH over the past week. Looking forward for exciting ones to come! Have a nice weekend!

My name is Maxwell Henry Rudolph, but I prefer Max. Currently I have been volunteering 3 days a week for just over the past 2 months at Save A Childs Heart. Along with my friend Lisa Wilcox.

To describe my experience in one word would be folly. Just from being a volunteer at this organization I learned so much. For those of you who do not know Save a Childs Heart, in short, is an organization that takes kids with heart conditions from all over the world (particularly poorer countries) and provides free surgery.  The kids come from Moldova, Tanzania, Uganda, Haiti and Angola, just to name a few. The list is expansive.  Age varies.

At the house where they all stay, my objective is just to play with them. And this at first was quite harder than it seemed. At any time in the house there are at minimum 3 different languages, Portuguese, Hebrew, English and Swahili, again just to name a few. Communication at first was hard, but Lisa and I found ways. From soccer to music to drawings to puzzle’s, progress was slowly made in the first few weeks, but now I can say we are quite proficient.

The kids themselves do not stay at the house for long, because they do need to go back home to continue education. So with the new batch of kids that just arrived Lisa and I are very ready. Save a Childs Heart is an amazing organization that I am so happy to be apart of. And though my stint here will be done in the coming weeks, because I’m currently on a gap-year program.  I know I will keep in touch with all the staff, the kids, and anyone surrounding the organization.

Four weeks after graduating from the University of Southern California, I was on an El Al flight to Tel Aviv, unaware of the impact the next five months would have on my life. While living in the heart of Tel Aviv as a participant in Masa Israel’s Oranim Tel Aviv Internship Experience, I spent my days volunteering with the Israeli charitable organization Save A Child’s Heart (SACH). SACH brings children, at no cost to the children’s family, from developing countries to Israel for life-saving heart surgery. Once they are brought to Israel—sometimes with a relative, other times alone—they live in the SACH house before and after surgery. This house is no ordinary house. It is filled with children and relatives of diverse cultures who speak various languages. During my first visit to the house, I watched as women who spoke all different languages stood side by side, cooking their children’s favorite meals. For the children, language was not a barrier. A little boy from Angola, who spoke Portuguese, played the board game ‘concentration’ with a boy his own age from Kenya, who spoke English. They talked to each other in their native tongue, without concern for the fact that the other one did not understand him.

In addition to helping out at the SACH house, I also visited Wolfson Medical Center to entertain the children who were both preparing for surgery and recovering. At the Wolfson Medical Center, doctors volunteer their time to save children who would not have a chance at living a full life without their help. But even more amazing is the fact that 49% of the children come from the West Bank and Gaza, Jordan and Iraq.

My life changed the day I met 11-year-old Ian and 8-month-old Brian, both from Kenya. Ian’s mother was pregnant and unable to travel so his Aunt Rose accompanied him to Israel. From the moment I entered this house, Ian and I instantly connected. We both missed our families and began sharing stories of our homes. In the weeks leading up to his surgery, Ian and I played games, ran around the playground and colored. He even taught me how to whistle. I spent days in the waiting room as he had two surgeries to correct his heart defect. I walked the colorful hallways of the hospital with him as he gained his strength back. And I was with him when he was given the news that he was healthy and strong enough to return home to Kenya. But I dreaded the day we would have to say goodbye. What do you say to someone who has come to mean so much to you, and who you may never see again? As my final visit came to an end, just days before his departure, I told him to take care of himself and that I was going to miss him. We hugged and I walked away, tears streaming down my face.

Another adorable little boy I got to know was Brian. Full of life, he was always smiling and laughing. I quickly became close with Brian’s mother, Meredith, who like me, was 22 years old. Meredith is a courageous woman who felt guilty that her son was born with a heart deformity. I spent 8 hours with her in the hospital the day of Brian’s surgery. We paced the waiting room, took short naps on each other’s shoulders and prayed for the best. We talked about the wonderful things that Brian would be able to do as a healthy little boy. Minutes after the surgery, we held each other as we visited Brian in the neonatal ICU. Practically speechless, Meredith thanked me the only way she could—by telling me that she would have spent the day crying in the shower had I not been there.

Over the next weeks, I was with Brian and Meredith through the ups and the downs as Brian’s body adjusted to the improvement. Meredith showed me an inner strength that I have never seen before. It was an unlikely friendship that taught me that one can get through any obstacle as long as there is someone by your side. To this day, Meredith and I still correspond by email.

Even though two years have passed since my time at Save A Child’s Heart, there is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about Ian, Brian and Meredith. I imagine how much they have grown and matured. I wonder what their futures hold; maybe one day they will become doctors who save the lives of others.

I am currently in my second year of rabbinical school at The Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles. The lessons I learned at the SACH house and my experiences in Tel Aviv prior to rabbinical school will undoubtedly have a positive impact on my rabbinate and the way in which I interact with others. My time at SACH taught me the power of one person—I have the ability to change the lives of others, just as my life has been changed by my interaction with these incredible children.

When I first walked into the SACH house, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. After my first visit, I realized that the SACH house was exactly where I was supposed to be. I went to Save A Child’s Heart with the intention of having an impact on others and in the end they impacted me.

November 16, 2011

I had sent out emails for the bowling tournament asking for support so I could participate with less thought put towards where the money was actually going. After having visited the house and interacted with the children, I take all the more pride in my efforts to raise money for this tremendous cause.

Life is of pinnacle importance in Judaism and when you can contribute to saving a life, it changes your own. My life began to change at the SACH house while attempting to entertain a group of young children suffering from a multitude of heart conditions. Their own knowledge of their situation was limited but their outlook on life was tremendous. This is an experience I will have with me to look back on as one of the defining moments of my Israel experience.

Breaking down cultural, linguistic and political barriers in the name of survival is just another part of my Jewish responsibility, which SACH helped me recognize. I cannot wait to visit again and strengthen the relationships I have made and see all of these children leave the hospital with a healthy and bright future ahead.

Jon Schwartz, Part Time volunteer from Canada.

While Rachel and I haven’t had our hands full with many kids, we have spent a significant amount of time with the pre-operative Hayat (pictures below). Hayat is a remarkable child of 8-months from Ethiopia. She has an unmistakable smile and is known to burst into dance when her favorite songs–Justin Bieber and Shakira’s Waka Waka–come on. This happiness and energy come seemingly unfettered by her pre-op status. We can’t imagine what she’ll be like after her operation!

We decided to take Ganat (Hayat’s mom), Hayat, and Kadijah (the House nurse) to the beach a few days ago. Hayat and Ganat had the best time by the water looking at the setting Tel Aviv sun. Ethiopia is landlocked, so both Hayat and Ganat had never seen a beach before, and Hayat loved splashing around in the Mediterranean Sea.

One of the most amazing things to discover has been how surprisingly easy it is to communicate with Hayat and Ganat despite their unfamiliarity with English and ours with Amharic. By far, the most useful Amharic word we encountered was “coo-la-la”, which means “nap”. This comes as no surprise because Hayat expends so much energy smiling, laughing, and playing that she frequently needs a coo-la-la.

I’ve witnessed the departure of two families from the House: Kevin’s family and Adrienne’s family. Both kids left the Home with successful operations and are now back in their home countries. We wish them the best as they continue to recover!

The House is also gearing up for its grand move to a new property in Holon, one that can comfortably house the children and their guardians and has central air-conditioning. We expect to occupy the new house sometime in September, and we’ll be sure to post pictures!

It has been an honor to volunteer in the SACH Children’s Home. SACH does amazing work–unlike any organization I’ve encountered–and I can’t wait to return for a visit and volunteer again.

B’Shalom,

Elliot Stein (full-time volunteer from the USA)

At the house, though, there is still a lot of action. Groups are coming to visit quite often to learn about SACH and the things that we do in Israel and abroad. When groups come to visit, Devorah (SACH’s Young Leadership Director) talks to them about all of SACH’s accomplishments and current projects, as well as ways in which students and young professionals can get involved with SACH back at home. The visitors love meeting the kids and making projects for the children who are at the hospital.

Because of the medical mission leaving to Tanzania this week, there are fewer kids than usual living in the house and many are going home this week. Tiberiu from Romania who is recovering from his procedure and has already begun dancing and jumping around. Evandro who is looking forward to going back home to Angola to complete his recovery with his family. Evandro has made lots of paper airplanes and drawings, and says that when he grows up he wants to be a doctor like the doctors who helped him. Hayat from Ethiopia and Kevin from Indonesia are enjoying crawling around and chasing each other with trucks and other toys.

Many of the Palestinian children in the hospital are also in the recovery stage, as we wind down for the summer and get ready for the next round of children who are coming towards the end of August.

Rachel Grosser