BLESSED
The Benevolent Lebanese Evangelical School for Special Education and Development
Ghabeh Street no. 62, Karm El-Zeitoun, Achrafieh, Beirut - Lebanon
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Newsletter Dated 26 September 2005Dear Christian friends and partners, We came to the end of a wonderful school year, and here we are in preparation of another. Time is always ahead of us. As I was preparing this yearly newsletter, I did not want to bore you with a similar copy of previous newsletters, but the facts and details are still the same. “Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past.” (T. S. Eliot) This is not necessarily bad, but is rather God’s ultimate blessing. We are in God’s good time. Through your kindness, love, prayer and support you continue to put us in the core of God’s grace and in the essence of his love. Through you, our dear partners and friends, and through the dedicated work of our teachers and members of staff, BLESSED continues to be a Christian beacon of God’s transforming Love. I will not apologize for the repetition of the same wonderful news but will rather praise God for his amazing care. I also want to most sincerely thank you for enabling BLESSED to come to you with the same wonderful news, year after year. Although the number of students in the Bartimaeus program (for visually impaired persons) is smaller than that of the St. Luke’s program (for special needs children), the development of both programs is going with a steady pace. We know that the old skills are no more enabling visually impaired students to be self-supporting. We are working hard to come up with new vocations in the Bartimaeus program. We hope to transform the lives of our students through equipping them with new skills that will enable them to earn a living and support themselves when they leave our school. The bakery program was a good success story. Through Leonard Campbell’s hard work and Christian dedication, three students successfully completed the requirements for the certificate of Baking Level 2 last year. Teaching Braille became much more meaningful and interesting to our students through the addition of the Visio Braille System. Miss Therese Khoury and her wonderful team of teachers are continuing their wonderful work with special needs children. St. Luke’s program is so highly appreciated in our community that it is making the months of September and October a very difficult time. We only have one or two vacancies at the end of every year, and some parents cannot understand that we have no places for their children. It is a very sad situation and a very annoying one at times. We need a bigger building in order to be able to accommodate more children. We raised this issue with our society, and LES (Lebanese Evangelical Society) is considering relocating BLESSED to premises that are more spacious. We have two goals for the coming two years. We aim to double the number of children in our St. Luke’s program, and we plan to diversify the Bartimaeus program to make it more appealing to younger visually impaired students. The long-term goal for the Bartimaeus program is to be able to cater to the diversified needs of every age group. We want to care for the young as well as the older ones. With your very kind support, we were able to execute many projects. The extension project was a very important addition to Leonard’s Bakery. We also put up a partition in our huge student lounge in order to have a separate lounge for each program. We replaced the old furniture in both lounges in addition to that of the guest flat. We also bought two extra bunk beds for the boys' bedroom in the St. Luke's boarding department to accommodate new students. We treated the damp problem in the roof of our building. We replaced our very old water tanks. We bought additional gas heaters in order to have one for every bedroom. Funds for all those projects were kindly donated by BibleLands, CMS (Church Mission Society), MECO (Middle East Christian Outreach), Antoin Barakat Foundation, and the Christian Lebanese Canadian Association. With a grant kindly sent by BibleLands we were able to buy the Visio Braille system which was a very important addition to our Bartimaeus program. The most expensive part of the system was the Visio Braille reader and note-taker: the BrailleLite M40. It allows students to read the content of a computer screen on the Visio Braille line. It also allows them to enter text on the computer using the Braille keyboard. It can be detached from the computer and used as a note-taker. The second important part of this new system is the latest version of the screen reader (computer software) Jaws. This version is bilingual. It allows students to work in both languages: English and Arabic. For the first time our students are able to use the computer for Arabic. Another important addition is the Arabic OCR, which is also a first in our school. It simplified the process of preparing Braille material for our students. The system comes on a Pentium IV 2.8 GHz computer with hyper-threading, which is very powerful and is thus able to achieve those daunting tasks. We also bought a highly specialized Arabic embossing software (ProBraille) which enables us to emboss Braille material in Arabic giving us full control over contractions and other aspects of Braille embossing. With a kind donation form "DONOR" we were able to buy a heavy-duty chips fryer (Imperial IFS40 LPG). With funds kindly donated by MECO (Middle East Christian Outreach) and Rev. David and Mrs. Myrtle Campbell (Leonard's parents), we bought a twenty liter mixer that was badly needed in the bakery. With funds kindly sent by BibleLands and Mr. Khalil Younes, we were able to install a water filtration system in our building. It consists of a collection tank, a stainless steel core water pump, and multiple filters on the ground level. Water is pumped from that tank to another on the roof. Safe drinking water reaches all areas of our building in insulated pipes, and is available to our children and students 24 hours a day. Our old bus started giving us trouble last year. It was a serious problem that was beginning to surface. Our school is located in Karm El-Zeitoun in Achrafieh which is a poor area in Beirut and is very congested with traffic. It is literally impossible for parents to drive their children to our school. Unless we provide transport, we would loose many of our children. The new school bus project imposed itself as the first priority. We consulted our partners and suggested accumulating all grants towards this badly needed project. We had already received US$ 2143 from MECO (Middle East Christian Outreach). We also had received word from CMS (Church Mission Society) of a grant of GBP 2000 (US$ 3669). BibleLands had sent us an additional donation of GBP 840 (US$ 1541) which was a nominated gift from Mrs. J Walker, so we had the total of US$ 7353 available. As the cost of the bus was US$ 21861, we were quite far from the needed amount. This was until BibleLands heard of our plight and sent us a grant that enabled us to buy the new bus (Toyota Commuter 2005). With the balance of the BibleLands grant we bought the additional washing machine (General Electric WISR309) that was needed in our laundry room. This wonderful support from our partners is telling the story of our wonderful Christian love. It is truly Christian love in action. Our God is an awesome God. Your amazing support is proclaiming this truth. For that we will ever be grateful to you and your wonderful supporters. We also want to thank Angela Campbell, Leonard's sister who kindly donated talking scales to our bakery; and Mr. Lewis Hilou who kindly donated a Passap knitting machine. Many of our partners and friends visited our school last year. Mrs. Barbara Shaw and Rev. Philip Simpson of CMS (Church Mission Society) visited BLESSED on Friday 17 of September 2004. A MECO (Middle East Christian Outreach) group from Australia visited BLESSED on Monday 18 October 2004. An 18-member MECO group from the United Kingdom visited BLESSED on Tuesday 19 October 2004. The psychologist of the Evangelical School in Ain Zhalta, Andrea Smith, accompanied by her parents, Mr. Peter and Mrs. Anne Smith, visited BLESSED on Wednesday 10 November 2004. A three-member group from the Rotary Foundation comprising of our dear friend Mr. Tony Asfour, accompanied with Dr. Michael Abdallah, and Mr. Rassy visited BLESSED on Friday 26 November 2004. Rev. Collin and Mrs. Anne Chapman visited our school on Friday 26 November 2004. Mr. Roger and Mrs. Jill Pullen who are the educational advisors of LES (Lebanese Evangelical Society) visited BLESSED on Monday 24 January 2005. Mrs. Anne Weymouth, who used to help as a volunteer with the Bartimaeus program a few years ago, visited our school with her two children Matthew and Stephen on Wednesday 2 March 2005. Rev. David Campbell and Mrs. Myrtle Campbell, Leonard's parents together with his sister, Angela, visited BLESSED from March 31 until April 7, 2005. The ecumenical bible-study group that meets at the house of Mrs. Sarkissian, wife of Rev. Sarkissian of the French Protestant Church in Beirut, visited BLESSED on Friday 27 May, 2005. The Exodus Team (from Belfast - Northern Ireland) arrived to BLESSED on Saturday 23 July and stayed until August 2, 2005. They did some paintwork and took part in the summer program for the Bartimaeus students (25 - 29 July). Mr. Khalil Younes, a dear friend and supporter of our school, visited BLESSED on Wednesday 24 August 2005. Our school activities last year were also numerous. The summer program began on Monday 6 September 2004 and continued until Friday September 17. It included for the first time visually impaired students who worked on improving their Braille. The St. Luke’s children had a wonderful time of activities and school trips. Eleven students from our St. Luke's program along with their teacher Mrs. Karyo had a joint trip to the Barook Cedar Reserve with Grade 6 of the Evangelical School in Ain Zhalta on Wednesday 3 November 2004. We had a bakery sale in BESGB (Beirut Evangelical School for Girls and Boys) in Rabieh on Thursday November 4, 2004. BLESSED participated in the Christmas Bazaar which was held in All Saints' Church - Beirut on Saturday 11 December 2004. BLESSED also participated in the LES Christmas Celebration held on Monday 20 December 2004 with a small choir from the Bartimaeus program that sang one of the carols. Mrs. Samira Aranjie accompanied with Grade 11 (Special) of BESGB (Beirut Evangelical School for Girls & Boys - Rabieh) visited BLESSED on Wednesday 22 December 2004. Another group of students from Grades 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, & 12. from LESGB (Lebanon Evangelical School for Girls and Boys - Louweizeh) also visited our school on the same day. We held our Christmas Celebration on Thursday 23 December 2004. The Bartimaeus students had a trip to Byblos on Tuesday 25 January 2005. LES chairman, Rev. Gabi Bahnan, who is the chaplain of the National Evangelical School in Kfarshima visited BLESSED with two of his classes on Tuesday 1 and Wednesday 2 February 2005. Children from the St. Luke's program went on Wednesday 18 May 2005 for a trip to the Bikaa valley. Mrs. Nicola Alexander, principal of the Evangelical School in Ain Zhalta, along with 15 girls and boys (Grade 5) visited BLESSED on Wednesday 8 June 2005. The 1st of July 2005 was the last day of the academic year and our children had a special end of year program. Finally, to thank our teachers and members of staff for their wonderful hard work we had our yearly lunch in B to B restaurant in Kornet Chehwan on Tuesday September 13. 2005. You can read the news of the last academic year in detail on our website at: http://justus.anglican.org/lesblind/News%202004%202005.htm Our student numbers last year were as follows: The Bartimaeus Program for the Visually Impaired: 11 students 10 boarders and 1 day student 6 males and 5 female students Average age: 37 years Youngest: 22 years St. Luke’s Program for Special Needs Children: 35 students 17 boarders and 18 day students 19 boys and 16 girls Average age: 18.5 years Youngest: 9 years We have students from all denominations. We want to thank you again for your kind and generous support. We ask you to continue to pray for us, especially that Lebanon and our region are going through difficult times. We praise God for everything that you enabled us to achieve. We have great hopes and big aspirations for the future. We rejoice for being ourselves blessed through this wonderful ministry. Thank you for giving us this joy, and may God bless you all. Sincerely, George D. Haddad Rev. George D. Haddad Beirut 26 September 2005
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