16 January 2006 Philip Berg, director of the Shevet Achim Jerusalem office, went to his reward early this morning after feeding his children breakfast.

1 November 2005 Delevan from Iraq makes it to Israel. I wrote you on Sept. 22 about Delevan, the 17-year-old Kurdish girl from the north of Iraq who has somehow survived since birth with a congenital heart defect.

17 October 2005 Twelve-year-old Murthadha and his father returned home to Iraq tonight by GMC, following his return from heart surgery in Germany.

4 September 2005 Mercy arrives in Jordan. Another Iraqi child has just arrived in Amman, Jordan en route to heart surgery in the US. This little girl is named Rahma (“mercy”) and she is from Mosul (biblical Ninevah) in the north of Iraq. I’ve just snapped the picture below of her father Taha attempting to let family back home know that they have arrived safely.

24 August 2005 The thoughts of many of us have turned toward Gaza as Jewish settlers have been forcibly removed in the past week. Since my family and I lived for nearly five years with the Arab people of Gaza, directly alongside the Jewish settlements, several have asked me how to understand what they are seeing. “Is this a good thing? What will happen?”

24 June 2005 Do you feel sometimes pressured and discouraged like me? It helps to pause and appreciate the fruit of what God is doing through our shared work together.

10 June 2005 Today was the last possible day for the seven Iraqi children and their families to travel to Israel before our volunteers Dirk and Manuela left for their summer trip home to Germany. And at this hour the children have just arrived in Israel, praise God! Dirk’s report below gives us a picture of the battle that was involved. He called it “A Tough Day.”

31 May 2005 As we stood worshipping at a church in Amman a week and a half ago, I felt a rising conviction: now is the time for the church to move into the Islamic world in a decisive, committed, focused and sacrificial way.

26 May 2005 I praised our staff for doing the equivalent of a year’s work within a few weeks; one replied, not too unkindly, “Next time let’s do a year’s worth of work within a year.”

20 May 2005 We’ve just finished screening 25 Iraqi children in Jordan. Every single one we invited showed up, even though it meant a risk-filled and difficult journey.

18 March 2005 Now there is a homograft of a young Israeli girl in the heart of this Iraqi young man. The surgeons think that it will last for many years, hopefully all of his life.

11 March 2005 It is Friday evening in Jerusalem and Shabbat is settling in. This Shabbat we are privileged to have four Iraqis staying in our home here on Prophets Street. Our guests from Iraq include Majed who has been released from the hospital after successful heart surgery along with his father.

24 January 2005 Two weeks ago I wrote you that Majid, the Kurdish Iraqi young man with a long-neglected congenital heart defect, had finally made it the hospital in Israel. Philip, Steve and I visited him there a week ago to pray with him on the eve of his surgery.

7 January 2005 Twenty-seven year-old Majid from Iraq made it to the hospital in Tel Aviv, Israel about 1 AM Friday. Yesterday morning Majid's father (Rauf) spent five hours with the Jordanian secret police and then Majid, Rauf and Amy made the arduous journey from Amman across the Israeli border to the Tel Aviv hospital, a journey that proved to be 10 hours long.

6 January 2005 After dinner I sat with him and his dad for a while and they told me about their life in Kirkuk and their hopes and fears. "What kind of Islam is this?!" the father said, referring to the 4 hours wait at the border in the cold and rain. Since then Majid has been cold frequently, suddenly he begins to shake and continues to do so even though wrapped in a heap of blankets with his father rubbing his shoulders and body.

8 December 2004 When I last wrote you, little Kawther from Iraq had just had her heart surgery in Israel. She has since recovered perfectly and is now safely back home in Iraq with her family. Such a contrast to how she first arrived.

14 October 2004 Our volunteers Dirk and Amy in Amman, Jordan sent for Kawther last week after scheduling her surgery and arranging for her visa to Israel. When Kawther arrived over the weekend, they found: She is very small and frail—not even able to stand up and often in the fetal position.

25 August 2004 Abdul Jabbar’s heart operation is over and described as a perfect surgery and a complete success, thank God. Today (Wednesday) a press conference will be held in Tampa to introduce him to the world.

23 August 2004 On the first of June we received an e-mail from Col. Russell Zelman, a US army surgeon in Iraq. He told us that an infantry patrol had discovered an eight-year-old Iraqi boy who needed heart surgery:

10 July 2004 Meanwhile two more Iraqi children, Ali and Baraa, came to the US with their mothers in June and have both had successful donated surgeries. They are staying with believers in Peoria, Illinois, and New York, and are due to return to Iraq in two more weeks. We have a growing team of Christian volunteers in Amman, Jordan who are helping the Iraqi children en route with lodging, visas, and travel arrangements, so the families are being cared for in Jesus’ name from the time they leave their homes in Iraq until their return.

15 May 2004 But Janan’s medical exams were in fact encouraging. She is very weak and blue, and doctors judge that her long-neglected condition would likely take her life within the next year if untreated; but with surgery they believe her life can be saved and in fact dramatically changed. They’ve spoken with her of the hope that she can marry and have children, something Janan (who has practically never been outside of her home) could scarcely have dreamed of.

22 April 2004 Three children were invited this morning from the Gaza Strip into Israel for heart treatment. I escorted them and it was an eye-opening experience. Shortly after arriving at the Erez crossing at 7:15 am, homemade rockets were fired from nearby orange groves toward Israeli targets.

12 April 2004 In the pre-dawn hours of Easter Sunday I paced back and forth along the roadway in Amman, Jordan, near the GMC Suburbans which carry passengers into Iraq. Their drivers, normally desperate for business, had drawn back when asked if they could take me, an American citizen, into Iraq on this day. “Turn around,” one said. Finally another offered that he could take me as far as the outskirts of Fallujah, at double the normal price.

17 March 2004 Brian, Erich, and I are just back from a trip into Iraq which was blessed in many regards. Firstly I am thankful that the three of us are able to return to our families. Drivers on the Amman-Baghdad route fly along at 100 mph, and on the trip out our driver missed a curve at 3:30 a.m. and we went off the road, spinning around...

29 January 2004 It is quite humbling to see how the Lord can use you when you go on a journey in the name of Jesus. I don't speak Arabic so I was traveling with Jonathan to observe and to learn how things are done in Iraq. Our first night in the home of baby Bayan's parents will long be remembered.

15 January 2004 This was no ordinary hospital run, since not only was it my first trip, but it also moved me regarding the work that goes on, helping to restore the hearts of the children of this land. “Sometimes it feels like you’re only a taxi driver,” said Elia, “but then you realize you helped save a child’s life.” Logistics can save the day and life of a child.

5 January 2004 On the evening that Bayan's parents returned to their home in Iraq, I spoke with the father by telephone. His first words were "When are you coming?"

18 December 2003 Bayan's parents have arrived safely back in their village in the north of Iraq, with Bayan's body. I've just gotten off the phone with the nurse who is traveling with them. She said, "You wouldn't believe what ambassadors they are for Israel.

17 December 2003 Bayan's heart went into arrest during the night. She was resuscitated but deteriorated throughout the night and died at 6:40 this morning. The doctors in Israel who fought for her life the past three weeks have met with the parents and are deeply grieved.

15 December 2003 Baby Bayan had a "major accident" this morning while being suctioned, with a hard time oxygenating and her blood pressure dropping. But now (Monday evening in Israel) ICU director Dr. Sion Houri says she "is behaving in a decent way."

13 December 2003 Dr. Sion Houri, head of the ICU in Israel which is giving round-the-clock care to the Iraqi baby Bayan after her heart surgery, reports that over the last 24 hours she is "a touch more stable, but still very fragile."

27 November 2003 Bayan spent more than 21 hours on the operating table before she was stable enough to move this morning to the pediatric ICU. I stopped in several times throughout the night and found the team of doctors full of energy and focus and doing every thing they could to save her. I could only say to myself that they are heros.

25 November 2003 God continues to unfold an amazing story in the life of baby Bayan from Iraq. This morning the deputy chief of mission at the Israeli embassy in Amman, Jordan, called us in and personally wrote out by hand visas for Bayan and her mother and father to enter Israel for her emergency heart surgery. He spoke very warmly of his wishes for better relations with the Arab world and sent Bayan off with his blessing.

22 November 2003 Wednesday a team of us were in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk to meet American army cardiologist John Scott, who has been screening children in the region with heart defects. A two-day-old baby girl named Bayan was brought into the clinic while we there.

12 October 2003 Each time we have tested the waters in Iraq we have found God's grace. This time the hospital there gave us use of a conference room and access to their files. At night I would call the families of children who need surgery and ask them to come meet with us. It's a very strange thing in Iraq for an American to call up at 11:00 at night and ask you to come see him the next day.

30 September 2003 I'm writing from an airplane over the Atlantic, heading back to the Middle East. Since I last wrote you, we've received invitations for ten Iraqi children to come out for donated heart surgeries in the US, Belgium, Germany, and India.

9 September 2003 I am in Baghdad escorting pediatrician Lee Huhn and pediatric nurse Angela Rickards, who will be staying here through September to prepare children to travel abroad for heart surgeries.

8 August 2003 My heart is burdened by what I saw during my visit to Baghdad. My daughter Renanah and I went to the Ibn Al Nafis Hospital, one of only two heart centers serving the 25 million people of Iraq. All surgeries there have ground to a halt due to a lack of supplies, including such basic necessities as oxygen. The doctors received us openly, but also expressed some skepticism. Many groups had come to visit, they said, but never returned with any help.

24 June 2003 Is this the time as well to reach out in Jesus' name to the long-suffering people of Iraq? This would take the work of Shevet Achim to a whole new level. I believe that the doctors and people of Israel, who long for better relations with their neighbors, would be enthusiastic partners.

15 May 2003 My family and I are in beautiful Colorado, having some family time and helping get another daughter ready for college in the fall. Several weeks ago I cracked a rib while wrestling with my three boys, bringing my regular jogging to a halt. Just this last week I've gingerly been breaking myself back in. Tonight I tried to add another mile to get back to my usual run of four miles.

30 April 2003 Yesterday the Shevet Achim volunteers brought four babies from Gaza to Israel for evaluation of their heart problems. The doctors at the Wolfson Medical Center, temporarily understaffed and overbooked, didn't want to take on any new surgical cases. But after seeing these little ones...

8 April 2003 As events accelerate in the Middle East, so do our opportunities to act in Jesus' name. So far this year we're sending one Arab child each week to Israel for lifesaving heart surgery.

7 March 2003 We have just finished production of an 11-minute video about the role that Christians are playing in bringing together Israeli doctors and Arab children in need of lifesaving heart surgeries.

20 February 2003 From the funds given for baby Mohammed's heart surgery, we were able to help sponsor another emergency newborn case from Gaza. Baby Karam had his heart surgery in Israel this week...

13 February 2003 On the heels of the news that baby Mohammed had died in the hospital in Israel, we learned that newborn Juma also succumbed to the metabolic disease which had claimed three of his previous siblings. Yesterday Phil, Elia, and I went to visit the families in the Gaza Strip.

6 February 2003 Less than an hour ago little Mohammed died in the hospital in Israel.

1 February 2003 I told Dr. Gilad that the kidneys were the area that we together had been focusing our prayer on. "Let them focus on all the body," he said. "The chances are very grim."

26 January 2003 Over the weekend Mohammed's kidneys have come back to life. Friday he produced 1-2 ccs of urine, more on Saturday, and today he's up to 1cc per kg per hour, "a decent amount" according to Dr. Khoury.

24 January 2003 Little Mohammed from Gaza, now 15 days old, is getting stronger in the ICU in Israel. He's taking less medication and his blood pressure is better, but after five days on dialysis he's still not urinating. We continue to pray for the restoration of life and function to his kidneys.

22 January 2003 An update to help guide our prayer for newborn Mohammed from the Gaza Strip:

21 January 2003 When Mohammed arrived in Israel Sunday his kidneys and liver were no longer functioning. Moments ago Dr. Tsion Khoury from the pediatric ICU called and said, "Mohammed is going to die on us. Why wasn't he given prostaglandin in Gaza?" This medicine would have kept open a ductus which was supplying critical oxygen to his organs. Twice I passed on word to the hospital in Gaza that prostaglandin was needed while Mohammed awaited transfer, but there they felt it was unnecessary. In hindsight I should have insisted.

19 January 2003 Baby Mohammed turns ten days old this morning. He became blue and gasping after his birth, and Dr. Bashir Afana in the Khan Yunis hospital was just able to diagnose his heart defect in time and stabilize him through medication.

19 December 2002 Phil and I were both stunned as we stood at the foot of the bed of an infant recovering from heart surgery, and Eli folded his arms and said "I hope we will survive." The doctors themselves run a non-profit group to raise funds to help subsidize the surgeries, and Eli told us that since the September 2001 terror attacks giving has fallen way off. They no longer have the backing they need to continue reaching out to Israel's neighbors.

17 November 2002 Khalil has a large hole between the ventricles of his heart, which has kept him from growing normally. His legs look like toothpicks sticking out from under his clothing. With open-heart surgery Khalil can be fully healed and lead a normal life;

18 October 2002 I didn't know what to think or feel when I read that six or eight residents of our former hometown of Rafah were killed yesterday by IDF tank fire. It's difficult sometimes to know what to believe. Were those killed non-combatants? Was the tank fire an appropriate response to gunmen who chose to fire from within populated areas?

14 September 2002 Walking through the doors of the hospital it does not take long for one to sense that politics is truly left outside. Having lived in Israel for a few decades this is an immensely satisfying experience. I had heard about it and now I saw it with my own eyes. A Palestinian mother standing by the bed of her 2 week old daughter and immediately next to her an Israeli mother attending to her 5 month old son. Light years apart ideologically but brought together by the love for their critically ill child.

22 August 2002 Philip and Martha Berg, and their three small sons Adam, Asher, and Nathaniel, have safely reached Jerusalem to take up work in our office on Prophets Street. They'll help keep the door open to Israeli hospitals for children from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

31 July 2002 Rowa is the first child that we've been able to refer directly from Jordan. While excellent medical care is also available there, many families are unable to meet the costs.

11 July 2002 Rowa was hospitalized three days after birth, blue and gasping. Doctors found on echocardiogram a severe coarctation (narrowing) of her aorta.

16 June 2002 When I returned to Israel last week following a speaking tour in the U.S., I was not allowed to re-enter the country.

19 May 2002 Some have written to ask us what's happening here. The good news is that in the midst of conflict our opportunities to love our neighbors are only expanded.

23 February 2002 Nada's mother had lost two other newborns in the first week of life to an undiagnosed metabolic disease, likely caused by the close relation of the parents. Baby Nada herself arrived in Jerusalem lethargic and unresponsive, with an ammonia level in her blood four times the normal.

23 December 2001 We're also thankful as the year ends to see that some 40 Palestinian children have come to Israel this year for heart surgeries.

22 November 2001 This morning I visited little Khaled in the ICU following his eight-hour heart surgery last night.

20 November 2001 Please would you pray with us tonight for a newborn Palestinian baby boy named Khaled from the Gaza Strip.

12 September 2001 The first phone call came shortly after the World Trade Center towers collapsed. It was Abu Jihad, who in the past had been involved in a terrorist group and spent time in Israeli prisons, and who became a close and sensitive friend during our years in Gaza. Speaking in Hebrew, he shared his shock and sadness at what he was seeing on television.

7 September 2001 The photo below shows eight mothers from the Gaza Strip gathered today in an Israeli hospital for lifesavingheart surgeries for their little ones.

31 August 2001 Two weeks ago, another little Arab girl named Riman ("two gazelles") was rushed from the same hospital to Israel. She was born with a heart defect, and the only hope to save her life was for Arabs and Jews to come together.

21 August 2001 Our greatest partner in Israel for performing open-heart surgery on Palestinian children has been Dr. Ami Cohen, a US Army surgeon who immigrated to Israel in 1992. It was a shock to hear on Friday that Dr. Cohen died suddenly of apparent altitude sickness, at the age of 47, while climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa with his daughter.

15 August 2001 Yesterday a reporter working for both the Jerusalem Post and the BBC World Service Radio religion program asked to come with us into Gaza to meet some of the little ones who are being rescued. While on the road together we received an urgent phone call: a two-month-old girl in the Khan Yunis hospital had just been diagnosed with a heart defect that could take her life at any moment.

7 August 2001 Hala was born with multiple holes in the wall between the ventricles of her heart, and as a consequence still weighs only 10 pounds.

23 July 2001 The long struggle for Hussein's life ended last night at 7:15 Israel time, when he died at the age of three months. Doctors and nurses in the pediatric ICU in Haifa had worked for 38 days in the effort to pull him back from death.

20 July 2001 Little Hussein from Gaza is still clinging to life in the pediatric ICU of the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa.

17 July 2001 Hussein's father, the Palestinian Authority policeman who waited years for this firstborn son, has just called. He's worried about his wife, who is in the hospital with Hussein, and has asked us to help shield her from the news if Hussein should die.

11 July 2001 To my surprise Ahmed's father began weeping as we spoke on the phone yesterday before his son's surgery, just as Hussein's father did a month ago. This is uncommon in Gaza, a sign that the fathers' hearts are deeply touched at this most sensitive point: the life of their only son.

14 June 2001 I called the father back and told him that doctors in Haifa wanted to help save his baby. "That's where I was in prison," he said. Tomorrow morning the baby will be on his way there, as old adversaries unite in the effort to save a precious life.

18 May 2001 Mohammed was thought to be healthy until he suddenly collapsed while playing sports several weeks ago. He went into a deep coma and his aorta was found to be severely restricted.

11 May 2001 Samer's recovery from surgery was slow and difficult, and she remained on mechanical ventilation for two weeks in the pediatric ICU. She was hookedup to a frightening array of tubes and monitors, which kept her mother from holding her.

15 December 2000 Tears came to my eyes yesterday as we brought back another little one, one-year-old Ahmed, who was rescued right at the point of death by heart surgery in Israel. I stood in the doorway as the Israeli soldiers at the checkpoint processed his mother's papers, huge M-16 rifles slung over their soldiers. And little Ahmed was just beaming, full of joy, calling out and waving to the soldiers!

8 October 2000 Even on this most difficult day, two little girls and their mothers made it across the border from Gaza this morning to find lifesaving heart surgery in Israel: one-year-old Ahlam and three-year-old Riham.

5 October 2000 Television viewers across the globe have become familiar this week with the Netzarim junction, where a 12-year-old boy was caught in crossfire and died in his father's arms, and helicopters have launched rockets at gunmen in an apartment building.

15 September 2000 During the difficult operation oxygen was cut off to her brain and she now appears to be brain dead. "In the US we would have already disconnected her from life support," a doctor told me this morning.

8 September 2000 A week ago a baby girl named Reem was born to a poor family living in a remote section of the Gaza Strip. She was cyanotic, and tests showed that the oxygen saturation in her blood was 25% (compared to the normal of 90%+).

1 September 2000 My family and I have returned to the Gaza Strip following a month in the U.K. and U.S. We found two precious little ones, Arsula and Oday, clinging to life in the neonatal ICU in Gaza, born the same week that we were being blessed and refreshed at a camp high in the Rocky Mountains.

18 June 2000 Three months ago I wrote you about a late-night visit to a baby boy born in Gaza with transposed great arteries of the heart, blue and struggling to breathe on 100% oxygen in an incubator, so newborn that he was not yet named.

18 May 2000 This Shabbat a young Arabic couple came to visit us in our home in Rafah, in the Gaza Strip. Bundled in the mother's arms was their first tiny baby, a girl named Iman ("Faith," which we had given as the middle name of OUR first baby girl 17 years ago). They had just returned from the Wolfson Medical Center in Israel, where Iman underwent heart surgery.

6 March 2000 I'm just back from a late-night trip to the Gaza hospital to see a baby boy born today--so new that he hadn't yet been named. The child came out blue and remained blue, and his family was stunned and frightened to learn from an urgent echocardiogram that the great arteries leading from his heart are switched. He's now in an incubator with his eyes screwed shut, breathing 100 percent oxygen.

18 January 2000 Funds have come in to cover all our commitments for the rescue of Gaza children in 1999. We are humbled and grateful and amazed by God's goodness.

23 December 1999 Now looking through our list for 1999, I find that 51 children have undergone major heart treatment this year, and there is every reason to believe that the 52nd will undergo surgery this coming week.

10 December 1999 He wanted to tell us about a six-year-old girl named Rahma ("Mercy"). "She's one of those children who stay in your mind," he said. "She's always smiling, and comes up to me every time she's in the ward."