Photo courtesy of Ben:

Upon visiting Ibrahim at Hadassah Hospital today, I discovered that Dr.Julius will allow Ibrahim to spend the weekend in our house.

He and his mother will stay with us until Ibrahim’s surgery slated for Tuesday at the hospital, the day after Yom Kippur. So, anytime after Yom Kippur is officially over even as soon as 8:30 pm Monday night, we can show up on the fourth floor of the Children’s Ward, for the doctors to begin the preparations for the operation.

Until Monday night then, Ibrahim has a few hours to be released from hospital and breathe the fresh air. His antibiotics have stopped and now he just waits and relaxes a bit.  We will collect him and his mother from Hadassah and bring them by Shevet van to our community home today.

I visited Ibrahim at Hadassah Hospital today at around noontime. He said he’s feeling better and that the antibiotics will continue until Yom Kippur.

After that, sometime next week, there will be an operation for his heart, that, according to Dr. Julius, via Dr. Ahmad. Ibrahim is being asked to remain in his room and not to walk around among the other patients, being treated somewhat with isolation due to bacterial infection.

Ibrahim is spending a week at Hadassah Hospital taking two forms of antibiotics.

According to Dr. Julius, on the coming Sunday, Ibrahim will have a heart surgery. All form of infection, especially of the heart, must be gone by then. Your prayers for this young man are appreciated.

Ibrahim is being kept at Hadassah Hospital in an isolation room due to a bacterial infection that he has, due to the worry that it might get very bad in the future if it’s not under control while he is here in Jerusalem.

The doctor wants to keep him overnight, one more day for observation. Thanks for praying.

I had opportunity to return to Hadassah Hospital today to see how Ibrahim was doing.

He was taken to the Children’s Department at 1:00 this morning where he remains under observation. They won’t begin the antibiotics until they have seen some blood test results.

Coworker Max and I collected Ibrahim and his mother at Erez Border Crossing with Gaza and returned them to Hadassah Hospital for Ibrahim’s follow-up echo today.

Although his last surgery was not long ago, the doctor decided upon seeing the results of today’s echo, that Ibrahim will need yet another. However, it would be dangerous for him to have another surgery so soon after the last, and so he’ll have to wait a while. The doctor said to have him return one month from now for his next echo, at which point he will decide about a potential surgery date.

We returned Ibrahim back to the border crossing at the end of the day.

Coworker Michiel drove the Shevet van to Gaza’s Erez Border Crossing with Israel.  Here he collected Ibrahim and his mother. Ibrahim had a scheduled Echocardiogram at Hadassah Hospital this afternoon.

The echo would be used to check up on how Ibrahim’s heart is doing after the surgery he had some weeks ago at Hadassah. It was amazing to see him, because there was a big difference in his appearance and it filled me with joy. He looked healthy and in a good spirit, and he smiled towards me. I got the impression that the echo took longer than usual, and sure enough there was a reason for it. There turned out to be a small leak in his heart, and the doctor made clear with his statement, “We can’t leave it like this. I will talk to the surgeon who made the operation.”

Ibrahim was devastated, and I totally understand him. I was told to make a new appointment in two weeks for another checkup, and from there, they will decide when the new operation will take place. “But us soon as possible,” was his final words. We had bought a football in leather as an encouragement for all the hardship he has gone through, but little did we know that it would serve the cause after receiving todays bad news, but that was exactly what happened. It even put a smile on his face, and it was a joy to see that.

Please pray for Ibrahim that he will find peace in the waiting, and peace in what lays before him. Cover all the family in your prayers, but also the medical staff. It’s good that the doctor made a long check up, to not miss anything.

Once again I stand in awe with a grateful and humble heart before our God. Seven (7!) days ago our young Ibrahim from Gaza had his open-heart surgery in Hadassah Hospital, and his mother who has already lost a child with a similar problem as his, was very worried and so was Ibrahim. All his face bore witness of it.

But yesterday afternoon, he was discharged from the hospital, and early this morning ready to go back home to Gaza and his family. Let us stand together with the family in their gratitude, and please continue to keep Ibrahim covered in your prayers and blessings. All the glory to our marvellous God. He has truly turned worries into joy.

We went to see Ibrahim at Hadassah Hospital today. He’s been in isolation due to a bacteria, but was not so today. In fact, doctors said he was already qualifying for discharge. First they wanted to prepare a CT scan though.

I went to the hospital to collect Ibrahim and his mother and coworker Berith prepared a room for them in our house. So we’re happy to have them back with us again so soon. We promised Ibrahim a new football after his surgery. He’s looking forward to playing ball in Gaza again very soon. God help him achieve this goal.

We thank you for your prayers.

When we came to the PICU in Hadassah Hospital today, to my surprise and joy, Ibrahim was served breakfast and he ate and drank with the apatite of the teenager he is. The smiling doctor made me even more filled with joy by telling us that Ibrahim is doing good and that he is leaving the PICU today, moving up to the fourth floor for further treatment. All the glory to God! Please continue to cover this young man with your prayers and blessings. He is longing to play football again, and we have promised to buy one when he comes back to us in the Shevet community in Jerusalem.

Yesterday our young teenager Ibrahim had his heart surgery, and it was expected to be done in about 3-4 hours, but it went far past that time. His mother got more and more anxious during the hours to come, and after about eight hours we got the news that the surgery was over.

It turned out to be a big surgery, and Ibrahim bled a lot and blood transfusions were needed as a result. Thank God, the doctors managed to stabilize him, and today I was told that while he’s still bleeding a little bit it’s under control.

Ibrahim is now sitting up and breathing on his own, and it was amazing to get eye contact and see him responding with a weak smile and a thumbs-up when I did the same. Praise God for Ibrahim, and for the continuing good healing that we all hope for.

13-year old Ibrahim from Gaza is going in for his heart surgery this afternoon, so please pray for a good result and that the doctors hands are led from above so they don’t miss anything. Thank You God for Your mercy and blessings upon him.

Our 13-year young man Ibrahim from Gaza is patiently waiting in Hadassah Hospital for his CT scan to take place. He will be hospitalized today, and will hopefully have his heart surgery tomorrow which Ibrahim is a bit nervous about.  When coworker Kayla and I were with him, he cried because medical staff couldn’t find a vein to prepare for the surgery…

Please pray that the problem in his heart will be totally exposed in the scan, and that the doctors through this image, will receive the knowledge they need to perform the best and most effective surgery.

Written by Berith:

Yesterday we made a trip into the Old City together with Ibrahim and his mother, the first part by bus, and then by train. It was their first time riding a train and they seemed to like it, but that was probably nothing compared to their visit at the al-Aqsa Mosque. Ibrahim is a quiet boy so he didn’t say much, but his mother’s face shone when I asked her if they liked it, and she said, “Beautiful, beautiful!” We also made a trip to the nearby Garden Tomb which we try to do with all our guests. It seemed like that experience also was appreciated, despite  being tired from walking and the fact that it was a very hot day.

I rejoiced with them, and I’m looking forward to getting to know them during their stay here.

Written by Michelle:

Ibrahim was looked at and given a check-up in the Day Hospitalization Clinic at Hadassah Hospital on Wednesday, just to make sure he was in stable condition to be at the community house where he will be for one week until his surgery at Hadassah Hospital. He seems to be already at home with us here in Jerusalem and gets along with our community dog, ‘Jip.’ Although Jip is a bit larger than our dog ‘Shevvie’ in Ashdod.

Your prayer covering is appreciated for this young man.

There are some things we don’t understand until we see them with our own eyes. For more than a week we were getting frantic calls from the family of ten-year-old Ibrahim in Gaza. He was a Wolfson Medical Center patient, waiting at home for his turn for surgery, and now hospitalized in the ICU of a poorly-equipped hospital in Gaza. When I looked at his sparse medical report, I couldn’t see that it was a matter of life-and-death that would justify pulling him out of the Wolfson queue and taking him to another hospital in Israel. Finally Ibrahim was sent to an Islamic charitable hospital in East Jerusalem. They put together a comprehensive new medical report on Wednesday that looked more serious, and that night our Gaza coordinator Yousef and I went to see Ibrahim:

He was able to get up and shuffle over to us. When I asked how he was doing, he looked at me intently and said in a strained whisper that his stomach was hurting. The ICU staff told me they couldn’t do his surgery in Jerusalem, and they would send him urgently the next day to Ramallah. “Could they do the surgery there?” I asked. They shrugged–there was no alternative, since the Palestinian Authority has stopped referring patients to Israel. That’s when our calling became clear to me. Would I send my own son to be operated on in Ramallah? By no means. So what does it mean to love our neighbor as ourselves? The next morning Hadassah Hospital agreed to accept Ibrahim into their new cardiac critical care center, with our promise to contribute half the normal cost for a heart surgery:

On first examination that afternoon they were shocked to see that Ibrahim’s aorta was torn, and he would not live another 48 hours without intervention. Finally this boy’s life was treated as the precious gift that it is. Doctors scrambled to emergently put together a surgical team, and Ibrahim was rushed in for a “huge, life-and-death operation” that replaced the stem and valve of his aorta, and the ascending aorta, with the blood vessel of a cow.

By the next day, our friend Dr. Uri texted to tell us that Ibrahim was awake and smiling. Praise God.