London: Garden Party to help Christians in Holy Land

The Harkov String Quartet

“Please don’t just pray for us – come and pray with us” - the spirit of these words, of Palestinian Christian Laila Asfoura, who lives in Bethlehem, inspired Friends of the Holy Land to host a midsummer garden party in the grounds of Our Lady of Victories Church in Kensington to raise funds for their charity. A string quartet played as wine and canapés were served and a prize raffle took place.

Due to severe political and economic hardships, an estimated 300 Christian families leave the Holy Land each year. Church leaders predict that if this current exodus continues, Christianity could easily cease to exist in the Holy Land within 50 years.

As Sir Swinton Thomas, who attended the event commented: “Friends of the Holy Land’s focus is to keep an Arab Christian presence in the Holy Land. FHL achieves this by adopting a policy to work directly with local people based in Bethlehem - to respond to the most vulnerable families by providing financial support to different areas in the Holy Land”.

FHL has adopted a wide range of projects. In supporting education, they provide primary and secondary educational financial assistance for economically marginalised families, and funding for university tuition for individual students.

Other projects include St Martha’s House, which helps elderly women from the Bethlehem area. And an FHL factory manufacturing candles for sale in Bethlehem and Jerusalem helps a small, but growing, number of local people.

Mgr James Curry, Chairman of FHL Kensington said: “Our work is vital to Christian people in the Holy Land – and it makes a very real difference. Our aim is to train Palestinian Christians to a professional level and provide a means by which they can earn enough to support their families, as well as restoring and safeguarding part of Palestine’s Christian cultural inheritance”.

The Midsummer Party raised more than £3,000.

For more information on Friends of the Holy Land see: www.friendsoftheholyland.org.uk/