A Small Light Can Dispel a Great Darkness

A personal thank you to ESRA volunteers 

To: ESRA – English Speaking Residents Association

Re: Letter of Gratitude and Recognition

About a year and a half ago, absolutely out of the blue, our world was shattered with the discovery of our son's cancer. Life has been on hold ever since. We became involved in a crowded schedule of long hospitalizations for intensive chemotherapy and radiation treatments in Israel and abroad, coping with the damage caused by the tumor and by the treatments, and chasing after the latest and best available treatments.

We pray to G-d that our son will be blessed with G-d's good health and that we soon return to blessed normal life.

In December 2019, the whole family flew abroad for my son's treatments, and we returned just in time for Israel's first wave of Corona. Since that time, our four children have not been in any educational framework, neither school nor kindergarten.

Our lives revolved around treatments and examinations to find the right cure.

It is very difficult for a healthy, happy and giving family, to move to the other side of the coin and become a needy family… a most upsetting transformation for us.

Thank you, Ms. Helen Osimo, Volunteer Coordinator of ESRA's English Tutoring Program (ETP) Haifa branch, for your warm embrace: your listening, caring, helping, and your excellent placement of professional teachers for our children. Beyond teaching them English, they wrapped our children in a huge amount of love and represent for them an educational framework for learning.

Thank you, Ms. Frankie Jaffe, for teaching our oldest son with a great deal of love, helping him to understand the rules of the English language, conducting interesting conversations with him, and challenging him with advanced learning of English. Thank you Ms. Tammy Chisick, for teaching our son English twice a week, and even when we were at the hospital, for being flexible and always finding the most suitable time for a lesson. Thank you for conversing with him in English, expressing concern over his condition, and enveloping him in love.

Thank you Ms. Sheli Wallach for teaching our daughter lessons via Zoom from far away from Australia, and despite the time differences, always and consistently finding a suitable time to teach her six times a week. Words cannot express the enormous importance of your serious dedication. You uplifted and empowered her, a fourth-grade student, from a child who did not even distinguish between the letters to one being able to read fluently and write sentences. You introduced a consistent and professional educational framework into the life of our daughter with your daily morning lessons; until then she had suffered"Corona isolation". Nor did you give up on her on difficult days when she was tired, or tearful due to the distressing situation and emotional upheaval of her family.

The contribution of you all has value that goes far beyond the hours of your lessons. A small light can dispel great darkness.

Thank you. May the heavens bless you for your goodness of heart. May you always be on the side of giving, and be doubly heaven blessed.

Wishing you a happy Passover, filled with health and joy.

Light unto your hearts and light unto your homes.