More Than a Backpack: One Mother's Fight to Start Over

Dear Friends,

This month, we want to share a story with you from our Pack to School distribution, that is not easy to tell. We share it because you are part of it, and because it shows what your generosity means to a family walking through one of the hardest seasons a family can face.

Hani* is a devoted mother of three young daughters in Jerusalem. For years, she and her little girls lived through unimaginable fear and pain. Separated from her husband, Hani endured severe physical and emotional abuse, and heartbreakingly, her daughters were subjected to it as well.

Recently, Hani has moved in and out of crisis shelters for battered women several times, each move an attempt to protect herself and her daughters and to find a safe place to start over. Her ex-partner threatened her life on multiple occasions. When we consider what she came through, situations that could so easily have ended in tragedy, we can only call her survival what it is: a true miracle.

Today, Hani lives with her mother. Her three daughters are in her custody, and the responsibility for them rests on her shoulders alone.

That responsibility is heavy. Alongside the severe mental and emotional toll of the trauma, Hani is grappling with significant financial hardships that have mounted over time. Starting over is costly in every sense of the word.

From the outside, her days may look ordinary but behind every one of them lies a massive struggle. She is trying to give her girls a sense of security, stability, and routine. At the same time, she is working slowly to rebuild her own life and to regain the sense of safety and independence that was taken from her.

Think for a moment about what routine means to a child who has lived through so much. A regular morning. A school day. A place to belong. These are the things H. is fighting to give her daughters, and they are the things a healthy childhood is built on.

This past summer, through our Pack to School project, H. received a backpack for one of her daughters. It may seem like a small thing. For this family, it was far more than that.

During such a sensitive and complex time, any assistance represents much more than financial aid. It allows this mother to catch her breath. It helps her provide her daughters with what they need to maintain a routine and a healthy childhood, including as they enter school. And it helps her realize something she needs to know deep in her heart: she is not alone in her fight for a safe, better life.

Any help, whether small or large, is a true ray of hope for Hani. and her three daughters.

Friends, that ray of hope came from you. Every backpack given through Pack to School reaches a child because someone like you chose to care for a family you may never meet. You did not only help send a girl to school prepared. You told her mother that she is seen.

Hani's story is one of many. Across Israel, there are parents carrying burdens that most people never see, doing everything they can to give their children stability in the middle of the storm. With your help, we can keep coming alongside them with practical aid and with the love of God expressed in action.

Would you stand with them today? Your gift to Vision for Israel helps us reach families like Hani's and remind them that they are not forgotten. To give, click HERE.

Thank you for being a ray of hope to a mother and her three daughters in Jerusalem.


With love and gratitude,

Barry & Batya


*Name has been changed