…It all began in October 2014, I got a terrible case of facial palsy which began to heal by Christmas that year but then on the morning of December 31, 2014, I got a second palsy attack and I knew it would not heal this time. Doctors wanted to immediately prescribe antidepressants because people who get affected with facial paralysis end up going into depression. I refused to take the medicine and give in.

Thanks to my faith, I was able to get through this difficult time. I knew I was an instrument in our Lord’s great plan and that there had to be a reason why I was the unlucky chosen one, or was I really unlucky ? Because of this ordeal, I rediscovered my love for drawing and began painting in January 2016 as a means of inner healing of my soul and mind. It became my therapy and I found myself praying a lot while I was painting the religious pieces.

My parents were born in 1936 and 1938, in Jerusalem, Palestine. Their birth certificate will attest to this. They fled their homeland so that they could provide a bright future to their children. After a few months in France, we arrived in Canada in 1972 where I began my first grade in a French school. Even if I had not grown up in our homeland, I always felt a close attachment to the land where the Word became flesh. Although I had been back to the Holy Land, I had my first full pilgrimage in the summer of 1985, at the age of 18, during which I had the opportunity to visit the holy sites with the eyes and heart of an adult.

At the end of my summer vacation, as I rode the taxi from my village to the airport in Tel Aviv and passed by the new settlements on our confiscated land, I couldn’t control the tears streaming down my cheeks as I left with a big heart feeling sad that this country was not really ours anymore and that it was changing so quickly and there was nothing the world was doing about it, I felt such powerlessness. Little did I know that God would lead me down a special unplanned path to do his work, his mission and also become a Dame of the Holy Sepulchre where I would be at the service and care of the body of the living church in my homeland, Palestine. We must always have A LOT OF HOPE (it is the meaning of my name in Arabic) and be living examples of it.