News
Woman Encourages Forgiveness After Being Shot by Her Father
KMPH Fox 26 News, Fresno, CA – After spending seven months in the hospital receiving treatment for her gun shot wounds, a California woman is back home and telling everyone that forgiveness was the key to her recovery.
Valerie Alvarez was shot by her father, after he killed her sister. He then killed himself.
The woman’s story is remarkable not only because of here struggle to live but because she defies the odds every day.
Alvarez lives with Spina Bifida, a spinal condition with which she was born. She is 34 years old but was not expected to live past the age of 20. Then the seriousness of her condition was magnified, and her life changed forever, on May 27th of last year when the bullet fired from her father’s gun hit her spine.
The shooting occurred just a few months after Alvarez lost her mother. She says her father struggled with the loss and she thinks that loss, coupled with his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from serving in Vietnam, made him snap. After all, it was Memorial Day.
“I think he wanted us all to be together, I think that’s why he did what he did. I don’t think he did it out of anger,” she says.
Alvarez recalls that every day she spent in the hospital after the shooting was a battle. She couldn’t breath on her own. She lost the ability to move her hands.
But then, she says, everything changed with one key decision.
“I forgave my dad,” she says. “That’s the best thing I could have done, was forgive my dad to get better, get my strength back.
“I have my hands now, I can push my chair now. Knowing I can be out there in the world, means the world to me!” she says. “To have my life back again!”
And for those struggling with their own challenges, she offers this advice…
“You can never forget, but you can forgive,” she says.
As Renewed Fighting Grips Gaza, IFI Gains Foothold in Israel-Palestine
Editor’s Note: Robert Enright, co-founder of the International Forgiveness Institute, just returned from a trip to the treacherous Middle East to promote Forgiveness Education. Here is his report:
After three grueling years of trying to break into the Middle East with forgiveness education, we have finally succeeded.
We are now in the Mar Elias Educational Institutions (MEEI) in Ibillin, Israel, about 12 miles from Nazareth and 20 miles from the Lebanon border.
The Mar Elias Schools were started over 30 years ago for integrated education between Arab Christian and Muslim students. The ethos of the school is respect, tolerance, and compassion. About 55% of the families in this region are below the poverty level. The founder of these schools, Elias Chacour, is a three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee.
The head principal, who runs the high school, is ready to implement forgiveness education this fall in grades 5 through 12 (similar grading system to US schools). The English teachers will provide the instruction.
In the meantime, we will be busy translating the teacher curriculum guides for grades 1-4 into Arabic so we can implement the forgiveness program with these grades in the 2015-2016 school year. Pre-kindergarten and kindergarten programs are still under discussion. There are no English courses from pre-kindergarten through grade 4 so all of the instruction will be in Arabic.
The plan is to implement this forgiveness education program only in the Mar Elias Schools for the 2014-2015 academic year and then make plans (for 2015-2016) to fold in a nearby Jewish school to implement forgiveness education simultaneously with the Mar Elias Schools so that they can have cross-community dialogue among teachers and students on the topic of forgiveness.
In the 2014-2015 academic year, we will conduct Skype sessions focused on forgiveness education with the 11th and 12th grade Israeli students communicating with Edgewood High School students in Madison and students in Monrovia, Liberia, Africa.
I will return to the Mar Elias schools in January, 2015 to continue discussions with the principals who are anxious to expand forgiveness education in the coming years.
By the way, the first floor of the Mar Elias High School is a bomb shelter—required by the Israeli government. There are thick metal casings around the windows and heavily reinforced concrete. Can you imagine attending a school with a mandated bomb shelter in it?
Footnote: During his time in Israel, Dr. Enright was accompanied by Rev. Joan Deming, Executive Director of Pilgrims of Ibillin, a US not-for-profit organization that strategically and financially supports the Mar Elias Educational Institutions. Rev. Deming helped open doors at the MEEI by introducing Dr. Enright to principals and administrators. When not in Israel, Rev. Deming resides in Madison.
Palestinian Teen Shows the Power of Forgiveness
The Washington Post, Washington, DC. – As Israelis and Palestinians once again trade rocket attacks in a new round of violence, a 10-year-old story is back in the news because of the ability of one of those involved to grasp the awesome power of forgiveness and reconciliation.
On Feb. 18, 2004, a week after his 15th birthday, Yousef Bashir was shot in the back by an Israeli soldier in the front yard of Bashir’s home. The bullet splintered into three fragments, severing nerves near the teenager’s spine.
Today, after months of rehabilitation in an Israeli hospital where he learned to walk again, Bashir describes the episode as “life-changing,” which makes sense, and “a blessing,” which to many is astonishing.
“I feel very thankful to this horrible experience because it spared me from a lot of hatred I would be growing up with toward the Israelis,” he says. “I was shot by one Israeli but saved by many Israeli people.”
Indeed, over the years, Bashir has imagined finding the soldier who shot him that afternoon.
“I forgive the soldier,” he said. “It would be a great privilege for me to meet with the solider. . . . What he did changed my life a great deal, I would say positively more than negatively. But I think it would be life-changing for him if he gets to see me.”
During his recovery, Bashir found his way to the United States with the Seeds of Peace program that links Palestinian, Israeli and American teenagers; attended boarding school in Utah; then college at Northeastern University in Boston, MA.
Now 25, he is studying for his master’s degree in peace, conflict and coexistence at Brandeis University just outside Boston, where students and faculty come from 60 countries on six continents. It is also the only nonsectarian Jewish-sponsored college or university in the United States.
As The Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus wrote, “I am too realistic — too cynical, perhaps — to think that Yousef’s experience is scalable; anger tends to trump forgiveness. But as rockets fly and parents mourn, as decades of enmity flare anew, his example offers a lesson, both humbling and inspirational, in the all-too-scarce art of reconciliation.”
Read the full column: “Spared from hatred, thanks to a bullet in the back.”
Mother Forgives, Embraces Daughter’s Killer
Local10.com, Miami, FL – Jordyn Howe, 16, pleaded guilty in court last week to the 2012 shooting death of his friend, Lourdes “Jina” Guzman-DeJesus, 13.
Howe brought his stepfather’s gun onto a school bus, and tried to fire it at the ground. When nothing happened he pointed it at “Jina” and pulled the trigger. This time the gun fired, killing her.
The teen originally faced up to 22 months in prison before Ady DeJesus, the girl’s mother, met with the teen and the judge. During that meeting DeJesus presented a different plea to the court. Instead of prison, she asked that the court place Howe in a juvenile detention facility for a year.
But that’s not all. She also wants him to join her as she travels around Florida, speaking to others about the dangers of guns. If he doesn’t follow through, he goes back to court, and likely prison.
After the judge approved the new agreement, DeJesus gave Howe an extended hug in front of the courtroom. She says that the ruling has helped bring her peace.
“I forgive him because I’ve found peace because I feel like my daughter now is in peace,” she said. “It won’t bring my daughter back, but at least it will keep her name alive.”
Read the full story: “The Ultimate Forgiveness: Mother ‘Embraces’ Daughter’s Killer in Court”
Watch the Local 10.com (Pembroke Park, FL) news video (02.35): “Mother shows forgiveness to daughter’s killer.”
Teen Sends a Forgiveness Message a Year After Her Death
Fox 13, Springville, Utah – In October 2011, Reesa Kammerman tried to commit suicide–four times. She was 14 years old.
Reesa went through more turbulence in life than most teenagers. In addition to trying to take her own life, and after revelations of rape and molestation, her father got her into therapy. She came back with a smiling face, and once again began doing the things she loved, like playing guitar, but her sunshine was short-lived.
Reesa was killed in a single rollover car crash on July 28, 2013. She was revived three times. Showing her will to survive, the then-16 year old hung on to life for 16 days, in a coma, before finally slipping away.
Her heartbroken father, Michael, had lost his daughter and then nearly a year after her death, he discovered a video of daddy’s little girl, spilling her secrets.
“My mom left when I was 9 for me to raise my 4 little brothers,” Reesa writes on a notepad in the video. “I was raped three times!” she continues.
“I hated my life,” she wrote. “I didn’t want to live anymore.”
But then, somehow, from the depths of darkness, a young woman found her light and a delivered a message she perhaps wanted to share with the world.
“I have a million reasons to live,” Reesa goes on to say. “I love my family.”
“Forgive!”
“Forgive anyone who has ever hurt you.”
“Forgive that one person who wasn’t there when you needed them the most!”
“Most importantly…forgive yourself!”
Michael decided to post the video on the Internet because “I felt that this is a message that needs to be shared. If it even helps one person, Reesa would be happy.”
Read the full story: Teen girl’s message of forgiveness surfaces after her death. Watch the full “Reesa’s Legacy Video.”
