After an extended Rosh Chodesh davening, the girls were lucky enough to have the opportunity to slurp smoothies for breakfast on Ben Yehuda. After dawdling along Ben Yehuda chatting and laughing, time flew and we found ourselves late for the busy day ahead!
Arriving at our hotel, the girls were given a lesson on Tefillah by the one and only Marissa Wilk. The lesson was very beneficial and something that we will definitely use in our day to day lives. We were now ready and eager to spend another day learning at Midreshet Amit. Arriving at the Midrasha, we were welcomed with the sweet smell of freshly baked jam doughnuts (as well as many strong American accents) reminding us that Chanukah is coming. We were all filled with excitement and couldn’t wait to get our hands on those piles of doughnuts. Finally finishing our doughnuts, we enjoyed a few lessons based on brachot, relationships and living inspired.
Finally the most exciting part of the day arrived; volunteering for the Beit Hayeled kids. Beit Hayeled is an organisation that fosters children who come from unfortunate backgrounds. At first we were all slightly nervous and unsure of what to expect but ended up feeling like we had achieved something truly special. We were introduced to the boys who were all aged eight to eleven. We were surprised at how kind, funny and nice they all were (definitely not worth our nerves!) We played a game of “OUT” as a fun ice breaker and we all got on extremely well. After playing multiple rounds of the game, we all loaded up and got ready to get on the bus which was taking us, and the kids, to bowling! The kids were very excited and keen to be going on a fun outing. Getting off the bus we eagerly rushed up the escalators till we finally reached the bowling alleys. We had many laughs with the boys and through both our broken Hebrew and their broken English we somehow found ourselves having great conversations with some of them. Sadly our time with them came to an end and we all felt like we had accomplished something really great. It was truly an eye opening experience, which we will carry with us forever.
To end the day, we were surprised with free time at the Tachana Rishona (a mall located at the first train station in Jerusalem). We spent our time with some mads who came to visit, catching up and eating ice cream. What could be better?