“This initiative truly touches my heart.” Margaret Karram returns to the Holy City, where she lived for 24 years, to take part in the inauguration of the ‘Within Your Gates’ Forum, organised by Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa and the University of Notre Dame. The forum aims to be an open space for religious leaders, academics, and civic actors across different communities, to meet and work together. The objective is ambitious and necessary: to restore Jerusalem’s universal mission as a city of reconciliation and peace for all humanity.
Turn on subtitles and choose your desired language
To watch the full recording of the inauguration of the ‘Within Your Gates’ Forum, organised by Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, and developed in collaboration with the University of Notre Dame’s academic centre in Jerusalem, click here
My name is Tony and my wife’s name is Walaa. We live in Bethlehem, in the land where the Child Jesus was born. We have been married for sixteen years. God has blessed us with three children: John (14 years old), Maria (11 years old) and Andros (6 years old).
We met the Focolare Movement about ten years ago, when the Bethlehem Focolare community lived beside us. At the time, we could never have imagined that this physical closeness would become a lifelong journey. Since we began taking part in the Movement’s meetings and Mariapolis gatherings—the annual community events dedicated to building dialogue and fraternity—many things have changed within us. The Gospel has become our daily companion, and the spirituality of unity has transformed our marriage, the way we raise our children and the way we look at the world.
Life in the Holy Land is not easy. We live in a place where more walls are built than bridges, and where fear is sown more often than peace. We are part of this reality, and every day we bear its weight.
The Ballout family
I work at the Municipality of Bethlehem, while Walaa is a teacher at a school in Al-Eizariya (Bethany). To get to work, she has to go through a military checkpoint. Very often, after waiting a long time for permission to cross, road closures mean she risks being stranded for hours, sometimes until late at night. We have lived through many painful experiences. When the dignity of a parent is wounded, the children feel it too, and there is an overwhelming sense of helplessness in being unable to fully protect your family. The wall has become part of our everyday landscape.
Added to this is the severe economic crisis affecting Bethlehem: unemployment is high, salaries are often delayed or only partially paid, while our responsibilities and obligations remain unchanged.
Yet in the midst of all this, we have not lost hope.
In the Gospel we have found an answer to every question our children ask and in the Focolare family we have found a genuine space of love, unity, communion and Gospel life. We have experienced the presence of Jesus Forsaken among us and we have discovered that the Gospel is not just a book to be read, but a life to be lived every day; that unity is a choice that begins with a gesture of love towards another person, even in the most difficult circumstances. This is the legacy we want to leave to our children.
As we deepened our understanding of Focolare spirituality, we were invited to take part in LFE 2026 (Loppiano Family Experience), the summer formation school for leaders of New Families, a branch of the Focolare Movement made up of families committed to living the spirituality of unity and spreading within family life the values that promote universal fraternity.
Highlights from the ‘Loppiano Family Experience 2026’
We saw this as an important step in our journey both as a family and as members of the Focolare Movement in the Holy Land. Last year we were unable to attend because our travel documents were not ready, but we thank God that we were able to participate this year.
From the very first days, we felt that we were part of one large family. We met families from different countries, cultures, and languages. Diversity is a gift and love has a language that everyone understands.
Our children experienced things that may seem ordinary to many people, but for them they were extraordinary: walking among trees and mountains without fear, without seeing weapons; playing freely; making friends with children from different countries; and living out love together. For them, all of this was a new discovery of what childhood truly means.
As for us, the meetings and shared experiences with other families became a true school of life. We listened to testimonies filled with challenges but also with hope, and we experienced firsthand that differences in culture, customs, and traditions do not prevent unity—they make it even more beautiful, fulfilling Jesus’ prayer: “That they may all be one.”
The themes explored during the School touched our lives deeply. We came to understand that family difficulties are not the end of the journey but an opportunity to grow in love when they are lived together with Jesus Forsaken. We have experienced this in our own reality in the Holy Land: even suffering can become a space where hope blossoms when it is lived with God.
We will return to Bethlehem more united than before, more convinced that diversity is a richness and that unity is a mission.
This experience has brought us back to the heart of our vocation: to be a family that lives the Gospel and bears witness to love precisely where it seems impossible. Our mission is to bring the light of unity to the land where Jesus was born.
In October 2024, the Together WE connect project began in Bethlehem. It is a training initiative of the Focolare Movement for young people and teenagers with the aim of building a better future by strengthening a wounded social fabric. The three-year programme began with five schools in the Bethlehem and East Jerusalem district, reaching about 300 students aged 13-15 years old.
The programme included training sessions and activities using interactive methods designed to engage and stimulate young people in ways that speak to them, such as theatre, music, photography and sports workshops. In the first year, the programme focused on three themes: self-awareness, self-esteem and personal development. Then it tackled conflict management and openness to others through group work. The final theme was intergenerational dialogue. Each topic was linked to an action of the “Dice of Peace” so that each topic addressed led to concrete practice by creating new relationships.
The international music groups, Gen Rosso and Gen Verde made an important contribution through art, music, dance and theatre.
During the first week of May 2025, an event was held to celebrate these months of work. Before this event, Gen Verde and Gen Rosso held three days of workshops with a hundred of these young people. The participants commented afterwards, “It was an extraordinary experience and we are grateful to God, and to all those who have collaborated, for its fruits”.
How did the project begin?
From the Holy Land they told us: “For some time, we wanted to give our contribution in a way that would truly impact society, by promoting activities which had continuity. Some time ago the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Card. Pierbattista Pizzaballa, had said: “we must really work so that in schools, in institutions, in the media and in places of worship the name of God, of brother and companion of life resonate”. This encouraged us to focus on schools, on young people. We are all aware of the situation in which we find ourselves, in which humanity finds itself today. How many difficulties, how much suffering: we wanted to offer our contribution so that young people can have a different perspective from the one they see every day”.
This is how the Together WE connect project was born. Its goal is to awaken hope, nourish faith and promote a spirituality rooted in the Gospel among the younger generations and to form the women and men of the future, who can be promoters of reconciliation and dialogue, young leaders of a new culture of cooperation, fraternity, sharing and active citizenship – a culture of care and encounter.
Here are some impressions from the students: “I thank you with all my heart because what we did makes us feel important, and that our existence and our opinions matter”. “The first thing we learned were values: love, humility, forgiveness and helping each other. In class we felt like one family, we understood each other better and helped each other more. I also realized how I can be a light for others and I understood that “Focolare” is not just a word but a way of life”. “I really liked the “Together We connect” activity, there were new people, it was nice and I grew stronger in myself”. “I got to know myself and others better through this project.” “I learned methods for resolving conflict, listening and dialogue”. “I am personally very sensitive, and this project made me love life more”. “It was a useful and fun project, for example the dialogue between the generations, when I did it with my grandmother I learned things I didn’t know before”.
