Kingdom Pursuits where you hear from ordinary people instilled with an extraordinary passion. Together we explore the stories of men and women who take what they love and let God turn their passion into Kingdom Pursuits. Now live from the Truth Booth, your host, Robbie Dilmore.
Have fun! How does God take your passion and uses it to build the Kingdom? Today on Kingdom Pursuits, coming up, when we can get her on the phone, we hope, is Pamela Azaria.
She's with Chimes Israel. They're empowering people with disabilities and behavioral challenges to achieve their full potential. You know, I worked with special needs for some time, and this organization, Chimes Israel, works in amazing ways with families that have these special needs challenges.
Because if you don't, unfortunately, you got to see what happens when you don't. You know, people with special needs, if you don't train them, they eventually, they don't learn how to walk at the same pace, they don't learn how to use the bathroom on their own. All those things require special training, and so it's amazing that these folks come in and they help with that very issue of being able to bring people up to speed on those kind of things. As I said, you know, I went on a mission trip with Teen Challenge to Jamaica one time, and we went into an orphanage there. Unfortunately, there in Jamaica, they feel like the children have voodoo or something that would cause them, you know, some kind of evil spirit that would make them be born that way.
And so they literally throw them out of the curb, and this orphanage picks them up, which is wonderful that they're picked up to live, but since they don't have the manpower to teach them how to use the bathroom on their own and walk and things like that, then unfortunately, you see these teenagers that can never get out of the crib, that they can never use the bathroom on their own, and all these things because nobody ever came along and helped them. And so I think we got Pamela on the line now. So Pamela, you're on Kingdom Pursuits. Good morning. Good morning. How are you? Thank you for having me.
I'm excited that we got you. Because you are, you're in Israel today, right? Yeah, I just went on a trip up north and I just passed the Sea of Galilee where Jesus Christ walked on water. So I'm definitely in the Holy Land here. It's a really beautiful day.
Wonderful, wonderful. And so rather than use my words to describe Chimes, tell our listeners. So Chimes Israel is an organization that helps people with disabilities, and we have 26 centers throughout Israel. We help people in every stage of life.
Everybody who needs our help gets our help. They're of all religions. Israel is a very diverse place, despite what you might have heard about it. We have Jews, Christians, Druze, Muslims, and a lot of people are immigrants and refugees who come here from Africa, from war-torn Ukraine and Russia. And we provide a variety of services, all daytime services, so it's early childhood care, after-school programs for kids in school, all kinds of work programs, either sheltered work or outside in the neighborhood, in the community, and then vocational college, and then a place for people with very severe disabilities where they can live their days with therapy and have activities for the quality of life, and also we help people with mental illness. We help them get back to their lives after being hospitalized and find jobs and we support them in the workplace. So that's what Chimes Israel does here in Israel.
Yeah, a whole lot. And so I'm curious, what does Chimes mean? Well, it actually comes from an American organization that started as a Christian organization called Chimes in Baltimore. And what happened was the parents of some adults with disabilities wanted better care for their children in Tel Aviv.
And so together with the social services of Tel Aviv, they went around the world looking for a model of an organization that helps people with disabilities. And they found Chimes in Baltimore. And Chimes has something to do with the chime of the church bell. And they decided to model our organization after Chimes in Baltimore.
And then we took their name and were part of the international group of Chimes. And we went way beyond what we originally took from them, which was a model for caring for adults. And now what we're really known for is how we care for preschool children, children ages six months to three years. We provide intervention like no other place in the world.
And the reason that we can do this is because Israel has a socialized medical system. And so what we can do is all in one place, they get preschool, like a regular preschool where they can be with a teacher and have class with the teacher and learn about the holidays and play and that kind of thing. And at the same time, we have therapists that come in and they're there every day and they're taking children out individually into their room and they help them with speech therapy, physical therapy, occupational therapy. And a lot of the kids have issues with eating and so there's like a whole eating team and the early intervention happens all day long so they really get accelerated help at this critical time in their brains development. And without it, they would not get where they would need to be once they grow up. So it's really important care and it's intense care and it's also just a wonderful place.
It's about two and a half. Yeah, as I am reflecting and I told you the story when we were at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention and went to Jamaica and there because they didn't have the care for the younger folks, they were never taught to, like you said, they were never taught to speak when they might have been able to talk to speak. They were never taught how to walk so they were crib bound for their entire lives and they were never taught to use the bathroom. And all those things, like you say, ages one to three is when so many of us learn that stuff and it's critical for that particular group with disabilities that those things get taught. And you call it occupational therapy but it's really, it's kind of like how to be a kid, you know?
Because if you can't walk, even though you might have been able to walk but it just needed somebody really with patience because you're not going to teach them how to walk that have disabilities the same way you're going to teach somebody that doesn't have the disability, right? Right, and our people are all trained paramedical therapists so they know how to teach these kids. So we have eight of these early childhood centers throughout Israel and all of them are lovely except for one of them which is in Ashkelon and it's the city that was worst hit by rocket fire from Gaza from before the war that we're having now until now.
We had a brief ceasefire when they returned some hostages that they stole from us but right now we're back on the war and what's horrible about this center is that it's in four repurposed homes that were residential homes and they're full of stairs and they have small rooms, not enough rooms for the kids to, as they learn how to walk, to be able to walk around. I hate to pause you but we got to go to a break and so when we come back, yes we'll have Robbie's riddles and we'll have a little shenanigans but also we'll have a lot more with Pamela and Chimes Israel so stay tuned, a whole lot more coming up on Kingdom Pursuit. Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuit where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build a kingdom. Today we're so blessed to have with us Pamela Azaria with Chimes Israel, empowering people with disabilities and behavioral health challenges to achieve their fullest potential. And so you know Pamela you're not familiar with this part of the show but we always on Kingdom Pursuits we have to have my shenanigans or at least that's the way I've programmed the show and so speaking of behavior. Alright so and again feel free to chime in if you think you know the answer to one of these dad jokes, questions that I might have for you Pamela. Or of course my producer Nick I've trained him over the years to be able to do this so you know if you got a job milking cows okay if that was your occupation and you were milking cows for a living what kind of behavior would get you fired?
Yeah there you go, if you're a danger to yourself or utters. Or how about this one, how is a Catholic tailor like a behavioral psychiatrist? How is a Catholic tailor like a behavioral psychiatrist? There you go.
They both learned how to alter habits. That's bad right? Not as bad as this one. I actually like that one. What do apostrophes and demonic behavior have in common? Why am I blinking when apostrophes and demonic behavior have in common?
They're both a sign of possession you're exactly right. At the end of those shenanigans we would have a chance for you to call in and win today with Robbie's Riddle and so here we go. If you're wondering here you go nobody can answer this one until the listeners can call in and answer it because I bet you can guess this one and since it has to do with the Sea of Galilee and all that you know I know you'll get it Nick so what musical behavior here you go call in and win what musical behavior in the Bible will land you some fish? What musical behavior in the Bible will land you some fish? 866-348-7884 is the number to call in and win. 866-348-7884 and if you can guess this musical behavior in the Bible that will land you some fish Nick tell them what they'll win.
Absolutely yes you'll be winning a prize from our Kingdom Pursuits prize well if you know the answer to Robbie's Riddle give us a call at 866-348-7884 that's 866-34-TRUTH. We have books we have t-shirt we have all sorts of interesting trinkets that we have picked up over the years that we want to bless you with you call us 866-348-7884 what musical behavior in the Bible will land you some fish? I do love that one I really do I really do I hope you'll call in and share so getting back to Chimes Israel and PAMA so what is your role exactly with Chimes? So I do the fundraising which is really important because during the war when it started and we were the people in Ashkelon we everyone in Israel was getting rockets coming at us and we all had to shelter there would be a siren and you have depending on where you live 15 seconds to a minute and a half to seek shelter at when the war started Ashkelon got hit more than any other city like more than 300 rockets a day and people had to run to their shelters and depending on where you are you either at 15 seconds or 30 seconds to get shelter and we found out we we called all of our our families and everybody in our care and we found out that they were in just a horrible situation they were living in their shelters if they had one if they didn't have one they were running out to the streets and living in like a bare concrete structure to be protected and imagine doing that when you have children with disabilities young children with autism or cerebral palsy and wheel wheelchairs or any kind of syndrome and they had no food and they had no diapers and they were short of medicine and so my role was to help them get those things so we fundraised from basically North American North America who you know just the Jewish community in North America basically shouted out you know Israel needs your help and we were able to get about $400,000 and we were able to bring to these families food medicine toys and most importantly technology so they could communicate with their classrooms and their teachers and their therapist. They got iPads and our teachers got laptops and then while they were home and this lasted almost four months that they were home. We started sending our our therapist to their homes, once a week, in order to give them the therapies that they needed so they wouldn't regress, which happened in the last war in 2014. And so, also the parents could get a break from their very demanding children, because children with disabilities are not easy, especially when they're young, you know, how difficult it is just to have a two year old imagine a child that age with disabilities that needs your constant attention. So, so that was what we did we brought very expensive equipment into their homes we we innovated and created an equipment library, and every time a therapist went to a home they would be bringing games and equipment to the child and taking the last weeks away so it would be things would be changing every week for them. And it was all possible due to the donations from North America. That's absolutely beautiful because what you described earlier in Ashland was that, you know, that particular center was the one that was the hardest hit and the one that was in the most trouble so well, that center they couldn't, I mean, those centers I didn't finish saying that only three of the four houses have a have a bomb shelter air raid shelter in them.
So, our centers were closed, and all the children had to stay at home for all those months. And I don't know if I can tell the story now or if you want to see when we come back, we'll, we'll get the story then because we'll have plenty of time but we're gonna go to a break here pretty shortly. And hopefully we'll get to them by all means you know what musical behavior in the Bible will land you some fish 866-348-7884 and so, like, what an opportunity people have right and how would people give to you guys Chimes Israel, like, is there a website, what's the best way for them to reach out? Yes, yes, and, and the reason that I'm here on the phone is because we're trying to raise money to build a new center in Ashkelon that will be fortified and offer them everything they need under one roof in a modern setting.
And so, is there a website or how do they do that? Yes, the best way is to just do a Google search for Chimes Israel, C-H-I-M-E-S Israel, and because the real website is a little complicated with the way Hebrew websites are written. So, it's in English. I actually, when I did that, I went to Chimes Israel and it was all in Hebrew.
There's a button that you can press that gives you English and there's also a button that you can press that says donate. We'll get that checked out during the break, but right now we have Jane is in Wake Forest. Jane, what musical behavior in the Bible will land you some fish? I'm just going to guess. How about harps, cymbals, and singing? I like that.
So, you obviously have won on Kingdom Pursuits. However, I was thinking of something else a little different. I know you're probably not surprised, but I was thinking the musical behavior of castanets that, you know. That was so good.
Yeah, a little castanets action will get you some fish. Oh, yeah. There you have it. So, thank you, Jane. I appreciate you calling in today.
You are clearly a winner and we will get you a prize out, okay? Oh, thank you. You're truly a blessing.
I love Kingdom Pursuits. Oh, thank you. I appreciate you listening very much. Thank you, Bobby.
Same here. Thank you, Jane. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
We are going to go to a break. When we come back, we're going to figure out this website and other things as well as Pamela's story. I'm excited to hear all that's going on, so stay tuned to the whole lot more Kingdom Pursuits coming up. Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits, where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build the Kingdom.
And how fun today. We have Pamela Azario with us with Chimes Israel, helping out all sorts of folks with behavioral disabilities. As we've talked about this, I love the fact that they help the young ones, especially between the ages of one to three, with all the stuff that they need to learn at that age, walking and talking.
And, you know, potty training, all those kind of things are critical. Interestingly, during the break on my phone, it works a whole lot better, by the way, than it does at a—like when I put in exactly what you said. I just Googled it. It came to ChimesIsrael.org.
And if you just went to that, it's beautiful, explains all that, as well as the next one was in English too. But interestingly, when I went back to my regular computer and just put in Chimes Israel.org, it comes up again in Hebrew. So, challenges.
But use your phone. Well, right now, we're in a terrible situation because the war is back on again, and the rockets are flying toward us, not just from Hamas in Gaza, but also from the Houthis. We're getting sirens, and the sirens warn us that something is coming at us, a rocket or whatever the Houthis send, I'm not sure what they're sending, and we have to run for shelter in our home. Unfortunately, the worst hit area is Ashkelon, which is six miles from Gaza.
And this is pretty much a middle to lower middle class area of Israel. And most of the homes, their apartment buildings, they were built before this kind of thing started happening. So, they don't have the safe rooms, and we've had several people, several families that we've helped move to homes with safe rooms. And a lot of them just have to run out into the street, into the shelter, and you can't really do that in 15 seconds with a child that has disabilities. So, one story is, we had a child, her name was Adele, and she's two years old, and she had two older brothers also with autism. A parent had three children with autism.
And when the war started, we had all of our employees call all of the families to see how they were doing. And we could not get a hold of Adele's mother. It was like they disappeared, and we didn't know where they were.
We kept trying and trying and trying. Finally, after a few weeks, Adele's mother answers the phone, and we find out that she's home alone with her three children with autism, and she's frantic. It's been impossible taking care of them.
Her husband is in the reserves, as most of the men who are under age 40 in Israel are in the reserves, and they have to go and fight to protect our country. And this mother was literally going crazy because her children were screaming, they were urinating and defecating all over the house. It was a mess. She was low on food and medicine. And little Adele, who was the best behaved of all of her children, was just being put in the corner or in front of a TV or an iPad or something like that because she couldn't control the older children. So we said, okay, we're sending our therapist to homes now. Can we send our therapist to you so that she can work with Adele? And the mother said, no, absolutely not. I'm too embarrassed.
My home is a wreck. I can't bring people in here. So we said, okay, we have these iPads that we can have the teacher be with your daughter on the iPad and we'll do remote learning. And we found out that she just couldn't do that either because she'd have to be there with Adele and she had not even a minute because she was trying to deal with the problems of Adele's older brothers. So we went back and forth on this a long time and just couldn't persuade her. We said we'd send a therapist who also has children with autism and that didn't convince her.
Finally, we said, how about this? We'll pick Adele up at your home and this is all while rockets are coming, 300 a day or more and we've got eight hour power outages. We'll pick her up in a cab with a therapist and we'll take her to the center, which is closed, but we'll have the day in the safe room and there is another child who needed the same kind of thing. So two children in the safe room and three adults and we'll spend the day with her in the safe room. And the mother agreed to that.
So that's what we did. We picked up the child and we brought her to the safe room every day and we worked with her. And the day that we brought Adele to the safe room was just a wonderful day for everybody because we finally were able to give Adele the therapies that she needed. But most of all the attention she deserved because nobody needs to be put in the corner and ignored because other people are demanding more attention. So finally the child got the attention she deserved and that's how our organization is. For every child, everything is bespoke.
All of our therapies are catered to each child's needs and what they need to do to develop. That's a good story to tell. The other thing, obviously, the poor mom. And I think that story, the beautiful thing about it, Pamela, is that it gives our audience an idea of how horrific it must be.
It's hard to even imagine. And again, I've worked with special needs folks for a long time and I know what it's like to have lots of them. And when some of them begin to act up, it's not like you cannot deal with that. I mean, you have to deal with it because they will hurt themselves or they will hurt you. They're fully capable of it because, again, you can imagine how freaked out they would be with the sirens and all those things.
Any form of stimulation like that sends an autistic person into a complete frantic mode. And so that poor mom, getting any relief, and hopefully by now they've gotten her a little more relief for the other ones that are still running around, do you know? Well, right now we're back in our classes. The home front command has not closed things down.
So we went back, I think, in January to the normal routine of the day. But as soon as it starts happening again, things are going to close down again. And it's not our decision. It's the decision of the home front command of Israel. So right now, the war has started again. Our sons and daughters, brave soldiers, are going back into Gaza. It's scary. It's hard times.
Again, we've got to go to another break. I'm sorry, Pamela, but I want to remind everybody, what we're talking about is Chimes Israel. And if you go, like she says, the best thing to do, especially on your phone, is just Google Chimes Israel.
And you'll see a couple of beautiful websites. And if God has put that on your heart to help, oh my goodness, what a time, you know, maybe for such a time as this. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits, where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build the Kingdom. My goodness, it's always wonderful to see how God is working around the world. And here's the cries of moms that are dealing with things in the middle of wars that we can't even imagine. But I'm so grateful that Chimes Israel brought Pamela to the National Religious Broadcasters Convention so I could meet her. And again, we could have a chance to talk to her, as obviously for a lot of us, you know, we thought the war was done, but it's far from that, right?
It is. Yeah, it's starting up again because there was supposed to be a second phase of the hostage deal and that didn't happen. And then there was a lot of time passing and they weren't giving us back the hostages, so Israel thought that the best way to get them to give us back the hostages would be to start the war again.
So that's what's going on. I just want to say, like listening to your commercial, it makes me think, you know, we're all God's children and children with disabilities are meant to be here on this earth, just like everyone else is. And we value them and that's what we do here in Israel and I think our communities are so aligned in that way that we value human life. And it's just the opposite of our enemies across the, you know, in Gaza who put their children in harm's way and hide behind their children. Oh, you couldn't be more right. I mean, it's a scary, horrible thing that, and I've heard it, you know, again, I feel so blessed to have been at the NRB several times and interviewed lots of folks from Israel that, you know, it's actually God's war.
Yeah, that's what I heard there too. And that, you know, they, God is hopefully trying to get their attention on, here's what it should be for all of us. And unfortunately it takes drastic measures. It's crazy all that's going on, but my hat's off to you.
I mean, it really is. What an amazing thing you're doing and what an amazing organization. And this is an organization that just Israel needs. Every country on the planet needs this, you know, and all that you're talking about, not just what they're doing in Baltimore, but expanding to do what you're talking about because there are so many parents out there that are struggling to know how to best serve their children.
And they don't realize that time is of the essence when they're in that age and there are people that can teach them. There are people that can help them. And you guys are a wonderful model for that, that we all could learn across the world. And you guys are doing it under this unbelievable pressure.
It's unbelievable. But again, I'm so honored to hear and to know, you know, what you guys are doing. And, you know, unfortunately we don't have a whole lot of time left, but, you know, in a couple minutes you want to share a final plea and maybe how, again, people can reach out and get you or help you. Yeah, absolutely. Well, the final plea is really that we need to build a fortified early childhood center for these children who are so vulnerable.
It's incredible. This war has told us our children are more vulnerable than I thought they were, than any of us thought they were. And when we build this center, and we're about $1.3 million away from building the center, we're 60% funded already. So we just need everyone to give what they can, give a little bit, and it's going to happen. But it has to happen ASAP because they're in such a precarious place where we've been fighting a war on seven fronts right now. Israel is in such a difficult place. Thank God we have an administration in the U.S. that understands this and supports us, and we just need to be able to protect these children better.
So that's what I'm here to talk about. And if you Google, we've learned this, if you Google Chimes Israel, if you Google that, you're going to see there's a couple different ways you can get to where you can donate, where you can find out more about what they're doing. And of course, we can all be praying for Israel, which is, you know, to me, it couldn't be more clear in the Scripture that we are to pray for Israel and bless Israel.
In any way possible, for the peace of Israel is gigantic in God's view and in mine as well. I am so grateful for the way you value human life. Yeah, go ahead. Thank you. I also want to invite all of your listeners to come to Israel to see Israel, to go to Jerusalem. I am coming next month. I'll be there on May the 4th. Oh, so I want to meet you again. I can't wait to see you.
Yeah, I think, I mean, the thing about Israel now is if you don't go to the south, you know, next to Gaza, you don't really feel the war so much, like where I live in the center of Israel. We're out of time, Pamela, but thank you again. I so appreciate your time and what you're doing in Israel, and we will be praying, and we want to thank all of you for listening to Kingdom Pursuits today. We've got so much truth coming on you. Encouraging prayers up next. Stay tuned. Thanks for listening.
