Palestinian-American Teen Recognized for Volunteer Work With Refugees

Jolene Massad, 17, receives a Daily Point of Light Award after spending years working for her pastor father's Christian Mission 2 Gaza outreach assisting displaced Iraqis and Syrians in Jordan

Jolene Massad was only 10 years old when she went on a visit with her pastor father to Iraqi refugees in Amman, Jordan, and made the shattering discovery that some children her age had no toys to play with.

“I remember thinking, we need to go to the store and get them toys,” Massad, now 17, told The Media Line.

That day galvanized Massad, who grew up in Wilton, Connecticut, and set her on a path of volunteering for Christian Mission 2 Gaza, the non-profit organization her father founded, which provides practical and spiritual assistance in the Gaza Strip as well as to displaced Iraqi and Syrian refugees in Jordan.

In recognition of her work over the years, the Palestinian-American teenager was this month named a Daily Point of Light Award honoree. The awards, which recognize volunteers who have made a real impact in an area of need, were established by then-President George H.W. Bush, who in his 1989 inaugural speech spoke of acts of volunteer service as “a thousand points of light.”

Massad grew up spending her summers in Jordan, helping out with CM2G, and as she grew, she noticed more than the lack of toys, especially the scars of war and displacement. She described the annual trips to Jordan as “getting back to reality.”

Massad’s family could have been among those refugees. Originally from the Gaza Strip, her father, Hanna Massad, was the pastor of the Gaza Baptist Church, one of only three churches, and the only Protestant and evangelical one, in the Muslim-majority enclave.

In 2006 and 2007, when rival factions Hamas and Fatah were fighting for power in Gaza, the Gaza Baptist Church and several of its members were caught in the crossfire. Hamas took power in mid-2007, and in October that year, one of the church’s leaders, Rami Ayyad, who had managed the enclave’s only Christian bookshop, was kidnapped and murdered. The wave of persecution prompted many in the beleaguered Christian community to leave. Only about 1,100 Palestinian Christians are left in the Gaza Strip now, living among nearly 2 million Muslims.

The Massad family left for the West Bank before making their way to Jordan, where Jolene Massad’s maternal grandparents live, and then to the United States in 2016.

However, they continued coming back to the region to meet the growing needs they saw there.

Fluent in both Arabic and English, Massad admits that at first she was “forced” to join her parents as they built their ministry in Jordan, home to 740,000 registered refugees and asylum seekers, according to the United Nations.

“When we went back to Jordan in 2017, my dad wanted us to come on visits with him. It’s like ‘take your daughter to work day,’ in a refugee camp,” she laughed.

I feel that when you come to their homes and you’re sitting there, they light up, they get happy, like, ’There’s somebody here, they’re here to talk to me, they’re here to be my friend’

But she quickly found meaning in the work for herself.

“I feel that when you come to their homes and you’re sitting there, they light up, they get happy, like, ’There’s somebody here, they’re here to talk to me, they’re here to be my friend,’” she said. “These people don’t have food and water. They have to wait in line for us to give them a bag of food and water that can probably last them a week, but it has to last through the month.”

CM2G provides humanitarian aid to 650 families, runs a church for Iraqi Christians, sponsors medical clinics, and runs business initiatives to help refugees achieve financial independence, including quilt-making, a project started by Jolene’s mother, Suhad Massad.

Jolene Massad also provides English lessons, and helped two sisters learn the language as they awaited visas to Australia.

The organization recently started working with orphanages in Lebanon, Egypt, and the West Bank too.

“I really want to get there and see the kids. I want to take more part in that kind of ministry,” she said.

Massad also manages some of the business affairs of the organization. She plans to attend college in the United States and wants to study nonprofit management so that she can continue helping people in need as effectively as possible.

There’s so little manpower and there are so many people who need help

“There’s so little manpower and there are so many people who need help,” she said. “I hear my dad in meetings and they’re listing all the people who need stuff: surgery, they don’t have a house, they need food, but we just gave out all the food vouchers. We don’t have enough for everyone. It’s always so hard listening to my dad telling people there’s not enough money, there’s not enough space.”

It has also altered her perspective of what she needs and wants, and what she can live without.

“A lot of people want stuff, but they can’t get it,” she said. “These people are living with nothing, they’re living in tents, sometimes literally. The little things in your life you realize, ‘Maybe I don’t need that. How can what I’m doing be relevant to other people? Why do I have to be selfish?’”

In addition to visiting Jordan, Hanna Massad travels to the Gaza Strip several times each year to bring aid and encourage the Christian community there. He also visits Gazan refugees in the West Bank. His book, “Pastor from Gaza,” details his experiences growing up as a Christian in Gaza, his outreach there, and two meetings with US presidents.

Jolene Massad acknowledges that her parents’ attitude to service has been passed on both to her and to her older sister, Joyce. While other high school students may seek out volunteering opportunities to add to their college applications, Massad’s years in the refugee camps have shown her that this is the work she most prefers.

“I have that firsthand experience,” she said. “I know that I want to make a difference.”