HOLLIDAYSBURG - Grace Clarke of Hollidaysburg is known for her dedication to children.
But that dedication was forged in Bethlehem, as she said, "where Jesus was born."
She knows the strife of the Middle East and the West Bank of Jordan and what it does to young people.
"Pain, suffering, sadness, feeling of loss, no hope: It is the universal language. You see it in kids who have lost a lot," Clarke said.
Clarke sees that feeling of loss in the kids she deals with on a daily basis while working for Canal Ways in Hollidaysburg, an agency that provides an intense foster care program for youngsters who are referred by the county's Juvenile Parole and Probation Office and Children and Youth Services.
Foster care parents follow a rigid program in which the young people are rated daily on their behavior and their accomplishments.
It is a program that stresses the positive and, Clarke said, it has worked well in Blair County because of the close relationship between her agency, the courts, the people in the county court system and the foster parents.
People like Elizabeth Myers and Cathy Dickinson of the parole and probation office and even President Judge Jolene G. Kopriva work very closely with Clarke to guide the youngsters to a successful conclusion of their probation, she said.
The program, Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care, was brought to Blair County at the urging of Blair County Commissioner Donna D. Gority, Clarke said.
"A lot of the kids are quite damaged before they get there," Gority said.
The program has been in place for several years and has had successes, and Gority, like others, indicated that Clarke has been an exemplary leader.
"I would describe her as very bright, very energetic and very dedicated to what she is doing," Gority said.
"She's a wonderful dedicated person who truly cares about the kids. She has faith in [the program]," Myers said. "She's very dedicated to the beliefs and reasoning behind the way multidimensional foster care works.
"The kids respect and admire her."
Clarke and her husband, Lt. Col. Tim Clarke, have three children: Zane, who attends Bishop Guilfoyle High School; Alex, a St. Patrick's Elementary School pupil; and Ziyad, who attends Penn Mont Academy.
Clarke and her mother, Helen, will tend to the children in the months ahead because Tim Clarke, a member of the Army Reserve stationed at the Johnstown-Cambria County Airport, is back in Iraq for another tour of duty.
Clarke described herself as a Palestinian Christian who has known the ravages of the constant conflict in the Middle East and oppression under the late King Hussein of Jordan, both factors that led to her appreciation of the United States.
She remembers that her father, Nasri Hazboun, who was raised in Bethlehem, studied to be a journalist, but his career came to an end when he wrote an article critical of the government.
"He wrote an article. He was beat up, put in prison and his license was taken away," she said.
Clarke, a graduate of the University of Amman, felt the sting of censorship when she too was bold enough to write a poem that was critical of the government and her professor told her he would publish her work, but he assured her, she too would end up in prison.
She said jail was certain "if we criticized the West Bank leadership."
Her poem was not published."What's the purpose if you go to jail?" she asked.
Once in the United States, Clarke became aware that Americans tended to criticize immigrants as coming here to get benefits, to be given something.
Stung by that criticism, she joined the United States Army.
"I did not want anybody to say, 'You came here to take something from this country.' I don't want to hear that from anybody. I want to start giving, not taking," she said.
She was trained as a combat medic and was assigned to an infantry unit.
Clarke met her husband at a base in Alabama.
She obtained a master's degree from Trinity International University in Deerfield, Ill., where she studied psychology.
She is a certified counselor now, and recently was certified in sexual therapy.
"I know what it is like to have nothing in life," she said of her life in the Middle East.
"We lived in war. I grew up seeing a lot of people missing, a lot of young people leaving and never coming back. When I say goodby to somebody, I feel like it is the last time I'm going to seem them," she said.
She remembers the children, which all influenced what she is doing now in Blair County.
"People look and they see these beautiful children. They are the hope of the future. I really wanted to help those children,"
Clarke has deep faith and she said, "I pray for our foster kids. I pray for them when they are in trouble, like I pray for my own kids."
However, "I don't want people to see me going to church," she said. "I want them to see me by my actions."
"This is a country that has a lot of beautiful things, a lot of freedom," Clarke said of America. "Many people don't see that. They see the here and now. They want instant gratification. It makes me so sad they are not seeing what they have. That is why foreigners come here. They are surprised there are problems here."
Mirror Staff Writer Phil Ray is at 946-7468.
