JACOB´s DREM
New Project of the Bethesda Foundation
The Bethesda Foundation lays the first stone of its new project for intellectual disabled, consisting in a Resources Centre and Daytime Attention with 94 posts, and a Residence with 52. The project is in the number 27 of the Gran Vía de Hortaleza, on grounds handed over by Madrid city council included in its Solidary Grounds programme. Larcovi is in charge of the management. Acciona is the building company.
In full era of economic crisis and employment destruction, the new project means the creation of 50 work posts, that add up to the 47 already existing in the Bethesda Foundation (Belisana Centre and three tutelary floors)
The milestones of the new project, are the following:
• Council announcement: public tender of Solidary Grounds (06/15/2007)
• Foundation request for the ground (07/25/2007)
• Council awarding of the ground to the Foundation (12/21/2007)
• Works license (10/02/2009)
• Signature of the agreement between Caja Madrid and the Foundation (03/09/2010)
On March the 9th, 201 0 collaboration agreement between Caja Madrid and Bethesda Foundation was signed, making possible the funding of the works: it includes the subsidy of the Social Activity and the loan to the developer. It is remarkable the fact that the agreement was signed in the anniversary of Jesus Otero, developer of the Foundation and member of the Ayala Community, that amidst his illness dreamed with the new project.
Many have been the overcome difficulties. We remember that day (July the 7th, 2007) in which the numbers of the new project overflowed us, Enrique’s dream in the middle of the ground (the 8th) and the passage of the Jacob´s dream that was read in all churches (the 9th). It said as follows:
Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran. When he reached a certain place the sun had set and he spent the night there. He took one of the stones that were there and using it as a pillow, he lay down to sleep. While Jacob was sleeping, he had a dream in which a ladder stood on the earth with its top reaching to heaven and on it were messengers of God going up and coming down. And Yahweh was standing there near him and said, “The land on which you sleep, I give to you and your descendants.”
It is not necessary to say the extraordinary boost that this gave us!
Then Jacob rose early and took the stone he had put under his head and set it up as a pillar and that stone became “God’s house” (Gn 28, 10 – 22)
This afternoon, when placing the first stone of the new project, we can rest the head and dream. We may contemplate a ladder standing on the ground and with its peak touching heaven. We can say like Jacob: “The Lord is here and I did not know it”. We can see God´s messengers going up and coming down, persons and institutions who make possible the accomplishment of a dream: a ground, a stone, a God´s house.
Madrid, 4th May 2010
Jesús López Sáez