Jordan Lancaster of Haywards Heath had always dreamed of having a big family.

But after splitting up with her fiance and finding herself suddenly single in her 40s, her life took an unexpected turn.

Ruth Addicott listens to her extraordinary story and learns how a random taxi ride in Bethlehem significantly changed her life

"We paddled in the water, wrote our names in the sand and ate too much ice cream," recalls author and peacekeeper Jordan Lancaster from her home in Haywards Heath.

While the scene she is describing could quite easily be a family on Brighton beach, the children in this case were from Bethlehem. Living amid poverty and political unrest just one hour from the coast, it was the first time they had ever seen the sea.

Jordan's story begins in 2006.

Following a break-up with her fiance and suddenly single in her 40s, she decided to go on a trip to The Holy Land. It was her first visit to the West Bank and her first night in Bethlehem when a member of the group she was with suddenly collapsed in the street.

The man had developed a stomach tumour and needed emergency surgery so Jordan accompanied him to the hospital. After ensuring he was in a stable condition, she caught a taxi back to re-join the rest of the group - and it was this taxi ride, she says, that changed her life.

"I found myself in a cab with a random Middle Eastern taxi driver,"

she explains. "We started chatting and he told me he was a Christian and a very proud father of five."

The taxi driver was called Ibrahim Tanas and, knowing she'd have to go back to the hospital again later that night, Jordan asked if he would drive her. Not only did he turn up as planned, Ibrahim arrived 15 minutes early with his wife and five children - still wearing their pyjamas.

"I wasn't quite ready," recalls Jordan. "But he insisted on taking me out to his cab to meet his family. He explained that when he'd got home and told them he'd had a passenger from Europe, they'd got really excited. The children had never seen a Christian lady from Europe before and had refused to settle until they saw her."

Bethlehem had been under military occupation since 2000, bringing tourism to a virtual standstill. Then, in 2004, the Israelis built a 30ft security wall around the town, leaving a community of 8,000 Christians - including the Tanas family - almost completely cut off from the outside world.

Being among the first groups of tourists to flow back into the town, Jordan had caused an unexpected stir.

The children were enamoured with her straightaway and, as Jordan says, the feeling was mutual.

After a week of being ferried back and forth to the hospital while her companion Billy recovered, Ibrahim invited her to his home for a meal with his wife Nisreen and children (Louis, 12, Rolana, ten, Laureen, eight, Taline, six and George, two). Like so many other families in Bethlehem, they lived in extreme poverty. There was no furniture to speak of and the children slept on two single mattresses on the floor. Nisreen washed all the clothes for a family of seven by hand in the bath tub and they struggled to pay their electricity bills, having to rely, like everyone else, on credit to buy food.

As the streets weren't safe for the children to play outside, they amused themselves indoors. Jordan recalls one of their favourite activities being a game of "check-point" - where one child acts as a soldier and barks orders at the others to empty their pockets, take off their shoes and belts and extend their arms for a full body search.

"It's not an environment you'd like to bring children up in," she observes.

"Yet they are the most happy family you can imagine. They are the unfortunate bystanders in a terrible situation. They realise the only thing which can't be affected is their family and they make the most of that."

One of the daughters, Taline, was born at the height of the second uprising and, as Jordan points out, she does not know a world without extreme unrest and political tension.

Inspired by their warmth and lust for life in the face of adversity, Jordan wanted to help in as many ways as she could. Discovering they had never been to the beach, despite being just an hour from the coast, she used her British passport and took the children on a trip to the seaside. They only had 26 words of shared vocabulary - mostly numbers and greetings - and understood each other with a gesture, glance or smile.

She says it was one of those days that "truly epitomises a carefree childhood"

and has a framed photograph to remember it in her lounge to this day.

Given the shortage of decent schools, Jordan also offered to help with their education, paying £240 a year for each child to go to a good school. She helped fund the school library and set up the registered charity Terra Sancta Education, enabling Christian children to attend the local Terra Sancta College through a bursary. Jordan points out it is not cash handouts that are needed but everyday things, such as secondhand books, toys and computers.

"It costs £240 a year for a child to go to a good school with a big playground and an open and positive atmosphere,"

she says.

"I could easily go into Brighton, wander around and spend that on a handbag - but for what? I might look nicer going out for a meal at the end of the day but when there's a family out there for whom it could make a huge difference, there is no comparison.

"You meet a ten-year-old here and they've already been on an aeroplane,"

she notes. "These little kids don't even have bikes to ride."

While being successful in ending the worst wave of suicide bombings in Israel in recent years, the security wall has caused huge difficulties for Palestinians travelling to work, visiting relatives and even reaching the hospitals for emergency treatment.

When Taline's baby brother George fell and cut his face requiring stitches, he had to go to an Israeli hospital in Jerusalem, which meant that during his two-day stay in hospital his own mother and father, who do not have papers to travel through the wall, were unable to be at his side.

The worst thing about living in Bethlehem, according to Jordan is the lack of freedom. "It is basically an openair prison," she says. "These are people with no money, no work and no chance of leaving. Tempers are frayed and if the families know they have got a friend, it can sometimes be all they need to release some of the tension."

In spite of a demanding job as a translator and interpreter in London, Jordan has been back to the Holy Land four times, including last month when she took 12 volunteers. It was on this trip she stumbled upon a tiny orphanage - her next project -in the small town of Anjara in the north of Jordan.

"There were eight children there and they had all been abandoned," she says.

"Each one had a tragic story, including three sisters whose mother had become terminally ill with cancer and was no longer able to look after them. Their father had got a green card and fled to America and the little girls were left to fend for themselves."

The orphanage had been set up by a local priest and three nuns to save the children from living on the streets, and they were relying on donations to keep it going.

"The children had no toys, they were playing with grubby balloons," says Jordan. "I took them to the shop and let them buy crisps and drinks. Then, as we were leaving, one of the little girls ran up to me and gave me her balloon.

What an amazing need to be loved to want to give the only toy you have in the world to a complete stranger."

In spite of their circumstances, one of the things which struck Jordan most about the Holy Land was the generosity of the people - whatever their faith.

"What Palestinians and Israelis all have in common is they are very family orientated. They have a culture of hospitality which is amazing," she says. "I've lived in Haywards Heath for two years and it's a bedroom community, I barely know the names of my neighbours."

Jordan was invited to the home of a rabbi to celebrate a Jewish festival, as well as to the home of a Muslim family to celebrate Ramadan and says she was made to feel just as welcome in both, with home-cooked food and embroidered gifts.

In a separate bid to promote the idea of peace, she also took part in a 10km run in Bethlehem. Seeing Christians, Jews and Muslims publicly running alongside each other for peace through military barriers where they would normally have been shot, was hugely symbolic, she says.

"I'm not interested in politics or supporting the Palestinian cause," she adds. "What I am interested in is helping children live safely and securely. If we give the children the encouragement, friendship and support they need, hopefully they will grow up and become a voice of peace."

While her support has inevitably had an impact on the children in Bethlehem, Jordan says she also can't imagine a life without them. Furthermore, she believes none of it would have been possible if she hadn't have split up with her fiance.

"Being single is a gift because you're free to do so many things," she says.

"Everyone is under pressure to find a partner these days, but if there's one thing my time in Bethlehem has taught me it's that the world needs single people.

"All my life it was my dream to get married and have five children. It was awful when I broke up with my fiance.

Everyone was pairing off around me and I went to all their weddings knowing I was going into my 40s without a husband or family I could call my own. I could have spent my life savings on IVF treatment trying to have a baby. I could have spent hours on the net looking for my perfect match - but I didn't.

"I chose to spend my time helping others and, in doing so, the children I have met along the way have become like my own.

"I look back now and think how lucky I've been. It's not a case of being left on the shelf' like Bridget Jones. It's a blessing being single and people should make the most of it by getting out there and making a difference."