God is Here

As I sat in the sanctuary of Our Lady of Fatima Church in Beit Shour, a Roman Catholic Church in Palestine, I felt the presence of The Lord. I could not understand the Arabic language, I didn’t know what was being said in the liturgy, but I knew that God was there! I heard in my spirit a song by Martha Munizzi “God is Here”‘and I sung to myself. The lyrics: “I feel a sweet anointing in this sanctuary, I feel the Spirit in the atmosphere, come lay down the burdens you have carried for in this sanctuary God is here. He is here, He is here, to break the yokes and lift your heavy burdens, He is here, He is here, to heal the wounded hearts and bless the broken.” I have to imagine in the midst of this injustice, dispensed through an apartheid state that the people gather here to be living sanctuaries of hope. I have to imagine that as the song says that they that gather to hear The Lord speak. Their hope is in the risen Savior who carried our sins to the cross gives us hope in the midst of a fallen world. We can spend our time concentrating on the negative, being bitter, and angry, but the Word instructs us “to be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce God’s righteousness” (James 1:19-20). It is not to say that we should be passive and do nothing. Indeed, we live as human beings, but we do not wage war according to human standards; for the weapons of our warfare are not merely human, but they have divine power to destroy strongholds (2 Corinthians 10: 4) Our message and actions must reflect the ministry of hope and reconciliation. Psalm 34:15-17 says “the eyes of The Lord are on the righteous and His ears open to their cry. The face of The Lord is against evildoers, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears, and rescues them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” Intercessory prayer, placing our trust in the sovereign Lord,  is the first line of offense and defense ; it is the first response.

Being in that sanctuary brought me joy and gave me hope that trouble don’t last always. As I took holy communion my heart was joined with these believers. If I were at my church I would have been serving but it was nice to receive. I heard The Lord speak into my spirit, all are welcome at the His table, we are one in communion. After service we were warmly greeted and made welcome with Arabic coffee and small talk. I was struck by the community of believers, young and seasoned worshiping together being light was could be seen as a dark situation. I pray that our ministry of presence blessed them as much as I was blessed by encountering them.

— Beverly Moore

“This Can’t Be Life”

It’s Sunday here in the West Bank and today we went to worship at The Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church.  It was my very first Catholic service ever and although I was not able to speak Arabic I still enjoyed being in the service and participating in communion (yes, we were welcome to Holy Communion in a Catholic Church).  We also spent more time with the Salsa family and they provided lunch for us that was awesome.  This family has been so hospitable to us and I am so grateful and thankful for their kindness.

We also went to see the “Rabbi for Human Rights” Organization which continued to shed more light on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and it was great to hear from a Rabbi on the issue.  Although I am feeling particularly moved by the testimonies of those affected, I (and my colleagues) are trying to figure out what is the next move for this community of people?  All we continue to keep hearing is go and tell the story but what we are missing is the “movement” part of the ordeal that I think we’re looking for… the “So Now What?” part.  I am beginning to wonder if it’s because the Palestinian people are afraid of what the Israeli army may do if they try to organize again.  They have suffered many hardships and lost thousands of lives during the Second Intifada and I’m sure that crushed their spirits, but they still are trying to hold on to the little voice they have left in order to find some way towards freedom, even if its not for their generation but for their children and their children’s children.  They are holding on to the Hope that Change is coming!  In the famous words of the rapper Jay-Z, “This Can’t Be Life!  There’s Gotta Be More, This Can’t Be Us!,” I’m feeling the push of the community that wants more and is awaiting the day they no longer have to live under these current situations and political control.

Many of the people’s struggles here reminds me so much of the history of the Civil Rights Movement and how I wish, I so wish that the people of this country could at least have half of the freedom that we as African Americans fought for.  There’s lots to be done in the country to help free these people from the oppression they are under.  My heart breaks every time I hear someone tell me that they are “NOT ALLOWED” to go somewhere.  The Palestinian people need permission to leave out of the country, to expand their homes, to open a business and I’m not talking about the kind of “permission” we need in the US to start a business. It’s totally different.  I’ve seen so many buildings abandoned in the middle of a new project because they have been shut down for ‘building’ without a permit or not paying their taxes (which they would never be able to afford) and so their businesses are shut down.  I am amazed and completely humbled by the grace and hope the Palestinian people carry each and every day as they do what they can to live in the conditions in which they have minimal control over their own lives.  We in the US are blessed to have certain privileges that they do not have and we take those things for granted.  As I continue to wrestle with my spiritual self and humane self, I’m now asking God to help me understand the “Now What?” in this situation.  I’m praying as others are praying as well for an answer.

~HaLana Thompson

Why?

Why do the innocent suffer?  Why won’t the troubling cease? Why won’t my people listen?  Why can’t we all live in peace? Why did I take a class called Outrageous Hope from Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary?  Why did Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. say “Never lose infinite HOPE”? Why did I travel with Grace Tours and not EO (Educational Opportunities)?  Why did I decide to travel with a group of seminiarians?  Why did we spend most of our time in Nazareth, Bethlehem, Jericho and the West Banks?  Why was the cost $1,000 less with all meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner) included?  Why was the meeting with Archbishop Elias Chacour a blessing to me?  Why have I never met the International Christian Committee in Israel executive director in my 2 other trips to the Holy Land?  Why come people treat others people like they are less than human?  Why come I enjoyed being on the Sea of Galilee this time more than the two other times?  Why come I enjoyed staying in the Golden Crown Hotel in Nazareth and the Shepherd Hotel in Bethlehem more than I did the Olive Tree in Jerusalem?  Why does the Israeli-Palestine conflict look like, feel like, apartheid?  Why do Palestinians need a permit to leave the Gaza Strip or the West Bank?  Why should I, an African-American pastor from West Virginia be concerned about this issue?  Why am I am my brother’s keeper?

Jesus said if you did it to the least of them, you did it to me.

I believe and know that I took this class because Dr. King was right if you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.

I don’t want the people of Palestine to lose Infinite HOPE.

I chose Grace Tours because it’s a justice and human rights issue for me.

I decided to travel with seminarians because I wanted to reconnect with Garrett after 25 years and I knew I would be blessed because I came.

We spend so much time in Nazareth, Jericho, Bethlehem, and the West Bank because I wanted to put faces on the issues, the pain, and their whole experience.

The cost issue is interesting because we are here two days longer and all the meals were included with Grace Tours.

Archbishop Elias Chacour has a heart for God’s people and I was blessed by his testimony.

It’s good to meet people to minister to the poor, the least, the lost.

The comfort of hotels is important but we should never place your comfort over people who are suffering.

I want to be on the right side on the justice issue because I am my brother’s keeper.

I have been called a trouble maker and I honestly consider it a compliment.

When I was in seminary in the 1980’s, apartheid was wrong in S. Africa and apartheid is wrong in 2014 in Israel.

Jeremiah Jasper

Palestinian Hospitality

It is important to make a note of the incredible hospitality we have received so far from Palestinians. Today we enjoyed a delicious lunch at the houses of the Salsa family. Half of our group ate with Rema and Phillip, the parents of our tour guides, Ramzi and Rafet. The other half enjoyed a meal prepared by the family of the third brother, Bashara.

Family is important here. Rafet and Bashara live with their families in flats above their parents. Rafet remarked that the whole town of Beit Sahour is like a family and Bashara said that he knew every family in town.

The fact that the Salsas welcomed us into their home has been only one example of Palestinian hospitality. Ramzi has made the extra effort to make sure that everyone in the group got what they needed from the drug store. We have also been welcomed graciously with delicious meals at Sindyana and Sabeel, two organizations that we met with.

I wish that more US citizens could experience Palestinian hospitality and go to church in Beit Sahour. Hopefully our blog can express what we’ve learned from these friends.

-Eddie Crise

Tolerance

Tolerance Monument on the border of West and East Jerusalem

My understanding of the word tolerance has shifted dramatically throughout seminary. Once seen as a positive term of reconciliation between myself and those who do not share similar traits, I have come to see the concept of tolerance as an invention of privilege. I learned to tolerate those who did not share in my culturally privileged norms, such as whiteness, maleness, Protestantism, and heterosexuality. To say you must tolerate someone, you must first see them as both different and inferior to yourself. Tolerance inherently sets the tolerater over and above the perceived tolerated.

This conceptualization was made even more clear to me during our trip to East Jerusalem. There stands a gleaming green column with an olive branch wrapped around its top. This is the Tolerance Monument, built near the divide of Jewish West Jerusalem and Palestinian East Jerusalem. Standing alone, it could be viewed as a beacon of peace and reconciliation between Palestinians and Israelis.

But it does not stand alone. A mere quarter mile down the road stands a barricaded Israeli police station, bristling with barbed wire. Serving as a military/police/border patrol hybrid, the station sits along the entry road to East Jerusalem. The cramped, crowded, and dilapidated homes and roads in East Jerusalem, along with the severely limited access of water, electricity, garbage services, and schools illustrate the type of tolerance the Israelis have for the Palestinians. Tolerance is essentially social abandonment. Rather than drive Palestinians off through force, which may force the US government to remove its blinders to the blatant oppression of the Palestinian people by its greatest Middle East ally, Israel simply abandons Palestinians to social death. Through denial of basic human rights, through the criminalization of a people based on race, through systems of apartheid. As Americans, we must see past the camouflage of Tolerance Monuments and focus on the reality of the social abandonment of the Palestinian people. Having seen it up close and touching the apartheid wall with my own hands, I will certainly never forget.

The Israeli separation wall along the Jericho Road in East Jerusalem.

-Jeremy Westrick

Rocks and Hills

Thursday was a day that was all about observing the land for me. It began as we left the Sea of Galilee and began our drive through the Jordan Valley to Jericho, Qumran, the Dead Sea, and finally ended in Bethlehem.

As we traveled, our guide asked us to observe how green and fertile it was in Israel and how dry and barren it became the further you went into the West Bank. The contrast was indeed stark.

As we continued, our guide began to point out the Israeli settlements along the road. 28 of them along the road we were travelling. Indeed, the road itself was Israeli built. We passed through a checkpoint that our guide is only allowed to pass through because of his permit to be a guide. When his family travels with him, they must take a different road.

Our guide pointed out the fertile land that was under control of the settlements. Fruit trees surrounded by barbed wire fences.

Each settlement had a road sign pointing out its name and location. Each Palestinian village remained unknown. Palestinians cannot put up road signs because the road is area C of the West Bank, which remains under Israeli control. Yet each village is marked by a sign declaring that it is area A, under Palestinian control, and dangerous and illegal for Israeli’s.  This is damaging to the Palestinian economy. This was easy to see in Jericho. The Palestinians there were so thrilled to see us and so eager to sell to us.  That’s actually how I wound up being persuaded to ride a camel.

At the UN we saw maps that demonstrate how area C divides the West Bank into what looks like swiss cheese. Palestinian villages cannot expand without permits, which are never granted. 

A fact sheet I picked up at the UN states that “The denial of access to the Dead Sea coastline has also prevented the development of a potentially significant source of revenue and employment. Meanwhile, Israeli settlements have been able to develop highly profitable agricultural, mineral, touristic, and other business.”  We certainly saw this as we drove through the land, particularly when it comes to the tourist business in Qumran and at the Dead Sea.

I struggle with our visit to Qumran. On the one hand, I think it was helpful to see for ourselves what the settlements have built there. I also really enjoyed seeing the place where so many scriptures were found. The caves were amazing, and I will admit that while looking at them I forgot about who was running the place. But I couldn’t forget during lunch or as we walked through the gift shop. Our group passed through the gift shop very quickly, choosing not to purchase anything that would support the settlements . I accepted our entrance fee as a necessary evil if we wanted to see the caves. It makes me feel conflicted, but not nearly as much as lunch.

Eating lunch there was simply unpleasant. I think most of my colleagues have agreed that it was their least favorite meal. This is both because it was not as good as the rest of the food we’ve been eating, but also because of the environment. After all that I had seen on our drive, the sight of the Israeli flag on that building deep in the heart of the West Bank bothered me a lot. 

Land is a huge issue. Who owns it, who can build on it, and how each part affects other parts.  Everything we have seen so far has made it very clear to me that the use of the land is unfair. I spent a significant portion of our drive on Thursday feeling as if I could cry from what I was seeing.

-Rebecca Klemm

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“Welcome to Apartheid”

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in the foreward to Naim Ateek’s book, A Palestinian Christian Cry for Reconciliation said, “What do I see and hear in the Holy Lands? . . . I have to tell the truth: I am reminded of the yoke of oppression that was once our burden in South Africa . . . For those of us who lived through the dehumanizing horrors of the apartheid era, the comparison seems not only apt, it is also necessary. It is necessary if we are to persevere in our hope that things can change.”

Nancy Clark, in the book, South Africa: The Rise and Fall of Apartheid described apartheid as “apartness. It was established as a policy to separate physically all races within South Africa in a hierarchy of power with whites at the top and Africans at the bottom.” I recently watched the newly released film Mandela: A Long Walk to Freedom, and I must admit it was a great movie. I have a slight image of what took place during the apartheid era in South Africa. This film featured the struggles and the destruction due to apartheid system. In this film you witness the unjust and inhumane acts done by the people who enacted apartheid on the blacks in South Africa. Apartheid did not benfit the whole South Africa, but only those who were of European decent. Apartheid created a wall of segragation and discrimination among the people of South Africa.

With that in mind, when I begin to observe the Israel-Palestine conflict I felt like I was watching one of the Mandela films. While traveling through Israel, I witness special regulations that only benefit Jewish Israeli’s. I see special Identification cards that palestinians are required to have in order to enter into some of the parts in Israel. I can see the destruction of palestinian villages.  I see Jewish settlements built on what is the palestinians land and much more destruction. But I think to myself, this is not a movie. This is the real deal. This is the sad reality of life.

When I look at the conflict between Israel and Palestine, I cannot help but to think of apartheid. When you limit the rights of one group of people so that another group can be superior and dominant that is apartheid. When you are taking land that does not belong to you and creating settlements, creating homes for another group that is apartheid. In the words of Naim Ateek, “The government of Israel enacts laws that discriminate between Jews and Palestinians, and its judges enforces these laws. Israeli law gives automatic citizenship to any Jew from any part of the world while denying the same to Palestinians.”

Apartheid in Holy Lands, this seems to be a oxymoron or a paradox, but to the Palestinian  people, this is an unfortunate reality. A reality that has been going on for decades. A reality that one could only imagine. A reality that a people who has been oppressed for years is now being the oppressors. A reality that has to change or we may see an entire group of people wiped off the face of the earth with the justification that God has given us this land.

Tiggs Washington

OCHA and Peacemaking

After we met with The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs of the United Nations in Jerusalem, I began to understand what the occupation is actually doing in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.  This is truly an injustice on the Palestinians living in these regions. People are suffering from lack of sanitation, water, food, and everyday needs. Going to see a refugee camp later this week will make the reality even more real for me.

These people do not deserve what the Israeli government is doing to them. They are just normal everyday people who love their families. All the Palestinians want is to be able to live their lives without restriction. There is not sense of hostility in the overall population towards the Israeli government. They just want to find peace in this land.

We visited the parent’s home of Ramzi our tour guide. We were shown hospitality through drinks and cookies and a very warm greeting as we entered their house. The family show love towards us throughout our visit. Throughout our time, the different family members came in and out because they all live above Ramzi’s parents.  The generosity and kindness that they showed us because we came to see them was real and not just because were came to shop at their home business of olive wood sculpting.

When we are called to be peace-makers and to tell the story that we heard today. God’s love is for all regardless of the cultural heritage or religion. A human is a human, a person is a person. the Israeli government does not seem to care about this because of the way that they are treating the people of this land. My hope is to take back this message to the people in the congregations that I am involved in so that we can help this land find reconciliation and peace.

Ryan Russell

Water Stewardship

Leviticus 19: 9-10

When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the Lord your God.

I think I surprised a lot of the group when I said that last night’s devotion was going to come from Leviticus. However, the biblical practice of gleaning came to mind as we watched the landscape go by in the Israeli controlled Area C of the West Bank.

In contrast to the text from Leviticus, the settlements which were protected by the military had sufficient water while we struggled to find much green terrain in the rest of the land in Area C. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs monitors the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories closely. In a fact sheet from January 2013, they state that over 70% of the communities located mostly or entirely in Area C are not connected to the water network and water consumption in some communities is as low as 20 liters per capita per day, which is one fifth of the World Health Organization’s recommendation.

Water stewardship needs to be seen as both a human right and a theological issue. We should remember God’s call for gleaning of the fields with respect to water in occupied Palestine.

Eddie Crise

Home and Hope

Nazareth is a city of 80,000 people, mainly Arab Muslims and Christians. The haunting Arabic chants for Islamic calls to prayer five times a day exist alongside the whine of US-made Israeli F-16s buzzing over this town known as the Arab capital of Israel. Stark contrasts are seen between Nazareth and the adjacent Nararet Illit, a Jewish “suburb” of Nazareth. Compared to the cramped, narrow streets half-completed homes, and abandoned construction sites of Nazareth, Nazaret Illit has green spaces, large comfortable homes, and wide, well-maintained roads. The contrast and contradiction is obvious.

Despite the conditions in Nazareth, our Palestinian tour guide Ramzi informed us that there is no homeless problem in Nazareth. Sure enough, when a few of us students walked from the center of Nazareth to our hotel on the evening of our second day of the trip, we encountered no homeless. Ramzi explained that the familial culture of Palestinians does not allow for homelessness. Families will do whatever it takes to ensure that all are cared for and sheltered. Families often live with one another, children building homes next to their parents or even adding additional stories to the parents’ home. The idea of allowing a family member to suffer is unimaginable.

From my lens as a white American living in Chicago, this is difficult to grasp. My culture idolizes self-sufficiency while simultaneously depending on the state to provide for our homeless. The Palestinian concept of home is therefore foreign to me. I’ve moved over a dozen times in my lifetime, and this represents my privilege and freedom. This privilege has altered my conceptualization of “home.” Home is not a place my extended family and I have lived for generations. It is rather wherever I happen to want to live and is generally tied to work or school. Therefore economics drives my definition of home rather than familial bonds. For Palestinians, family and home are inextricably bound together.

This makes the plight of the Palestinians all the more tragic. A people who find the concept of individual homelessness in fathomable find themselves forcibly made homeless as a community. Following the Palestinian nakbah of 1948, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forcibly removed from their homes and villages. We saw evidence of this removal in the ruins of the village of Bar’am in northern Israel. Israeli war planes destroyed the centuries old village of 1,050 Palestinians in just two days in 1953, shortly after an Israeli court ruled that the displaced Palestinians had every right to return to their village. The shattered remains and blatant attempt to cover up the tragedy by the Israeli government is absolutely heartbreaking to witness in person.

And yet, there is hope. The remnant of the villagers of Bar’am return to the site, now an Israeli national park. Though the park merely recognizes the site of an ancient synagogue with no mention of the Palestinian village that was obliterated merely 60 years ago, the village residents return and remember. Now in their 70s and 80s, the Palestinians sleep on mattresses on the ground. They bring their children and grandchildren and thus their story continues on. Despite efforts to erase them from history, the Palestinian commitment to family and home actively and forcefully resists and rejects the powers that seek to exile them from their homeland and history.

-Jeremy Westrick