Mission News
December, 2004
For a child is born to us, a son is given to us.
And the government will rest on his shoulders.
These will be his royal titles: Wonderful
Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
~ Isaiah 9:6
This year I heard
portions of the Christmas story in five different languages – English, Arabic,
Latin, French, and German. A theme
common throughout the familiar narrative in any language is people making a
journey to Bethlehem and returning changed.
Mary and Joseph traveled to Bethlehem as ordinary folks and returned
earthly parents of the son of God. The
wise men traveled to Bethlehem seeking a king and returned having worshiped the
infant Jesus. The shepherds
traveled to Bethlehem not sure what to expect and returned sharing the good news
of Christ with everyone they encountered. Like
all of these stories, my journey to Bethlehem changed me and allowed me to
encounter God in unexpected ways.
You might expect that
after spending a week in the holy land I would have lots of magnificent stories
to share about visits to holy sites and historically important places.
Of course I have enough of those stories to fill three newsletters and
you can read about them on my website, but I’m not going to discuss them here.
Those are the experiences I expected to have in Bethlehem, but like Mary
and Joseph, the wise men, and shepherds, the thing that had the most profound
impact on me was unexpected and
that is what I want to share with you.
When we arrived in
Bethlehem, a tour guide had been arranged to show us around.
His name is Nadal and he is a Palestinian Muslim residing in Bethlehem.
Like most other Palestinian residents of Bethlehem, he is not allowed to
leave the city because he is a terrorist. Okay,
the church didn’t really arrange for a terrorist to be our guide, but he is
Palestinian and for that reason he has the potential to be a terrorist, which is
why he isn’t allowed to leave Bethlehem.
Last year when his mother was ill he sneaked out of Bethlehem to see her
(they are separated by walls, barbed wire, and heavily armed guards), but
otherwise he has not left Bethlehem in years.
He was a very kind man with a huge, friendly grin, a great sense of
humor, and six young kids. He was
also a very good tour guide, but his biggest gift to us was the personal insight
he was able to give into life in Palestine.
Nadal told us stories of Israeli tanks storming into Bethlehem and shared
with us the humiliation he felt waiting in the Red Cross food distribution line
when he was not permitted to work to support his family.
He expressed to us his hopes for a single state in which Jews,
Christians, and Muslims live and work together peacefully.
Although I suspect it is
not high on the agenda for most holy land tourists, we were blessed to spend a
couple hours touring a Palestinian refugee camp in Bethlehem.
For that tour, Nadal was joined by another tour guide, Jihad, who was
born in the refugee camp. Like many other young Palestinians, he has always lived in
the camp and knows no other life. His
situation differed from that of Nadal only in that Jihad’s family had been
displaced from their home by construction of Israeli settlements.
When I hear the phrase,
“refugee camp,” the image in my mind is of tents and other temporary
housing. The camp we toured,
however, has existed since the 1950s and looks as permanent as any other town.
The primary difference, however, is that this “town” is only one half
kilometer square and houses 11,000 people, none of whom are there voluntarily.
Some of the housing looked decent, but much of it was obviously
sub-standard. Although we only
spent a
couple hours in the refugee camp, I felt shocked by much of what we saw and
saddened by the unfortunate circumstances of the people.
Prior to this trip, I am
embarrassed to say, I knew very little about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
I have recently been reading as much as I can about the situation and I
have learned enough to know that the situation is extremely complex, there is no
fair way to cast blame for the problems on a single person or group, and there
is no easy solution. I am blessed
to have witnessed some effects of the conflict and I am certain that if I had
spent more time in Israel, I would have met people in similarly unfortunate
circumstances there. However, for
now I am grateful that when I hear stories on the news about developments in the
peace process or about violent clashes between groups, I will not see nameless,
faceless Jews and Arabs that have the misfortune of living in a hostile part of
the world. Rather, I will see Nadal
trying to instill hope for the future in his six children and I will see Jihad
struggling to live in an environment that encourages him to fight in order to
survive.
As a new year begins,
please pray not only for Palestinians and Israelis or Jews and Arabs, but for
peace, justice, and dignity for all people in the world.
Salem,
Lisa
December newsletter of Lisa Burke,
serving as a YAGM with the ELCA in Cairo, Egypt
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