A Little Taste...

I just came back from Ramallah - did some shopping - finally bought some jeans, and managed to get past the heckling fruit and vegetable sellers. I love Ramallah in the afternoon on a weekday. People flood the sidewalks, sun basks the steets, and for awhile, everyone seems in a good mood.

I tried a new place to eat as well - Chicago Cheesesteak Factory - ok!!! As a Philly girl, I can contest that the cheesesteak I ordered Italian style fit the bill. I will be coming back.

All of this was after our weekly staff meeting - Manal, Nisreen, Ahmad, Imad, and I usually sit around somewhere between 10 am and 12 pm discussing the week ahead, sharing a devotion, and always laughing a lot (there's always usually a lot of bantering back and forth as well - which in Arabic sounds a lot like loud, verbal fighting). Last week I confess my inability to understand Arabic fluently frustrated me overwhelmingly. As a friend has told me - learning a language is a lot like riding a rollercoaster - somedays everything goes right, other days everything you say is wrong.

The big news however is that I was able to spend Holy Week celebrating in Jerusalem. Thursday night I spent overnight at St. George's guest house, after one of the most solemn moments I have experienced here. I attended the footwashing service and was joyfully surprised to learn that afterwards, the congregation would process to the Mt. of Olives, directly to Gethsemane!! I'm glad we did not go to the "Catholic" Gethsemene. As I learned later, that place was overrun with people. Where we went instead was peaceful, quiet, and worshipful - just as it must have been for Christ 2000 years ago. Instead of Roman horses, we heard Israeli police and army cars honking their way past the Temple. As we walked through the East Jerusalem section where St. George's is located, we got a taste of what Christ experienced on his entry to the city - walking past people that could care less about what you are up to, or are rather taken aback and embarassed. The solemnity of Gethsemane seemed to put everything in context...

Early in the morning I arose to walk the Via Dolorosa. Completely unworshipful, it was rather tedious and tiring. I kept looking at my watch to see when it would be over. Cars ploughed through our group, people pushed past our elbows, and you barely had a second to visualize what was going on. The most striking scene occurred near one of the final stations. An orthodox Jewish father and his two young sons walked through our crowd on the narrow Old Jerusalem street. One of his sons who followed him (a boy about the age of 7), stopped very purposefully in the middle of our entourage and spat squarely on the ground in front of bishops who did the reading and said the prayers, as well as the rest of our group who faced them. I'm sure Jesus had more than a few puddles of spit on his face.

Easter Sunday was also somewhat hellish, yet God-redeeming. The service at St. George's was packed. People from all over the world seemed to represent their countries in the tiny sanctuary. However, when I went up for communion, I made the stupid mistake of leaving my bag behind at my seat. At lunchtime later that day, I discovered my camera was missing and 400 NIS cash (almost $100). I never carry that much money around, however I had just gotten "paid" from my stipend, and who knew what I would do and where I would go that afternoon?

All in all, it was another lesson in "rejoicing in every circumstance," which I so dutifully studied a few days earlier in 1 Thess 5:17. Trust God to make sure you know it.

So while I won't have pictures to show you of my time (including one of me carrying the Cross!), here are a few I have pulled from the web.

(NOT what the Old City looks like now, but pretty close)

(What the Via Dolorosa looks like today)

Palm Sunday

Yesterday I traveled to Jerusalem to celebrate Palm Sunday. The whole day felt like a dream. I entered St. George's Anglican Church near the old city on Nablus Road shortly after 10:30. I was ushered in with at least 20 brightly dressed people from Ghana, here on a pilgrimage. The service was held in both English and Arabic.

After the service and some coffee, I went with Bill Broughton, my dad's friend, to his house, with another one of his frinds. We shared a delicious meal of beans, stuffed zucchini, salad, lemon merignue (sp?) pie, and coffee. Bill then dropped me off near Gethsemane, and my adventures began.

I hiked up the route, along with several other people, near the top of the Mt. of Olives, passing gravesites of Jewish and Christian people, finally reaching a place which commanded a magnificent view of the city, and from where I could see the procession coming down the hill (below is a picture of near where I sat, taken from the web). Several groups started the procession. The first were some Palestinian scout groups. A guy I'd met at Birzeit University was helping to lead one of them. Then there were groups of pilgrims from different parts of the world - India, El Salvador, Spain, and Poland, interspersed among other pilgrims.

I finally recognized someone - Tony, one of the Christian students from the university who's from Bethlehem. He was there with two other guys I knew - Samer and Firas. The day before they had been granted 40 day permits by the Israeli government to enter Jerusalem. We walked the rest of the procession into the courtyard of St. Anne's church in the Old City (where the Bethseda Pools are located). The atmosphere was highly festive, as people carried palm branches and Arabic praise music filled the air. Then the Catholic patriarch gave a message praying for all sides of the present conflict in the region.

Once that ended, we watched 3 different scout troops from Palestine perform in the streets surrounding the Old City, with drums, marching, and bagpipes. Samer told me the importance of groups like these, as they became like second homes for the children - teaching them discipline and giving them a second family. The finale was at the New Gate of the Old City, where the procession of the scout troop enters with cheers from the crowds.

Though I had come alone to the city to celebrate, I left feeling like I had truly shared fellowship with friends and participated in something truly special. To visualize what Christ saw as He entered the city is a scene I will surely not forget: "When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, 'Who is this?' (Matthew 21:10).

Class

I just came back from "class" - actually a one-on-one tutor at Birzeit University. It may be more expensive than studying with a student, however I felt "empowered" (to use one of our MA words) receiving formal instruction.

The university is awash with students. If you've never been to a university in the Middle East, it can very overwhelming: girls with hijabs everywhere, everyone smoking... It can also be quite fun! I ran into two girls I had met this fall and it was great to get reconnected. Like any university, you can find friends right away - as people run off to their classes or sit outside with their friends.

Birzeit University is located on top of a hill with a commanding view of the countryside. On clear days you can even see through to Tel Aviv. Around 7,000 students attend the university during a given semester, with at least 100 foreign students taking classes in Arabic and Palestinian culture.

As part of my work here in Birzeit, I want to use these Arabic lessons as a way to learn Arabic, but more importantly increase contact with students - now that I am considered an official student!

A Trip to Jenin and Nablus

This past Friday, the staff at Living Stones organized a trip to Jenin and Nablus for some university students in Birzeit. We traveled through the countryside, finally reaching the village outside of Jenin where Christ healed 10 lepers. After driving through the refugee camp in Jenin we stopped for lunch at a beautiful park on one of the hills overlooking Jenin.

Upon reaching Nablus, we entered the church that sits atop Jacob's Well - the well where Christ talked to the Samaritan woman. Then we stopped to tour a Turkish bathhouse that was hundreds of years old inside the old city of Nablus.

For the students, this was a fantastic way to get outside of Birzeit, to talk about the villages where they are from, and also get exposed to Christianity. Due to the difficulties of travel in the West Bank because of the many checkpoints, several of the students had never been to Jenin. Some of the Christians students on the trip had never been to Jacob's Well. For me, it was an amazing experience to see more of this beautiful country in this budding spring season.

A New Month

Since my last posting, many things have transpired: I moved back into the apartment where I was living this fall, next Tuesday I will begin one-on-one Arabic lessons with a proffessor from Brizeit University, I rejected a marriage proposal from a Palestinian family (you can ask me about that one over email), and I have a clearer job description. Overall, things are better. I am grateful for the prayers of multiple people and the Presence of the Lord to encourage and sustain me. Particularly encouraging to me were the words of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemene to His disciples in Matthew 26:41, "Watch and pray that you do not fall into temptation; for the spirit is willing, but the body is weak."

As for my job description, it includes but is not limited to the following: 1) developing programs for the evenings at the Living Stones Center (this includes movie nights, stress mangagment lectures, cultural education evenings, and english classes) 2) Teaching English in the after-school programs to middle-school kids at four schools in neighboring villages where the Living Stones Center already teaches Servant Leadership courses to the same middle school students. The Palestinian Authority Education Minister was impressed with the results of these programs on the students this previous fall. 3) Writing a proposal for the next phase of the Living Stones Student Center. 4) Womens' ministry - as the only female "staff/volunteer" for the university students, I am responsible, kind of like I was with Campus Outreach in South Africa, to recruit female students to events at the center, and also love and minister to them.

My daily schedule has been rather haphazard - as it can include anything from meeting with the Chilean ambassador with one of my directors to set up a time to present the country to students at the Living Stones Center, to hanging out at the university with random students, to spending time at the center during the day talking to my director Ahmed about various subjects related to the center.

One final note: I went with Ahmad a few days ago to Ramallah to purchase a new coffee machine for the center - with the purpose of income generation. Here are some pictures on its inaugural night!