Salem (peace)

It feels strange to drink sweet tea and eat falafel at the same time. However, that’s what I feel like doing after a strange and somewhat emotional day.

After my first Catholic mass at the Catholic church in town with the English archbishop (the service was in both English and Arabic), Chris and I decided maybe we should take a walk around town. It was a beautiful day – clear sky, bright sunshine. We realized, before we left our apartment however, that our phone was locked and we didn’t understand the Arabic instructions to unlock it. A friend we met lives next door with his family, so we decided to ask him. They invited us in for some coffee. Pretty soon, Ahmad called and said he needed to talk with us.

That’s when we heard the news. Yesterday, a Bible society worker in Gaza was killed. He was 26, had two children, and a child on the way. Chris and I both looked at each other. “Don’t worry, don’t worry…” This is usual. This is life. Birzeit is safe they kept saying. The West Bank situation is definitely different. However, we were warned to be careful.

Again and again I am stuck by the “usual” courage of these Christians. They risk their life for the Gospel, and they can’t even speak the name of Christ but they could receive threats... Our situation as outsiders though is a little different… It reminds me strikingly of Paul’s exhortation and example to the Philippians – “for me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Never before my eyes have I seen this so clearly portrayed.

So instead of our walk, Imad (one of the directors of Living Stones, where we work) and his wife, took Chris and I and his 1 year old son to Ramallah, where we walked around many of the city center’s streets, bought fruit, and tasted falafel. That was today.

The Third Day in Palestine

(the view from our apartment)

Chris (my classmate from my program) and I have been here almost three days. It’s different than I expected – more dry, arid – like another planet. Arabic is spoken everywhere. Five times a day, we hear a call to prayer from the nearby mosque. It woke us up the first night at 4am.
Yesterday morning we heard what Ahmed and Imad (the directors of the Living Stones center) want us to do. The Living Stones ministry has four components. Two of which, we are called upon to assist. The first involves helping the children in the local schools. This was called a “miracle” by Nash (our contact here, and fellow classmate as well)– that the Palestinian government would allow the Palestinian Bible Society into the schools. Christians consist of only 1% of the population. Chris and I will help motivate students in English skills, as well as assist in applying curriculum that focuses on helping kids deal with and express emotionally some of the trauma they encounter. Ahmed described the trauma like a domino effect. “A child sees his father beaten by a soldier. The child thinks his father is not powerful. The child sees the father beat the mother. The mother beats the child…” Basically, the children in the Palestinian schools need positive reinforcement to complete their studies.
The second dimension of work will be with the university students that come to the Living Stones center in the town of Birzeit, where we live. The University of Birzeit, ranking as the best Palestinian university, has about 7,000 students. The Living Stones center provides a place for students to hang out (Muslim, Christian, or whatever) – with coffee, free internet access, and a TV with a projector. Chris and I will lead workshops on how to write a CV, provide some English training, as well as probably presenting some of our North American culture on “culture nights.” The Bible Society sees this as a great indirect way of sharing the Gospel. Bibles are there for the students. The busiest nights of the week will probably be Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights.

( looking out onto the street from the Living Stones Center)

Tonight, Chris and I met a couple of these students from the university. After our meeting with Ahmed and Imad, we talked to a few students about their perceptions of North American culture. One of the guys, Tony (?) was very reluctant to speak English, although he was very good! Another guy, Samuel, joined right in the discussion, talking about how his perceptions of North American culture changed drastically when he went to the states to study abroad during the summer for peace and conflict resolution program. Because of US’ massive media industry, he thought American culture was highly immoral. However, he saw that many Americans are actually very religious. Conversely, he saw that their (or our) religious views often get in the way of regarding people from a human point of view. American’s Christians’ obsession with Israel, for instance, he saw as a reaction of religion and a complete disregard of humanity. In this way, he said, extremist Christian are like extremist Muslims.
After our discussion, students poured into the room to watch a special one-hour series that shows every night during Ramadan. The series takes place during the second intifada in 2002.
Finally, a couple of friends were gathering together for a surprise birthday party.

(with Aishish, apparently a "new" girl to the center - Ahmed had never met her before)

At the end of the night, Chris and I followed Imad and two other students back to his apartment where they introduced us to the “hubbley-bubbley” and some Arabic coffee. Unfortunately, we knew that coffee would keep us up until the first call to prayer at 4am, so we decided to get our sleep, and save more of that experience for another time.

I am still perhaps in culture shock, taking in one thing at a time, but I am really enjoying my time here. I am also grateful Chris is here – it means a lot to have another North American nearby (even if he is Canadian – jk Chris!).
Thanks for reading :) (as Shannon, our infamous blog-writer from our cohort, would say)

I'm about to leave...

I have a couple more things to put away in my carry-on. It's really surreal. I'll send out an email later with prayer requests.. but here are some thoughts:
- I pray for humility, to know these people well, to gain insight and vision into what is going on.
- I pray for humility also, to know that I can never measure the "work" I will do there
- I pray for the strength to be faithful in "the next thing," (as Elizabeth Elliot says) whether that is making dinner, entertaining, meeting students, children, townspeople, or co-workers.
- I pray for strength to make right decisions about when to rest, when to run hard, and when to wait
- I also pray for God to be made known. There is clearly no reason for me to go unless the Lord is hugely gloried. Like many things, I don't know how this will be accomplished, but through obedience, I'll follow Him to where He wants me to go
- Finally, it's not quite on my doorstep yet, but I need to make a decision about what to do after Christmas. There are several options floating around in my head that I ask God to make His peace clear about. I need wisdom.. and a great deal of John's attitude of: "I must become less, He must become greater". The more I enter this world of adulthood, the more I see how easy it is to get caught up in the game of "what I'M doing" and "how this will advance MY career". I need to toss that rubbish aside and run hard toward the GOAL.

Please Lord give me direction and peace. You LITERALLY walked the land I'm about to land on. And that blows my mind. Be with everyone I love.. and bring me back safely again if it be your will. Amen.

An Ode to Philadelphia

There's been a lot of things going on in Philly lately. The Phillies have won their first title since 1993. Bono came to receive an award at the National Constitution Center downtown, and even Jerry Seinfeld was in town to promote a new movie. Here are some pictures (taken from Yahoo) to show you what's been going on:

The Phillies, after winning the NL East Division title today

Nice sign!

Current mayor John Street, and former mayor (and now governor) Ed Rendell congratulating Bono

Bono, receiving his award at the National Constitution Center

There's many things I'm going to miss about Philly, here are a few:

1) Family and friends (of course!)

2) Action News

3) Watching the Phillie fever go across the city (or Eagles for that matter!)

4) Driving up and down Roosevelt blaring music

5) Center City

6) Watching The Office at Kevin and Sara's apartment

7) All the green trees

Fr. Victor and Fr. Peter

Two godly men I have been impacted by lately:
The first, Fr. Victor, is the priest at St. Stephen's Orthodox Cathedral in Northeast Philly where my parents used to attend http://www.ststephenscathedral.org/. The church recently commissioned my father to do two icons for the front entry.
The second, Fr. Peter, had a unique journey into Orthodoxy which continues to challenge and enrich me.

It's been an interesting spiritual journey in my family. My dad grew up a preacher's kid in a Baptist upbringing on the west coast. My mom was a pagan {I say pagan in an endearing tone because my mother who was (and still is) the sweetest women, was incredibly lonely and unfulfilled before she met Christ - though she was doing everything "right" in the world's eyes}. We've been Presbyterian, Episcopalian (which then shifted to Anglican when our church, along with many others, could not assent to the bishop), and now Orthodox.

There's a lot I could say about Orthodoxy, but I will discuss it here through the lives of these men.
Fr. Victor grew up Orthodox in the Ukraine... Time passed and he felt called to be a priest while he was in the States. However, he wanted to make sure he could love people enough, so he waited on God for His assurance. Fr. Victor is now one of the most loving priests (or pastors, or whatever) I have ever known. I have never seen anyone stretched as much as he is in terms of time and capacity to minister, yet also so eager and transparent to plunge into ministry. Because he speaks Russian, he is able to minister to the burgeoning population of Russian-speaking immigrants in North Philly. In fact, after every Sunday service he leads a bible study in Russian for a group of people in the fellowship hall. He also runs the Orthodox Christian Fellowhip (OCF) for students at Penn (the University of Pennsylvania). This ministry provides, among many other things, rich, discipleship opportunities for some of the most prestigious students in the region. All this to say...it is deeply encouraging to meet men like this and see the work of God literally transforming church communities, and the bodies of people they touch.

Secondly, Fr. Peter's life is deeply intriguing because he started out in his twenties like me or many other of my college friends - deeply engaged in what God was doing on college campuses and yearning to be a part of that somehow after graduation. After attending seminary, he went on staff with Campus Crusade for ten years... However, there was a growing disconnect between what he saw as the phenomenal response to the gospel by college students and a lack of commitment to fellowship in churches after graduation. He resigned from Campus Crusade, and with the company of several others, began researching the life, liturgy, sacraments, history, and worship of the early church to discover what church really means. What they found astounded them - liturgy and sacraments were some of the main cornerstones of the early church. To make a long story short, they had been researching how to do church like the early church, and discovered orthodoxy (even though they didn't it existed already as a church).

I've never seriously considered Orthdoxy (even though the rest of my family is)... Like many things in the Christian life, it must come as an open door - a door I have not traversed yet (although, I am going to the Holy Land in week - where Orthdoxy and all of Christendom began).
However, the lives of these men continue to lead me and encourage me towards deeper interaction with my faith, further dialogue about what church means, and towards greater fellowship with not only my family, but also with people who are truly seeking "the ancient paths" (Jeremiah 6:16).

"This is what the Lord says:
'Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls... "

just a picture

This picture was a taken a little over a year ago at Cape Point, South Africa. Just had to post it so I could use it on my profile. That's all :)

What I've Been Reading...

Besides spending time with family, friends, doing homework assignments, and sleeping, I've also been doing a significant amount of reading.
Last week I started "Light Force." It chronicles the efforts of Brother Andrew (who wrote "God's Smuggler") in his attempts to bring the Gospel of Christ to bear upon the violent conflicts in the Middle East - Lebanon and Palestine specifically. I'm blown away by his patience and moreover by the powerful effects of the Gospel.
Last night I started, "Irresistable Revolution," by Shaine Claiborne. Not that much older than I am, this Eastern University graduate placed one of my best friends from high school in the throes of his radical vision to bring the Gospel of Christ to some of the most materially needy in Philadelphia - the homeless. In his quest to understand what "being a Christian" really means, he spends a summer in Calcutta, India, working with Mother Teresa and the Sisters of Charity. One passage he write hit home significantly in which he comments on John 14:12, "Very truly I tell you, all who have faith in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father"

"...what had lasting significance were not the miracles themselves but Jesus' love. Jesus raised his friend Lazarus from the dead, and a few years later, Lazarus died again. Jesus healed the sick, but they eventually caught some other disease. He fed the thousands, and the next day they were hungry again. But we remember his love. It wasn't that Jesus healed a leper but that he touched a leper, because no one touches lepers. And the incredible thing about that love is that it now lives in us."

The "big" things are not so much what matter, as the love that is manifested with each action. I came to see again that Christ is not so much to be trusted and admired because of His tremendous acts, but because of His love that undergirds all that He does - and the gracious manifestation of that love that we get to experience toward others because the Spirit dwells in us. May we all do "greater things than these" by giving the Spirit greater reign!