You Can’t Get There from Here, AKA, The Wall

"Like a bird that wanders from her nest, So is a man who wanders from his home." Proverbs 24:8

I'm usually able to navigate from point A to point B. Whether driving or out for a walk, I notice the places I’ve passed, and check my GPS to be certain that I’ll get to my destination. But this place… it’s just tough to get around.

To begin with, the signage is difficult to read. I'm not familiar with the two main languages here, Arabic and Hebrew. On our first trip to the grocery store, our team selected our food based on the picture on the container. Nothing here seems to have price tags, and at three weeks it still takes time to do the shekels to dollars conversion in my head. It was a hilarious first outing.

Navigating the narrow East Jerusalem streets is also laughable. I understand 100% why the program forbids us from renting a car. There is no parking available, so people tend to leave their cars half or fully on the sidewalks. This means that pedestrians walk in the middle of the road so that we are better seen. Two way streets often become temporarily one way out of necessity. Cars must be outfitted with careful steering and good brakes to avoid accidents.

The bus system is another way of getting around, but I haven't been completely successful at that either. I have been trying to use Mapquest/Google Maps for tips on which bus to get on where, and which bus stop to get off. But, because we are in an annexed area, the maps are incomplete, and often a query will come back with results "No destination found". 

The buses here ONLY stop at the designated bus stops if they need to pick someone up. So, counting the stops can be a disaster – as happened to me travelling alone to a Sabeel Bible study across town Thursday, and to Bethlehem with my teammate Yuni last night.

The Bethlehem adventure is probably the funniest one yet, in a sad kind of way. 

Our plan was to be at St. Katherine's in Bethlehem at 5pm, (next to the Church of the Nativity) for an ecumenical prayer service between the heads of churches. It was a big deal because the Catholic Archbishop would be there (as in the States, Catholics, Orthodox and Reformed churches usually do not join together for ecumenical services). Since Yuni and I are the only practicing Christians on our team, we are always eager to go to these kind of things.

Earlier I planned out on. I thought having two hours to go the 6 miles between Jerusalem and Bethlehem would be fine. I’d even have enough time to show my South Korean teammate around the church of the Nativity! Why two hours? Because the trip that should be six miles became 40 miles in 2002, when a wall separating Greater Jerusalem and Bethlehem was built. All traffic coming in and out must go through a checkpoint.

The Google pointed us to the secondary bus station on Sulemann St to board bus 286 (which we were supposed to ride for 2 stops). The 286 comes every 20 minutes like clockwork, but school had also let out, and teens wearing various lovely hijab or the distinctive Palestinian ‘cool teen guy’ haircut swarmed around us. It's good manners to let them go before us, so we did that. A lot. It took two rounds of buses before we finally boarded.

Remember how I said that buses don’t stop as planned? This one didn’t stop and took us way past where we were supposed to get off and through a Bedouin village. Once we were the only two people left on the bus, I got up the nerve to ask “Hey, is this the bus to Bethlehem?” Thankfully, the driver was very nice and explained to us that we needed to go to the central bus station. He drove us back so we could walk a half mile to pick up the 231 just outside Damascus Gate – the best route.

We knew we’d be late to this very important church service, because this second but left about 45 minutes before the service was to start! As we waited, I met a new friend Leo and his sweet four year old daughter Jasmine. Leo lived in the Midwest for 18 years, and had a perfect American accent. He put me at ease answering my questions about how to get around. 

When we (finally) got to Bethlehem we were on the opposite side of town. He told me that we could either get a taxi or take a pleasant walk through the town with him serving as our tour guide. I politely thanked him for the offer, but told him that we really needed to get to this service fast. The four of us got off the bus and he hailed us a taxi.

Taxi's here gather at places where they expect westerners to be, and drivers compete for business by shouting things like, “Hey, pretty lady, where you from? You need Taxi?” If you ignore them, they only get louder. Sometimes they are unlicensed, and drivers expect to haggle with you over the price (they have no meter). Thankfully, Leo stepped in when four of them started shouting over each other in Arabic about who would get to drive us. He guided us to a car where a more professional driver was waiting.

Turns out, this guy was the regular driver for our Bethlehem teammates! His name is Nasser. Leo, Jasmine, Yuni and I got into his cab and he drove us to the church. Nasser said that it closes at 6 (which was in just 15 minutes) and he’d wait for us so that he could return us safely. 

And that’s when I walked into the wrong church. The invitation for this prayer service said Church of the Nativity/St. Katherine's. We entered the Church of the Nativity first. My clergy collar attracted open mouthed stares from laypeople, and looks of disdain from male clergy. Have I explained that there are NO female priests in the Holy Land? Well, except for 3 of us foreigners... me, Rev. Loren and the co-pastor of the Lutheran church in the Old City.

So we walk forward to find a huge group of people. I think this is the prayer service. But then I notice the top of a casket that is propped up at the front. Nope, we’re at someone’s funeral. So, we quietly backtrack and find a museum guide, who wants to take us through the church and explain everything to us. I tell him three times that we were looking for St. Katherine’s, which I thought was here. “Yes!” he says and walks us down a dark hallway into the vestibule of the place we were meant to be. We enter, ten minutes before the prayer service is over. It’s all in Latin, and I can’t understand a thing. Our seats are so far back we can’t see much either.

Nasser was waiting outside for us when we left. Although he looks very young, Nasser told me he has four children at home and can we please visit his cousins gift shop on the way home? Thankful at having made it this far, we relented. I purchased a new carved olive wood communion cup and patin, and a silver bracelet for a friend. We haggled, but I still spent more than I should have.

When we left the shop, Nasser told us that he couldn’t take us all the way back to Bethlehem, that we had to walk through checkpoint 300 and pick up another bus that would take us back to town. When he let us out, I asked him how much we owed him. He said “whatever you want to give me!” That’s when I noticed he didn’t have a meter. I paid him twice what I should have because Nasser is a dad and he was nice to us.

Going through checkpoint 300 to get back into Jerusalem is difficult enough in the daylight, but the creepiness level is turned way up at night when there is no outdoor lighting. I clutched Yumi’s arm and together we made it up the metal chute to eventually get through. I must be getting used to this insanity, because I did not have a panic attack. 

Instead, I was mad. Mad that nice people like Leo and Nasser suffer this indignity whenever they have a permit to leave the West Bank. Mad that what should have been a ten minute journey by car took us over an hour because of the wall of separation. Mad that my new friends who live here are treated no better than animals.

Once through the checkpoint, we waited ten minutes to board the bus. When we disembarked outside of the Damascus Gate at 7pm, we were very hungry. Our original plan was to find a nice place to eat in Bethlehem, but with knowing how difficult travel was and not wanting to miss the last bus out of town, we didn’t. Instead, we stopped at the first restaurant we saw to have a lovely protein-dense meal. Then we walked the mile back to the placement house.

What a day! Next time, I hope we will know better how to get there from here.

Beauty in the Brokenness

"Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." Philippians 4:8 (NIV)

Rev. Loren McGrail is a UCC pastor and Global Ministries UCC/DOC Missionary serving the YWCA of Palestine. The YWCA was first initiated in 1893 by informal groups of Christian women meeting in Jaffa and Jerusalem, and established officially as the YWCA of Palestine in 1918. It was one of the first organizations to provide services for Palestinian refugees, even before the camps were established in 1948-49.

At the time of the establishment of the State of Israel, more than 750,000 Palestinians became refugees in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon; and more than 525 Palestinian towns and villages were destroyed.

"Fabric of Our Lives" Dolls
(EAPPI/Jennifer G)

Currently, the YWCA of Palestine is formed by three associations situated in Jerusalem, Ramallah and Jericho, which also oversees two multi-functional community centers in Jalazoune and Aqbet Jaber Refugee Camps.

In Ramallah, women are taught to be an event planner (weddings and the like), eventually earning a certificate and help with job placement. Jericho offers a food production program for the women. Their dream is to produce enough locally sourced food so that people throughout Israel/Palestine can be fed. Unfortunately, checkpoints get in the way of their distribution, and products are not available outside the West Bank.

The YWCA also works with the EU in setting women up with micro-loans. This helps the women become self-sufficient making honey, jams and cakes.

The YWCA also offers training on civil engagement, so that Palestinian women can work to fix their own problems. Learning how to settle disputes, issues and conflicts is an important part of self-determination. In one small village, the women earned enough money to purchase a bus for their frightened children to get to school past gun-toting settlers. The young men of the village were so envious of their accomplishment, that they began to work on building a football field. In a place like the West Bank, where there is so much every day stress, having a place for children and youth to gather and play games is very important.

The YWCA's advocacy efforts focuses on women's rights, especially the right of return and self-determination. The women are organizing a National Action Plan that will challenge domestic violence. They believe that it is long past time to hold the system accountable for looking the other way at honor killings, which may be rare but still happen. A group of women go to the UN every March to a conference on women's issues, the delegation from Palestine also speaks about the violence of the occupation itself, especially when it comes to demolitions and access to movement.

Demolitions impact women differently than men in this society. The house is the one place where it is culturally appropriate for the woman to have authority, safety and security. Her entire world falls apart when this important piece of her life is bulldozed. Men often feel the trauma differently; as a personal failure. But for the woman of the home, the destruction wipes away her very identity.

With the newly passed Knesset legislation, many people here believe that more land will be annexed and additional settlements will go up soon, which will lead to an increase of despair and violence.

Separation Wall,
Bethlehem (EAPPI/Jennifer G)

The separation wall is another issues that affects women differently than men. If a young woman in the West Bank studies hard and gets into a good university, she will need to pass through a checkpoint to get to class. Her father could say no to this because he wants to protect her from the potential violence and the sexual harassment. Her parents may encourage her to end her studies and find a husband. In this and many more ways, patriarchy uses the occupation as an excuse to keep women in their place.

Rev. McGrail also shared with us ways that women remember wartime events differently than men. Men tend to talk about the land, and women talk about the people. She told us about meeting a woman remembers fleeing the Deir Yassin massacre with her infant. As she ran through the village to escape the violence, the young mother (she was 16 at the time) encountered another mother dead on the ground. When she fell, she had dropped her infant, and he was still alive. Every day of her life the mother who survived mourns for that child she did not pick up. She still wonders what became of it.

Loren is an artist, and showed us some of her works illustrating the many issues that Palestinian women and children face. She re-purposes broken pottery, marbles, tear gas cans and bullet casings as unique works that tell a story of beauty in the brokenness. It is one way that she cares for herself so that she can care for others who have been traumatized by war and violence. It is breathtaking stuff.
You can see some of it yourself on her blog: lorenmcgrail.blogspot.com

One of Loren's pieces
(EAPPI/Jennifer G)

Palestinian Christians - A minority among the minority

"Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5:10
There has been a lot of rain in Jerusalem these past few days, but our team has been keeping busy with visits to communities, making appointments with NGO's, standing at checkpoints, responding to demolitions, doing schools runs and walks around the Old City. As I expected, my time here holds moments of joy (like when a Palestinian child smiles and asks where I'm from) and deep sorrow (like seeing the rubble of a family home destroyed with a demotion order).

Not a picture of the coffee I was given,
but it was made with as much care as this one

This morning, as my Norwegian friend and I walked through the old city doing our best to dodge raindrops, we were invited in to a small cafe'. Since I craved a cup of American (filtered) coffee, we accepted. The shopkeeper spoke excellent English as he asked me what my views were on Donald Trump, who met with Israeli Prime Minister Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just yesterday. We had a lively political discussion, on the whole, Palestinians are quite well informed about the American political scene.

I noticed a large poster of the head of the Greek Orthodox Church, and we got to talking about faith. My new friend claims to be the only Palestinian (Arab) shopkeeper in the Muslim Quarter. When we finished, the shopkeeper said "God bless you", and it warmed my heart as much as his coffee had.

Today, Christians make up just 1% of the population of the Palestinian territories; in 1920 (the beginning of the British Mandate), they were at 10%. In the land where Jesus lived, there is a strong concern that a dwindling Christian population is turning churches from places of worship into museums. Furthermore, when international Christian pilgrims visit the places of Christ's birth, death and resurrection, they find the Holy Land and its people divided by a concrete wall.

Christians kissing the anointing stone
at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher

In the United States, many Christians are reticent to criticize the Israeli government for fear of being labelled an anti-Semite. Others see support for Israeli security policies as the only way to defend against the incursion of a regional Islamic State. What they may not know, unless they spent time here, is that there is a shared Arab identity and solidarity between many (if not most) Muslims and Christians living in the Occupied Territories. As our director has said, "Sure we can live together in peace, why not?"

I believe that these preconceptions often obscure the reality that Muslims, Christians and other religious minorities in Israel/Palestine have valid concerns and legitimate human rights grievances. By ignoring the plight of their Palestinian coreligionists, American Christians both misunderstand the complexity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and miss out on an opportunity to live out the message of peace that Jesus gave to this world.

I am very interested in learning how the Christians who remain in the Holy Land deal with the stresses of occupation, and I hope that I will be able to spend some time visiting churches and Christian organizations. What is the wider Christian Church’s responsibility to help our brothers and sisters achieve a just peace in Palestine? Where can hope be found?

The Elephant and the Blind Men

Once upon a time, there were six blind men in a village. One day the villagers told them, "Hey, there is an elephant in the village today!" Blind since birth, they had no idea what an elephant was. They decided that even if they couldn't see it with their own eyes, they would go and touch the animal. So all of them went, and all of them touched.

"Hey, the elephant is a pillar!" said the first man, who touched the leg.
"Oh, no! It is like a rope." said the second man, who touched the tail.
"You are wrong! It is like the thick branch of a tree!" said the third man, who touched the trunk.
"It is like a big hand fan!" said the fourth man, who touched the ear.
"You are wrong! It is like a huge wall!" said the fifth man, who touched the side.
"No, no, it is like a solid pipe!" said the sixth man, who touched the tusk of the elephant.

And so, they continued to argue and became quite agitated with each other. Eventually, each one stormed off in another direction, unwilling to speak about it any further. Ultimately, none of the men were able to understand the bigger picture, they all approached the animal from their own perspective and became stuck thinking that their story was the only true one.

I'm not here to arbitrate who is right and who is wrong in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. My role is to listen and learn from the people directly affected. I'll try to see the big picture, and not get stuck on what I believe to be true. There are grievances on every side. As I'm walking alongside these people in this "Holy Land full of holes" I'll do my best to avoid generalizations, remembering there are many perspectives within the dysfunctional family of Abraham. At this moment, we are all blind. So let's continue down this less traveled road of non-violence together, helping one another along the way. The situation may not be easy, but it's not impossible.

Peace - Shalom - Salaam

A Place Where Children Can Play

The community of Silwan sits high in the hills east of Jerusalem. Because it sits adjacent to the City of David, settlers have been slowly displacing the people there. In addition, the private security forces and police who guard the new inhabitants have a tendency to harass the people who live there, particularly the children.

Walking the streets of Silwan

I believe that violence easily becomes cyclical in nature. The fear of a young child who has to walk past soldiers holding large automatic weapons on the way to their school turns into teens that throw rocks, causing damage to the houses on the hill directly below. They aim for the settler's security guards and homes, but they easily hit their own.

Our roles in the area is to provide protective presence, by accompanying the children to school and visiting the community center, a place which was built by the Swiss but is run by parent volunteers as a place to keep the children safe and from wandering the streets.

Yesterday we took our first walk through the area, and visited the community center. The children there love to practice their English but I am feeling the need to at least try to speak Arabic, so I hope to take some private lessons from a woman in our community. Rumor has it she also teaches middle eastern cooking, which I will have to learn because as they say, one cannot live by shwarma street wraps alone!

Inside the Community Center,
where children play after school

Today two of us went on our first school watch. We stood at the top of the stairs greeting the children as they ascended to the boys and girls school. Girls looked smart in their burgundy track suits and the boys were dressed in normal street clothes. Because the sunrise was behind us, we believe that some of the smaller children may have been frightened by us. 

We decided to move up to the top of the hill closer to the school when some of the older teen boys began throwing rocks at the houses below. Instinctively, we knew that it is harder to make the wrong choice when you have to meet the eye of another. So we joined their group so that they were distracted enough to stop. We tried to tell them through gestures "Please don't do that, someone will get hurt!"

Looking down on the rooftops of Silwan

I'm not suggesting that the feelings held by the young men behind the rock-throwing were wrong - certainly their anger was justified. How long can you see your younger siblings harassed on the street before wanting to do something about it?

I know that I am an outsider, but I'm here to help spread peace. If it were one of my teens, I'd certainly have better language skills and some level of basic trust to work the issue out. These teens, my own son's age and younger, could injure a smaller child unintentionally, and if they were caught they'd serve 20 years in jail. 

Imagine living out your childhood in a place where security people can harass you, out of frustration or boredom. Imagine being a teen who is so full of frustration and anger that he'd choose to throw a rock and risk detention until he is in his mid-thirties. Imagine being a parent who lives in fear because your child has so few places to grow and play.

I wish there were more we could do to break the cycle, but perhaps our intervention today prevented further escalation in that moment. There is truly no way to know. 

Training With Those Who Have Come Before

It has been a whirlwind few days here as our team spends days training with the team that has preceded us. The placement house is typical for the area, with three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs and a large common room with a cooking nook off to the side. Built to fend off the harsh summer heat, houses are built to stay cool, and the large stone tiles running throughout it are like ice on my feet.

The team members who came before us have been patiently trying to explain many things, like where to get the best vegetables and how to turn on the water heater, which can't run at the same time as the space heaters. I'm finding out that my new team mates are kind and generous and funny people, and I think we'll continue enjoying one another's company. They are Lottie from England, Linnea from Sweden and Jarmo from Norway.

The four of us have split up so that those who came before can show us as many of the opportunities for connection in the area as possible. Lottie and I have been to many places together, including the Quilandiya checkpoint (from Ramallah into Greater Jerusalem), Silwan (a Palestinian community), a morning walk around the Dome of the Rock, a demolition, and two schools at the top of Silwan. 

Last night we took a chance on riding the light rail to the area right outside the Knesset to see a movie at Cinema City, a large and extremely tacky theater in the middle of an upscale shopping mall. We saw Hidden Figures, it was a good movie. I'm glad that I sent, but also regretted not catching up on sleep as I hadn't had any the night before (and I'm certain that I dozed off a little bit).

Interesting moments happened on each of these excursions, which I will cover in separate blog posts. 

Let Me Help You, Sister

Damascus Gate at Night

I arrived at the Damascus Gate of Jerusalem's Old City later than I hoped last Thursday night, well after dark. It was a long Nesher (shared shuttlebus taxi) ride, but it was also entertaining as the driver was yelling in Hebrew at pretty much everyone of his passengers. The young women riding with me threw me a universal eye roll glance which made the trip so much better!

If you've never been to the Damascus Gate, picture about 30 stone steps leading down to an entrance through the city's ancient walls. With my huge suitcase, duffel bag packed to the rim, and heavy backpack, after travelling 20 hours, I'm sure that I was a sight - single western woman, hair frazzled, wearing clergy collar, clearly in over her head with what she thought she was able to carry. So step by awkward step, I slowly made my way up towards the Via Dolorosa towards Ecco Homo.

At the last torturous hill, when I was about to collapse, a man (in his 60's, maybe?) came out of the shadows saying "Let me help you, sister!" He asked where I was going, what I was doing in the city, and kindly deposited me on the steps of the ancient convent after telling me that he was a Palestinian Christian, and that I was welcome in the Holy City.

I wanted to share that memory because it reminded me of the spirit of the book that I had just spent three flights reading, "The Book of Joy" by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama. These two deeply spiritual men were interviewed over the course of a week to find out how they found joy in the midst of great trial and oppression through South African Apartheid and Tibetan Exile. Both have shared that it is in service to the other, even in the worst of times, that can bring a sense of joy.

I can't say for certain if my new friend felt joy after lending me a hand, but I know as the receiver of his kindness I certainly felt blessed.  Much more to share, later. Be kind to one another.