WalkInJerusalem

Mitri, Mabruk!

2012-02-25T18:03:00.003+02:00

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/
by Fred & Gloria Strickert

Congratulations to Mitri Raheb!
Mabruk!

Last night, our good friend and colleague Pastor Mitri Raheb was awarded the prestigious Deutscher Medienpreis in Baden-Baden, Germany.

This is an award that has been granted to individuals such as Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, Bono, Kofi Anan, Queen Rania of Jordan, Hilary Clinton, Angela Merkel, and Rudy Giuliani. The former President of Germany, Roman Herzog, read the citation to honor Mitri.

The selection committee stated that the decision of the jury to give the award to Rev. Dr. Raheb was based on his tireless work in creating room for hope for his people, who are living under Israeli Occupation, through founding and building institutions of excellence in education, culture and health.

We first got to know Mitri in 1989, shortly after his return from Germany with a doctorate in theology and his ordination as pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem. At that time, he spoke hardly a word of English and gave us a tour of the church in German, describing his dreams for the future. At that time it was evident how the congregation had suffered under occupation. Little did we know that this young idealistic pastor was a man of vision, who had the faith and courage to carry out those dreams.

In 1991 during the first Gulf War, while the whole city of Bethlehem was under curfew (basically a whole people living under house arrest), Mitri wrote a book I Am a Palestinian Christian in which he awakened those of us in the West that there were Christians living in the Holy Land today--yes even Lutherans--and that most Palestinians were ordinary folk who simply wanted to make a decent living and provide a safe and secure atmosphere to raise their families. In doing so he would have to debunk the popular media image that Palestinians were terrorists and expose the expansionist political agenda of Israel that attempted to legitimize occupation and the confiscation of Palestinian lands for colonies called settlements. It was not long before Mitri had become a popular speaker in venues all around the world.

We both had the pleasure of working with Mitri at the Lutheran Church in Bethlehem in 1995-96 as ELCA global mission volunteers, where we accompanied him for one year in assisting him in promoting the life and culture of Bethlehem. One of our projects was to co-author a book on the history and culture of Bethlehem, Bethlehem 2000: Past and Present, in anticipation of the millennial celebrations in the city of Jesus' birth. [Link to description of book. Link to reviews in German press. We're currently working on a new book to promote local culture.]

Sadly the Bethlehem 2000 events and the progress that had been made were crushed under the second Intifada -- described in Bethlehem Besieged Nevertheless, Mitri would still not be deterred, as his subtitle suggests: Stories of Hope in Times of Trouble. His work has continued with the building of a new state-of-the-art k-12 school Dar Alkalima, the establishment of the first Lutheran College, a wellness center with swimming pool, exercise rooms, yoga classes, and clinics, and now a Gymnasium in process -- all at the southern end of Bethlehem. Today the campus of the Lutheran Church in the center of town includes a guesthouse, restaurant, art gallery, convention center with large auditorium, and guest house (Dar Annadwa). The center is actively publishing scholarly Arabic studies, encouraging preservation of classic Arab architecture, and promotion of music, Arab dance (dabka), the arts, and film.

Foremost, Mitri is a pastor, feeding his congregation with challenging sermons and inspiring the youth not to give up hope.

So again, we raise our voice: Mabruk! Mitri. This is a well-deserved honor.

Those of you who know Mitri will celebrate with him this award. You will also be disappointed by the following.

Sadly, this is not the end of the story. The last several weeks The Jerusalem Post has decided to follow a campaign of character assassination with no less than three stories of quotations out of context and libelous labels. One headline actually read Israel Slams Award to Anti-Semitic Pastor. And the Israel Embassy in Germany did their best to pressure the former German President and the founders of the prize to withdraw this award.

Before going one step further, we can say loud and clear, "Mitri is not anti-Semitic! He is not racist!" He is nothing what these articles claim him to be. Yet Mitri has been smeared in the press and across the internet by individuals who do not know Mitri, but who seem threatened when a Palestinian pastor is so honored.

Interestingly, all three articles were written not in Jerusalem, but by an individual who is part of a right-wing think tank in Berlin who is shoveling his trash to the Israeli Embassy in Berlin and to the Jerusalem Post newspaper.

It is quite clear that neither the author or the embassy personnel he supposedly quotes has even read what Mitri has written or heard his lectures. According to the JP article, one of his sins is that he is involved in the "Cairo Document" which sounds like some gathering in Cairo, Egypt. Most likely this is a hearsay reference to the "Kairos Document" which, for anyone who has read it, makes clear the reference to the Greek word for "the opportune moment" and which focuses not on hate, but on a moment of faith, hope, and love. So, if they could not even take the time to get the title right, would anyone expect them to know what this document is about?

A simple google search of the JP articles' key words and phrases shows that the Berlin source was an online article written by a Jerusalem expatriate who seems to want to discredit Palestinian Christians whenever the opportunity arises-- and that includes taking phrases out of context and using labels that defame.

Last Wednesday at our interfaith group, our Jewish Rabbi counterparts shook their heads in disbelief. "Anyone who knows Mitri, knows he is none of these things," one summed up the feelings of the group.

Yet once a label appears in print, it's almost impossible to correct, erase, or detract. Opportunists will be quick to jump on the bandwagon. And the defamation will continue.

In the meantime, those who know Mitri are standing up to congratulate him. See news releases of the Lutheran World Federation and the World Council of Churches , the latter referring to Dr Raheb as "a person with immense integrity."

The leadership of the church in Germany has spoken out on his behalf, the granters of the prize have refused to bow to pressure to withdraw the prize, and the former president of Germany Roman Herzog proudly stood before the cameras and microphones to honor our dear friend and colleague, Pastor Mitri Raheb.

Last night, Mitri Raheb spoke to the world in receiving this award, that only when we flee from the temptation to demonize the other, and when we truly listen in our encounter, then there is the possibilty of peace. His entire speech can be found online here.

"We said, firstly, that the Holy land does not need walls but bridges. That is why we called our centre “Dar annadwa”, Centre for International Encounter. Martin Buber, the Jewish philosopher, whose thinking is very significant for me, was right when he wrote, “All true life is encounter.” The “thou” of the other person gets a face and a name through encounter. Dialogue can only be true dialogue if it is a dialogue between people with equal rights, if the “thou” and the “I” stand face to face. If each person can have their narrative, their history and identity, but also listen to the narratives of the others." (Mitri Raheb in accepting the award. Feb. 24, 2012)

Mabruk! and Shokrun, Mitri

by Fred & Gloria Strickert

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/

Salaam Hon!

2012-02-16T17:57:00.003+02:00

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/
by Fred & Gloria Strickert

"So what do you think of our village?" the elderly couple asked.

"Salaam hon," we replied. "It's peaceful!" or more accurately "Peace is here."

What can be more peaceful than a village where its elders gather to discuss business around a tree?

What can be more peaceful than a village nestled between the hills with the fertile fields turned green by the winter rains?

What can be more peaceful than a place where people want nothing more than for their children's dreams to be fulfilled.

This is a blog about the village of al-Aqaba in the far northeast corner of the West Bank (not to be confused with Jordan's seaport Aqaba on the Red Sea or another Palestinian village Aqraba southeast of Nablus).

For us al-Aqaba provided a welcome respite from the noise and clammer of the city, the fast-paced and stressful life of Jerusalem. The pastoral setting, the unseasonably warm sunny day, and the simple life-style of al-Aqaba can be deceiving. Peace here? You have to be kidding. When you hear the story of the last forty years or so (and we'll come to that later), you'll understand why many would hesitate to use the words peace and al-Aqaba in the same sentence. You'll understand why residents of al-Aqaba could remain pessimistic about the future. You'll understand why the residents of this small village would have every reason to be suspicious of visitors from the outside. Instead the welcome mat was rolled out for us. Ahlan wa Sahlan! They would teach us what it is that makes for peace.

Why would this modern-day Abraham and Sarah not be suspicious also of us arriving at their "tent" unexpected? Instead they insisted that we sit down and rest a bit and share a cup of tea. "Try some of our fresh picked lettuce." "Now you need some coffee." We laughed watching their two grandsons play on a make-shift swing hanging from a shade tree. That was a topic we both understood, "And how many children and grandchildren do you have?" They more than doubled us. And then two more came walking home from school with their backpacks and a hunger for an after-school snack before starting their homework. Salaam hon! Peace is indeed here!

For our visit to al-Aqaba we were accompanying one of our congregation members, Morgan, whose great-grandfather, as it turns out, was my seminary homiletics professor. We often describe our congregation as a servant-congregation--made up of a significant number of young volunteers who are here to serve for anywhere from three months to a year. And on any given Sunday while we are engaged in Word and Sacrament in our Redeemer chapel, the majority of them are embodying Christ's love in the communities they serve in Jerusalem and throughout the West Bank from Hebron in the South to a place like al-Aqaba in the north. What is amazing is how they manage to get to church as often as they do, like Kathy from the Christian Peacemaker Team in Hebron, making connections via three or four buses, passing checkpoints, and various hurdles just for the opportunity of being in community.

So on this past Sunday morning, when Morgan managed the long trek from al-Aqaba to Jerusalem for our Sunday worship, she mentioned that she had to stay in Jerusalem for an afternoon meeting. Gloria and I looked at each other and were quick to volunteer to drive her back in exchange for a place to stay over night and a tour of the village and a chance to learn about her work there.

Morgan and the small guest house she manages for the village of al-Aqaba.

See http://alaqabaguesthouse.wordpress.com/

Morgan learned about al-Aqaba through an online search of Palestinian towns and villages where she might be able to contribute her talents to the life of people. An American-based organization called Rebuilding Alliance (click to read more) had assisted in building a school there and was looking for someone to teach English. In addition, Morgan assists mayor Haj Sami Sadeq in community development projects with a goal of bringing former al-Aqaba residents back to their homes as well as outsiders to visit this location off the beaten path.

The message of welcome is the first thing visitors see.

Today there are only 300 villagers who have remained steadfast, a drastic change from the mid-sixties when over a thousand persons enjoyed the idyllic setting. Then came the 1967 war and occupation.

Unlike the rest of the Israeli Occupied West Bank where expanding settlements are the problem for Palestinian villagers, The Israeli Defense Force decided to use this part of Palestinian land for military camps. In the map below, al-Aqaba is in the center. Further to the east large military camps are designated by the reddish brown color. Eight smaller camps totally surround the village.

These include the elite ( = ruthless) Golani Brigade who carry out regular training exercises in these hills and, at times, within the village itself. Yes, you read that last sentence correctly. A military brigade that practices within an occupied village, among real live human beings trying to carry out their daily lives.

The first "accident" occurred in 1971, when the then sixteen-year-old Sami Sadeq (now mayor) was helping his parents in the fields and was shot with three bullets. An IDF ambulance took him to an Israeli hospital in Afula where they were able to remove two bullets from his spine, leaving him paralyzed from the waste down. The third bullet remains lodged to this day next to his heart.

The amazing part of the story was that Sami did not give up. He chose to remain to work through the system to help his relatives stay steadfast on the land. While in the hospital during those months following the shooting, he spent all his energies learning Hebrew to aid in communication.

Over the years another eight villagers were killed and another fifty were wounded by the military exercises. Perhaps the most bizarre story that we were told was that the IDF practiced night raids in the village itself to prepare for the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, because the village was similar in structure to many in Southern Lebanon. Not surprisingly, three-fourths of the residents moved out to the neighboring village of Tayasir or to the city of Tubas to the West. There was no compensation. They simply lost everything and had to start over again. How could they dream of peace under these conditions?

That evening we spent in al-Aqaba seemed so peaceful, so quiet. The sleep was so restful until 3:00 in the morning when I awoke to the sound of gunfire. Another practice round for night time raids. I wondered what must be going through Sami's mind or the grandparents of the four children we met. Salaam Hon?

Yet Sami has remained steadfast. And there have been small victories.

After years of legal arguments and numerous appeals, the Israeli High Court in 2001 finally ruled that the military camps adjacent to the village on the west must be removed and that the IDF could no longer use the village for military exercises. The small hill in the photo below (just beyond the houses) was the site of one of those camps.

Villagers feeling relieved and perhaps a bit optimistic, began rebuilding with simple homes that would be more than adequate lifestyles. They planted gardens and invited former residents to return. A morning walk around the village showed us signs of progress, houses just completed and foundations of others being layed. Salaam hon?

Mayor Haj Sami Sadek felt they needed more than just new homes. If they were really thinking about the future, the key would be a kindergarten. Here is where Rebuilding Alliance entered the picture, offering educational expertise and funding to complete the building in 2004. Click to see a Youtube video about the al-Aqaba kindergarten. It was a brilliant idea. There were no kindergartens in the villages located to the west. So every day school buses and private vehicles bring children to al-Aqaba, many of them families originally from the village.

Today 130 students are enrolled in the kindergarten. As we toured the classrooms where the children were engaged in singing and in group play, the mayor was outside supervising another building project, a roofed playground for the children to play outside on rainy winter days. Nearby there is an elementary school.

The positive court ruling and the progress taking place in the village paved the way for foreign governments to get involved, including funding from USAid for the paving of a road. The Japanese Embassy erected a new water tank and provided a truck (see photo of truck next to the meeting tree above) to bring water from a neighboring village (the old water supply had been destroyed by the IDF), the British Embassy paid for a clinic, and the Catholic Church is considering offering a plot of land for a birthing center.

Japan, Norway, and Belgium provided funds to build additional floors on top of the kindergarten for economic development projects including a tea-bag factory and a sewing coop that exports dresses to Canada and the USA, where young women and men can find employment, and where mothers can coordinate their hours while the children are in school.

And for the spiritual needs of the community Haj Sami Sadeq built in the center of the village a new mosque.

Salaam hon?

Al-Aqaba still remains under occupation. This tranquill village, where grandparents love their grandchildren and where civic leaders place education as the highest priority, still lives under a system that strips away human dignity. This is occupation.

Al-Aqaba may be located in the West Bank of Palestine, but it is in Area C, still fully under Israeli control.

The first stage of the Oslo Peace accords divided up the West Bank into three zones-- the peace process never advanced beyond that first stage as Israeli settlements created new facts on the ground.

Area A -- the light brown color designates the 8 % of the West Bank under full Palestinian rule, mostly eight separate urban area.

Area B -- the green areas make up about 30 % of the West Bank governed jointly by Israelis and Palestinians.

Area C -- represented by the very light tan color represents 62 % of the West Bank fully under Israeli control, settlements and military zones.

Al-Aqaba falls in Area C, with Israelis making all the macro policy and decisions that affect the micro achievements of the village.

This includes the continuation of military camps in the vicinity. On June 6, 2006, a young Israeli soldier entered the village mosque at two o'clock in the morning, seemingly with the intent to wait until early morning prayers when he would empty his machine gun into those arriving for prayer. He had enlisted just two weeks earlier just after coming to Israel from Chicago. His platoon had been engaged in night military exercises 2.5 kilometers from the village when he slipped away to the mosque. Fortunately a villager had noticed his arrival and kept the worshippers outside until other soldiers arrived. What happened next when the soldiers entered is a matter of debate. The IDF declared the soldier's death as a suicide. Yet the villagers counted 106 bullets fired inside the mosque, damaging both the building and the body of the dead soldier. For more details see the Haaretz article.

Incidents like this remain like a cloud hanging over the community. Most of the military camps still remain.

More recently--three weeks ago on January 27 to be exact--the village had two other visitors, agents of the Israeli Civil Administration, bringing demolition notices for seventeen village buildings. Morgan was on hand that day to film this activity which is now available on YouTube.com

In some ways this is not surprising. Currently, over 12,000 Palestinian homes in Area C of the West Bank and in East Jerusalem are under demolition orders. The official reason: they have not been granted building permits. The first demolition orders arrived already in 2004. Although the village continues to submit through legal representatives a building master plan, although the spacious valley can easily support homes numbering in the thousands, and although they have filed the proper papers for permits, they will likely never receive them because this is Area C.

"I want my village to have the right to issue valid building permits to secure the future of Al Aqaba. With this right, a glaring oversight of the Oslo Accords will be overturned, showing our villagers and the world that peace and justice are achievable through peaceful means." Mayor Haj Sami Sadeq

Now with the latest demolition orders, 97 % of the village is under threat of demolition including the mosque, the domestic homes, the building of economic development, the clinic, and the kindergarten.

The kindergarten is under threat of demolition!

Salaam Hon?

These are not empty threats.

On Thursday morning, Sep. 15, 2011, without notice, Israeli military bulldozers demolished a home and water cistern in Al Aqaba, leaving 22 people, including 12 children, homeless. The military bulldozers also ripped deep trenches through Peace Street — for the 2nd time.

(photo: Rebuilding Alliance)

Salaam Hon?

It is easy to understand why the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel criticized those who went around exclaming, "Peace, Peace" when there is no peace.

Yet the surprising thing is how the people of al-Aqaba village could convey a sense of peace so much stronger than the peace advertised by the strongest security systems in the world.

Theirs is a peace that understands how to take in the beauty of God's creation.
Theirs is a peace that knows how to relax over a cup of coffee and enjoy the day.
Theirs is a peace that smiles at the gift of grandchildren.
Theirs is a peace that welcomes the stranger.
Theirs is a peace that builds houses even at the threat of demolition.
Theirs is a peace that invests in children.
Theirs is a peace that understands that the best alternative to machine guns, tanks, bombs is a kindergarten.

Salaam Hon!

by Fred & Gloria Strickert
http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/

Prayer for Christian Unity 2012

2012-02-01T18:37:00.000+02:00

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/
by Fred & Gloria Strickert

Peter & Andrew embrace: the model of unity

Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

One of the highlights of life in Jerusalem is the experience in late January, in the cold of winter under rainy skies, of warm Christian fellowship and prayer with Christians from the widest expanse of liturgical traditions bringing to reality what we confess in the creed each Sunday of "one holy catholic and apostolic church." We share with you a few visual memories of this week.

Saturday

Church of the Holy Sepul- chre Greek Orthodox Clergy

Sunday

Anglican Cathedral of St. George

Theme: We will all be changed by the Victory of Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 15)

Monday

Armenian Cathedral of St. James

Tuesday

The Lutheran Church of the Redeemer

Bishop Younan's Sermon
Read it here

The Prayer for Christian Unity

United in Christ who gives us the victory, let us pray to God:

For the Church, the Body of Christ, that we might truly live the unity we receive through the Holy Spirit.
Unite us around the cross of Jesus.

For the leaders of our churches that they may be faithful to the unity to which all Christians are called and that they may show humility and meekness through the example of Christ.
Unite us around the cross of Jesus.

For the nations of the world, that all may live in peace with one another and promote justice for all and that political leaders may seek the welfare of all and not follow their own interests.
Unite us around the cross of Jesus.

For the people of our society, that we may respect the human rights and dignity of all and that we may be transformed to live as caring neighbors.
Unite us around the cross of Jesus.

For the sick and suffering, that we may accompany them in their struggles and that they may be transformed by your healing presence.
Unite us around the cross of Jesus.

For our relationships with Jews and Muslims, that we may find courage to tear down walls of indifference, fear, and hatred as we show respect in a spirit humility.
Unite us around the cross of Jesus.

For the common witness of the Church in the Holy Land as it carries the cross of Jesus in the world today looking forward in hope to the final victory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Lord, stand in our midst and grant us unity and peace. Amen.

Wednesday

Latin Patriarchate Church

Thursday

Upper Room

Friday

Ethiopian Orthodox Church

Saturday

St. Anthony's Coptic Church

Sunday

Greek Catholic Church

The bread of the Agape Feast dipped into wine is a foretaste of the unity to come.

For Jerusalem's Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2011, see archives "February 2011"

Photo credits: Elly McHan, ELCJHL and Marie Armelle

By Fred & Gloria Strickert

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/

My Favorite Place

2012-01-17T22:55:00.002+02:00

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/
by Fred & Gloria Strickert

The Lutheran Church of the Redeemer made the New York Times this weekend, with the description “my favorite church in Jerusalem.”

The author. Matt Gross, for four years wrote a regular column for the Times, called The Frugal Traveler having visited nearly two hundred countries around the globe. So he’s certainly a person with a lot of travel experience, and he’s likely set foot into more churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples world-wide than most globe trotters—after all he’s the Frugal traveler. And here in Jerusalem (a city know by the proliferation of religious places), he refers to Redeemer as his favorite.

It’s a nice little travelogue and you can click on it here: Lost in Jerusalem (aka My favorite place).

An interesting aspect of this story that Gross shares with the reader in the first paragraphs is that he considers himself a “deeply’” secular Jew from Brooklyn who never wanted to visit Israel. Yet last December, at the encouragement of a friend, he made his first trip, all the while thinking of himself as the “lone unbeliever” in a sea of religious people.

Something about this church affected him so that he returned several times including a Sunday morning worship service. And so his final verdict: my favorite place in Jerusalem.

For those of us who consider Redeemer “home,” this it quite the compliment.

It lead us to reflect a bit about the many visitors who come our way, those who show up on a single Sunday to attend worship and those who drop by during the week to say a prayer, to gaze at architectural beauty, or to pause for a moment of silence making connections between these myriads of physical stones and that which continues to remain unseen.

The first thing that strikes us is, as realtors often say, location, location, location.

Celebration of Holy Fire at Orthodox Easter at Tomb of Jesus.

In the photo we use as the header for this website, the two domes just to the west of Redeemer are over ancient Golgotha and the tomb. Sometimes we have to pinch ourselves as a reminder that here in the heart of old city Jerusalem, just a stone’s throw away of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the empty tomb, and the Via Dolorosa, stands a magnificent Lutheran Church. Even among Lutheran visitors, probably only a third are cognizant of this fact before they come, another third are pleasantly surprised, and another third pass by our doors without even realizing who we are.

Yet it is because of the location that so many folks stumble upon us unexpectedly—people from all walks of life, from all corners of the earth, and from every faith expression whether counting themselves among the faithful or the skeptical. And in contrast to the gathering of crowds in the nearby well-known ancient churches and the busy streets and markets, Redeemer is not on the itinerary of most tour guides. As a result, it is a comparatively quiet place, attractive for those who want a moment alone.

A second observation from our time here is that Redeemer is appealing to many because of its simplicity. Gross describes the main sanctuary as both “elegant and spare” with tall pillars and graceful curves. The main sanctuary was constructed in 1898 under the direction of Kaiser Wilhelm and German architects in a Neo-Romanesque style and the ubiquitous Jerusalem limestone. Those cold grey stones are windows to a vastness of thoughts and ideas. Most visitors don’t realize it, but the walls were once covered in paint, but in restorations following the shelling in the 1967 war, the color was all stripped away except for a small circular Christus Rex in the upper apse.

Redeemer offers regular organ recitals and concerts for string ensembles on Saturday nights. By far the largest number of attendees are Israelis who venture into the old city for this blend of music and architecture.

It is very common for the groups that I meet to express an appreciation for this lack of decoration. The ornate styles of the Middle East are something that westerners grow to appreciate only over time. The simple cold stone has a calming affect and is inducive to reflection.

The same goes for the worship space of the English Congregation, our smaller St. John’s Chapel restored from the 12th century hospital refectory. The less-than-perfect rugged stone work remains bare, yet hinting of an ancient archway here or the beginning of a stairway there, and a blocked passage-way in the wall behind the altar. Such architecture often transports one’s thoughts to earlier times and that great cloud of witnesses that spans the centuries.

It is not unusual to find a solitary figure sitting in quiet meditation in either of our places of worship. The doors are open throughout the week. Most people come and go, no questions asked. Our purpose is not to intrude, to destroy a special moment.

But sometimes someone lingers, like the Hebrew University student last February who missed her worshipping community back home, and who subsequently returned again and again. Sometimes one of our doormen offers an invitation or provides a bulletin with prayers and readings or further information. I had to smile last week when our Muslim custodian, Abu Muhammad, brought one such visitor to my office, “This is my pastor.” But often the visitors come quietly in wonder and anticipation and leave quietly with heads bowed.

On Sunday mornings we have English-language services at 9:00 in the 12th-century chapel, while Arabic service are going on next door in the large sanctuary. Our goals are to be welcoming congregations. One of the exciting things about Sundays mornings is that we never know what to expect or whom to expect. We have our core group of regular members, some here on work, some for study, and many in volunteer capacities. Coming to Jerusalem on temporary assignment they keep their church membership back home, just as we continue to belong to our home congregation in Waverly, Iowa. We use Evangelical Lutheran Worship in our services and we have Lutheran in our name. Yet we speak of ourselves also as International and Ecumenical with arms open to welcome all.

A year ago with only one child in our Sunday School program, we decided to make children’s ministry a priority, and quickly discovered that this is a critical need for expatriate personnel with families. Through word of mouth we now count seventeen children among our children bringing new life and excitement to all. When we stepped back to evaluate what was taking place, the surprise that only one of these families has a Lutheran background. All are welcome. This is the nature of ministry in Jerusalem. We have fourteen ELCA Lutherans, and Lutherans from Norway, Sweden, and Finland actively involved in the life of the congregation, yet our church council at the end of the year included a member of the Free Church tradition in the States, a Mennonite, an English Baptist, a French Protestant, and just one Lutheran. We’re all here because we need our faith community.

The majority of our worshippers on any given Sunday are one-time visitors, pilgrims, tourists, delegations, sometimes coming alone, and sometimes in larger groups. Occasionally we know in advance about a group. But most often it is a serendipitous surprise. At the end of the service we take time for introductions, no matter how long it takes. They too come from all over the world, and likely from every denomination. The last two Sundays we’ve had kipa-wearing rabbis in the congregation, coming with Christian colleagues on interfaith tours—going together to synagogue on Saturday and then coming together to our service on Sunday. All are welcome.

The Frugal Traveler mentioned in his travelogue that his several visits to the solitary quiet of Redeemer lured him back for a Sunday service, when the Arab congregation was gathered. He was impressed with the greeting at the door, “All the languages are in God’s light.” It didn’t matter that the woman behind him sang in a reedy voice, or that the kids were restless, or that the organist hit a few errant notes. This was his favorite place.

A welcoming church in Jerusalem is no different than welcoming churches in the States. The surprising line in this article was not so much that he mentioned Redeemer in glowing terms, but that he compared worship at Redeemer to an earlier experience visiting a church in Decorah, Iowa. That's Decorah, as in the small town just up the road a bit from our home. Naturally we wondered if perchance he had been a student at Luther College. But after researching his earlier blogs, we learned that The Frugal Traveler had just been driving across the midwest on a road trip for another column. There, stopping at a random eating establishment, he struck up a conversation with the owners who ended up inviting him into their home for three days, and also to attend church on Sunday morning.

It’s the same with churches everywhere, Decorah, Iowa or Jerusalem. All are welcome.

by Fred & Gloria Strickert
http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/

Seeing the Baby Jesus

2012-01-06T14:09:00.000+02:00

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/
by Fred & Gloria Strickert

We first saw Jesus a baby in a crib.
This same Lord Jesus today has come
to live in our world;
he is present in our neighbors we see,
our Jesus is with us, and ever sets us free.
"All Earth is Hopeful" verse 4, ELW 266

Christmas is best understood through the eyes of children. So for our Christmas Day worship at Redeemer the children themselves read the Christmas Gospel from the Spark Story Bible.

With our own four grand- daughters -- ages two and a half to ten -- here sharing Christmas week (and in this photo posing at the eighth-century Islamic Hisham Palace in Jericho) we had the benefit of their observations, their insights, their interpetations, and their honesty and candor to help us see things a bit differently than we normally see them.

Along with our granddaughters, we of course enjoyed the company of our son, two daughters, and two sons-in-law, experiencing Christmas in Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

It was time for fun and celebration, for sharing and catching up on things, for a little site-seeing, and for just being together-- a real blessing for us all. During our drives, we found time to reflect upon the words spoken by the young.

"I want to see the baby Jesus," two-and-a-half year-old Lilly reminded us upon her arrival late Sunday afternoon. Their travel schedule had placed them on an airplane through Christmas Eve and most of Christmas Day. So they had missed our Saturday visit to Bethlehem for Christmas Eve worship, for browsing among the crowds in Manger Square, and for watching the afternoon parade of the Latin Patriarch, dignitaries, and local Scouts drum and bugel corps including the Syrian Orthodox bagpipe group. So what were Lilly's priorities? "I want to see the Baby Jesus?" "We'll have to wait til later in the week when we'll take you to Bethlehem," Fred responded. "And what if that doesn't satisfy her?" Gloria asked. "We'll just have to see."

We had several stops in our itinerary at the beginning of the week before we would travel to Bethlehem, including a day in the desert east of Jerusalem, with a long hike and visit to St. George's Monastery in Wadi Qelt.

"I hiked all this way, and all I saw was four dead guys and a treasure chest."

This was five-year old Izzy's out-of-breath appraisal when arriving once again up the hill where we had parked the cars across the gorge from the monastery.

One has to grow in to an appreciation of the orthodox style of art with dark painted icons and ornate decorations. It is not too difficult for a child to turn one's focus to the skeletons of former monks and perhaps to remind us of Luke's Easter angel, "Why do you seek the living among the dead?"

Perhaps Lilly's quest for the baby Jesus would better take place elsewhere.
We first saw Jesus a baby in a crib.
This same Lord Jesus today has come to live in our world;
he is present in our neighbors we see.

"I rode a camel!"
exclaimed Lilly.

Then a little later she reminded us, "I want to see the baby Jesus!"

So, yes, we'll be visiting Bethlehem tomorrow!
But would Bethlehem fill Lilly's expectations?

We learned at the monastery that one of their four monks was lying in a hospital bed with a gash over his eye from the fight the previous day at Nativity Church. We probably don't have to explain.

Thanks to Youtube, video of priests fighting with mops and brooms had circled the globe--an embarrassment to the local church. "That's what you can expect from Palestinians," I overheard an Israeli guide telling his group back in Jerusalem. Of course, what is not usually said is that the priests involved are not Palestinians but expatriates, both the hierarchy of the Greek Orthodox church and Armenian students who have come from abroad to study in the local seminaries-- and so a great divide separating them from the local Palestinian Christian membership, not a theology of accompaniment. (See Munther Isaac's article on Sojourner's website.) So every year when the Greek Orthodox and Armenians have their annual cleaning day before Orthodox Christmas, it seems that arguments and fights break out, not the kind of thing the baby Jesus would approve of in the place of his birth.

So what were we to expect in Bethlehem?
Would Lilly find the baby Jesus?

"I think they're playing tag," announced seven-year old Emma in the backseat as we were driving through the streets of East Jerusalem the next day on our way to Bethehem. We had come across a group of Palestinian youths running down the side walk as fast as their legs would carry them, being chased by green-uniformed Israeli soldiers with their rifles drawn. Still in the age of innocense Emma had sized things up from her realm of experience, "I think they're playing tag." It is such a daily occurrance for us to see soldiers with guns, often stopping youths asking for IDs, and sometimes chasing them and arresting them. We have become so used to these sights that the abnormal seems normal.

We thought about these kids, not knowing their fate, this week after Emma and her cousins left, when we saw the photo of six-year old Muhammad ali Dhirbas. Little Muhammad was apprehended by Israeli forces while going on an errand to the local grocery store and taken to the police station for four hours of interrogation on Tuesday afternoon. Muhammad is from the refugee camp Issawiya, just a short ways north of our home. Hardly a day goes by that Israeli soldiers don't raid the camp, keeping the residents unsettled and on edge, and letting them know who's boss. Last Tuesday morning on one of their raids, the fully armed soldiers experienced rock throwing from young kids. Unable to catch any of them, the soldiers did the next best thing apprehending a child, any child, walking innocently to the store, and teaching him a lesson.

We first saw Jesus a baby in a crib.
This same Lord Jesus today has come
to live in our world;
he is present in our neighbors we see.
both in children playing tag, & in children terrorized by intimidating soldiers.

The Christmas season comes at the same time as end of the year reports by human rights organizations who have just reminded us that

The number of Palestinian minors held in custody of Israeli security forces throughout the year 2011 ranged from 120 to 186 a month while the most common prison term for minors was six months. (http://www.btselem.org/)
21 Palestinian children died during 2011 as the result of Israeli army and air forces attacks, many in bombing raids on crowded Gaza. (http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/
36 % of Palestinians in the West Bank are 14 years and under while 44 % of Palestinians in Gaza are 14 years and under.

The most Orwellian story of the week, however, comes from the Israeli Border Patrol who have announced that they are training armed Israeli youth as young as 16 years to catch illegal Palestinian day laborers in building projects in Modiin and neighboring settlements. It shouldn't be too different from playing tag, just using guns.

"Is this a prison? I thought we were going to Bethlehem." So ten-year-old Maria reacted while going through the Bethlehem check point. As Pastor Mitri Raheb said in his welcoming remarks on Christmas Eve, "Welcome to the once little town of Bethlehem, now a significant city, yet reduced to an area of four square miles surrounded by a 25-ft high wall with military watch towers."

So Maria, your namesake Mary of Nazareth would have certainly said the same thing-- as countless of others through history wanting to seeing the baby Jesus.

In manger square next to the traditional Christmas tree, Palestinian artist Rana Bishara erected a tree that resembled the wall, grey in color, and covered with barbed-wire tinsel and tear-gas-canister decorations. The latter had all been used by Israeli forces against non-violent protesters against the wall, sometimes causing harm and even death. My colleague Ryan noticed the initials CTS on the canisters, designating its manufacturer as Combined Tactical Systems of Jamestown, Pennsylvania. So much for wise men from afar and their Christmas gifts!

"A prison," observed Maria. Children have a way of seeing what adults fail to see. "So why do Jews have to live behind that wall?" That's how an eight-year-old Palestinian girl reacted while driving along with her mother from Ramallah to Jerusalem where her mother works just up the hill from us at Mercy Corps, a Portland-based aid organization. For her, the wall represents a deeply troubled society that lives in fear.

A world dominated by fear-- not the kind of world for a baby to be born, especially when that baby is the Savior of the world. We can easily imagine that a child would think about this for a few minutes and respond, "What was God thinking?"

"Perfect love casts out all fear." ( 1 John 4:18). That's what God was thinking. That's a concept that even children can understand.
And so the irony that those who are supposed to be enclosed by this wall of separation live as if they are free, while it is the warden who is imprisoned. Thus the Bethlehem municipality designated for Christmas 2011 the theme Palestine Celebrating Hope.

The thousands of Palestinian visitors to Nativity Church and Manger Square all week from all over the West Bank--Christians and Muslims alike--were a clear sign of that spirit of hope.

That is Jesus present in our neighbors we see--especially the young.

"I want to see the Baby Jesus," Lilly had repeated throughout the week and now stood patiently in line amidst the crowds waiting to enter the Grotto below the Church of the Nativity.

In the Grotto, Lilly paused to view a doll-like representation of the baby Jesus in a marble and glass enclosure representing the manger. This is the baby Jesus image carried to a resting place beneath the altar of the Latin Catholic St. Catherine's Church for the December 25 midnight service.

Outside St. Catherine's Church Lilly then paused to view a lifesize Creche given to the people of Bethlehem by the Italian city of Trent.

"I saw the baby Jesus," Lilly later announced to us as we were walking through Manger Square. Was it the representation in the Grotto? or the Creche? or the people she encountered? What was it that brought the bibical story alive for her? Perhaps she'll have to figure that out for herself as she grows older, just as we have all done. Children have a way of understanding that teaches us all.

We first saw Jesus a baby in a crib.

This same Lord Jesus today has come
to live in our world;
he is present in our neighbors we see,
our Jesus is with us, and ever sets us free.

AFTERWARD
Our four granddaughters have now returned home with their parents. It would be interesting to hear their descriptions of their visit as they share with their friends.

Lilly's report was pretty much what we expected, with a small addition.

"I saw the baby Jesus and the gas station where Mary rested."

That's how she responded when her other grandparents in North Carolina asked her what she saw.

So what's this about a gas station?

On the evening that Maria and Emma arrived, we hosted in our home an Advent 4 midweek soup supper. In Fred's presentation about descriptions of Mary in literature and tradition outside the Bible, we looked at this photo of the fifth-century octagonal Kathisma Church discovered in the 1990s on the Hebron/ Bethlehem road near Mar Elias monastery.
Kathisma = Greek for "sitting down" or where Mary rested.

Because few are aware of these ruins, even those who drive by every day, the landmark mentioned was "the green gas station just before the stop light" (toward the upper left corner in photo.)

So when we were driving to Bethlehem, Maria and Emma both blurted out, "Look! The gas station and the church where Mary rested." Not bad memories for these two young girls.

Two-and-a-half year old Lilly sat quietly "pondering all this in her heart." Only later when returning to her own home did she announce, "I saw the baby Jesus and the gas station where Mary rested."

by Fred & Gloria Strickert
http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/

Christmas Eve Sermon

2011-12-24T01:13:00.008+02:00

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/
by Fred & Gloria Strickert

Message for Dec. 24, 2011

Christmas Eve Service

Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem

“Joseph also went. . . along with Mary, his wife. . . who was expecting a child.” (Luke 2:4-5)

As we have come together for worship, early on a December evening, here in Bethlehem, we are warm here inside Christmas Lutheran Church, sheltered from the cold, the wind, the rain so common this time of year. Please, all come inside, find a seat, sit close together as you try to stay warm. Sit close together and try to imagine what it was like that day when Joseph and Mary arrived outside the small village of Bethlehem. When Joseph and Mary arrived without reservations, without a hotel confirmation number, but with a dire need for shelter. When Joseph and Mary arrived knowing only that God always provides, and that God provides best through generous, welcoming, and hospitable people.

Today on Christmas Eve, Dec, 24, 2011. five thousand miles to the east of Bethlehem in the cities of Cagayan de Oro and Illigan more than one thousand have died from the Philippines typhoon and 275,000 are homeless, all vulnerable and dependent on the good will of others.

Today on Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, 2011, several hundred miles to the north of Bethlehem, Syrian families are packing up their belongings and trying to get out of the way of escalating violence and conflict.

Today on Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, 2011, two thousand miles away south from Bethlehem in the northeast province of Kenya,

one thousand people arrived in Dadaab refugee camp,

just as yesterday another one thousand arrived,

and tomorrow another one thousand will arrive,

all having traveled a week or two from their homes

because of the famine from the extreme drought affecting the Horn of Africa.

(photo: Paul Jeffry, ACT Alliance)

They have been coming well over a year since the United Nations asked the Lutheran World Federation to expand this older Dadaab Refugee camp, originally equipped for 40,000. They have come empty handed, only carrying with them their faith, their hope, their dream that something waits for them. Now 700,000 have found welcome with food, shelter, safety, no different from Joseph and Mary arriving in Bethlehem two thousand years ago—a refugee camp with few resources of their own but providing hospitality for the stranger, hope for those without reason to hope.

Among those arriving in Dadaab are mothers with small children as also expectant mothers soon to experience the birth pangs of childbirth—no different from Mary arriving in the small village of Bethlehem 2000 years ago.

(Painting: Black Madonna, Frank Wesley, India)

This is the story of our modern world with half the world’s population living in sprawling urban centers, millions of people moving from villages to cities seeking a better life. Emigrants seeking better economic conditions. 14 million people officially registered with refugee status. And some of you sitting here tonight know very well what it means to carry a refugee card, like far too many of your fellow Palestinians. In the world 27 million are classifired as internally displaced persons. Millions of others unofficially seeking refuge from flooded homes, earthquakes, and poor economic times. Millions of others trying to get out of the way of a humanity gone mad with war and conflict.

Perhaps I read the ancient gospel with eyes opened on this night to the plight of young refugee mothers, because on Christmas Eve some nine plus decades ago my own grandmother, single and pregnant, made her way from her ancestral village on the Rhine River to the German city of Mayen in hope of a future in war-torn Europe among occupying soldiers. Perhaps, I listen this way to Luke’s description of the first Christmas because I cannot forget the stories told me years ago by members of this Bethlehem congregation of Christmas 1948, when fleeing armies in Lydda and Ramle they eventually found their way to Bethlehem with only the clothes they could carry in a suitcase, leaving behind all the physical connections to the past, but prayers for a better future. We cannot, but think of the many people in transition at Christmas 2011 when we hear the words of the Christmas story.

But these are not merely nostalgic episodes of what might have been, but testimonies of faith and hope. People came to Bethlehem, because they knew that Bethlehemites would take them in. What else would one expect from a town named House of Bread? What else would one expect where Boaz welcomed the Moabites Ruth and Naomi to glean in the fields? What else would one expect when hospitality reigns chief among virtues? What else would one expect from people whose first words that role off their lips are Ahlan Wasahlan?

What else would we expect from a modern city reduced to a 4 square mile plot of land surrounded by 25 foot high walls and threatening military watch towers, where the welcome of soldiers is dependent upon the Western passport we carry, yet where in the homes and stores of Bethlehem many of us ourselves have experienced from today’s Bethlehemites hospitality and a warm, generous, open-armed welcome.

And so Joseph also went up, along with Mary to whom he was engaged, and who was pregnant. They went up, surely with questions in their head, where will we stay? Where will we find food and drink? Where will our baby be born? They went with questions, but with full confidence that God is a God who provides. And God provides best when it takes place through humans, who are open, welcoming, hospitable. Yes, we have to strip away the myth-makers who in their culturely foreign retelling of the Christmas story envisioned this tiny village with its own 5-star Bethlehem Inn, with its gruff, individualistic, profit-motivated, self-centered, and stingy inn-keeper, none of which is an accurate translation of the Lucan text.

Here beneath the sanctuary of Christmas Lutheran Church are a number of caves, where people found refuge, warmth and security, over thousands of years of human upheaval. As people settled, they built houses over these caves where they kept their livestock, cattle, donkeys, sheep, and goats.

It was likely in such a cave that Jesus was born. The Katalyma of Luke’s gospel, the guest room, upstairs in the house was already crowded with travelers that first Christmas night. Still the householders were apparently very generous people, welcoming the strangers and showing hospitality. They would not think of turning away Joseph and his pregnant wife. That was not the culture of Bethlehem. They would find a place for them, even if it was in the cave below the house.

A cave where the young couple could find protection from the natural elements and security.
A cave where they could be warm.
A cave where their calls for help could be heard even in the crowded rooms upstairs.
A cave where young Mary could find the privacy needed during her labor.
A cave where the baby Jesus would find his first home—among the travelers, among the homeless, among strangers, emigrants, and refugees. Among the most vulnerable of people, people in need of a savior.

A savior “. . . not regarding equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptying himself, taking the form of a servant.” Phil 2:6-7

“And so the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14) Among us in our world filled with refugees and immigrants.

The child of a refugee family finding hospitality and welcome in Bethlehem, just as the church today accepts the challenge of welcoming the stranger today. Fred Otieno, from the Church in Nairobi, recently said reflecting on his 18 hour a day, seven day a week position as camp coordinator at the Dadaab Refugee Camp, “God has a purpose for us being here to make a difference in the lives of these people, so we must try and help them enjoy their stay, because at the end of the day we all need one another.” This is the message that goes out from the Bethlehem manger, "At the end of the day we all need one another."

As we gather as community to hear this age-old story, we remember that

Christmas is not about how much we can accumulate and horde, but about how much we can give away, sharing with those in need.
Christmas is not about walls that divide, security that intimates, and policies that humiliate, but about an attitude toward life in a spirit which loves the other as our self.
Christmas is not even about safe, romantic, idyllic tales of long ago, but it is about Christ coming into our midst, now, in the present moment.
Christmas is about welcoming Jesus into our midst, as we welcome the least among us, as we show hospitality to the stranger, for then we may discover that we have been entertaining angels unawares, or even God’s own son.

by Fred & Gloria Strickert

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/

A Light Shines in the Darkness

2011-12-17T09:04:00.003+02:00

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/
by Fred & Gloria Strickert

Earlier this week I watched an elderly Palestinian woman walk down the corridor on the second floor of Augusta Victoria Hospital. Her traditional embroidered dress suggested that she was likely from an outlying village of the West Bank, a Muslim, perhaps accompanying a grand-child hospital patient. She bore all the signs of a long and hard life, raising children, engaged in agriculture, a witness to generations of conflict. She had difficulty walking, but seemed to be on a mission as she slowly and with difficulty began descending the staircase. Then the sound of footsteps on the hard stone steps stopped. Was everything all right? I hurried over to the stairwell to check. There she was standing on the landing, taking photographs of the lighted artificial Christmas tree that greets visitors during this special time of the year. Not the greatest tree by American standards, but a tree that brings joy to those the many who pass by each day.

Last night in Bethlehem, thousands (both Christians and Muslims) gathered in Manger Square for the annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony. Dignataries made speeches and all spoke of unity, peace, and good will.

Next week begins Hannukah, the eight-day Jewish festival of lights, a celebration of religious freedom. So this week the Jerusalem municipality has been busy erecting Menorah on light posts leading west from the old city.

A large Menorah will soon be erected at Jaffa gate as last year.

The Mamilla Mall near Jaffa Gate is lit up for the occasion. With sunset in Jerusalem now at 4:30 p.m. lights are warming, revealing, and hopefully attracting.

It’s clearly a time for us all to stand back in admiration of the gifts of religious diversity—all the more striking when similar symbols cross over from one tradition to another—as do the lights of the season.

On Tuesday, we joined with Swedish friends for Santa Lucia day. With young white-robed girls donning candle wreaths on their heads, and younger children dressed up as gingerbread kids, a proud kipa-wearing father photographed his daughter’s participation in the choir. Such images can only give hope for a better tomorrow.

And then there’s the story of my Muslim physical therapist, who with her husband and teenaged daughters drove to Bethlehem just to look at the lights and Christmas decorations. This weekend they plan to go to her Christian neighbor’s home to help her decorate her tree because this widow’s only son is studying abroad and she would otherwise be alone.

Christmas trees are not common here like in densely forested areas of northern Europe and North American. We are on the edge of the desert. In fact, is illegal for a person to cut down trees without government permission, even on one’s own property. The Jerusalem municipality does offer a service for churches in providing a few trees when thinning out is necessary. We’re thankful for enough greenery to make an Advent wreath. As for artificial trees and decorations, they are just not on the market in Israel--not even at Ikea, as a shopping trip this week revealed. Just red and white candes.

Now in Bethlehem and Nazareth, that’s another story. Christmas is big business.

Sunday night in Nazareth the Latin Patriarch led the community in its annual tree lighting ceremony.

This year the ceremony held a special significance in overcoming the darkness of intolerance and religious bigotry--in this case that of the Mayor and city council of Nazareth Illit who last Christmas announced that Christmas trees would be banned from that neighboring city.

Nazareth (210,000 population) is the largest Arab metropolitan area in Israel proper, made up primarily of the city of Nazareth (67 % Muslim, 33 % Christian). In 1954, Nazareth Illit (upper Nazareth) was built as a Jewish neighboring city or suburb although today 9 % of residents are Muslim and Christian.

"The request of the Arabs to put Christmas trees in the squares in the Arab quarter of Nazareth Illit is provocative," Mayor Shimon Gapso was quoted in newspapers. "Nazareth Illit is a Jewish city and it will not happen -- not this year and not next year, so long as I am a mayor." It was a Muslim member of the city council, Shukri Aawdeh, who defended the Christians, "Decorating a tree is just to share the happiness and cheer with other people in the town."

In reading stories like this, we are reminded of the intolerance exhibited by some in Christian-dominated communities of Europe and the States toward religious minorities. The mayor's blindness is a grinchlike quality that often crosses boundaries into actions that are totally unacceptable.

Yesterday morning, when the West Bank Muslim villagers of al-Burqa near Ramallah arrived to say morning prayers, they discovered their mosque had been set on fire under the cover of darkness, burning carpets and furniture.

Women at al-Nour mosque in village of Burqa observing the Hebrew spray-painted graffiti.

The previous morning another mosque had been set on fire in Jerusalem, this time a historic mosque dating back to the 13th century. The graffiti included statements like "Death to the Arabs" and "Muhammad is a pig."

Just a week ago a third mosque was set on fire at Bruqin near Nablus and several others over the last several months, in an escalation of settler violence with destruction of olive groves and Palestinian property in the West Bank.

Inspecting the damage of mosque fire at Tuba-Zangaria this summer.

All of these attacks have one thing in common, the word "Price tag," a signature by Jewish settlers (many American immigrants) illegally occupying West Bank Palestinian land. They have put the Israeli government on notice that any attempt to limit their actions and their expansion will be met with violence toward Palestinians whom they wish cleansed from the land.

This flare-up of violence follows reports published this week in Haaretz newspaper that settler crimes in the West Bank against Palestinians over the past five years have rarely been punished and that IDF soldiers now claim settler violence against Palestinians far exceeds Palestinian violence against settlers. As evidenced by Haaretz Op-Ed pieces, many Israelis are embarrassed and are publicly separating themselves from the out-of-control settler problem. Others continue to look the other way. Ehud Barak used the term "terrorism" to describe these actions. Yet when Prime Minister of Israel Netanyahu, the chief promoter of settler expansion, was asked to issue a strong statement, he noted that this is not terrorism, but more a boys-will-be-boys type of vandalism carried out by "a small group that does not represent the public that lives in Judea and Samaria."

And back in Iowa where caucuses are only days away, such stories seldom see the light of day while politicians, press, and pundits continue to pretend and preach, stumbling through an unenlightened mythic realtiy that leads only deeper into the night.

As the dark awaits the dawn,

so we await your light,

O Star of promise scatter night,

loving bright, loving bright,

til shades of fear are gone. (ELW 261)

by Fred & Gloria Strickert

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/

What is it with American news media?

2011-12-03T16:09:00.006+02:00

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/
by Fred & Gloria Strickert

"What is it with American news media?" the question was addressed to me by an American tourist this past week. Visitors often raise similar questions.

"We never hear about these things in the newspapers or on television news."

"We have seen it with our own eyes. The wall. The checkpoints. The inequalities. You never hear about this back home."

"Why is American news so slanted?"

Every week I meet with visitors from the States, who come to hear about the work of the church in Jerusalem. Usually by the end of the conversation a hand goes up. "But what about the political situation?"
or "This trip has been an eye opener."
"What is it with our American media?'

I don't attempt to answer the why question. I'm not an expert on media. I simply affirm these visitors' perceptions, relating that my experience with the media over several decades has been much the same.

I encourage them to go online and to try to read a number of sources. "Multiple perspectives are always good," I usually tell them. I always point them to http://www.haaretz.com/ where a person can quickly see that in Israel a healthy debate can occur in a single newspaper, something rare in American sources.

I get up each morning before 6:00 a.m. to read several news sites online.

This morning on CNN.com I saw the headline
"'Get to the damn table,' Israel told."
Now that's rather strong language. Who might be saying that? Someone from the UN? the European Union? Jordan?

If you are familiar with the CNN main webpage, there are a few photos with feature pieces in the center of the page and a list of headlines for major stories going down the left side of the page.

"'Get to the damn table,' Israel told" was the lead headline in a list of 15.
This was clearly considered an important story.

I clicked to see a photo of Leon Panetta, U.S. Secretary of Defense, looking rather exasperated.

Photo: Getty Images

CNN caption: U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has urged Israel to get to the "damn table" in peace talks

The story included this important quote from Panetta, "The problem right now is we can't get them [the Israelis] to the damn table to at least sit down and begin to discuss their differences." He was talking about peace talks with Palestinians, and then went on to talk about their refusal to enter diplomatic discussions with Turkey, Egypt, and Jordan.
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/12/02/world/meast/israel-peace-talks/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

What a surprise! From my perspective, it seems like such accusations from the Obama Administration and from both houses of Congress are always aimed at the Palestinians, betraying the U.S. government as anything but "an honest broker."

This time it was addressed to Israel: "Get to the damn table."

The story was not written by an intern or a reporter from a Middle Eastern city, but by Jen Rizzo CNN National Security Producer.

So what's the problem? Doesn't this mean that CNN is out there doing its job reporting both sides of the story?
Not exactly.

The story is missing from the U.S. edition of the CNN website.
It's there in a prominent position on the International edition.
But if you are an American clicking on CNN US edition, you might never know about this piece of news.

It surely isn't a matter of space. The U.S. edition included 23 headlines more than the 15 headlines on the International edition. Although admittedly the U.S. edition had to make room for
"The week's top 10 Celeb Quotes,"
"Gun-themed purse delays teen flier,"
"Student smashes window with butt"
Yet there still was not room for this rather significant headline, and if there is no link, how will the browser ever find the story?

Scrolling down the CNN webpage (http://www.cnn.com/), I find a few more secondary headlines divided by topic:
U.S. news: not there!
World news: not there!
Poitical news: not there!
Video stories: not there!

But if you look at the International edition, it's the top story.

This is not an isolated story. As background, note two particular stories that have been front and center in http://www.haaretz.com/ these last weeks-- perhaps they have been reported in the States, perhaps not:

1) Haaretz reported from Israeli government sources that the Palestinian Authority already submitted to the Quartet on Nov. 14 their proposal for boundaries based on the 1967 green line with 1.9 % designated for land swaps. This came in response to the Quartet's request to restart talks when President Abbas applied for statehood at the UN. In other words, they have complied, while the Netanyahu government refuses to comply and has no interest in restarting the peace talks-- as stated in the Haaretz article.

2) Leon Panetta himself has made several trips to Tel Aviv in the last month appealing unsuccessfully for Israel to give assurances that it will not act unilaterally and secretly against Iran, and he and the US military have been reported as growing impatient with lack of cooperation by the Israeli Defense Minister.

You can just imagine Mr. Panetta uttering those words, "Get to the damn table." It wasn't a mistake. It wasn't a mike left on. It wasn't a misquote. It's clear frustration. And so it's news. News that needs reporting.

The story was posted Saturday monring 05:42 GM -- that's 7:42 Jerusalem time.
As I write, it is now 4:30 p.m. and the article still does not appear on the U.S. edition
of America's 24/7 Trusted News Source. Hopefully it will eventually appear, but one would think in this fast-paced world of technology, they could just push a button and link the story.

Within a half hour of the posting of the story on CNN International, Haaretz had a watered down headline on their website, "Panetta urges Israel to 'reach out' to Turkey, Egypt, and Palestinians." At least they reported on the gist of the discussion.

What is it with the American news media?

A number of years ago I was interviewed by a reporter for Newsweek or Time, I don't remember. A week later I received an email from a missionary friend in Tanzania who told me he had read the article including my quotes and was impressed by the balance in the presentation of Palestinian and Israeli sides of the story. "Maybe Americans are starting to wake up." he wrote. Not really. The article never appeared in the American edition of the weekly newsmagazine. It only appeared in the International edition. Again, it should be emphasized that this was a balanced piece, yet it did not appear in print in the States.

It seems that the American media know how to report the news, they just filter it for American audiences.
And this may explain a lot when one wonders why America stands apart from much of the world.

As far as the discrepancies between CNN US edition and CNN International Edition, it's become obvious since the day we arrived in Jerusalem. My laptop at home is my personal laptop-- set to the CNN US edition, but the laptop in my office at church is set to the International edition of CNN. It didn't take long to notice, that the news stories that I would read on the latter were not the same as those when I'd check at home first thing in the morning.

On May 15, when Palestinian refuges in commemoration of the Palestinian al-Nakba (the catastrophe) tried to cross the border from Lebanon and Syria and dozens were gunned down by the Israeli army, there were two totally different stories, both presented by CNN, one based solely on official Israeli Defense Force sources and the other including IDF sources and reports on the ground by witnesses and medical personnel.
The former was posted on the CNN- US edition. The latter on the CNN- International website.

The IDF wised up years ago that what matters most is getting their version of the story out first, irrespective of the truth. And it seems that's the version that gets reported in the States while the serious journalists take a bit longer to get the real story--sometimes too late for short attention spans.

A similar thing happened at the end of the summer. August 25 came toward the end of a rather violent week. A terror attack had killed seven Israelis in Southern Israel--universally condemned. Eventually, a number of individuals from the Sinai were found responsible. The attack, however, was followed by Israel bombing Gaza, then rockets fired from Gaza against southern Israel. Then more bombing.

When I checked the CNN website early that Thursday morning there were two totally different accounts, one on the US edition, one on the International edition. When I checked at 8:25 a.m. it had not changed.

Under the headline " Israel warplanes strike Gaza," the US edition reported,

"Israeli aircraft were in action Wednesday morning in at least three strikes against militants who targeted Israelis, the country's military said. The Israel Defense Forces claimed a "direct hit" on Zadi Ismail Asmar, whom it said was a weapons smuggler affiliated with Islamic Jihad."

In fairness I must say that these are just the first sentences of a longer report that described the attacks and deaths on Israeli civilians in southern Israel and reports that the bombing of Gaza was a response. The source of the report was the Israeli military, describing the attacks on "militants."

Under the same headlinee on the same day at the same time, the international edition reported,

'Israeli warplanes struck several times Wednesday and early Thursday along the country's border with Gaza, killing three people and wounding several others, medical sources told CNN. Early Thursday, an Israeli warplane shot missiles at a social club in northern Gaza, killing two people and wounding 20, including women and children, medical sources said. On Wednesday, an air strike on a tunnel between Rafa and Egypt left three people seriously wounded, the sources said. The Israel Defense Forces said that an Israeli warplane hit an Islamic Jihad militant from the city of Rafa who was involved in smuggling weapons "and sought the execution of terrorist activity in Sinai."

Unlike the first report, this included on-the-ground sources. It also noted that the victims included more than just "militants" but regular civilians gathered in a social club. It would appear that this article was written later than the first. Yet it is curious why in this age of technology, the story was not also posted on the US edition for an American audience. I checked back several times during the day, but I didn't see the American story updated to show that ordinary Palestinians are also victims. Maybe it was added later, but I didn't see it.

What is it with the American news media?

We've been asking that question for years.

Now we face that question each week from visitors who see a great discrepancy between the way the story is reported in the newspapers, on the nightly news, and by the large cable news networks.

The best solution is to seek multiple sources and to ask critical questions. Check out international news media.
http://www.haaretz.com/
www.maannews.net/eng/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/
http://jewishpeacenews.blogspot.com/
americans for peace now http://www.peacenow.org/
Churches for Middle East Peace http://www.cmep.org/

And if you want to rely on CNN, go to the upper left hand corner of your website, and choose the International edition. Of course, you might miss the latest on the Kardashians, Demi and Ashton, and Ms. Lohan.

by Fred & Gloria Strickert
http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/

Thanksgiving

2011-11-26T10:53:00.010+02:00

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/
by Fred & Gloria Strickert

^"I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus. . . ."
(1 Corinthians 1:4 --Epistle for Advent 1)

We give thanks for the blessings of
family,
friends,
support congregations,
all the people back in the USA who celebrate Thanksgiving in a traditional way and make it possible for us to be here in Jerusalem.

In this part of the world where the sharing of food is an essential part of relationships, we had several occasions for celebrating thanksgiving, both with traditional turkey and stuffing and with Middle Eastern salads and other dishes.

More than food, Thanksgiving is about community.

And when living in a foreign country, we look for times like this when we can gather as community.

On Friday evening together at the home of Mark and Susanne Brown on the LWF campus.

We give thanks for the blessing of community.

Joining at Thursday noon at the Tantur Ecumenical Center with colleagues, Kjell & Inger Jonasson from Sweden and with Chris Cowan, an American Ecumencial Accompaniers in the South Hebron hills.

As I remember Thanksgivings in the States, the biggest distraction from the feast was the football game on TV. Here the moment we filled our plates and sat down at the table on Thanksgiving noon, my cell phone rang with a text message:
"Demolition of mosque and several residential buildings in Um-Fagareh!"

Holding loud speaker from
destroyed mosque.

Photos from Maan News

Demolished house in Um-Fagareh.

Two Palestinian women arrested trying to defend home against fifty soldiers accompanying bulldozer. One woman has leg broken in the scuffle.

Less than an hour earlier, a text message had announced the demolition of a Palestinian residence and animal shelter in Susiya.

The demolition order lies amidst the rubble.

Picking up the pieces.

This is one of the poorest areas in the West Bank. Some villagers live in caves.

Attempts to bring electricity to village are periodically destroyed.

Our Thanksgiving dinner companion Chris was visibly shaken by the news. Her assignment with the Ecumencial Accompaniers these three months has been in the South Hebron hills, where she has gotten to know well the villagers at Susiya and Um-Fagareh. Click here to read her own refections...As the sole American EAPPI, her four teammates had given Chris Thanksgiving Day off to relax and to recharge. This has been a taxing assignment. Settlers had regularly been harrassing the villagers all through the fall.

Yet this was not the action of lawless settlers. Home Demolitions are carried out by the Israeli government, the same Israeli government that builds and expands West Bank and East Jerusalem settlements in defiance of every nation of the world, including the USA & clear evidence that Israel remains in control of Palestinian life in the West Bank. 24,813 Palestinian houses have been systematically demolished since 1967 according to the Israeli Human Rights organization Israel Committee Against Home Demolitions. Click on this ICAHD link to learn more about this flagrant abuse against human dignity.

Later that afternoon the bulldozer made its way to Idna, West of Hebron.

Another home demolished.

CNN, Fox news, and the major networks-- always determined to portray Palestinians as terrorists-- don't find home demolitions as sexy enough for news and prefer to report on such things as American Idol stars Scotty McCreery as messing up his lip-sinc during Thanksgiving Parade and Laura Alaina as forgetting words to the National Anthem at the Packers-Lions game. Who wants to hear about home demolitions?

Earlier in the day, yet two other houses were demolished in Beit Hanina, a Palestinian area in East Jerusalem.

The home owner can only watch against such a military display of force.

According to a UN agency, 481 houses have been destroyed in 2011 displacing 887 persons.

Tomorrow in church we light the first Advent Candle-- the candle of hope.

"O that you would tear open the heavens and come down..." (Isaiah 64:1)

"Stir up your power, Lord Christ, and come."

Advent 1 -- Prayer of the Day.

The only Thanksgiving prayer that made sense to us for our Friday community gathering was one written by Brian McLaren:

We thank you, God, for this holiday,.

We have rested, and we think of all those whose lives

Are hard and who enjoy little rest.

We have eaten the fruit of our labors, and we think of those

Who have neither work nor money.

We have feasted, and we think of all whose stomachs

Are hungry and have too little.

We have felt safe and at home, and we think of those

Who live in danger and turmoil, in war and fear, and all

Who have been driven from their homes.

We have been together, and we think of all those

Who are lonely and alone.

We have laughed, and we think of all

Whose hearts are heavy.

We have shared stories, and we think of al

Who need a listening ear.

We have counted our blessings, and we ask

That our gratitude can now be translated

Into the desire to be a blessing to others.

Amen.

Taize service on Friday
at Redeemer led by
Frere Emile from Taize.

Wait for the Lord

by Fred & Gloria Strickert

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/

Concerning Times & Seasons

2011-11-12T13:26:00.002+02:00

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/
by Fred & Gloria Strickert

Credit Propst Uwe Graebe

Wednesday midnight -- on 9 November

A ring around the moon

A halo above Redeemer Tower

A halo appropriately marks the call for our servant community

gathered weekly in the worship space below.

A halo also seems an appropriate sign for a city of three religions

Especially in the culmination of a season of holiness

Of rituals and songs and prayers

Of time set aside for reflection.

Eid al-adha -- the Muslims' Feast of the Sacrifice at the height of the Hajj
Rosh HaShana & Yom Kippur followed by Succoth & Simchat Torah--High Holy Days for Jews
All Saints Day -- and for Lutherans also Reformation Day.

In the Midwest (USA), folklore says a ring around moon means a change in the weather.

A winter storm's a comin'.

Or just a change?

So, does this mean it's snowing in Minnesota?

Or stormy days for Jerusalem?

Last week, Jerusalem experienced its first rainfall of the season.

Seven months of dry hot weather have come to an end, L'hamdilla.

the days are getting shorter,

the temperatures are dropping,

our sweaters and gloves have come out of storage,

and we pray many heavy rains will soon follow

filling empty stone cisterns,

refreshing the hillsides,

and turning desert brown landscapes to life-filled sprouts of green.

"Now concerning the times and the seasons, I have no need to write. . . "

says Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:1 (Epistle lesson for Pentecost 22)

The changes are natural and expected.

They are observed and well-noted.

How can one expand on the obvious?

The view out the door of our house, walking to gate reminds us of the changing times. After a month of the olive harvest, the trees have been pruned, branches destined as fuel for the fire, but trees cut back for next year's crop-- a better harvest of olives, inshallah--hope for the future.

The times and seasons

All the while, messages of hope are countered by threats of a new Middle East war with rhetoric and rationales voiced in government news conferences and newspaper editorials. With this backdrop we drove to Galilee two weeks ago for Fred to film a National Geographic television program at Bethsaida, constantly interrupted by the sounds of Israeli fighter jets and bombers flying overhead with practice runs to northern destinations, and on the highway an occasional tank transported toward the Golan.

Our schedules here make it difficult to keep up with Fred's archaeological interests. Here's a link to Fred's book on Bethsaida published last spring. One thing archaeologists understand is change. Sites like Bethsaida provide a sober reminder, not just of the antiquity of this land and its thousands of years of human stories, but also the arrivals and departures of various peoples, the cycles of building and destruction, the times of prosperity and the seasons of war. Walking the old stone streets of Bethsaida, history comes face to face with current political intrigue.

The times and seasons. . . .

. . . yet not bringing a destiny of wrath and despair, so says Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:9.

"The times are a changing," so the ring around the moon would suggest.

There's a scientific explanation.

It's water in the atmosphere

ice crystals high in the atmosphere reflecting the moon's light

which, in turn, is a reflection of the sun.

So, ring around the moon = light + water.

You are children of light, so Paul in verse 5.

And we gather weekly at the baptismal font.

And so it was that our Sunday morning's children sermon and Sunday School hour focused on baptism. Our International English-speaking congregation with children from Sweden, Finland, Palestine, Scotland, and the USA-- all gathered around the baptismal font, and marked with the cross of Christ, water on the forehead, children of God, children of light.

The sign of the cross at the font --"Who is my family" art project
The times and seasons
One more piece of folk lore:

Count the stars in the space between the moon and its ring

to discover how long until that winter storm hits.

Stars or children of light?

Last Sunday to Tuesday, we participated in the Sahiroon Youth Leadership Development gathering at a retreat center in Nazareth.

Bible Reading: "Put on the breastplate of faith and love. . . the helmet of the hope of salvation." 1 Thess. 5:8

With singing

And study

Sharing with one another

Listening

"Therefore, encourage one another & build each other up." 1 Thess. 5:11

Sahiroon Photo Credits: Elly McHan

Children of Light -- Stars within the ring around the moon.

by Fred &Gloria Strickert

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/

Blessed also are the spat upon

2011-11-04T11:12:00.000+02:00

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/
by Fred & Gloria Strickert

"Blessed are the meek. . .
Blessed are the merciful. . .
Blessed are the peacemakers. . . ."

The Beatitudes from Matthew 5.
The Gospel for All Saints Sunday.

Blessed also are the spat upon.

Before we moved to Jerusalem fifteen months ago, we had to go on a shopping trip to purchase a black suit and a regular supply of black clergy shirts (The last time I owned a clerical collar was in the late 1970s after graduating from seminary). In the old city of Jerusalem, religion is evident by the clothes we wear, especially for religious leaders. Because Christians are such a small minority--less than 2 % of the population-- it is important, that the Christian presence is evident in the landscape of old stone churches and historical sites going back to the New Testament and the early Christian community.

There is no hiding the fact that we are Christians.

The reaction by many is one of respect and admiration--Arab shop keepers address me as Abuna, our father.
The reaction by others is indifference, as if we are a relic of the past.
The reaction of others--only a few--is ridicule (not so much for us personally, but for colleagues in ministry).

Blessed also are the spat upon.

On the first Thursday of every month, I (Fred) meet with an ecumenical colleague group for coffee and discussion of issues facing the local Christian community. I'm the only American. There is a French Catholic priest, a Syrian Orthodox restaurant owner, a Greek Catholic priest, and a Greek Orthodox layman, several Armenians, both clergy and lay. Yesterday we began our discussion with international issues like the status of the Christian communities in Syria and Egypt. Then the topic turned to the need to get local Christians more involved in ecumenical gatherings.

Then the topic turned to spitting. That's right, spitting. Or to be more accurate, the phenomenon of being spat upon.
"It's getting a lot worse," mentioned one of the life-long residents of the old city.
"No, it's always been this way, " countered an 80-year old Greek Orthodox layman.
"We have grown accustomed to it," said the Armenian priest, "but some of our younger teachers have a hard time turning the other cheek. They want to strike back."
"Maybe we need to retaliate," said another.
"No, let the police handle it."
"They never do anything. We have complained in the past. What good has it done?"

Finally, one of the elders in our group reminded us all that we are Christ's representatives in Jerusalem. Ours must always be a message of peace--both in word and action. "They will spit at our shoes, and sometimes in our face, but we must always be messengers of peace."

Blessed also are the spat upon.

Spitting on Clergy. That's probably not a topic that comes up in many American clergy gatherings. But it does here. Again, I stress that I haven't often been directly affected. Perhaps it's my obvious American identity. Perhaps it's my size. Local clergy are more often targeted.

Yet we are called to accompany, to listen, to console, to sympathize, to stand alongside when others are humiliated. Accompaniment also means communicating, not just positive stories, but also such aspects of daily humiliation of the Christian community in Jerusalem.

Blessed also are the spat upon.

Yesterday's discussion is not an isolated complaint.

We woke up this morning to read the following story in the Israeli Haaretz newspaper. A quick google search yields other reports as the Jerusalem Post article two years ago.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews spitting attacks on Old City clergymen becoming daily

Clergymen in the Armenian Church in Jerusalem say they are victims of harassment, from senior cardinals to priesthood students; when they do complain, the police don't usually find the perpetrators.

By Oz Rosenberg

Ha'aretz -- Friday - November 4, 2011
Ultra-Orthodox Jewish young men curse and spit at Christian clergymen in the streets of Jerusalem's Old City as a matter of routine. In most cases the clergymen ignore the attacks, but sometimes they strike back. Last week the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court quashed the indictment against an Armenian priesthood student who had punched the man who spat at him.
Johannes Martarsian was walking in the Old City in May 2008 when an young ultra-Orthodox Jew spat at him. Maratersian punched the spitter in the face, making him bleed, and was charged for assault. But Judge Dov Pollock, who unexpectedly annulled the indictment, wrote in his verdict that "putting the defendant on trial for a single blow at a man who spat at his face, after suffering the degradation of being spat on for years while walking around in his church robes is a fundamental contravention of the principles of justice and decency."
"Needless to say, spitting toward the defendant when he was wearing the robe is a criminal offense," the judge said.
When Narek Garabedian came to Israel to study in the Armenian Seminary in Jerusalem half a year ago, he did not expect the insults, curses and spitting he would be subjected to daily by ultra-Orthodox Jews in the streets of the Old City.
"When I see an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man coming toward me in the street, I always ask myself if he will spit at me," says Narek, a Canadian Armenian, this week. About a month ago, on his way to buy groceries in the Old City, two ultra-Orthodox men spat at him. The spittle did not fall at his feet but on his person. Narek, a former football player, decided this time not to turn the other cheek.
"I was very angry. I pushed them both to the wall and asked, 'why are you doing this?' They were frightened and said 'we're sorry, we're sorry,' so I let them go. But it isn't always like that. Sometimes the spitter attacks you back," he says.
Other clergymen in the Armenian Church in Jerusalem say they are all victims of harassment, from the senior cardinals to the priesthood students. Mostly they ignore these incidents. When they do complain, the police don't usually find the perpetrators.
Martarsian left Israel about a year ago. He was sent back home by the church, as were two other Armenian priesthood students who were charged after attacking an ultra-Orthodox man who spat at them.
The Greek Patriarchy's clergymen have been cursed and spat on by ultra-Orthodox men in the street for many years. "They walk past me and spit," says Father Gabriel Bador, 78, a senior priest in the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate. "Mostly I ignore it, but it's difficult.
Sometimes I stop and ask the spitter 'why are you doing this? What have I done to you?' Once I even shouted at a few of them who spat at my feet together. They ran away," he says.
"It happens a lot," says Archbishop Aristarchos, the chief secretary of the patriarchate. "You walk down the street and suddenly they spit at you for no reason. I admit sometimes it makes me furious, but we have been taught to restrain ourselves, so I do so."
Father Goosan Aljanian, Chief Dragoman of the Armenian Patriarchate in Jerusalem, says it is often difficult for temperamental young priesthood students to swallow the offense.
About a month ago two students marching to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre beat up an ultra-Orthodox man who spat at them. They were sent away from the Old City for two weeks.
"I tell my students that if they are spat at, to go to the police rather than strike back" says Goosan. "But these are young kids who sometimes lose their cool."
A few weeks ago four ultra-Orthodox men spat at clergymen in the funeral procession of Father Alberto of the Armenian Church. "They came in a pack, out of nowhere," said Father Goosan. "I know there are fanatical Haredi groups that don't represent the general public but it's still enraging. It all begins with education. It's the responsibility of these men's yeshiva heads to teach them not to behave this way," he says.
Father Goosan and other Patriarchy members are trying to walk as little as possible in the Old City streets. "Once we walked from the [Armenian] church to the Jaffa Gate and on that short section four different people spat at us," he says.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/ultra-orthodox-spitting-attacks-on-old-city-clergymen-becoming-daily-1.393669

And a similar story two years ago. . .

Mouths filled with hatred

Nov. 26, 2009

Larry Derfner , THE JERUSALEM POST

Father Samuel Aghoyan, a senior Armenian Orthodox cleric in Jerusalem's Old City, says he's been spat at by young haredi and national Orthodox Jews "about 15 to 20 times" in the past decade. The last time it happened, he said, was earlier this month. "I was walking back from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and I saw this boy in a yarmulke and ritual fringes coming back from the Western Wall, and he spat at me two or three times."
Wearing a dark-blue robe, sitting in St. James's Church, the main Armenian church in the Old City, Aghoyan said, "Every single priest in this church has been spat on. It happens day and night."
Father Athanasius, a Texas-born Franciscan monk who heads the Christian Information Center inside the Jaffa Gate, said he's been spat at by haredi and national Orthodox Jews "about 15 times in the last six months" - not only in the Old City, but also on Rehov Agron near the Franciscan friary. "One time a bunch of kids spat at me, another time a little girl spat at me," said the brown-robed monk near the Jaffa Gate.
"All 15 monks at our friary have been spat at," he said. "Every [Christian cleric in the Old City] who's been here for awhile, who dresses in robes in public, has a story to tell about being spat at. The more you get around, the more it happens."
A nun in her 60s who's lived in an east Jerusalem convent for decades says she was spat at for the first time by a haredi man on Rehov Agron about 25 years ago. "As I was walking past, he spat on the ground right next to my shoes and he gave me a look of contempt," said the black-robed nun, sitting inside the convent. "It took me a moment, but then I understood."
Since then, the nun, who didn't want to be identified, recalls being spat at three different times by young national Orthodox Jews on Jaffa Road, three different times by haredi youth near Mea She'arim and once by a young Jewish woman from her second-story window in the Old City's Jewish Quarter.
But the spitting incidents weren't the worst, she said - the worst was the time she was walking down Jaffa Road and a group of middle-aged haredi men coming her way pointed wordlessly to the curb, motioning her to move off the sidewalk to let them pass, which she did.
"That made me terribly sad," said the nun, speaking in ulpan-trained Hebrew. Taking personal responsibility for the history of Christian anti-Semitism, she said that in her native European country, such behavior "was the kind of thing that they - no, that we used to do to Jews."
News stories about young Jewish bigots in the Old City spitting on Christian clergy - who make conspicuous targets in their long dark robes and crucifix symbols around their necks - surface in the media every few years or so. It's natural, then, to conclude that such incidents are rare, but in fact they are habitual. Anti-Christian Orthodox Jews, overwhelmingly boys and young men, have been spitting with regularity on priests and nuns in the Old City for about 20 years, and the problem is only getting worse.

"My impression is that Christian clergymen are being spat at in the Old City virtually every day. This has been constantly increasing over the last decade," said Daniel Rossing. An observant, kippa-wearing Jew, Rossing heads the Jerusalem Center for Jewish-Christian Relations and was liaison to Israel's Christian communities for the Ministry of Religious Affairs in the '70s and '80s.
For Christian clergy in the Old City, being spat at by Jewish fanatics "is a part of life," said the American Jewish Committee's Rabbi David Rosen, Israel's most prominent Jewish interfaith activist.

"I hate to say it, but we've grown accustomed to this. Jewish religious fanatics spitting at Christian priests and nuns has become a tradition," said Roman Catholic Father Massimo Pazzini, sitting inside the Church of the Flagellation on the Via Dolorosa.

These are the very opposite of isolated incidents. Father Athanasius of the Christian Information Center called them a "phenomenon." George Hintlian, the unofficial spokesman for the local Armenian community and former secretary of the Armenian Patriarchate, said it was "like a campaign."

(The Jerusalem Post)

Blessed also are the spat upon.

by Fred & Gloria Strickert
http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/

Salamtak

2011-10-22T10:55:00.010+02:00

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/
by Fred & Gloria Strickert

Salamtak!

Several weeks ago we were walking down Christian Quarter Road when nearly every greeting to us was simple, straightforward and genuine:
Salamtak!

Christian Quarter Road is one of the main streets in the Old City of Jerusalem, not far from the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer.

The usual welcome along this street is an invitation to come and buy.

Perhaps a nice souvenir.

Or a scarf.

A special price for you, my friend.

But this time it was different.

Salamtak!
This is the common Arabic expression meaning
May you return to health!
May you find wholeness!
May you be at peace!
Salamtak! or
Get well soon!

It was something of a freak accident, more like a clutsy, clumsy fall back toward the end of August--and now Fred's back on the road to recovery-- thanks to greetings & prayers
from Christian Quarter Road friends & many others.
Salamtak!
Okay, the splint does make things look a bit frightful, and yes, there were five broken bones in the hand, a few nights and surgery at Hadassa Hospital, Ein Kerem, but now life is getting back to normal.

Yet what we'll always remember is that greeting the first day back to work while walking along the shops on Christian Quarter Road from friends and strangers alike.
Salamtak!
and from total strangers as well:
May God Bless You!

Arabs are straightfoward with God-talk in conversations.
words like l'hamdilla (praise God) or inshallah (God-willing).
and it comes from Christians and Muslims alike.

And especially for Muslims. Each morning now Abu Muhammed from our Redeemer staff greets me with a cup of Arabic coffee in a special display of kindness. "Saada?" He asks "No sugar?" "Yes that's the way I like it."

But it's more than coffee. It's an excuse to check on how I'm doing.

"Your hand? It's okay?" "Yes, it's doing well." I show him just as I did yesterday, and everyday before. "L'hamdilla," he responds. "Praise God!" "And at night, you put olive oil on and rub it?" "Yes, like you showed me." "Then it will be healed again, soon, Inshallah, God willing."

On portions of Christian Quarter Road today you can see the large paving stones from the late Roman era--constructed about the time of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre when Christians began flocking to Jerusalem in large numbers in the fourth century.

Today most of the shopkeepers are Muslim

like the baker where Gloria buys fresh communion bread each Sunday morning.
like Bilal who sewed the cushion covers for our pews--"with special care" he said, worthy for our chapel where we worship sitting down and not kneeling on the floor.
like the florist who as a gift brought a bouquet of flowers for the chapel last Easter morning.
like Shabaan and his money changing business who takes the loose offering- plate currency from various countries and even personal checks from our visitors, no ID necessary--"You are the church!" he says.
like Khader of the clothing store who has greeted us from day one, and also checks my hand as we pass, Yes, the swelling has gone down. You are massaging it, like I showed you."

Salamtak!

They all join in whenever we pass, and many others whom we barely knew.
Now when we walk down Christian Quarter Road, we need to budget an extra ten minutes, to stop and say thanks and to show the progress.

L'Hamdillah!

We Christians also do a lot of praying

intercessions in church
our weekly email prayer chain
Redeemer Arabic congregation members stopping to say "We're praying for you!"
a whispered word from a hospital bed.

And we're thankful to add the prayers of shopkeepers on Christian Quarter Road.
Salamtak!

I'm now doing formal therapy at Hadassa Hospital, Mount Scopus, closer to our home. With the multiple religious holidays, scheduling such appointments can sometimes get complicated. "You know that Yom Kippur is coming up? Then a week of Succoth? Then Simchat Torah?" asked the head of therapy when I phoned for an appointment.
"So I'll have to wait?"
"Well, I'll be taking vacation," she answered reflecting the common practice for Israelis to vacation during these holidays and things just shut down.
"I see." I must have sounded dejected. "It's just that I was hoping to get started."
She paused. "I do have an assistant. She'll be here." Then she mentioned her name, a common Muslim woman's name."
"Great." I answered.
I sensed a longer than normal pause. "That's okay?"
"Of course, Why not?"

My therapist falls on the more liberal side of the religious spectrum, as I would surmise from our sessions.
She doesn't wear a head scarf like many other Muslim women hospital staff. All of the hospital notes she writes out in Hebrew script. I learn from her, while she is massaging my wounded hand, that she is sending her two daughters to a special school where Muslims, Christians, and Jews learn side by side.
"I want them to learn about Christianity," she says, "and Judaism too. It's our only hope."

Her conversation helps me not to focus on the pain when she moves my fingers beyond what I have been accustomed.

"You must do these same exercises every day if you want to strengthen your hand," she stressed in her toughest sounding voice. "It's the only way your hand will heal." And then she added, "Inshallah. God willing."

And when she wrote out my next appointment card and handed it to me, there was no typical "Good-bye." Instead she smiled and said

Salamtak!

A short addendum
Today was our annual congregation olive picking day on the Mount of Olives.
To view our blog from last year's outing click here.

So Fred's left hand was ready for picking olives off a tree.
Really not bad therapy.

But wouldn't you know it?

Congregational member 12-year old Matteus from Sweden showed up with his right hand in a cast--an accident from school just yesterday.

What can we say but
Salamtak!

by Fred &Gloria Strickert
http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/

Visas

2011-10-03T20:45:00.002+02:00

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/

by Fred & Gloria Strickert

Our visas have been approved for another year! L'Hamdilla!

We often take for granted that it is a privilege to serve in any foreign country, especially when working with the church.

In the case of Israel, thousands of American tourists pass quickly through Ben Gurion airport with automatic visitor's visas stamped quickly on blank passport pages. We are not here as tourists and thus we are subject to a longer process with the expectation of following certain rules and regulations (e.g. no proselytizing) and of discretion in what we say and do.

So the renewal of our visa for another year is never something we take for granted. And now we say L'Hamdilla! Praise God.

This last week you could hear a shout of L'Hamdilla, from every church in Jerusalem when Bishop Suheil Dawani of the Anglican Church received his residency permit for Jerusalem after a lapse of two years. The Church, of course, extends beyond borders and bishops must be free to travel on a regular basis to their parishes whether they be in Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, or Jordan.

The bishop's residency in Jerusalem is not only a matter of practicality, it's part of the historic character of the church--for Anglicans Jerusalem has been the bishop's residence since 1841, when the joint Lutheran-Anglican bishopric was established.

Bishop Dawani faced this situation because he is a Palestinian and was born in the West Bank city of Nablus, twenty-five miles north of Jerusalem. Although he was elected already in 2005, and was previously given residency permits for Jerusalem, for the last two years his permits were rejected. This put him in the difficult situation of having to live illegally in East Jerusalem at St. George's Cathedral and it put the Anglican Church in the position of having to sue the government after working quietly behind the scenes for eighteen months. So on Monday it was announced that he had succeeded and a new permit has been granted. L'Hamdilla.

For the Sept. 27 Haaretz newspaper article click here.

Such cases are not totally isolated. Last Tuesday, we visited with a young German volunteer who had come to serve at the Dormitian Catholic Church just outside Zion Gate. He had just received a visa rejection letter stating uncertainty about the religious character of his declared place of service. So he is now planning to appeal. Inshallah.

A decade ago a newly elected Greek Orthodox Patriarch was denied official government recognition for several years. The Roman Catholic Church has often had difficulties for its seminarians coming here to study. Our own YAGMs had to postpone their arrival for several weeks, with all the hassle of changing travel plans, because of visa delays.

In the photo on the right Lutheran and Anglican clergy pause for prayers at Station # 4 on our 2011 Good Friday walk of the Via Dolorosa. Bishops Dawani and Younan stand together at the top of the stairs.

Looking at this photo from just six months ago, we are reminded how tenuous our positions can be.

Three of our Anglican colleagues in the photo are no longer with us in Jerusalem. One who is American had just returned from an unplanned three-month leave to the states because of visa issues. Ultimately the visa was renewed, but only for six months, so now he is gone.
We don't take things like this for granted. This is simply the way it is in the world. So whenever a visa or a residency permit is granted, we say L'Hamdilla.

Perhaps this is the way it's always been.

Paul wrote to the Church in Rome: "Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good." (Romans 13:3).

The ancient city of Caesarea on the Mediterranean Coast is where Pontius Pilate had his residence. This is the city where Paul sat in prison two years waiting to face Nero in Rome.

Caesarea is where Fred got his start in archaeology in the summer of 1974, excavating this Byzantine colonaded street, just south of the Crusader fortress. A public building had just been uncovered next to these columns. Though it was a government building, several rooms had religious inscriptions in Greek, and, though several centuries had passed since Paul's sojourn here, his words were there for all to see.

"Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good and you will receive approval."
Inshallah.

by Fred & Gloria Strickert
http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/

A Day of Peace

2011-09-20T09:59:00.010+03:00

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/
by Fred & Gloria Strickert

September 21 is marked on our kitchen calendar as the International Day of Peace.

Outside the United Nations is the peace bell, constructed in 1954 from coins donated by children from throughout the world. For the last 30 years this bell has been rung on this day in hope that today's children may see a world less damaged by the hatred and war of past and present.

It may well be that the sound of the bell will be drowned out this week by all clamor surrounding the proposal to the United Nations for Palestinian statehood debating whether this action is an appeal for peace or a declaration of war, whether it demonstrates the value of the world community coming together or whether this action is indeed "unilateral," whether the preferred way is that of non-violence or once again of reliance on the strength of weapons, and most of all whether the future of Middle East children should still be held hostage to political purposes and promises.

"Pray without ceasing," says Paul.

We therefore submit to you a Prayer for Peace written earlier this summer by the Heads of Churches in Jerusalem:

Isaiah 2:1-5; 11:9
“In days to come the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established as the highest of themountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it….”
“They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of theknowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea….”

Almighty and Merciful God, by the gift of the Holy Spirit, you gathered the first Christians inJerusalem. Grant that, like the first church of Jerusalem, we may come together, and withcourage, we may preach and live the Word, and the good news of truth, reconciliation, andpeace.

God Creator, Giver of Life, Bearer of Pain, Initiator of Love, you made the world andeverything in it. You created the human race in your image and likeness, and gave us the earthfor all to share. Break down the walls that separate us.

God of Justice, your generosity is without bounds. Guard us from selfishness; inspire us to beinstruments of love, and witnesses of your mercy and justice. Help us to face challenges and tostruggle against all that is born of injustice. Lead us to act together in places and situations ofwant and need: where families are driven from their homes, where the vulnerable suffer in thehands of the powerful, where poverty and unemployment destroy lives.

God of Hope, you continue to call us to work for Peace in our world, broken and wounded byinjustice, violence, and indifference. Alone, we are overwhelmed by challenges but together,and inspired by your Spirit, we can prevail beyond dreams and imagination. In fear we losehope, and feel the futility of our efforts. Instill in our hearts and minds the image of yoursuffering and compassionate love as a source of courage and strength.

God, Protector of the widow, the orphan and the stranger, in a world where many know despair,you raised your Son Jesus Christ to give hope for humanity and renewal to the earth. Strengthenand unify your Church against the forces of evil in this part of the world, where aggression of allforms, killings and the blood of martyrs shed even in places of worship, obscure the hope of anew life.

God of Peace and Mercy, inspire nations to transform oppression and violence into freedomand peace for the sake of the poor, the vulnerable and the broken-hearted. Help us to respect andpromote the equality and dignity of all, particularly in your Holy Land. Grant discernment toleaders and legislators, that righteousness and truth may flourish among all peoples throughoutthe world.

God our Father, we thank you for your Son, Jesus Christ, who taught us to yearn through prayerfor the coming of your Kingdom. You are able to accept in us what we cannot acknowledge; toname in us what we cannot bear to speak of; to hold in your memory what we tried to forget.

Teach us to pray together to resist the evil and oppression by our non-violent actions and love forone another. May your Son’s earthly life be the model for our own, as we recognize yourpresence and guidance through all our joys and tribulations.

We pray these in the name of the Risen Lord, and in the power of His Spirit. Amen.

Heads of Churches in Jerusalem
Statement Concerning
Upcoming Palestinian UN Statehood Bid

Looking toward the upcoming Palestinian UN Statehood Bid, the Heads of Churches in Jerusalem released a statement last week (Sept. 12). We invite you to read the statement below:

Looking ahead to the upcoming General Assembly of the United Nations in this September 2011 and the bid for Palestinian statehood, the Heads of Christian Churches in Jerusalem feel the need to intensify the prayers and diplomatic efforts for peace between Palestinians and Israelis, see this as the most appropriate time for such an opportunity, and thus wish to reiterate the following principles upon which we agree:

A two-state solution serves the cause of peace and justice
Israelis and Palestinians must live each in their own independent states with peace, security and justice, respecting human rights, according to international law.
Negotiations are the best way to resolve all outstanding problems between the two sides.
Palestinians and Israelis should exercise restraint, whatever the outcome of the vote at the United Nations.
Jerusalem is a Holy City to the followers of all three Abrahamic faiths, in which all people should be able to live in peace and tranquility, a city to be shared by the two peoples and the three faiths.

Thus, we call upon decision makers and people of good will, to do their utmost to achieve the long awaited justice, peace and reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians so that the prophecy of Prophet David is lived again:

"Love and faithfulness meet together;
righteousness and peace kiss each other.”
(Ps. 85: 10)

From Fred & Gloria Strickert
http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/

September 20

2011-09-03T19:27:00.001+03:00

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/
by Fred & Gloria Strickert

September 20 is a day circled on most calendars around here.

On September 20, the Palestinian Authority will officially request the United Nations for recognition of Statehood. As of this first week in September, no one really knows what will come of this bid for statehood.

Celebration that non-violence wins out in the end?
Suppression by the military powers of the world?
Frustration that gives way once again to extremism?

Currently, two-thirds of the world's nations are on record in support of Palestinian statehood. Yet after 63 years of the Israeli state, the word from Tel Aviv is No, and as for the USA, the world's public advocate for democratic values and non-violence. . . . well, we'll just have to wait until September 20.

September 20.

It seems like we've been down this road before. Only it was September 16. And the year was 1975.

September 16.

Then it was the nation of Papua New Guinea declaring Independence and seeking recognition from the UN and the world community of nations. Only it was 1975. September 16, 1975.

It's hard to believe that it was 36 years ago when Gloria & I were just ready to begin our ministries with a six-year position in the remote highlands of Papua New Guinea.

It was just about this time of September in 1975, with tickets in hand, when the phone call came from our global mission sending agency informing us that our departure date had been postponed.

"We have some concerns," they said. "It's too unpredictable."

This independence thing. This statehood thing.

Mind you we had moved out of our apartment, having sold or given away most of our belongings, and were living out of a suitcase with Gloria's family in Nebraska, where the tall corn grows.

"Just another month," they said. "After independence--September 16."

We made it just fine, Gloria, I, and our two year old daughter Angela.

We arrived in Papua New Guinea the first week of October, 1975--after independence--after September 16.
The stories we heard were fascinating.

Some Australian government workers, NGOs, and missionaries had deserted the country, convinced that the door was now open for Chinese expansion, leap-frogging South-east Asian islands to invade and conquer the Australian continent.
Others, missionaries included, slept with suitcases packed under their beds and ready to go at a moments notice.

But most spoke wisely, "It's not about us! Shouldn't we be supporting the local people in this historic day?"

All that was soon forgotten as we watched the lives of Papua New Guineans unfold in amazing ways now in control of their own destinies.

And we were priviledged to accompany them.
Six years later as we stood at the airfield to return to the states, among our biggest regrets was not being in PNG on that historic September 16.

September 20, 2011

Now we await September 20, 2011 -- an equally historic day.

Palestinians seeking statehood by peaceul means, seeking fulfillment of

a dream planted by T.E.Lawrence (of Arabia) nearly a century ago when Britain sent him with promises of self-determination in return for throwing off the yoke of Ottoman rule;
a whole series of reports in the 1930s, like the Peel commission, that sought a solution to Europe's problems by finding a homeland for Jews in a predominantly Arab land;
the Nov. 29, 1947 United Nations Partition vote that sought to create two nations side by side;
the Camp David accords of Jimmy Carter fame which established peace for Israel with Egypt conditioned on promises of a West Bank State;
the Oslo Accords of 1993 that demanded Palestinian recognition of the State of Israel as the starting point of a process expecting reciprocity in return;
and hundreds of other diplomatic initiatives that always hit a dead end.

Why so many delays? Why the wait? Why is it that the powerful of the world are so reluctant to share power?

Spin doctors and politicians have always placed blame in one direction
although it would seem logical that a two-state solution
would assume failures on two sides and blame on two sides,
as well as accomplishments and achievments on two sides,
concessions and sacrifices on two sides,
responsibilities and assurances on two sides,
for the benefit, well-being, prosperity, and security of two sides
to be celebrated simultaneously by two sides
because the fiuture of the two sides is ultimately one.

Ultimately it is not ours to decide whether or not the Palestinian Authority should apply for statehood on September 20. Our role is to be here in accompaniment and to offer a little interpretation. Click here to read a selection of articles on the CMEP website. Click here to see links to a few stories in the local media this week.
Why is it that so many Americans view the Palestinian situation so differently than do much of the rest of the world? Who knows? But perhaps it has something to do with cornfields (that's where the presidential candidates are hanging out these days.) Cornfields?

Cornfields and terraced hillsides

Cornfields? Really? When driving on Interstate 80 across Iowa or Nebraska, all those rows of corn merge together so that it's easy to forget they are individual stalks spaced 30 inches apart.

How often is it that people approach the situation here with a bit of historical amnesia, forgetting the many life-shaping events that have taken place over the last century or more, such as all those unfulfilled promises of statehood, or all those events where bit by bit the land has been stripped away so that the possibility of a viable Palestinian state is slipping away. The individual stalks of corn are lost, blurred together, and only remotely resembling the reality that exists when one stops the car and strolls through the rows. Palestinian farming is quite different.

A Sunday afternoon drive north through the West Bank to Nablus or Jenin winds through a picturesque landscape of terraced hillsides following the natural contour of the land. There each individual olive tree stands out with its own story to be told. Just as each tree has witnessed a succession of generations with their joys and sorrows, accomplishments and tragedies, so the people of the land are not so prone to forget.

Mornings in Jenin

It has been suggested that what Palestinians have lacked is their own narrative. Yes there are history books and political and apologetic tracts. But a popular narrative has been missing, at least in the West.

The Kite Runner has opened eyes to the history and culture of Afghanistan.

Leon Uris' novel Exodus and the 1960 award-winning Paul-Newman-starring film did that for our generation about Israel.

Yes, they are both fiction, but fiction has a way of taking a complicated issue and making it manageable. It also has the capacity of drawing the reader into empathy with the other, helping one to listen to the other side of the story. If there's one thing that's been missing in the western media, it's been empathy.

We've both recently read the novel Mornings in Jenin and recommend it highly. It tells the story of four generations of a refugee family from Jenin-- the largest Refugee Camp in Palestine -- beginning in 1941 in the village of Ein Hod, (now home to an Israeli artists colony) near Haifa. The story is told through the eyes of the family patriarch's granddaughter Amal-- spelled in Arabic with a double "A" meaning "the strongest hope." Besides helping to understand the conflict, Mornings in Jenin opens a window to Palestinian culture and to Islam as it is commonly practiced.

Susan Abulhawa, the author, was born into a refugee family in Jenin and now makes her home in Pennsylvania. Click here to read more about the book. Check out Amazon and Barnes Noble online for info.

In Mornings in Jenin each olive tree tells the story it has witnessed through the generations and refuses to forget.

Each olive tree will be there to witness what develops on September 20.

by Fred & Gloria Strickert

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/

Our Vineyard

2011-08-20T11:30:00.008+03:00

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/
by Fred & Gloria Strickert

Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard:
My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.
(Isaiah 5:1)

Considering how many times vineyards are mentioned
in the Bible:

the parable of the workers in the vineyard
the wicked tenants
I am the vine, you are the branches

It is appropriate that today was our congregation
workday in the LWF vineyard.

Last October we wrote about the olive harvest--about 900 olives trees on the Mount of Olives. So the harvest of grapes and olives goes to pay medical expenses at Augusta Victoria Hospital for those in need.

Most of the grapes are merlot and are sent off to the winery for wine.

Khaled loads the grapes into the truck

and we stand in appreciation on this hot summer day in the month of Ramadan when Muslims refrain from water as well as food before sunset.

And so a congregational field trip to accompany the grapes twelve miles northwest of Jerusalem to Latrun, the Trappist Monastery named for a 12th century castle "The tower of the knights" -- La Tour des Chevaliers.

The grapes are weighed.

554 kilos. Not bad for a morning's work.

And so the process begins, cleaning, washing, mashing, and into the vats.

The finished product.

So what about the issue of pay for the workers who began at dawn and those who arrived in time to load the truck?

No one seemed to mind after a glass of wine.

There is another special winery at the Cremisan Monastery on the terraced slopes north of Beit Jala near Bethlehem. That's where we purchase communion wine. It's just half the distance away from us, but the political situation prevents our transport of Jerusalem grapes across the Separation Wall. Even the Salesian Brothers are concerned about their future with the wall cutting their property in half. So we continue to support them as best we can.

There surely must be a parable about things like that.

by Fred & Gloria Strickert

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/

The ELCA's Best Kept Secret

2011-07-22T09:00:00.002+03:00

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/
by Fred & Gloria Strickert

The ELCA’s Best Kept Secret:
Young Adults in Global Mission (YAGM)

If you are a college/ university student nearing graduation, consider taking a year off before entering the job market or grad school with this year-long global service program.

If you are a church member having met someone embarking on the YAGM program, offer them $ 25 for the support they have to raise, and, in return, get on their communication list to live vicariously their life-changing experiences.

If you are a church leader, find out who are the YAGM alums in your community and synod, and invite them to share how their year of service has enhanced their life in the church.

The ELCA website YAGM page (Click here) has this inviting photo

We have been blessed this past year here in Jerusalem with six amazing, dedicated, and talented young adults (we call them YAGMs) who have impacted our lives and the lives of the Palestinian church, while taking a giant step that means they will never see the world in the same way as before.

The YAGM program remains the ELCA’s best kept secret—even after ten years.

I still remember the day twelve years or so ago when my academic advisee, Brandon, walked into my Wartburg College office announcing that he had decided to take a year off from college for this new ELCA program in England called “Time for God”—that was what the program was called that first year. I tried to talk Brandon out of it. “I’ll never see you again,” I told him. “You’ll just drop out of school.” Instead, Brandon returned a year later a different person, a new and improved Brandon, a Brandon who had new eyes for his academic work, a Brandon with a strong sense of calling for work in the church.

Okay. So I was wrong.

Over the next years, I found myself encouraging students to apply for this new YAGM program and many were accepted:

•   Sara, Sarah, & Jeremy in England.
•   JoHanna in Thailand.
•   Ellen & Lou in Malaysia.
•   Jake & Angela in Argentina.
•   Britney in Mexico.
•   Nicole in South Africa.
•   Jess in Slovakia.

Hearing about their experiences, I learned a lot about the world and the global church. I also came to realize what a gem the ELCA has in this life-shaping program.

Consider the impact that 419 YAGMs have had on the church returning from a year of service over these last ten years—40 to 50 every year.

Still it seems to be the best kept secret!

While serving on the ELCA Global Mission Board (later renamed Program Committee) a few years ago, I remember our conversation in view of an impending global financial crisis and threatening budget cuts, “Whatever you do, don’t cut the YAGM program. This is the guarantee for a church with a future in Global Mission!” We all agreed.

Later, one February when in Buenos Aires to visit our college’s study abroad sites at several universities, I added an extra day to my trip and phoned Kate Lawler, ELCA missionary and in-country YAGM coordinator for Argentina. We spent a whole day traveling around to YAGM sites, observing the work of YAGMs in the ARC community of Buenos Aires and in a bario where after school programs were making a difference in the lives of the disadvantaged.

So, when considering a call to Jerusalem, one of the things that sold us was the YAGM program here.

Now after a year, we have said our farewells to our six YAGMs, who living and working side-by-side with Palestinian Christians, have changed the perceptions about Americans while having their own eyes opened about people mostly neglected, and often inaccurately maligned in the public media.

It’s been an amazing year of memories with our YAGMs as they:

•   Slept on our living room floor in order to make it on time to our 5:30 a.m. Easter Sunrise Service.
•   Worked in our kitchen to help prepare Christmas Brunch for seventy.
•   Piled into our car to ride from an Advent Service in Bethlehem to the Bedouin Tent Restaurant for a messa of Arab salads and a glass of Cremisan wine.
•   Joined in thought-provoking questions in living room Bible Study.
•   Shared their joys and sorrows.
•   Served as readers and communion assistants in church on Sundays when they were not worshipping in their local congregations.
•   Relaxed on the volleyball court at our Wednesday evening Mount of Olives gatherings.
•   And pondered with Gloria, as their interim coordinator, about what the future might bring.

Most of them served as teaching assistants in the ELCJHL Lutheran Schools or the Helen Keller School for the Visually Impaired. Individual activities ranged from singing in a Palestinian Choir in Ramallah, Playing Trumpet in the Beit Sahour Scouts “Drum and ‘Bugle’ Corps,” Coaching a swim team, assisting at a Palestinian Women’s Craft Center, and working with disabled children. This is what accompaniment is all about.

Perhaps the secret is starting to get out. The July issue of The Lutheran magazine had a feature article on the ELCA YAGM program in general while focusing on our own Jerusalem YAGM Luke Paquin, who volunteered at the Dar Akalima School in Bethlehem. Link to that article here. Read it. Then share it with a young adult that you know.

The Gospel this week includes the parable of the woman adding a tiny bit of yeast to the dough to feed a world hungry for bread. Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.

This fall the ELCA will send out fifty new YAGMs. What if the ELCA were able to send out 100 YAGMs each year? Or 200? Three for each Synod? Or more? Could the church handle it? Would it be prepared to be swamped with returning YAGMs fired up for global mission?

By now, our six YAGMs—Janelle, Sarah, Abby, Trena, David, and Luke—have arrived in the States, readjusting with culture shock, but energized, and realizing they will never be the same. Two are heading to seminary this fall, one to grad school in social work, one to Lutheran Volunteer Corps, one to a community art program, and one to serve as a recruiter for ELCA Global Mission before later enrolling in Dental School.

In Jerusalem, there is an empty spot without them.

By the end of August, however, we will be welcoming Michelle, Sara, Megan, Alma, Courtney, and Laurin-Whitney as they begin a year as Young Adults in Global Mission.

So we invite your prayers for the entire YAGM program throughout the world and especially here in Jerusalem.

Pray for our YAGM country coordinators of these past three years, Martin and Suzanne Shoffner, as they readjust to life in North Carolina.

Pray for our new YAGM country coordinators, Julie Rossate and Jeff VonWald, as they embark on this new ministry.

Pray for our depart-ing YAGMs in their reentry and witness of what they have seen and heard.

Pray for the new YAGMs as they:
• Say their farewells for the year to families and friends;
• Study and read in preparation for a new culture;
• Pack their suitcases, with enough to get by, but leaving unnecessary baggage behind;
• Await approval of visas, inshallah;
• Take part in stateside orientation in Chicago in August;
• Travel safely;
• And as they learn to expect the unexpected in this walk of faith.

The ELW (bottom of page 304) has a beautiful prayer for such persons committed to ventures of accompaniment:

O God, you have called your servants to ventures
          of which we cannot see the ending,
          by paths as yet untrodden,
          through perils unknown.

Give us faith to go out with good courage,
          not knowing where we go,
          but only that your hand is leading us
          and your love supporting us;

Through Jesus Christ our Lord.   Amen.

by Fred & Gloria Strickert
http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/

Please repeat the question!

2011-07-08T16:28:00.001+03:00

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/
by Fred & Gloria Strickert

“What is this Bethlehem Lutheran Church?”

This has to be one of the strangest questions I have ever been asked.

“What is this Bethlehem Lutheran Church?”

I have to admit the circumstances were a bit unusual. It was 5:00 in the morning and I had just been awakened by Israeli Security calling from Ben Gurion Airport.

“Redeemer Lutheran Church.” I responded assuming he had a question about our church in the Old City. But as I carefully listened to him repeat the question a third time, I realized this was to be one of the most unusual telephone conversations I have ever had.

“What is this Bethlehem Lutheran Church? In Iowa. Cedar Falls, Iowa. You must explain the meaning of this name. Bethlehem. Are they Palestinian? Are they an anti-Israel organization?”

“Huh?”

It soon became clear. He was interviewing a young woman whose family attends Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Cedar Falls, Iowa. A month earlier she had written telling me of her plan to visit Israel and that her pastor at Bethlehem, Cedar Falls had encouraged her to contact me.

As a single, 20-something female traveling alone, she had been pulled out of the line at passport control and taken to a screening room where she was interrogated for four hours before being allowed to pick up her luggage and pass through.

That seems to be quite common these days. Several weeks ago Gloria and I were leaving for vacation and sailed through airport security no problem. In fact, we were given a pass to the Dan Airport Lounge for free drinks and snacks prior to boarding. Later that evening on another flight, our colleague, also working for the church, also holding the same visa, a clergy visa—but young, single, white, female, and traveling alone—was taken aside and asked to stand at the ticket counter for the next three hours to wait to check in until they were already boarding the plane. Then when they finally checked her in, security escorted her to the plane not allowing any stops along the way. So, yes profiling is common here.

And so for the young woman this morning, I had written welcoming her on her visit, giving her my phone number in case she had any problems, and also offering her to come crash on our couch since she would be arriving so early in the morning. And of course I began that letter, “We are especially happy to have a visitor from Bethlehem Lutheran Church. We know your pastor well and we have many friends there.”

When security had her empty out her backpack onto the table, there was my letter of welcome.

So the early morning question over the phone, “What is this Bethlehem Lutheran Church?”

Somewhat bewildered I realized the significance of the question, “In the States we often relate the names of churches to the life of Jesus.”

After a bit of silence on the other end of the line, I continued, “Jesus was born in Bethlehem.”

“Oh!” he responded, seeming unsure whether to believe me.

“I know the people at Bethlehem Lutheran Church. I can vouch for her.” I could have added that I also know the people at Christmas Lutheran Church, in Bethlehem, Palestine, and we travel there several times a week. It is totally legal and safe. There's a lot I could have said, but it’s never wise to offer too much information. “Yes, I know the people at Bethlehem,” was sufficient.

He wasn’t easily convinced and continued to grill me for another ten minutes before hanging up.

Four hours later at 9:00 a.m., security called back a second time, this time another interrogator. “You know this woman? How do you know her?”

“Bethlehem Lutheran Church. I know her pastor. I have friends there.”

They took my passport number to let me know they’d be on my case if there were any problems. “Have a nice day,” they said hanging up.

At 10:30 a.m. there was a knock on the door. “I’m here to crash on your couch. Is your offer still good? I boarded my plane early last evening. I’m exhausted.”

“They let you through?”

A nod of the head.

“Is everything all night?”

“It depends. I had to sign a document, and, if I break it, I’ll be banned from Israel for five years and I’ll have to pay a fine of 50,000 shekels.”

“For what?”

She pulled out her signed statement for me to read.

“I had to promise that I wouldn’t visit the West Bank, that I wouldn’t go to Bethlehem.”

by Fred & Gloria Strickert
http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/

Soccer Diplomacy

2011-06-09T10:02:00.011+03:00

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/
Fred & Gloria Strickert

One day about fifteen years ago, when we stood watching the boys kicking around a soccer ball on the old Bethlehem Lutheran School playground (where the Dar Annadwa auditorium now stands), the ball went astray among a group of girls, doing what most 10-11 year old girls would do. Most stepped back to avoid getting hit. But Honey Thaljieh, stepped forward, and with the kick of her foot sent the ball flying, beginning a long journey that would take her around the world on an amazing adventure.

From the Lutheran School playground in Bethlehem, Honey Thaljieh has emerged to revolutionize Palestinian attitudes about women’s sports and has taken up what one might call sports diplomacy, making it all the way to the White House with Hillary Clinton.

In the mid 1990s, when we spent a sabbatical in Bethlehem, Honey’s older sister Amal and our daughter Rachel became the best of friends. In Palestinian culture, young women generally would not go out on the streets alone,

so Amal's ten-year old kid-sister Honey and brother Issa would often tag along. Honey was an energetic and out-going child, full of self-confidence. Here in the 1996 photo is young Honey with Issa and Amal (in red) and their mother Naheida (on left).

We often wonder how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict affects children growing up amist strife and tension. The first intifadah spanned the years when Honey grew from three to eight. The second Intifadah corresponded to her late teen-age years. And she experienced some traumatic events living just a stone’s throw from the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem--a cousin Johnny Taljieh was shot by snipers as he left worship after serving as acolyte.

Honey found strength by faithfully attending church every Sunday, remaining active in Sunday School, Youth Group, Choir, and in the Lutheran School—there at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church where Mitri Raheb is pastor. And Honey has made the most of it, completing her B.A. in Business Administration at Bethlehem University and becoming the head of the national sports programs for Palestinian girls—and rising as a role model for girls growing up in Middle Eastern society.

Last Sunday at Redeemer, when we saw Amal—now married and living in Jerusalem—after fawning over her two cute children, we then asked, “So how’s Honey?” “Oh she’s in the States.” And as an afterthought, Amal added, “Playing Soccer, of course.”

Sure enough when we checked the news online, we saw a Huffington Post story with the headline, “Hillary Clinton Launches Girls Soccer Initiative,” (Click on red links for news stories) and as we might expect, most of the quotes came from Honey.

"It’s not only about playing football. It’s about living in Bethlehem, the city of peace, and delivering the message that we are humans and that we have rights," Thaljieh said. "Through football, we can change the world because football is a language that everyone understands."

And ESPN reported a White House speech of the Secretary of State to a gathering of the U.S. Women’s National Team, and eighteen up-and-coming women stars from places like Pakistan, South Africa, and Palestine. Honey, now 26, is serving as a coach, having thrown out her knee in her rugged style of play and still recovering. This week the athletes are competing in New Jersey and demonstrating their roles as ambassadors of good will.

Up until 2003, soccer/ football was considered to be strictly a boy’s/ man’s game. But when Bethlehem University’s athletic director, Samar Mousa, had the idea of starting the first women’s soccer team, the first recruit was Honey, and she has taken the role of captain of every team ever since.

There were plenty of obstacles. For a while, Honey became an object of town gossip. This wasn’t something that proper young women should be doing. Some people pressured her family, and, although they were generally supportive, they suggested for a while that it might be better for her to stop. But Honey persevered and the result was the first Palestinian women’s team. When a number of her teammates got married, they were pressured to make a choice, football or family.

The National Team, like Palestinian society, is a model of interfaith relationships. Honey, of course, is Christian and so are other teammates, but the team is a mix of Christian and Muslim.

Their uniforms are modest by inter-national standard with knee-length shorts. Several members wear tights or track pants. Most go bare-headed with pony-tails flying this way and that, but several wear a hejab on the field.

There are also political barriers. As a national team, they wanted to have several players from Gaza, but it is impossible with lack of travel permits to practice together. So before their first international competition, they first traveled to Egypt where they could practice together.

Honey manages to find a positive spin on these restrictive conditions due to occupation. "We have no where else to go and nowhere to put our energies," she says. "We are just playing with our souls and spiritual abilities. It’s because we are strong, we are Palestinian, we face a lot of difficulties. We want to be something."

The team is also at a disadantage in that there are no regulation-sized fields in Bethlehem to practice. Mostly they practice on the concrete surface handball court at Bethlehem university--a fact that has resulted in numerous knee injuries. Honey recently threw out her knee and is undergoing rehabilitation.

When the team was ready for international competition, the first match was scheduled in Ramallah where they would host a team from Jordan. The venue was the 10,000 seat stadium where the men’s teams played. No one was disappointed, except those left in lines on the streets when the crowds—with a majority of women fans—filled the stadium to capacity. And the game? No one was disappointed. With the Palestinians leading most of the way, Jordan tied it 2-2 at the end. Perhaps that tie-score was a fitting message about what was accomplished. The match was featured in a New York Times story.

The Palestinian team has now played in a number of regional tournaments in Amman, Abu Dhabi, and Europe. Through her work with PACES (Palestine Association for Children's Encouragement of Sports), girls teams in soccer and other sports are popping up across the West Bank--though a few areas continue to resist . There is also a women’s soccer league representing major cities. Currently in first place is the team sponsored by the Lutheran Church in Bethlehem’s Dar Akalima/ Diyar Consortium. See their webpage. As would be expected, Honey captains the team.

Honey is the ideal role model for young Palestinian girls. Her "captain" armband is a reminder how she has always been a leader. The Palestinian patch on her jersey brings forth her patriotism and her role as a Palestinian ambassador of goodwill. And most of all, the cross around her neck, both on the field and off, witnesses to her strong Christian faith.

Who would have dreamt such a story when a ten-year old Honey stepped forward to kick that soccer ball back to the boys on the Lutheran School playground in Bethlehem?

Fred & Gloria Strickert
http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/

O People of Jerusalem: Paul's Advice on Religious Encounters

2011-06-02T01:09:00.014+03:00

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/
Fred & Gloria Strickert

Sermon for the 6th Sunday after Easter -- Acts 17:22-31

²² Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, "Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way.

“Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way,” so Paul addressed the Athenians on Mars hill, the Areopagus. That’s one of those written statements that can probably be taken in a couple of different ways. Perhaps with a tone of sarcasm, Paul could be addressing his audience in a condescending kind of way: “I perceive that you are very religious—superstitious, in fact—and perhaps, I could teach you a few things to show you what true religion is all about.” Or it could be taken straightforward, “I perceive that you are very religious—and I admire that about you and would like to know more.” Or it could be somewhere in between.

It seems like growing up, most of the sermons I heard took the former approach, after all, Paul was a missionary, and isn’t that what missionaries were supposed to do, to call people from darkness to the light. Yet the older I get and the more I live in a context where Christians are just a small minority, as in Paul’s day, and the more I encounter people of other faiths, the more I tend to read Paul in this second way, respectful, appreciative, valuing the other, seeing this as an opportunity to learn from each other and to grow in the process.

Each week I encounter dozens of first-time visitors to Jerusalem. And there is often this response, “Jerusalemites, I see how extremely religious you are.”

People walk through the city and see nothing but churches, mosques, synagogues.

They experience prayer at the Western Wall, the Muslim call to prayer five times a day, pilgrimage groups along the Via Dolorosa, the silence and calm of Shabbat.

They can tell people’s religion by their dress, by their behaviors, by everything we see, hear, smell, touch, feel.

Yes, religion is all around.

And the reaction? The response? Some are moved by it, some feel their own spirituality strengthened, some are overwhelmed, some are threatened. Too much religion, some say. Many arrive at this sanctuary at the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer expressing an appreciation for the simplicity of the architecture and worship space in comparison to many of the ornate churches they have seen. Many confess that cultural differences play a big role in religion, and it's not easy to separate religion and culture.

Paul’s experience in Athens was unique among all the narratives and letters of Paul, because Paul had arrived in Athens, not so much as a missionary, but as a tourist. At the beginning of this section from Acts 17, Luke announced that Athens was simply a stopover for Paul, awaiting Timothy and Silas, before heading south to Corinth. He had no agenda, there was no missionary strategy. He was there as a tourist, exploring, observing, learning--doing what tourists normally do.

Acts 17:16-34 ¹⁶ While Paul was waiting for Timothy and Silas in Athens, he was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols. ¹⁷ So he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and also in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. ¹⁸ Also some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him. Some said, "What does this babbler want to say?" Others said, "He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign divinities." (This was because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.) ¹⁹ So they took him and brought him to the Areopagus and asked him, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? ²⁰ It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means." ²¹ Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.

Paul's first impressions were somewhat negative. All the statues, all physical representations of the gods. Idols! Paul exclaims. This is not part of his Jewish upbringing. How can one worship something created by human hands? But he moves then from artifacts to encounters with the local people—going not to the temples, but to the market where the common folk hang out.

And Paul the good talker, gets into conversations and discussions. And one of the things he discovers is that his preconceived notion about Athenians as idol worshippers was not entirely accurate. Religion is a lot more complicated, he discovers. There he talks with Stoics and Epicureans, who aren’t really into the traditional Greek beliefs, who sense a singular divine power, and who are concerned with the way beliefs affect human behavior.

It is clear from that introduction, that Paul didn’t buy all that the Stoics and Epicureans had to say, and neither did they agree with what he had to say about Jesus and the resurrection. But the interesting thing is that they wanted to know more. Something about the way Paul interacted with them was appealing and their conversation would continue. And not just a private conversation in the market, but they give him a soap box, taking him to the Areopagus where crowds tended to gather.

²² Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, "Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. ²³ For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, 'To an unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. ²⁴ The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, ²⁵ nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. ²⁶ From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, ²⁷ so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him-- though indeed he is not far from each one of us. ²⁸ For 'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we too are his offspring.' ²⁹ Since we are God's offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. ³⁰ While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, ³¹ because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."

And so as he arrives at Mars Hill and begins his speech, his approach is significant. Not quotations from the Old Testament, not creedal formulations, or even stories about Jesus from the Gospels. Instead he begins with what they shared in common and then builds up to what is unique to his faith, his witness in Jesus and the resurrection—which only comes at the end. He speaks in respectful tones, demonstrating what he has learned from his experience, what he has seen with his eyes, not just the tourist sites but off the beaten path to the out-of-the-way altar to the unknown God. He even quotes a couple Greek poets, Epimenides and Aratus, whom he agreed with, and at the end, his audience is interested in prolonging the discussion.

"Come back," they say.
"We can talk, some more."

Why should Paul be dialoguing with these Athenians? It was not because of the gods they had created –these idols that turned off Paul, but because of the world created by God. The world as the handiwork of God was something they shared, a sign that God is greater than all the religious buildings and artifacts, chants and prayers, creeds and doctrines. Our common awe at the world around us should be the starting point to bring us closer together. And that brings us to his second point. We as humans are also God’s handiwork. “We too are God’s offspring,” Paul quotes the Greek poet—yes, in spite of the stereotype from the Greek temples, God does not dwell in things but in people--all of us created in the image of God. All of us with a common ancestor, as Pauls puts it. And so our love for God is manifest when we love our neighbor as ourself, when we love the stranger as our self, when we love the other as ourself.

It's interesting that those who designed the common lectionary have chosen to include this reading during the Easter season. Yes Paul does share with the Athenians his belief in the Resurrection of the crucified Jesus from the dead. He might even have related his own experience meeting the resurrected Jesus on the Damascus road. Who knows?

Yet perhaps more significant than the verbal articulation and proclamation of the resurrection was his own life in the resurrection, living in freedom under the grace of the gospel, living with a confidence that erased all the worries and anxieties about such encounters with people of other faiths.

As would be expected, some in his audience were indifferent, some scoffed at him, and some became the founding members of the Athens congregation .

32 When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed; but others said, "We will hear you again about this." 33 At that point Paul left them. 34 But some of them joined him and became believers, including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

And others said, "Come back! Let's talk some more!"

And so in a conversation earlier this week, a young first-time visitor to Jerusalem remarked about all the religion she encountered in Jerusalems. All those white limestone buildings. Then she paused and remarked, "You know, it's not the stone buildings that make Jerusalem holy. . . .

. . . It’s the people I've met-- the Living stones who are evidence of God’s love for the world."

Fred & Gloria Strickert

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/

Still here on May 22

2011-05-22T15:10:00.003+03:00

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/
by Fred & Gloria Strickert

It's May 22 and we're still here!

Not that we expected to go anywhere.
But the May 21 Judgement Day Campaign apparently fizzled out.

Perhaps you've
seen signs like this in your neighborhood, except in English.

An American from Boulder, Colorado, Mr. Harold Camping of FamilyRadio.com had predicted May 21 as Judgement Day --supposedly when God's elect would be raptured up into heaven as a prelude before the great tribulation & the end of the world.

Well, we didn't make the cut.
We're still here.
And we had church today as usual.
All present and accounted for.

We were expecting to have front row seats. On Friday night Mr. Camping appeared on al-Jazeera TV to announce that a great earthquake would occur right here in Jerusalem splitting the Mount of Olives in half, and bringing to life the dead buried here. So we stayed home Saturday and kept our camera close at hand, but nothing happened. Last night we slept like babies, not noticing any tremors. It just didn't happen.

Our home is located here on the Mount of Olives on the top left of the photo in the olive grove just above the Brigham Young University Study Abroad Center-- the modern building with the arches. The tower of Ascension Church, Augusta Victoria Hospital is just right of center. The "mount" continues further south (to the right of photo) with its large cemetery.

Several weeks ago, "Family Radio" erected half a dozen billboards in the West Bank like the one above, calling on Palestinians in Arabic to "Cry unto God" before it is too late. To the best of our knowledge, no signs appear in Jewish communities of Israel. In response to a newspaper reporter, "Family Radio" stated that they were intentionally targeting Palestinians -- though as is commonly the case, Churches of Palestine and Israel were not consulted. Yet when an organization like "Family Radio" can raise $ 80 million in five years, they can freely proclaim a "Gospel" of their wrathful God that undercuts the Gospel based witness of Christians in the Middle East and drives a wedge between Christian and Muslim relations.

Sadly, this is typical of fundamentalist Christian Zionists because they pretend to be friends of Israel while in reality treating Israelis as pawns to be destroyed and thrown away at a later date in a sadistic view of history. How can anyone view such a theology --as Camping and other Christian Zionists -- that begin a countdown to the destruction of the world with the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 as anything but anti-Semitic? And that God would intervene in history violating laws of nature to cause an unprecedented earthquake maiming and killing masses of people? What a strange theology that ignores John 3:16, let alone the rest of the New Testament.

But then again, it's May 22, and we're still here. Like all the crazy predictions of the past, we can place the May 21 Judgement Day into the wrong-by-a-country-mile column, and shake our heads in sadness. Imagine what the $ 80 million raised by this organization and the energy displayed by its adherents might contribute to education and health care here in this land or anywhere in the world. Now that would be something worth smiling about.

We are long overdue for a colosal earthquake

--not the result of a wrathful God, but because of the laws of physics and geology. We are sitting here on one of the planet's major earthquake fault lines-- the Jordan River-African Rift Valley fault. History has recorded a major destructive earthquake in Israel at a rate of one per century. An earthquake in 31 BCE left permanent damage to the ritual bath in Qumran (just 20 miles to our east).

Fallen columns remain yet today from the 749 CE earth- quake at Hippos on the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee.

On January 15, 1546 an earthquake estimated at 6.7 on the Richter scale destroyed the dome at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the old city. Another followed in the mid 1600s, then one in 1759 and another in 1837.

On July 11, 1927 a 6.7 Richter scale earthquake with an epicenter in the Dead Sea led to over 500 deaths. Augusta Victoria Hospital received significant damage. This 1921 photo (note the British flag under the Mandate) shows its 65 meter tall bell tower that had to be lowered due to damage, as can be seen when compared with the recent photo below.

With 84 years since that last major earthquake, the odds are that one will soon follow. It is amazing with all the tragic earthquakes throughout the world these last few years, that one has not yet occurred.

Now if you felt the earth move under your feet over the last week, it did. But it wasn't an earthquake.

It was the al-Raja Dabke Dance Troupe from Hope Lutheran School in Ramallah that gave an earth shaking performance, demonstrating talent, dedication to practice, energy, and stamina.

Thanks to the amazing photography by our colleague Rev. Elly McHan, the viewer can actually feel the earth move. For more photos see http://www.elcjhl.org/

Al- Raja means Hope. An earthquake that offers hope.

Can you feel it?

by Fred & Gloria Strickert
http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/

al-Masih Qam!

2011-04-25T16:37:00.001+03:00

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/
by Fred & Gloria Strickert

al-Masih Qam! Hakanna Qam!
Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!

An Easter Sunrise Sermon from the Mount of Olives.
(with thanks to photographer Ryan Rodrick Beiler, Mennonite Central Committee)

Can you hear it? Can you hear the laughter? Off in the distance? Laughter.

Laughter of a man no longer afraid of death.
Laughter because resurrection and life rule the day.
Laughter that drowns out all the sorrow of a lighted landscape of separation walls, and settlements, and soldiers at checkpoints.
Laughter that overcomes the suffering and destruction when humans seek intimidation and power.
Laughter that can only be seen as a gift from God.

Lights of settlements east of Jerusalem, of
the settlement highway, of its Jerusalem checkpoint guarded by soldiers, and of the separation wall.

Can you hear it? There off in the distance? The laughter.

I love coming to this spot for Easter Sunrise Service because of the breathtaking view of the Jordan Valley, the Judean Hills, and the Dead Sea off in the distance; for the peaceful setting amidst the trees and with the birds singing; and for the anticipation of the sun rising up to greet the dawn.

Yet more than that, this place is special for Easter because just down the hillside there to the south and across the wall is the village of al-Lazariyeh, known in the Gospels as Bethany. A village that had its share of laughter. A village that played so prominently in the stories leading up to Jesus’ suffering and death. The village of Mary, Martha and their brother Lazarus.

Imagine the gentle laughter when Jesus sat there with Mary and Martha talking theology while Mary kneaded the dough for her special taboun bread to go with her hummus and tabouleh.

Imagine the cheers at the banquet Lazarus threw for his good friend when Jesus held a cup of wine to toast Lazarus’ good health and long life.

Imagine the broad smiles when just a few days before his death, Mary broke open that bottle of perfume to anoint Jesus. . .

Redeemer youth Maundy Thursday drama
. . . proclaiming Jesus as her Messiah & Lord. Redeemer Maundy Thursday procession through streets of old city to Gethsemane.

Yet life was not all laughter in that village. Sometimes for them there was pain when God seemed so distant and deaf to prayers, like when ole Lazarus had died, and when it seemed that Jesus would never show up to call forth Lazarus from the tomb, when Jesus himself had tears streaming down his face.

Or on that Thursday Passover evening, when Jesus was arrested in Gethsemane, perhaps during an intended short stopover before heading back to Bethany to spend the night.

And the worry that must have been felt in that household, not unlike the worry in a Palestinian family when a teenage son, or even the father, is taken in for questioning, or when a bomb goes off in Jerusalem and family members wait anxiously for their loved ones to come safely knocking on the door.

And then on Easter morning—so very much like today—Mary and Martha perhaps joining the women on their trek to the tomb, but Lazarus resting calmly in Bethany—resting calmly, without worry, without fear. For Lazarus had seen death, and now experienced life. “How could a Jesus who called me forth from the grave, find himself conquered and vanquished by the power of death?

As sure as the sun rises in the morning,” he probably thought to himself, “God will reach down from heaven to bring about a new creation, to reverse all the wrongs and injustices, to wipe away the tears and give hope, and he will do it with my friend Jesus, the crucified one!” And so on that first Easter morning just imagine the scene when the women had returned from the tomb, the arrival in Bethany, and the announcement “Christ is risen!” and the loud roar of laughter coming up from Lazarus’ house, laughter that was the “I told you so,” laughter that greeted the rising sun.

A number of years ago (1925), the American playwrite, Eugene O’Neill, wrote a play called, “Lazarus Laughs,” where he played with ideas surrounding the difference made to Lazarus by his return to life, and that of Jesus. He could imagine one dominant word. Laughter.

Lazarus being unwrapped from the grave clothes, gentle laughter. Lazarus patting the earth that he always took for granted and smelling the new blossomed flowers, laughter. Lazarus hugging family & friends, often neglected, laughter. In the play, Lazarus’ neighbors observe that he is no longer anxious, no longer irritated about the little mishaps or material concerns. Rather he sang a lot. He laughed a lot.

Palm Sunday Walk

It’s not just his friends who notice. So do the occupying Roman authorities. Lazarus no longer cowers when they threaten him with a sword, & when they order him around, instead of grumbling, he laughs. The Roman authorities were quick to sense that this one who had lost his fear of death was a threat to the kind of control that they liked to maintain. The key to control, the soldiers say, is intimidation and fear. That’s why the cruelest of all the emperors, Caligula, said “Crosses and corpses are so educational. Let them see the blood, they’ll cower in fear, & then we can rule them.”

Friday--The Way of the Cross

So in O’Neill’s play, Lazarus is arrested, but he laughs before the authorities. He’s eventually taken to Rome to where the emperor threatens him, “Stop this infernal laughter, or I’ll put you to death.” But Lazarus responds, “There is no death, only life.” And he continues to laugh.

What is fascinating is how O’Neill presents the joy of laughter as the opposite of fear.

Each of the four Gospels has a different take on the encounter of the women at the Tomb on that first Easter. Matthew presents us with one of those fascinating combination of words and makes us stop the story, reflect, and try to figure out its meaning. The women “left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy.”

It is quite clear that this scene is dominated by fear. As many of you may have experienced--Fear of arriving in a strange place, so early in the morning under the cover of darkness, fear of encountering the soldiers, fear of standing in the presence of an angel of God. And ironically it’s the soldiers who cower in fear and become like dead men. But the first word from the angel’s mouth silences that fear, “Do not be afraid!” And again from Jesus, “Do not be afraid.” Fear subsides when two things follow. 1) The announcement “He is not here, for he has been raised. – the knowledge that death does not have the final word, that it is rendered powerless; 2) that life has meaning and purpose, that we are called for a reason, for proclamation and service, “Go and tell.”

And so they leave the tomb “with fear and great joy.” An interesting combination. Fear doesn’t disappear suddenly and completely. It hangs around and tries to take back its control. But it would seem the great joy is in the process of swallowing up the fear. Joy has the last word.

The residuals of fear and intimidation remain, but they no longer need win out.

• I think of the laughter that came from Tahrir Square in Cairo a few months ago and that continues to echo across the Middle East. The interview of one of leaders: “When did we know we would succeed in this revolution of freedom? When we were no longer afraid to die. So we laugh.”

• I think of my dear friend and colleague George who every work day makes the hour to 2 hours trek from his Beit Sahour home through the cattle stalls at checkpoint 300—sometimes without a hitch, but sometimes with long delays, and sometimes with intimidation and humiliation. My age and with a pacemaker and yet still making the journey to serve the church. How do you do it? His answer: We laugh a lot. We make jokes, but we laugh and refuse to be intimidated.

• I think also of the children in our Lutheran schools, filled with laughter, filled with joy, filled with hope, in a situation that to us seems so devoid of hope.

The joyous laughter of the Resurrection drowns out the sound of fear and death. Do not be afraid, proclaims the angel at the tomb. He is not here. He is risen! Go and tell the disciples, Go forth into a world where fear and death no longer have the final word.

Go forth with great joy. Go forth and listen for the laughter.

al-Masih Qam! Hakanna Qam!

Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!

by Fred & Gloria Strickert
http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/

Daily walk to the Old City

2011-03-28T17:36:00.002+02:00

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/
by Fred & Gloria Strickert

Living atop the Mount of Olives we have a breath-taking view of the city of Jerusalem: Wadi Joz and Sheik Jarah just below us, the old city a bit to the south, and West Jerusalem further to the west. Our forty minute morning walk to Redeemer Church in the midst of the old city (Fred five days a week & Gloria twice a week) is a daily reminder of Palm Sunday and Good Friday. The Gospel texts are engraved on the stones and acted out among the people we encounter along the way.

Heading first into the sunrise, we look forward to our Easter Sunrise service on the hillside beyond the Augusta Victoria Church of the Ascension. Through the olive grove we wind our way to the street.

The street, intersecting the LWF campus, heads south along the crest of the hill toward the Orthodox Church of the Ascension in the distance.

The view west across the valley toward the Old City. The LWF football field is a gathering place for East Jerusalem youth. Plans & funding are ready for improvements to make this a Class A sports facility, but the municipality must give approval and that doesn't come easy. Just beyond the field can be seen the white caravan trailers of the newly expanding Jewish settlement. With the passing of each day, the elusive peace seems buried more deeply under concrete and rock.

The same day the settle- ment freeze expired, the Israeli govern- ment okayed 24 new apart- ments.

So settlement construction has gone on non-stop including a visit of public support by Mike Huckabee, laying the cornerstone.
In the meantime, the years long wait continues for building permits for the Augusta Victoria Housing Project. In the meantime Palestinian homes demolitions occur on a regular basis.

And so even a downhill walk seems uphill.

Further down the hill we meet dozens of Muslim children with backpacks heading to the Ibrahim School and college. Up the hill and to the left in photo is Hebrew University.

The Kidron Valley separates Mount of Olives from the old city. At the very left, the Dome of the Rock peaks out above the city walls. Down from it and left of the photo is Gethsemane. The downward journey turns into an uphill climb toward the Rockefeller Museum with its tower rising above the horizon.

At the top of the hill we reach the Northeast corner of the city walls.

After a few minutes we come to the main East Jerusalem shopping center with Salahadin Street heading north from the Old City.

Herod's Gate leads us into the Muslim Quarter of the Old City.

A welcoming party of two Israeli soldiers stands inside the gate to check IDs of every Palestinian male between ages of 18 to 30. On Fridays, when noonday prayer brings crowds to Al-Aqsa mosque, men under the age of 50 are not permitted and Fred sometimes has to show his ID.

In the early morning we en- counter children on their way to school or boys deliver- ing fresh baked bread to stores from the neighborhood bakery.

Our destination is the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer located on the map by the green marking just under the "er" of "Christian Quarter." From Herod's Gate (just above the "Q" in "Muslim Quarter") we zigzag our way through narrow streets.

On the map, the red dots all represent Jewish settlements established in the Old City over the last two decades. As you can see, most are in the highly populated Muslim Quarter. The building below on the right (just above the small "m" in "Muslim Quarter") was occupied by settlers about five years ago when the Muslim residents were away attending a wedding. Their own armed guards make sure the previous residents will not return. The photo on the left shows the area below the capital "M" in Muslim, with an Israeli flag reminding all the neighbors who occupies this house.

So more soldiers

Notice the security cameras in several directions at the top of photo below.

Nothing goes unnoticed.

Near the Ecce Homo Convent (near the large green rectangle north of the Dome of the Rock on the map) we head west, picking up the Via Dolorosa, "The Way of Sorrows." Every morning, we encounter three or four pilgrim groups retracing the steps of Jesus, carrying the cross, singing hymns, and reading the Passion accounts from the Gospels.

At the Fifth Station a group from Mexico pauses to sing with guitar accompaniment to remember the role of Simon of Cyrene in taking up the cross of Jesus.

We have reached Redeemer Church, built upon the foundations of the twelfth-century Church of St. Mary Latina. Here the restored arch from that early structure greets us.

Just ahead is the Muristan Market and the minaret of the Mosque of Omar. And to the right, the historic Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

May your Lenten journey be blessed as you make your way to Good Friday and Easter.

Fred & Gloria Strickert

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/

Little Girl, Arise

2011-03-08T20:54:00.004+02:00

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/

by Fred & Gloria Strickert

There's nothing more fascinating than old photos if you want to get a hold on the history of a place.
So on International Women's Day, this 1929 photo of the Jerusalem women's democratic club is fascinating. This was just 9 years after women's suffrage was adopted in the USA. Their focus was on non-violence, human rights, and democratic values. Where did this originate? On this international women's day, it is significant that a Palestinian Women's Bill of rights was adopted in 1994, the year that Palestinians achieved their first breath of self-rule. There's plenty of room for growth when it comes to women's issues, but five out of 19 of Palestinian cabinet ministers are women and many leaders in education and business are women, including the head of the Palestinian stock exchange authority and Governor of Ramallah region.

The first school of girls in Jerusalem was given the name Talitha Kumi. That's an Aramaic term that occurs in the New Testament. In Mark 5:41, when Jesus encountered a twelve-year old girl at the moment of death, he took her hand and said, "Little girl, arise." So it was very appropriate, that this Aramaic term was used for the name of a school that lifted up young girls through education and career development. The Talitha Kumi was a long-time landmark in Jerusalem, northwest of the Old City on King George Street. The name positioned below the clock and above an arch announced to all that education for young girls was important.

These were some of the first Lutheran Missionaries. They did not come to convert others but to show their faith in service to others. They came from a small village on the Rhine River of Germany called Kaiserswerth, where there was a school of Deaconesses. Their most famous graduate in 1853 was Florence Nightengale. But three others came to Jerusalem that same year to establish Talitha Kumi. In subsequent years hundreds of Arab girls graduated to become nurses in health ministries and to improve their lot in life.

After the 1948 war, when the Lutheran congregations were located in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, the church lost the school which was demolished to make room for a new department store. Yet thousands of cars drive by each day to see the arch with its clock and the words Talitha Kumi, left as a monument of earliers days.
Talitha Kumi, however, did not die, but a new school was built in the West Bank town of Beit Jala-- now one of the top coed schools in the country, where Christians and Muslims study side by side, learning respect for each other's faith, and enhancing their academic work with strong programs in music, environmental education, and peace studies.

Talitha Kumi began as a school for girls. Also in the 1850s another German named Johannes Schneller arrived in Jerusalem with a number of Syrian orphans. This developed into the Schneller Syrian Orphanage and Boys School. This was the first school in all Jerusalem to offer a liberal arts curriculum, science, math, history, language. As a German Lutheran institution, like Talitha Kumi, the school was closed and property confiscated and turned into an Israeli military base until 2008. Now it will be turned into housing development for orthodox Jews. Today the ELCJHL operates four k-12 schools in West Bank cities of Beit Jala, Beit Sahour, Bethlehem, and Ramallah with about 2,000 students, an amazing figure for such a small church. Half of the students are Muslim-- in Ramallah 80 %. This fits with the philosophy of missionaries 150 years ago, that their purpose was not conversion, but the education of young people to contribute to the better of Society. Notice again the 1929 photo above of Christian and Muslim women uniting over common values. Christians and Muslims have lived together in this place for almost 1,400 years, and their future depends on their development together in schools where Christians are taught to respect Muslims and Muslims are taught to respect Christians.

Last month in Ramallah Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad was the guest speaker for the cornerstone laying for a new Lutheran school in Ramallah, one that will quadruple in size the current school. This is a clear endorsement that the PA respects the work of Lutheran Schools, especially the interfaith education setting, and the focus on top-notch education for young girls.

Later blogs will return to the schools. There are many good stories to tell. For now, here's one recent experience with the schools, when Fred served as a judge for the students of all four schools coming together for their annual English Bowl.

Many of the 24 Eighth, ninth, and tenth-grade students who competed, along with teachers and judges at Dar Akalima School in Bethlehem.

This young woman, a ninth grader, competed in interpretative reading as also in extemporaneous speaking. This is amazing when English is a second language to Arabic and they learn German as well.

The four judges, English speakers from England, Canada, and the USA

A Dar Akalima Teacher proudly congratulates her medal-winning daughter. A perfect story for International Women's Day in Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

by Fred & Gloria Strickert

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/

Prayer for Christian Unity

2011-02-01T10:00:00.008+02:00

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/

Fred & Gloria Strickert

Pentecost in Jerusalem
. . . two Millennia later

"And they were one. . .

. . . in the apostles' teaching

. . . and in the breaking of bread

. . . and in fellowship

. . . and in prayer."

Acts 2:42

The week of Prayer for Christian Unity since 1908

The year 2011 program written for the global church by the Palestinian Church at the request of the World Council of Churches and the Pontifical Institute on Christian Unity.

Sunday -- Greek Catholic Church

The Greek Catholic Church has its roots in the teaching of Peter in Antioch. It continues with the Byzantine liturgy, but for three centuries has united with Rome.

Monday The Armenian Church

St. James Armenian Church -- The Armenian Quarter of the Old City

With Roots in Jerusalem even before Constantine and the Council of Nicea

Tuesday The Lutheran Church of the Redeemer

Lead by American, German, and Arab pastors with participation by Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, and Scottish clergy

Bishop Younan's Message: "Ecumenical work is an art and we have created a beautiful Middle Eastern Carpet with each color of yarn as a different church -- each with its own gifts, but one in faith, one in prayer."

The world will look at us a say, "See how much they love each other!"

Wednesday -- The Upper Room

Led by Benedictine Friars in the traditional place of the last supper. "In the breaking of bread, breaking is not dividing and sharing means more not less."

Thursday
St. Savior's Catholic Church Old City

With Ethiopian, Armenian, & Franciscan Colleagues

Friday

Syrian Orthodox Church

Saturday Ethiopian Church

An Amazing week in Jerusalem

A Historic week in the Middle East with Political Change all around.

In Jerusalem a week of prayer

Prayer for Christian Unity

Prayer for the peace of Jerusalem

Prayer from Jerusalem to the whole Middle East to the whole world. . . .

by Fred & Gloria Strickert

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/