A Day of Peace

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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/