Nazareth and the Galileo

Today was a full day of seeing the holy sites in Nazareth and the Galilee.  The Dean of the College was our guide and he is an unending fount of biblical and archeological knowledge about these sites.  We started out at the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth which is built over the grotto that is believed to have been the home of Mary of Nazareth when she was visited by the Angel Gabriel.  After we left there we walked the winding narrow streets of Nazareth and stopped at Elbabour Galilee Mill, a mill and spice shop run by an Arab Christian family that has been in the family for 4 generations.  It's a wonderful shop in an old historic stone building.  They sell spices, coffee, tea, sweets, grains and they even have a small milling machine there to grind grain and farm produce.  After we left there we went to the Greek Orthodox church that houses "Mary's Well" believed to be the well that Mary and her family would have used to draw water as it is just up the road from the grotto.  The Greek Orthodox believe it is at the well that she met Gabriel so pilgrims flock to that site too.  The Greek Orthodox churches over here are beautiful with the most gorgeous icons and frescoes inside.  After that we had lunch in Nazareth and then drove out to the Galilee.  We stopped at Taghba at the site where it is believed Jesus did one of his feeding of the five thousand with two fish and five loaves of bread.  A very famous mosaic of the loaves and fishes is in the floor of the church there, now run by German Benedictines.  That site was the victim of Jewish settler violence last year when it was set on fire by Jewish settlers.  Fortunately the fire was contained and only took out the gift shop and did some smoke damage to the church.  So even here in Israel proper there is occasional violence from the Jewish settlers who want to drive all Arabs, Christian and Muslim out of Israel.  From there we went to Capernaum, where there are 1st century ruins of that Biblical town, including ruins that are believed to be Peter's house.  Capernaum is right on the shore of the sea of Galilee so you can visit the ruins and then walk down to the water.  After that we visited a small Greek Orthodox church right next door to the Capernaum ruins, which is still an active Greek Orthodox church. Right when we walked in the priest was doing a baptism.  All I heard when I went in was very loud shouting in Greek by the priest and then I saw him lifting a tiny baby (less than a month old I'm guessing) way up in the air and then plunging him into the font for complete immersion three times.  The baby was stark naked and, as you can imagine, really howled after that first plunge into the waters!  As soon as it was over they wrapped him in towels and blankets and got him dressed and soon he was happily enjoying a feeding, recovered from the shock of his initiation into the Christian tradition.  We had an interesting conversation with the Greek priest there.  Our Dean wondered why all the pomegranate trees that line the walkway to the church were dead and chopped down.  The priest said that the Israelis had cut off his water supply this past July and it killed all the trees.  He had been pumping water out of the Sea of Galilee and has been doing so for  28 years but all of a sudden they decide he can't do it any more and so the grove of trees died.   The other vegetation around the church is also suffering from the water crisis.  Yet another example of the arbitrary and capricious nature of the Israeli authorities when dealing with non-Jews in their midst.  

Tonight we will meet with one of the canons of the diocese to learn more about the ministries of the Episcopal churches up here in the Nazareth and Galilee area.  The challenges for these churches that are in Israel are different than those of the Palestinian churches in the occupied territories.  Tomorrow we go to church in a village nearby here and then will return to Jerusalem.   There will be some closing events late tomorrow afternoon and then I and one of my fellow students will have to get our taxi back to Tel Aviv in order to get our 11 PM flight to Newark.  We will probably be taking a boxed dinner to eat in the cab since we have to leave right about when they are starting the closing dinner!  Pics today are a shot in the spice shop in Galilee and one of me by the Sea of Galilee.   For more pics, see Facebook.  The blog app is not letting me post more than 2 photos! 

Haifa

Today we left Jerusalem and went to Haifa where we met the priest in charge at St. Luke's Anglican church.  That church has a private school, St. John's which is on the grounds of the church.  The priest talked briefly about how it is to be Christian in Haifa where life is different for the minority religions than it is in Jerusalem.  These Christians are Israeli citizens and many of them work in Israeli institutions.   The neighborhoods are not integrated but Jews and non-Jews do come into contact with one another more here than in Jerusalem.  They get to know one another as work colleagues.  He talked about his own experience of being a pretty radical liberation theologian when he went off to seminary and how angry he was at the injustices suffered by Palestinians under Israeli occupation.  He was intent to do his ministry addressing that injustice.  He said when he got to Haifa he realized that he had to learn to live beside the Jewish majority and somehow find a way to co-exist and to work for peace and tolerance.  The former headmaster of the school spoke to us about the school, which is the most highly rated private elementary school in Israel, and talked about their Education for Peace program where they try to teach children how to deal with conflict and work for peace. He described an exercise they make the children go through if they get into a conflict with a classmate where they put the two of them in a room alone together and don't let them come out until they have worked out a solution to their conflict.  If they seem unable to come to a resolution they can both live with the teacher will then go in and offer them several options and require them to decide on one that they can both live with.  I thought it would be a good thing to make Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas and the leader of Hamas go through that exercise! Lock them all in a room and don't let them out till they've come up with something that works for everybody.  The school is 50% Muslim students even though it is a Christian school.  They have a morning assembly every day which consists of Christian hymns and some religious instruction and the Muslim children are required to attend.  The Muslim kids also have to take the religion classes which are all about Christianity. They said the Muslim families are OK with this because they want their children to be in that school.  I asked if they let Muslim children do the Muslim prayers at the appointed hours and they said no.  Personally I find that bothersome but then I don't live in this context so who am I to say?  Israeli law forbids proselytization so they cannot directly proselytize others but  it feels a little coercive to me to make Muslim children attend Christian prayer services and not to allow them to do their own prayers.  They also do not teach Islam in the school.  This seems to be the subtle way that they are evangelizing.  But again, in this context Muslims and Christians are allies since they all suffer the same discrimination in Israeli society at the hands of the Israeli system.  The man who spoke to us about the school is one of those Arabs who's village was taken over by the Zionists in 1948 during the war and his family and everyone else in the village had to flee.  They have never been allowed back to the village.  They are classified by the Israeli government as "present absentees" because they are absent from their village, which was razed by the Israelis, but they are present in Israel.  This man is in his late 80s and said he would like to be able to visit the grave of his father in his old village but he does not even know if the graveyard is still there.  This is the story of so many Israeli Arabs who lived through 1948.  He spent his life as an educator, working for the Israeli ministry of education after serving as headmaster of St. John's school for 16 years.  He has good working relationships with Israeli Jews but he admits that life is not great for Arabs under the Israeli system.

We got a tour of the school and of the two churches that are yoked and attached to the school.  A class of children sang some songs for us, which was delightful.  Then we went to lunch with the two priests at the parish and the former headmaster.  These middle eastern lunches are delicious but a bit generous in the amount of food!  A first course of salads and hummus and pita and other veggies followed by grilled chicken and lamb kebabs with rice and french fries. Baklava for dessert.  And that is just lunch.  Then we do it all over again at dinner!

After lunch we drove to Nazareth and stopped at a lookout point that has a wonderful view of the entire region around Nazareth and out to Mt. Tabor and the Kidron valley.  Then we checked into our convent lodgings which are simple but quite nice.  We were supposed to meet with another priest at another church this evening but his plans changed so we are actually relieved to be able to rest at the convent and enjoy dinner and take it easy for a few hours.  Tomorrow is a very full day starting with Eucharist at 6:30 AM.   Pics are from the school we visited today.

 

Zebabdeh and Jacob's Well

Zebabdeh and Jacob’s Well – The West Bank

Today we drove deep into the West Bank, up north in what used to be called Samaria, to a little village called Zebabdeh where we met the priest who is in charge of St. Matthew’s Anglican church in that village.  The village has about 6000 inhabitants, about 4000 Christian and 2000 Muslim.  The church has about 270 families and is growing, with a significant number of children and teens, which is unusual and refreshing!  They also house a medical clinic in their lower level, which serves the village offering primary care and obgyn care for the women in the village, as well as basic dental care.  The medical clinic is serving so many people that they are running out of room and may have to try to find new quarters, which is a good problem to have.  We were impressed with the vibrancy of the church in this little village and with the ecumenical and interfaith cooperation that seems to be happening there.  The Christian clergy all know one another and work together on various projects, not the least of which is the one private school in the area, which is run by the Roman Catholic parish right next door to the Anglican parish and serves about 1000 children.  The priest said that relations between Christians and Muslims in the village are very good.  We noted that this village seems to be far enough into the West Bank that they are removed from a lot of the settler violence and tension that marks places that are closer to the border with Israel.  Being up north the land is fertile there and most of the villagers are farmers.  The village looks run down as do most West Bank cities and villages but it didn’t seem quite as gritty as others we’ve seen and it certainly had a more peaceful air about it.  They served us a delicious Palestinian lunch of grilled, spiced chicken on flatbread that was covered in  onions and almonds with spices.  We were all pretty full and then the church lady brought us all plates with two different cakes on them!   We did not feel we could refuse anything they offered so we all left feeling pretty stuffed!

As you drive into the West Bank you can see the many Jewish settlements, which are illegal, all over the West Bank territory.   They are surrounded by 10 foot barbed wire fences and served by the new settler roads, which are like major highways, and on which Palestinians are not permitted to drive.  The settlements are served by municipal water and electricity provided by the Israeli government, while the Palestinian villages that are right next door only get water about once every two weeks and all the homes have black tanks on their roofs to hold the water that then has to last them for two weeks until they get their next delivery.    They also frequently go without electricity, while the settlements are lit up 24/7.  The contrast between the settlements and the Palestinian neighborhoods and villages is stark and inescapable.     We drove through many villages and through the largest city in the West Bank, Nablus, and the look and feel of these places is very much “third world” with trash strewn all over (they have no municipal garbage collection),  poor roads, very small storefronts which are old and run down.  It is hard to miss how tough life is for the Palestinians.  For those who have the kind of identity card that allows them to get a permit to enter Jerusalem, travel to Jerusalem for work is a long and arduous ride, on secondary roads that are often blocked off by the Israelis and dotted with checkpoints as you near the border with Israel. 

After we left Zebabdeh we went to Nablus to the Greek Orthodox Church there which houses “Jacob’s well” from the story in John’s gospel where Jesus met “the woman at the well.”  We were met there by a very elderly Greek Orthodox priest who let us into the church and down under the main altar area is a small chapel wherein you find the well, believed to be Jacob’s well.  We read the gospel story of the woman at the well with Jesus and the English priest who is our chaplain did a short reflection.  We then spent time soaking up the beauty of the Orthodox church, which was only completed in the mid 1990s when the Russians poured money into it to complete it.  The church is located near some Jewish settlements and has been the locus of significant violence from the settlers.  In the church lies the body of the last priest who served the church who was hacked to death by a Jewish settler.  His body is in a coffin in the church and it has become a shrine.  The current priest was shot at by settlers just recently when a group drove by the church and shot through the metal doors to the church complex.  Because this priest is very short, the bullets flew over him and didn’t harm him, but you can still see the bullet holes in the door to the complex.   This is unfortunately the norm in the West Bank as tensions between the Jewish settlers, many of whom are quite militant and the Palestinians who are suffering under the Israeli occupation of their land, often boil over into violent clashes. 

I have been struck on this visit with how completely the Christian Palestinians and Israeli Arabs are separated from the larger Jewish population of Israel.  The only contact with Jews they have are with the ultra Orthodox right wing groups in East Jerusalem and/or with the settlers in the West Bank.  There is really no opportunity for them to get to know the larger Jewish Israeli population and they tend to be highly critical of “the Jews” based on the context in which they are living.  I do not see any sign that they engage in any dialogue of the kind that I have been part of for years in the US.   Part of the issue in Israel is that the Jewish community here is either the ultra-Orthodox right wingers, or the very secular Jews who live outside of Jerusalem and who never go to the West Bank and so the Christians here don’t have any opportunity to interact with moderate or open-minded Jews.  There is a great need for some interfaith dialogue here and I don’t see much evidence of it, at least not here in East Jerusalem.    This is a particular political hotbed however, so maybe it is different in other parts of Israel.  Tomorrow we head to the Galilee and will spend two nights in Nazareth, and things may be somewhat different there.  It is also a different context here where the Christians are the tiny minority as opposed to our context where we are the majority faith tradition.

Pics today are some shots of the church in Zebabdeh and scenes from that village, Jacob’s well and some of the icons from the church where Jacob’s well is housed. 

Princess Basma, St. George's School, The Eye of the Needle

Today we visited with two very important institutional ministries of the Diocese of Jerusalem.  The first visit was to the Princess Basma Hospital for Disabled Children where we had a tour of the entire facility, which is impressive to say the least.  This hospital was founded in 1965 to care for children paralyzed by polio and it later grew into a significant and stellar hospital for children with various disabilities serving the West Bank and East Jerusalem.  The hospital has dormitories where some of the children stay with their mothers during their treatment.   There is also a school on the site where the disabled children are educated in classes with children who are not disabled.   The hospital now serves many children with cerebral palsy, autism and children who are deaf.   Because of the extreme difficulty Palestinians in the West Bank face when trying to find treatment for their disabled children the hospital has outreach teams that go out to various towns and villages in the West Bank to do initial assessments on children there and when they determine that a child needs the level of care that the hospital can provide, they work with the family to secure the permits needed for the child and mother to come to Jerusalem for the treatment.    Our hostess who is the director of the hospital was loath to complain about the difficulties they face daily, but when questioned, admitted that they face constant challenges due to the Israeli controls of the checkpoints between the West Bank and East Jerusalem and the difficulty they often have getting permits for the children to come to East Jerusalem.  Sometimes the Israelis issue a permit for the child but not the mother, and then they have to try to find another female relative who might be able to come with the child.  They obviously prefer that it be the mother because part of what they do is train the mothers to administer the various therapies to their children so that when they go back to the West Bank the mother can help the child continue to progress.  The Israelis also are inclined to close the checkpoints arbitrarily which means that employees of the hospital who live in the West Bank can’t get to work and any patients who were scheduled for that day then have to be rescheduled and their permits renegotiated.  Yet again, we were confronted with the daily struggles the Palestinians face just trying to live their lives under Israeli occupation.  This hospital is another example of Christian Muslim cooperation – it’s a hospital run and sponsored by the Anglican diocese and yet many of the employees and patients are Muslim.  The dedication and determination of the employees of the hospital to serve the disabled children of Palestine was truly amazing.

After lunch we went over to St. George’s School, an Anglican school run by the diocese.  For elementary school they serve both boys and girls but the high school is just a boys school.  We had the pleasure of meeting five young men who are seniors at the school.  They told us what it is like to be a young Palestinian male in Jerusalem and the stories were heartbreaking.  Most of them have relatives who have been in jail at some point or another, and often for no good reason.  They report the same kinds of experiences that young black men in America’s cities face in terms of being targets of police interrogation and questioning.  These young boys, all of them top notch students (all have been part of the Model UN Program which is an elite program that takes them to other countries to participate in the model UN experiences) all of them young men who are hard workers, who are planning to go to University, who are not trouble makers, yet all of them have had to deal with constant harassment by the Israeli police.  One boy said he won’t go jogging because if the Israeli soldiers see him running they assume he’s up to something and stop him.  They said that they can get in trouble if they post something on Facebook that is pro-Palestinian or perceived by the Israelis to be anti-Israel.  They say that their Facebook pages are watched by the IDF.  One of the boys is a poet but he said he cannot write or publish any of his poetry because the Israeli authorities will come after him if he expresses criticism of Israel or its policies.  The boys expressed frustration at the limitations of their lives as Palestinians under Israeli occupation, but interestingly, even those who said they plan to go abroad for University, said they want to return to Palestine after they get their degrees so that they can help their own people.    The principal and assistant principal spoke of how difficult it is for them to do the work they need to do at the school because of the Israeli habit of closing the West Bank with little or no notice, thereby restricting access and keeping both students and staff from being able to get to school.  They then have to adjust their curriculum and other plans they have just to cope with these arbitrary closures and disruptions.  They also complained about the Israeli control over the textbooks that they are to use.  There are different textbooks for Israeli public schools and Palestinian schools and, according to the principal, the Palestinian narrative is completely absent from the textbooks that they are required to use to teach history and culture.  They wind up having to supplement the textbooks with other materials and even that is risky because the Israelis don’t want them to be teaching the Palestinian narrative at all.  The students who want to go to University have to sit for certain exams that they take at the end of their senior year and which determine whether they will be admitted to University.  The Palestinian students take the exams that are prepared by the Jordanian government, not Israeli exams.   Of the five boys we spoke to, 4 of them were aiming to go either to a Palestinian university or a university abroad.  One of them was aiming for Hebrew University in Jerusalem because he wants to do accounting and needs to get the certifications for that profession from an Israeli institution, which means he will need to spend a year after high school learning Hebrew so that he can manage in the Hebrew University classrooms.   Those young men were amazingly articulate and expressed a certain youthful optimism that was quite engaging.  A number of them had participated in a youth exchange where they interacted with Israeli youth and got to know them and vice versa.  I had the impression that much more of those kinds of experiences are needed here because there is such complete separation between the Palestinian/Arabs in Israel and the Jewish Israelis that they really don’t get to know one another at all.   The suspicion and prejudice and discrimination that is a constant fact of life for Palestinians/Arabs in Israel will never diminish until more Israeli Jews have the opportunity to interact with Palestinians.

After our meeting with the students, we had some free time, so two of my fellow pilgrims and I went to the Old City to walk around.  We stopped at an Austrian Roman Catholic Guesthouse which has a lovely coffee shop and then went up to their rooftop which has a spectacular view of the Old City.  You can see for miles all around Jerusalem from up there.  I’ve included some pics of the city as seen from that rooftop.  We then went to the church of St. Alexander Nevsky, a Russian Orthodox Church right next to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.  This Russian Orthodox church is stunning inside and it sits on top of some significant ruins of the first century Jerusalem.  The famous “eye of the needle” that Jesus refers to in the gospels (the one a camel can’t pass through!) is there as is a structure that is known as the Threshold of Judgment Gate, believed to be the edge of the city walls in the time of Jesus.  We were able to walk through the needle’s eye, and then we soaked in the beauty of the icons and oil paintings of the church itself.  I’ve included pics from the church too. 

After Evening Prayer we were hosted by the local cathedral congregation for a delicious Arab supper and the chance to talk with some of their elderly congregants.  One of them is quite famous, having been the director of the Princess Basma hospital for over 30 years.  Her name is Betty Majaj and she has written a book about her life experiences.  She is a fount of stories and information, having lived here before 1948 and remembering the War of Independence/Nakba and having continued to live here ever since.  She had nothing good to say about the Israeli authorities and even less good to say about American foreign policy that supports the Israeli government.  She was a fascinating person to meet and talk with as she has lived through so much in her 90 years.  And she is completely with it and sharp!  She’ll probably make it to 100!  Yet again, however, we were reminded of how bitterly the Palestinians resent the loss of their land, their homes, their rights and how they are chafing under the Israeli occupation.  

The fifth picture down is the famous "eye of the needle!"

Tomorrow we are supposed to go into the West Bank, but there have been some unexpected closures of the West Bank this week by the IDF so we won’t know till the morning whether we can actually go or not!  Such is life in occupied Palestine.

Holy Land School for the Deaf, Jordan

This morning we visited the Holy Land Institute for the Deaf in Salt, Jordan.  This is one of the institutional ministries of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem serving students in Jordan and the Middle East.   The school serves children from K through 12^th grade, preparing those who qualify for university entrance examinations and offering vocational training for those who cannot go on to university.  They also have a program for children who are both deaf and blind and offer audiology services and hearing aids to families and children.  We toured the entire school, which is a beautiful, bright, colorful facility.  The teachers are 80% Muslim as are the children, even though this is a Christian school.  Religion is taught to all children according to their own faith tradition.  It was great fun visiting the classrooms and interacting with the children.  They are taught Jordanian Sign Language but they also learn English and apparently, once they learn Jordanian Sign language they can also understand English sign language.  It was noticeable as we walked through the school visiting the classrooms how very quiet the place was.  Most schools are noisy, especially lower grades with small children laughing and talking and making noise.  These children were just as playful but it was like watching a silent movie.  We were extremely impressed with their facilities for deaf blind children and we got to watch them working with several of those children.  They teach them sign language in their palms and they have lots of ways to help them learn to communicate and navigate the world using touch.  The teachers there were amazing.  It’s a boarding school for all ages with the children going home one weekend a month and then holidays and summers.  I really enjoyed the interfaith cooperation that was so very much in evidence there. Muslims and Christians working together in a Christian school serving a heavily Muslim population united in their dedication to helping those kids become the best they can be. 

Last night we had a conversation with an Anglican priest who is one of the canons of the diocese.  He currently serves a parish in Jordan, although he has also served in both Israel and the West Bank.  He was pretty blunt about the challenges of ministering to Christian congregations in the midst of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.  Now, in Jordan, his biggest challenge is working with the flood of Iraqi and Syrian refugees who come to his parish with serious needs but then ultimately move on when they get visas to emigrate to the US, Canada or Australia.   Vis-à-vis the Israeli/Palestinian conflict I was once again struck by how stratified life over here is.  The Christian and Muslim Palestinians and Arabs rarely, if ever, have any contact with Israeli Jews. The kind of Christian Jewish dialogue and relationships that are common in the US are virtually unheard of here, at least among the folks we’ve met so far.  This society is very, very segregated in terms of schools, housing, transportation, neighborhoods.  Christian Jewish dialogue of the kind I have done for so long seems not to happen here.

Our trip back across the Allenby Bridge to the West Bank was blessedly uncomplicated. It only took us an hour and 20 minutes to go through all the red tape.  One of our group has an insulin pump which is surgically attached to her stomach to deliver insulin all day, and that got the Israeli security folks concerned so she had to be pulled aside in a separate room and strip down so they could examine the medical device before letting her through.  Other than that, we got through with no hassle.  I was struck by how clearly the dread of what the process might be affected our Israeli Arab guide.   He has done this thousands of times so he knows all that can happen and how difficult the Israeli IDF can make it, and he was clearly very relieved when we sailed through no problem.   When we passed through one checkpoint in the West Bank they did pull our van over and the IDF soldier got on board but we all had our passports in hand and when she saw a van full of white Americans from the theological college she let us pass. 

Pics today are some shots of the teachers and students at the school.  

Today we started out in Madaba, Jordan visiting the Greek Orthodox Church of St. George which is an important historic site because it contains a floor mosaic dating from the 6th century which is a map of the Holy Land as of that period in history.  It is a remarkable piece of work which was buried when the church was destroyed by earthquakes in the middle ages and when it was rebuilt in the 19th century they found the mosaic in the floor.  The entire church is decorated with mosaic icons which are also stunning.  The mosaic map is one piece of archeological evidence that is used to confirm that the site we visited yesterday is the site where Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist as the map indicates the baptism site to be where we were yesterday.  After visiting St. George's we drove to St. Paul's Anglican Church, which is part of the Diocese of Jerusalem and had a wonderful visit with Fr. George Kopti, the priest there.  The church is in Ashrafea section of Amman, which is a poor section of the city, primarily Christian.  The church has a very active ministry to Iraqi and Syrian refugees which Fr. Kofti described to us in great detail.  They also have a senior living center for indigent elderly women, and the support an Anglican school in the area.  Christians are a tiny minority in Jordan but the churches are places of sanctuary for the poor and for refugees who flood into Jordan from Syria and Iraq.  Fr. Kofti described the churches and the holy sites that are nearby in Jordan (the Baptism Site, Mt. Nebo and others) as places of sanctuary and refuge for those who are fleeing war and violence and for those who are poor.  He spoke of the various ministries his church maintains for the refugees which include spiritual help like Sunday School for children and Bible study for adults, to practical assistance such as English lessons, help with getting food and shelter, free psychological counseling for those suffering from the stress of their refugee experiences, assistance with finding medical help for ongoing conditions, and help with preparing the refugee families to transition to whatever country they eventually find themselves moving to. He spoke of how hard it is for him and his local congregation to have to say goodbye to these families after they have been with them for months or years, when those families finally get their papers to emigrate to the US, Canada or Australia.  He told us of one family, a couple with 4 children who fled Iraq when ISIS took over their city.  The family lost absolutely everything they had ever owned, including their home and all of their possessions.  They were on the run for months and had no money and no food.  At one point on the journey the father became desperate because he did not have enough money to buy food for his wife and children so he had resolved to spend his last money on a piece of meat and intended to put poison in it and feed it to the family so that they would all die together, quickly, instead of dying slowly of starvation.  He told the priest that the night before he planned to do this he prayed to God for help saying to God, essentially, I don't want to do this but I am desperate.  The next day, refugee helpers came and found his family and helped them get into Jordan.  That man and his family joined St. Paul's and became active members of the congregation.  As Fr. Kopti explained it, for these refugees who arrive in Jordan all they have left in the world is their religious faith.  They have lost everything else.  To them their faith is life giving and the only thing that helps them cope with all the loss and suffering they have endured.  His congregation is small and not particularly wealthy but they truly believe that they are called to extend radical hospitality and love to the refugees who arrive in their neighborhood and so they do everything they can to help.  They also help Muslim families who need it and they have some Muslim children who attend their Sunday School because it is a place where they feel safe and loved.  Fr. Kopti told us of his dream to start a medical clinic in the parish hall of his church if he can get funding because so many of the refugees have serious medical conditions and they do not have the money to get medical attention when they need it.   We had an amazing time talking to him and we were truly impressed with the work this little congregation is doing under very difficult circumstances.  Christians in Jordan are a tiny minority and tend to be poor.  He said that relationships between Muslims and Christians in Jordan are very good.  They live in the same neighborhoods and they are friends with one another and Christians feel respected in this Muslim majority country. 

After we left Fr. Kopti we drove around the city of Amman, which is huge, stopping at a second century Roman theater and driving through the many and varied neighborhoods of this capital city.  We drove past the Palestinian refugee "camps" which house over 120,000 Palestinians who fled Israel in 1948.  They originally lived in tent cities here, but when it became clear that they were not going to be allowed to return to their homes in Israel Jordan helped them build houses and now the "camps" are actually large urban ghettoes where they Palestinians live.   They have Jordanian passports and are allowed to work, serve in the Jordanian army, go to school etc. and if they want they could move out of the camps to their own private housing but many of them choose to stay, hoping that someday they will be compensated for the loss of their homes in Israel and/or be allowed to return there (all of which is highly unlikely...)

Then we went to lunch in a fabulous restaurant in the more luxurious section of the city.  It was a true Middle Eastern feast.  First courses of many salads, hummus, tabouli, tzadziki, baba ghanoush, spicy chicken wings, sausages, breads, pickles and more.   Then they brought the shish kebabs, lamb and chicken with grilled vegetables.  By the time we had finished all that we could barely move and then they arrived with plates of fruit and dessert cakes like baklava and other sweet desserts.  We all nearly passed out when that course arrived but had to force ourselves to eat some of it because in this culture you simply don't say no to food when it's offered to you.  We practically crawled out of the restaurant back into the bus.  We then drove through more of the neighborhoods of Amman, in the modern section of the city, and came to our hotel which is in the neighborhood where all the foreign embassies are located, a neighborhood filled with opulent villas, many of which, we noted, are for sale or rent!  Tonight we will meet with another priest of the diocese to learn about the ministries he is doing in this part of the world.  A really wonderful aspect of this trip is the ability to meet and talk with Anglicans who are living and doing ministry here in the Middle East, coping with all the challenges that this part of the world presents.  We are able to both be pilgrims, visiting the sacred sites and praying our way through this Holy Land, but also be witnesses to the lives and ministries of our Christian brothers and sisters who are doing amazing ministries under truly extentuating circumstances.  We hope to be able to forge some partnerships with these churches and communities so that we in the US can find ways to support and help the church communities here that are working so hard on the front lines of these major humanitarian crises.

Jordan

Day 3 - Jordan

Today we left Jerusalem and made our way to Jordan.  We were supposed to be able to attend church at the Cathedral, have lunch and then leave for Jordan but we were told when we arrived for breakfast that we had to leave by 10:30 because the Israelis were closing the crossing at the Allenby Bridge by noon.  There had been some incidents of violence in the West Bank over the weekend so they closed it off completely for 24 hours, allowing no-one to go in or out.  They were also trying to stop Palestinian traffic on the first night of Sukkoth, fearing trouble perhaps.   So we only got to stay through the sermon at church and then had to leave.   I wish we could have stayed till the end of the service because I was really enjoying hearing the liturgy in Arabic!  The process for leaving Israel across the Allenby bridge into Jordan is quite a process.  As tourists with an Israeli guide we had a much easier time than the many Palestinians who were trying to make the crossing.  The hoops those poor people have to jump through is ridiculous and needless to say exceedingly time consuming.  We were all impressed with how well the Palestinians take it all in stride, not getting annoyed or being impatient, just putting up with the unbelievable red tape and with being treated with enormous suspicion with grace and good humor.  It took us a little over an hour to get into Jordan.  Once in Jordan we were joined by a Jordanian tour guide and by a Jordanian Tourist Policeman who is assigned to us for the entire time we are here.  Apparently Israel struck a deal with Jordan that would allow Israelis to go into Jordon only if Jordan agreed to provide a police escort for Israeli groups.  The Jordanians agreed but then realized that if only Israeli groups had police protection they would be conspicuous by that fact and would therefore be more at risk, so they decreed that all tourist groups must be accompanied by a Jordanian policeman for their entire trip.  Our Israeli guide warned us that we must not say anything derogatory about the Jordanian monarchy because such remarks can wind you up in jail, and he cautioned us to be careful about our conversation on the bus because the Jordanian policeman understands more English than he lets on!  

Once we got through all the border crossing red tape it was well past lunchtime, so we stopped at a restaurant for lunch.  We were treated to true Middle Eastern hospitality as we enjoyed our meal there.  Then we headed for the Jordan River, to the site that is believed to be the actual site of Jesus' baptism by John the Baptist.  It is near to the site that pilgrims in Israel go to, but it is across the border which runs through the Jordan River.  The terrain there is desert terrain, very hot, very brown and dusty, and the Jordan River looks more like a little creek than a river.  We walked down to the spot where Jesus was baptized and then on to the banks of the river, right across from the site in Israel where many pilgrims go to be baptized.  There were huge crowds of Asian Christian tourists getting baptized in the river.  From our spot on the Jordanian side we did a short service renewing our baptismal vows before heading back to our bus.  The whole area where the site is located is expansive but quite the desert scene. The Jordanian government has given all the major denominations of Christianity plots of land on the site for them to build churches and there are about 5 of them built so far. No Anglican church is there yet but the Diocese of Jerusalem is trying to raise the funds to build an Anglican church alongside the others that are there. The churches are rather impressive looking buildings but they are so out in the middle of nowhere that they are not actually used by any Christian community for worship.  It was very hot out there today. Our guide said it got to 107 when we were walking down to the river.  Fortunately it is a very dry heat so it wasn't too bad although one did try to stay in the shade as much as possible!

The baptismal site on the Jordan river is well below sea level.  The Dead Sea is very close by and the entire terrain looks like a dried up sea bed.  We then drove up through the dusty hills to the top of Mount Nebo, the place that the Bible records as the location where Moses looked out over the Promised Land and learned from God that he was not going to go into the Promised Land.  He died somewhere near Mt. Nebo but no one is sure where.  The site where Moses supposedly looked out over the Promised Land was settled by Christian monks centuries ago and there is a church up there as well as an archeological museum.   We walked up to the spot where Moses stood and looked out over the valley.  It was very hazy today so we could not see Jerusalem but we could see Jericho and the Dead Sea.  It is an amazing landscape to behold and gives one a new appreciation for the hardships the Ancient Israelites endured during their famous wilderness wanderings.  It is a harsh landscape and living out in that wilderness would not be for the faint of heart.  

After leaving Mt. Nebo we stopped at a workshop where mosaics are made by hand.  This shop is one that employs disabled people and is subsidized by the Jordanian government because of that.  The work they produce is gorgeous and their showroom has some truly impressive (not to mention exceedingly expensive!!) mosaics and ceramics.  

We are spending tonight in a hotel in the town of Madaba.  Tomorrow we go to Amman, the capital of Jordan.  So far Jordan is turning out to be quite an interesting country.  A Muslim majority country that is very welcoming to Christian pilgrims and that makes an effort to be sure that the Christian holy sites are well maintained and cared for.  Muslims and Christians in this country get along with one another very well.  A huge percentage of the Jordanian population is Palestinian, as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled here in 1948 and again in 1967.  The hospitality that the Middle East is famous for is well on display here.  Our hosts at lunch at the restaurant and the folks at the hotel here tonight go out of their way to be sure you have everything you need almost before you ask!