Do you know what it means to miss Filisteen?: My experience as a Christian in Palestine

2010
The city of Bethlehem is a Palestinian city.

I couldn't believe it. My brother and I had just arrived from Ramallah, after the House of Peace hostel in Bethlehem called us and told us they could make room for us over Christmas. Although we laughed about there being no room at the inn, it was a huge relief to get that phone call.

We arrived at the hostel, and I looked over the hills, and down the ridge. Palestinian houses, everywhere. Like Ramallah, and Nablus, and East Jerusalem.

Why was I so surprised? I'd planned this trip for months. I'd already been traveling in the West Bank for a week and I'd seen Christians in Taybeh and Ramallah! I'd studied abroad in Jordan and met Arab Christians there. I'd been reading about the occupation for years.

Why did I still picture Bethlehem as a sleepy little pilgrim's town, untouched by the modern world? Why did it fall outside of my idea of Palestine? If I'd come all the way here and still had to confront this simple fact....

...that the Christians of Bethlehem, and Jerusalem, and Nazareth are Palestinians....

...that the city of Bethlehem is surrounded by settlements and walls and checkpoints....

Lutheran Church in Bethlehem

...how could anyone back home know it?

My brother and I went to Christmas Service at the Lutheran Church in Bethlehem. It was a beautiful service. Many of the songs were sung in Arabic, German and English simultaneously. I decided to learn the Lord's Prayer in the language of Bethlehem, Arabic.

------2011

I moved to the West Bank the following September, but I didn't really think to become part of a congregation. Bethlehem was pretty far to travel to every week, and I didn't know there was an English-speaking congregation anywhere. Just before Christmas, my dad contacted a Lutheran pastor in Jerusalem, who, as chance would have it, studied under my great-grandfather at seminary in St. Louis. My dad didn't want me to be alone for Christmas, so I went to the Christmas service in Bethlehem, where Pastor Strickert was one of the leaders of the service. After I introduced myself to him, he invited me to Christmas Day brunch at his house. So that's how I ended up joining the English-speaking congregation for the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem.

On Christmas Day I walked up the Mount of Olives in the pouring rain, and when I walked into the house I found 50 or so people, mostly from Europe and the States singing carols in 4-part harmony. Many of them turned out to be Midwest Lutherans. We all introduced ourselves; some were visiting their family members who worked with the local Palestinian churches. Then we sat down to a feast with classic Midwest egg bake and cider and wine. My heart felt so warm. We were sitting on the Mount of Olives, in occupied East Jerusalem, and I had stumbled across a piece of home. The girls my age, who were doing a program similar to AmeriCorps/PeaceCorps, but with the Lutheran Church in the West Bank and Jerusalem, became good friends of mine that I went out with on the weekends in Ramallah and Bethlehem.

The Redeemer Church is next to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Old City, where Jesus Christ is said to have been crucified and resurrected. Some Sundays I would find myself running up the Via Dolorosa, past tourists and pilgrims walking the Stations of the Cross. I thought to myself, is this really my routine?

Wednesday potluck

On Wednesday nights I would go back to the Mount of Olives for the congregation's weekly potluck/volleyball night. I stink at volleyball, so mostly I filmed and mingled and...ate a lot of food.

My pastors were very supportive of the work I was doing in Al Aqaba, and they even drove up to visit me. The lead pastor always received alerts on his cell phone from the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. It would message him any time a demolition was being reported. We were disheartened, constantly. Whenever the question, "why?" worked its way into someone's mind the answer was usually, "because they can."

It was actually a member of the congregation, a Mennonite photographer in Bethlehem, who asked me about a demolition in Al Aqaba while we were eating one Wednesday night, and I bolted out of the room to call Haj Sami. It was true. The army had come with bulldozers and torn up the two major roads.

And what can we do? We can document, and write, and reach out, and advocate, and teach, and pray....since I wasn't affiliated with the church, I also had the freedom to be politically active, to attend demonstrations, etc....

Pastor Fred on Easter morning

One night, while we painted watercolors I asked one of the pastors if she ever felt like screaming at the top of her lungs. She said yes, of course.

Because our friends from Bethlehem were prohibited from entering Jerusalem on the basis that they're Palestinian. One woman managed to secure a permit for the day of Easter; she showed up to our service, and it was announced that she was now seeing Jerusalem, a city 9 kilometers from her home, for the first time in 10 years. Among the joy of Easter and friends and sunshine and food, it was bittersweet for all of us to celebrate this small act of mercy from the occupation.

My Lutheran volunteer friends are now back in the States. I met up with one of them in DC to protest the November Gaza assault in front of the Israeli Embassy. Another I helped with a presentation to her church in Portland, Oregon. Now they're advocates, educating fellow Christians and Americans on the situation in Palestine.

Here's are some of my blog posts on my experience with the church in Palestine:
Shouting Stones
The Palestinian Passover Seger

Here are photos and videos of my time there:

My pastors leading the sunrise service on the Mount of Olives on Easter morning

Lutheran Redeemer trip to St George Monastery and Nabi Musa

Pastors being goofy

Me and my friends, Lutheran volunteers in Bethlehem and Ramallah

Bethlehem University Library-the Palestinian Heritage Center


Bethlehem Heritage Center-hole made by an Israeli tank in 2002

Bethlehem Heritage Center

Me at Bethlehem University

Bethlehem University

Church of All Nations in Jerusalem

View of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, part of Arab East Jerusalem

Augusta Victoria chapel on the Mount of Olives. The Lutheran Church runs a huge campus that includes a hospital, a guest house, and several humanitarian offices.

Church of All Nations in Jerusalem

Christmas service at the Lutheran church in Bethlehem. This is my favorite Christmas hymn in Arabic, English and German. People sang all three simultaneously.