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| How cool is this?!! My nametag in English, Hebrew, and Arabic! |
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| During our Youth Leadership Training we did some team- building games. Here we are working out the "human knot"! |
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| Our meeting was on a Friday evening, the time of the beginning of the Sabbath. It was so cool to join in this time of thankfulness to God, and to get such better context for what Jesus was doing when he initiated the Lord's Supper we celebrate so often as believers. It was beautiful to break bread with Israeli and Palestinian brothers and sisters in Christ! |
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| Us meeting in an "Area C" location, one of the few places in Israel where both Israelis and Palestinians can go. |
I have loved my work over the last few weeks. At the office, I've been developing a blog for prayer for the Palestinian church (if you'd like to check my progress, see Pray for the Palestinian Church). It's a really fun project for me on a few levels. I've also done several other smaller projects.
It has also been fantastic to get to attend a few Musalaha events. I have been invited to be part of the youth leadership training we are now doing, and it was wonderful to get to sit with young Israeli and Palestinian leaders who are looking to invest in the next generation. We talked about issues related to reconciliation and it was really interesting to see the process in action. One Palestinian brother shared about some of the hurt he experienced when, while helping with a Christian conference, the speaker spoke harshly about Palestinians as the "enemy."
There is a lot of hurt being done by those who have ideas about this conflict but no relationships here or understanding that they are talking about real people's lives. It was cool to hear the Israeli believers apologize and restate that it was not their opinion being shared in this instance, but the opinion of outsiders.
Friday, we had a meeting to go through curriculum Musalaha has created with some veterans of Musalaha to discuss Justice and Reconciliation, which I found absolutely fantastic. The main point that stuck out to me was that when seeking justice we must prioritize the future as well as the past in order to be effective. How will we live together? How will this affect the next generation? This is very important. We need to ask the questions when something is done in the name of justice about what the consequences of those actions will be.
There is so much to this and we talked through many many interesting issues, but for me that was the most eye-opening and critical part, although it does seem pretty obvious when I think about it now. This is why to build peace we need real justice -- acknowledging the roots of an issue -- but also to work toward reconciliation... so that difficulties will not be perpetuated to future generations.
It has also been fantastic to get to attend a few Musalaha events. I have been invited to be part of the youth leadership training we are now doing, and it was wonderful to get to sit with young Israeli and Palestinian leaders who are looking to invest in the next generation. We talked about issues related to reconciliation and it was really interesting to see the process in action. One Palestinian brother shared about some of the hurt he experienced when, while helping with a Christian conference, the speaker spoke harshly about Palestinians as the "enemy."
There is a lot of hurt being done by those who have ideas about this conflict but no relationships here or understanding that they are talking about real people's lives. It was cool to hear the Israeli believers apologize and restate that it was not their opinion being shared in this instance, but the opinion of outsiders.
Friday, we had a meeting to go through curriculum Musalaha has created with some veterans of Musalaha to discuss Justice and Reconciliation, which I found absolutely fantastic. The main point that stuck out to me was that when seeking justice we must prioritize the future as well as the past in order to be effective. How will we live together? How will this affect the next generation? This is very important. We need to ask the questions when something is done in the name of justice about what the consequences of those actions will be.
There is so much to this and we talked through many many interesting issues, but for me that was the most eye-opening and critical part, although it does seem pretty obvious when I think about it now. This is why to build peace we need real justice -- acknowledging the roots of an issue -- but also to work toward reconciliation... so that difficulties will not be perpetuated to future generations.
