February 15, 2012

It’s easy to say “tear down the walls!” It’s easy to say “we need peace!” It’s easy to say these things, but do people actually believe them? Do people want them for the correct reasons?

It’s really hard to listen to this man who doesn’t believe in the Palestinians. He isn’t the worst, he isn’t the most brainwashed, but when I live with the Palestinians and hear their stories I just cannot feel right about his words, his claims. He is not an inherently bad man and at least he doesn’t seem vindictive against the Palestinians. He is just for the Jewish people and Israel. It’s like…I can’t quite describe it… Oh I don’t know.

But I have a good feeling he is willing to do ANYTHING for the cause of Israel. And I’m glad to hear him saying that he is willing to live alongside the Palestinians, and I am glad to hear him saying he doesn’t always agree with the Israeli government or their military. But what does that really mean?

The Native Americans didn’t have any “official” claims to the land our families occupied except living there for as long as they can remember. Swimming in the James River. Hunting bison on the plains. Living in peace with nature in the West. Yes, our families hurt thousands, took their land, and left them with a paperclip and rubber band. But that wasn’t [us]. You cannot blame the people who are living now even if it is the face of past persecution.

We must learn from our mistakes instead of just blame each other for generations. We must break this cycle of colonization instead of being complacent within our roles of persecuted and persecutor. This is not much to ask for, but people are unwilling to open their eyes beyond what is in front of them, beyond their daily comfortable life.

We always need someone to blame. Someone to persecute for a scapegoat to get what we want. What would happen when the world becomes listeners instead of shouters?

I say when because I have hope. The world is not inherently bad because that’s calling the one who created us inherently bad. How we view the creation is how we treat the Creator. We don’t know how to see. We don’t know how to listen. We don’t know how to learn.

This may be the musings of a naïve twenty year old woman, but I am not incompetent. I am not uneducated. I have seen a lot during this month abroad. Not everything, but so much shoved into my head, through my eyes that I must know something. I must have some ideas. Something to offer.

I have a hope. A hope for this world. A hope for this society. It may be confusing, upsetting, destructive, crazy, chaotic, but I hope for this Earth. A hope for the humanity of this people. It’s there – it’s there in homeless shelters. It’s there in liberty in North Korea. It’s there in the Jesuit center in Jordan. We just need to open our eyes, or just need to get up off our faces and walk without bumping into our neighbor beside us. Without pushing our neighbor off this tightrope called life.

I really don’t have an answer, and I really do not think anyone does. We live our lives and in these lives we choose to be ignorant or too much in the way of positive production. When we see these injustices done to others, we want to help any way possible, but we do not have any clue how to do so. We have never experienced them ourselves. All we have is the motivation to help, but no knowledge on how to positively or effectively help.

And then we look at the perpetrator and cannot fathom or even begin to relate to that person. We don’t see anything more than a monstrous creature that holds a gun to its chest.

When I think about it…I think our goal as outsiders is to listen. To listen to the oppressed and the oppressors. They are both human and both subject to the same sins and justices we are subject to. It’s hard to do that when all you see are the injustices done to a people who have little effect when resisting the oppressors, who are subject to daily pain and suffering. But one thing we can do is that we have the opportunity to come to the other side not as the oppressed, but as listeners. As observers. As humans connecting with each other despite difference of opinion.

We need to start spreading hope. Hope to everyone – to the oppressed and the oppressors, who are both deserving of God’s love.

So how are you going to help?

– Morgan Porter

 

February 25, 2012

After living and building friendships in Palestine for three and a half weeks, it was weird to tell them that I was leaving to go to a place that they can’t travel to.  We may have only driven 15 minutes to get from Beit Sahour to Jerusalem but the landscape and the feeling has changed drastically.  One of the most notable changes is the water issue.  In Beit Sahour and Palestine, people had to be so conservative with their water use and now I walk down the street and see hoses laid under planks to help water plants and grass and it seems like water is in abundance, but a couple of miles away it is scarce.

During the past three and a half weeks, we heard several emotional lectures and visited places affected by occupation every day.  We have gone to places like a refugee camp and a Palestinian farm that is continually faced with demolition threats from the Israeli army.  Sometimes it is hard to listen to emotional stories because of the human rights violations that occurred.  One day we visited a place called Tent of Nations, which is a farm owned by a Palestinian, that grows grapes, almond trees and olive trees.  The olive trees are seen as a sign of hope for the Palestinians because they don’t produce olives for seven to ten years, so when you plant it you have to hope that you will see the end product.  A couple of days after we visited it, we found out that the Israeli army issued a warning towards them, saying that they would demolish some of the property unless action was to be taken in court in the next 45 days.  This is frustrating because they have already gone to court several times to prove that the land is legally theirs.

One of the most difficult days was the day we visited Ephrat, a Jewish settlement.  This was the second settler we heard talk about occupation from their perspective.  It was difficult because we tried to ask him objective questions but he would usually respond with an example about America.  One highlight I will take out of Palestine was our second to last day in Beit Sahour.  After our afternoon session, a group of us went to play soccer at a local school.  Some kids saw us with a ball and asked if they could join us.  We started off by playing against the kids as a group but after they started to double us in size, we decided to split up teams and we ended by playing for two hours.  It was so neat to lose all language and situational barriers and just interact with the kids.  It was sad to have to say goodbye to a community that we had been so connected to, but I look forward to sharing all of my experiences there.

-Mike Ferguson

 

I have often observed cultures from the perspective of a foreigner, either as one or from the mind of one. My life has been characterized by movement, both permanent and temporary. My roots grow not from living in one land but through relationships and experiences. Being removed from homes I love brings sadness and fear, yet also a new energy and exhilaration to pursue novel unknowns. It is difficult for me to imagine fighting or dying for a patch of land. I am on a pursuit for answers, while still understanding the Palestinians’ desire for freedom.

One of the experiences that has impacted me the most so far is our group visit to the Wall. This zigzag Wall protrudes from the street in dark gray cement slabs littered with graffiti professing its injustice and prophesying its demise. It looks so opposite to its surroundings that few can miss the fact that the Wall wasn’t always present. It cuts the road in half and carves around the Palestinian buildings, choosing its path for the purpose of “securing” Israeli interests. I put my hand out to touch the Wall as I walked along it gazing up at the top nine meters above and searching the clouded windows of military towers for a sign of humanity within. I felt the lifeless cold and greed that brought this Wall into being. The hurt and claustrophobia emanated from this town’s eyesore making my heart cry, and wonder how this could have happened or been allowed. It is hard to comprehend what seems like hate, but the ultimate cause, I believe, is Fear. One of my teachers at EMU once said that the opposite of love is not hate but fear. The more I explore the world, the more this becomes true to me. Why would you fight for power if you did not fear losing control or insecurity or even pain?

In Hebron, settlements and Palestinian communities dwell side by side in the center of town, creating an unusual circumstance compared to other cities. Fear exists as a strong psychological barrier that feeds the physical features of the city. It is visible in the automatic guns carried by many settlers walking on a street that forbids Palestinian travel. It is demonstrated in the tension of Palestinians waiting to pass through checkpoints at the mercy of the soldiers’ good will not to harass them. Makeshift ladders and stairs dot the roofs of Palestinian homes beside a wall, as the only method of access to the outside world with front doors blocked off. Soldiers patrol a cemetery above a military outpost for suspicious activity as legislation prepares plans for making it a road to ease travel between settlement homes. A settler we talked to avoids any sections of town where Palestinians live because it is considered by soldiers to be too dangerous. Wired mesh serves as protection against the shelling of undesirable missiles in the form of water, eggs, or rocks that settler hands drop on passersby in Palestinian alleys below.

I observe barriers constructed everywhere I go, from years of unresolved stalemate. I have seen so much injustice that I was beginning to become discouraged a few days ago. Two experiences I have spotted involving faith raise my Spirit. It is amazing to view how this situation has strengthened religious commonalities among the Palestinians. The Palestinian Christians also struggle against their denominational divisions but most reach out with “Loving Resistance” under the Kairos document. The next experience, the Tent of Nations, stands up against the suffocating settlements on the mountain tops encircling it. The man who owns the land works on cultivating the land in self-sufficient ways. He must constantly and creatively dodge the restrictions thrown in his path to retain his land. He is inspiring because he must find alternatives to procure water, electricity, and methods of construction for his dwellings that could survive demolition. Every day he lives in faith that he will keep his land. One lecturer told us earlier this week that with reasons surrounding you to break and pursue you, you (Palestinians) stay here by faith believing that God has put you here for a reason.

Our faith and actions of love I believe can demolish any barrier and bring hope to this land of discord. “And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13: 13).

-Crystal Lehman

 

The Thaw

Sounds dim to a lonely hum of an electric heater

Flashing, blinking lights quiet to a steady white light

Moving objects, moving minds come to a stop

Quiet

I can feel the place I stand

Flashing, spinning memories ease into a bird chirping in a tree

Warmth tingles my numb fingers and toes

Slowly, ever slowly, the ice begins to soften and drip

 

The first three weeks of our time in the Middle East reminds me of early morning polar bear swims at camp. You run into the water full speed, flail around, screaming and laughing, then run out of the water and sit on the beach completely numb.

Now that we are in Palestine, in a home, we finally have time to sit and let the sun thaw our numbed souls. The thawing process aches a bit. We can feel the Palestinian hurt of the occupation, humiliation of inequality, and longing for their and our own homeland(s). But regaining feeling means we can also feel the joy of Palestine! The joy of celebrations with family, incredible food, meeting inspiring people working for peace, being able to order falafel in Arabic, or simply listening to a bird chirp in a lemon tree as the sun rises.

The Middle East is a place where pain and peace, sadness and joy, past and present, mourning and celebration all exist at once in an incredible balance that I hope to one day understand and embody.

-Laura Bowman

 

Mount Sinai and St. Catharine’s Monastery

After our experiences in Egypt, we took the bus eight hours into the desert, following the path of the Israelites out of Egypt. Once over the Suez Canal (or under, as we traveled through a tunnel underneath) we were in Asia! Egypt technically controls the Sinai after Israel withdrew in 1979, but they are not allowed to build up their military there. As a result, Egypt has a hard time controlling Bedouin aggression in the region. Apparently one of these areas of unrest is the fastest route to Mount Sinai, so our tour bus company thus took us the long way around. We went almost to Jordan, then back to the center of the peninsula to visit St. Catharine’s Monastery and Mt. Sinai.

St. Catharine’s was a very neat experience. Two famous (albeit alleged) parts of the story of Moses reside at St. Catharine’s: the well, which Moses first drew from, and where he met his wife, and the burning bush from which God spoke to Moses. Like most biblical sites, nothing is 100% sure. In the case of the bush, there are a few things to consider. When Moses sees God in the bush, he was out shepherding his flock, which means at some point he would have come to the well to drink and “water the flock,” and thus, would have been near the well. According to our guide Samer, many attempts have been made to plant parts of the bush in other parts of the Sinai, but to no avail. I don’t know, but it seems that in some way the bush is special to that area.

The other notable thing about St. Catharine’s was their collection of ancient manuscripts and icons. They are the last remaining icons, the only ones which escaped the Roman icon burning spree. The old icons were beautiful and powerful, but what interested me were the old books. Perhaps the most amazing was one of the first copies of the Gospel of Jesus. So awesome to see actual evidence from that time period, further bolstering the belief that Jesus did actually exist. There were countless other books which exceeded my expectations: Old copies of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, for instance, and the book of Exodus, written in Latin. As Samer would say “simply amazing”.

We then had a packed lunch picnic style at a spot where the rock face looks like a calf… maybe the golden calf? All of the other guys and I had our lunch at the base of the calf. We then went back to St. Catharine’s to begin our long trek to the summit of Mt. Sinai. The climb to the top was intense. It took the frontrunners of the group about an hour and forty minutes to get to the top. Our legs were aching, and we were very tired, but gazing out upon the Sinai wilderness, the physical pain was worth it. It was stunning. And it really put the Israelites’ journey during Exodus into perspective. Looking at the mountains and landscape that they traveled through, you understand how the Israelites, who were not experienced nomads but slaves, needed God to survive. It was an amazing experience.

-David Everett

 

“Over our Heads, Your Flag is Waving in the Air”

January 21, 2012

Luxor, Egypt

We have had an amazing time in Egypt, getting to know the people and listening to their stories. Today we got to know a lot about our tour guide, Samer (Sam). He is a man of humor and carries a sense of calmness with him at all times.  Upon our arrival to Egypt we met Samer and each girl received a beautiful rose. This wonderful bit of kindness was only a glimpse of how he would continue to care for us.

One night at dinner we were able to get insight to his life not only as an Egyptian in this momentous time period but also as a Coptic Christian (one of the largest Christian churches in Egypt) in an Islamic dominated country. We asked him if he was nervous or concerned about the parliament being 70% Muslim brotherhood and 20% considering converting to the Muslim brotherhood (if this situation were to occur, this would be the biggest majority in parliament since Hitler came into power in Germany according to Bishop Thomas).

Samer then responded in a very calm voice, “No, God still exists” and we were left “carrying the shock” (a phrase Samer often used to explain something fascinating or shocking). It was amazing how he responded with a simple phrase, but it felt so profound, “God still exists.”  He continued to tell us about what the Coptic churches were doing during this time.  After a church was bombed many Christian churches fasted together for three days.  Samer told us that through these actions (and the churches actions) he felt “something good is going to happen.” Again, we were stunned.  To have such confidence and strength at a time where things are seemingly falling apart was so greatly encouraging.

January 28, 2012

Petra, Jordan

A week has gone by since our enlightening  conversation with Samer, and now that we have moved on to Jordan, we think back to our time we spent with Samer in Egypt.  Three days ago we not only said goodbye to Egypt but also to Sam. We had a small farewell party for Samer and our group wrote a song for Samer.

Over our heads , your flag is waving in the air (2x)

There must be Samer somewhere

Oh, when we’re at the pyramids,

We hear “Lotus” in the air

Oh, when we’re at the temple

We hear “Lotus” in the air

Oh, when we’re in Alexandria

We hear “Lotus” in the air

There must be Samer somewhere

Oh, When we’re lost in Egypt

We know Sam will be there

Oh, when we’re tired and hungry

WE know Sam will be there

And, when we have a tour guide

We know no one can compare

We will really miss Samer

Over our heads, your flag is waving in the air (2x)

We will really miss Samer

We also were left behind with quotes that Sam often said throughout our tour and time spent with him that we would like to share with you all – that we will never forget!

Carry your shock – shocking or fascinating

Lotus – our group name he would holler with his Egyptian flag waving to round us up

Hip-Hip Hooray – at Janelle’s birthday party, Sam had us scream that!

Shall we go to the coach now (Let’s go to the bus)

-Taylor Gray Harrison and Rebekah Maldonado-Nofziger (with small notes made by Kat Pence)

I think I can speak for most of the group when I say this past week has been a whirl-wind of once in a lifetime experiences, delicious foods, and the start of some great friendships.

Since arriving in Egypt, my time here has been what I had hoped it would be and more. I have seen wonders of the world, eaten fresh fish while overlooking the Mediterranean, and have encountered some beautiful people both inside our group and outside it. When I reflect over this week I cannot help but feel blessed by this amazing opportunity to learn and grow in a culture very different from my own.

A highlight that I wish to share with you all, stems from a fear of mine, and is placed in a gorgeous Coptic Church retreat center called Anafora. Anafora was founded by Bishop Thomas, a famous outspoken bishop of Upper Egypt, whom we had the opportunity to talk with about his theories on the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian conflict and why they clash. A fear of mine going into this trip was that I would not be ready or prepared to encounter the hurt of the people or the land. However, Bishop Thomas shared that we all have the responsibility to love everyone. He said that “love can change the world.” The kind of love that is from God and is never-ending. After hearing from the bishop, it hit me that love needs to be my focus and from the love comes healing and peace. To me, Bishop Thomas’s words were a simple, yet beautiful preparation; not only for the rest of cross-cultural but for the rest of my life.

Another highlight has been experiencing the beauty of symbolism found everywhere in Egypt. Symbolism that ranges from hieroglyphics in the pyramids to pillars in the Coptic churches. Everything has a meaning and it’s always so interesting to learn about it. I’m thankful for our tour guides and awesome leaders who show us the meaning of basically everything we encounter.

To end, I want to share an example of this symbolism that has touched me personally. All throughout Anafora there are beautiful rugs of many colors, all made from recycled scraps. When Sarah, a former IVEPer (Mennonite Central Committee volunteer) and friend to the EMU community, told us about them, she said they are to symbolize all God’s people coming together. All of us different, but together forming something beautiful. To me, this is what cross-cultural is all about, meeting different people, learning from and loving them, all the while forming something beautiful.

– Hannah Tissue

 

Ahlan wa Sahlan from Egypt! Our group arrived in Cairo a week ago and is still settling into the fact that this much anticipated adventure in the Middle East has actually begun!

My first glimpse of Egypt centered in on the night life in Cairo: veiled women walking the sidewalks, groups of men drinking tea and smoking hookah in dimly lit coffee shops, children scampering between street vendors selling sunglasses, scarves, oranges, or roasted sweet corn. Through the dusty bus windows, I also witnessed the roads crowded with cars, trucks, buses, motorcycles, and pedestrians; each navigator having a specific destination in mind yet no one knowing exactly how to achieve the desired end through the chaos of everyone trying to find their own way.

Chaos. Not only does this word apply to physical navigation in Egypt but to the “spiritual navigation” in this place as well. Egypt is spiritually alive. Both the historical and modern perspectives of Egypt point to a culture that is focused on the spiritual realm. During our time here we’ve seen this all around us: in the symbolism of rituals performed after the death of ancient pharaohs (whose tombs we’ve explored), in the man meditating inside one of the pyramids of Giza, in the miracle stories of faith that moved mountains here in Egypt, in the devotion of Muslims who obey the call to prayer that is broadcast five times a day, in the reverence of the 7 PM to 12AM Coptic church service celebrating Jesus’ baptism, in the evening prayers and morning mass at our retreat center…

All of these practices and faith backgrounds here are a sort of Cairo-like street scene with each person or group trying to navigate the culture through the lens of their own spirituality, despite opposition from people of other faith backgrounds.  In many places here, this “street scene” has seemed pretty dark. However, glimmers of light do appear in the midst of this darkness in the form of the work of monks at the Bishoy Monastery or the ministry of the Anafora retreat center and Bishop Thomas.

And so, as the drama of the street scene unfolds and the vastness of the spiritual darkness can seem overwhelming here, there is a hope in me that stems from my knowledge that Jesus is here too, walking alongside each navigator trying to find his or her way through the chaos.  The same truth can be said for our group members as we navigate this new place with open eyes, minds and hearts. And may the same be said for all of you at home as well.

Salaam.

-Chaska Yoder