Week 1

Dear friends, family, followers:

This weekend was our first chance to rest since arriving in the land! We have been busy nearly every moment since our arrival. Here is what our week has looked like:

Sunday evening we flew out of LAX to Istanbul.

At LAX before our flight

It was a long (13ish hour) flight and by the time we landed we had missed our connecting flight to Tel Aviv. Instead of flying out at 6pm Monday local time, our flight would be leaving at 1am Tuesday. 

Taylor exercising in the Istanbul airport

While waiting to board, we had our first opportunity to observe the practices and behaviors of Hasidic Jews, and met an Israeli named Mali who is planning to move to Florida and start a cosmetics business. She gave us the names of the best clubs to go to in Tel Aviv, if anyone is curious about the state of clubbing in that city.

We landed at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv about 3am Tuesday and had no problem getting through passport control, but discovered Julie and Taylor's checked luggage hadn't made it onto our flight. We decided to wait until it arrived-- what's another few hours after all the time we had been traveling? We waited until 9am in the baggage claim area and met a young Argentinian man named Eduardo, who studies theology and will be living in a kibbutz for the next several months to learn Hebrew.

Our luggage finally came-- outside Ben Gurion airport

We grabbed a taxi to head to Jerusalem, going straight to the Musalaha offices. We were exhausted but met the office staff and got our first assignments. The three of us women will be gathering information and preparing Powerpoints until Wednesday. Emily is researching the foreign policy of U.S. Presidents relating to Israel/Palestine affairs, Julie is doing the role of the United Nations, and Sophia is studying Palestinian political parties. Taylor was assigned to miscellaneous office work that included moving boxes and licking well over 200 stamps (true story). We grabbed lunch at a local spot (we don’t know the name... but the shawarma is great) and went back to Musalaha to eat with the staff.

After our first introduction to Musalaha, we headed to Beit Sahour where we are living with our host families. Julie and Sophia are staying with George and Georgette Hilal, and Emily and Taylor are staying with Abeer and Ala Awwad and their four sons. We have all felt instantly welcomed into our families; Julie and Sophia are often introduced to people as George and Georgette's daughters. 

Outside George and Georgette's home

On Wednesday, we took the #21 bus from Bethlehem to Jerusalem with our co-worker from New Zealand, Jema, who is in charge of the youth ministry. At the checkpoint on the way, neither Julie nor Taylor had their passports stamped at Ben Gurion (so they can travel to other Middle Eastern countries), and while Julie was allowed through without a hiccup, Taylor ended up getting pulled aside by an IDF soldier and questioned for several minutes. Salim and Jema later informed us that almost all dark-skinned males between the ages of 18 and 30 get stopped and questioned.  

After arriving at Musalaha, we had a staff devotional and meeting and then got right into our tasks. Emily, Julie and Sophia began reading and writing for their assignments, and Taylor continued working on his odd jobs around the office.  We grabbed lunch again from the same place as Tuesday, trying different foods, and managing to amuse the worker there for the second day in a row by being completely foreign and paying him with agorot instead of shekels.

Because of the issue at the checkpoint, Salim (the director of Musalaha) thought it would be best for Julie and Taylor to go back to the airport in Tel Aviv and see if they could get a piece of paper with the visa stamp. Ronit, who is in charge of the young adult ministry at Musalaha, made the trip with them. Ronit is a Messianic Jew from the United States who made aliyah about six years ago. She speaks Hebrew well and made the process much smoother for Julie and Taylor! At Ben Gurion, the airport staff would only stamp a passport, not a separate paper. Eventually, Taylor decided to get his stamped. Julie and Taylor then had the opportunity to explore Tel Aviv with Ronit, trying a fresh juice stand, eating Thai food (Ronit's favorite), walking along the beach, and eating dessert at Max Brenner, an Israeli chocolate shop. They also got a bit lost on their way back to Beit Sahour, which has become an expected occasion for us... 

Jema by the separation wall

Emily and Sophia headed back to Bethlehem with Jema and soon parted ways. Emily had the honor of attending a large family dinner of homemade bread and the traditional condiments--hummus, olive oil, jimba, tomato/squash mix, apricot and strawberry jam--and chicken liver! Then she got to witness a staged reproduction of a traditional Palestinian wedding! Lots of chanting! 

On Thursday we headed to work and made it through the checkpoint without a problem. Julie and Sophia had a lot of fun working with Jema, Emily got down to business with her research, and Taylor began creating graphs/charts for surveys taken by students.  We ate lunch in the lecture room with the staff and are enjoying getting to know everyone there. After work, we took the #24 bus which took us to the pedestrian checkpoint in Bethlehem. This led us right into a market where taxi drivers tried to pressure us into paying them for a tour of the separation wall.

Instead of paying a tour guide, we met up with Jema's friend Elias, a Palestinian Christian. He led us around the wall, since, as Jema says, every Palestinian is a tour guide. It was an interesting experience walking around the barrier, with a lot of mixed emotions. We saw a spot on the wall where Palestinians and internationals gather to watch football games at night-- we were invited to go but due to jet lag ended up going to sleep before the game even started.

Emily and Taylor talking with Elias

Elias had ordered us a taxi to take us to a location where George would pick us up and take us all home, but we ended up being lost in a market place. It turned out to be fun when a shopkeeper offered to help us, calling George to get us and teaching us to say "Wen beit George Hilal?", "Where is the house of George Hilal?" The culture here is so hospitable and will do anything to help out.

On Friday at Musalaha, we were treated to a lecture on reconciliation from Salim. We learned some of the many layers and obstacles to reconciliation for Israelis and Palestinians and also a description of the process of reconciliation, centered around the principle of forgiveness as demonstrated in the cross. Salim answered a lot of our questions, ranging from social psychology to dispensationalism. There is so much to learn and we are just beginning!

We got off work early on Friday and headed back to our homes. Julie and Sophia got to go to a celebration with their host family. Palestinians celebrate when a baby's first teeth begin to show, which of course means family and food--lots of food. They quickly made friends with the children at the party who spoke English, playing soccer with them, and sampling everything Georgette brought them to eat. After a 4-hour-long nap, Taylor and Emily were convinced by Jema to join her and her friends, many of whom are internationals as well, at a restaurant in Beit Jala called Limoncello to watch Germany beat Greece in the European cup.

On Saturday Taylor and Emily had the privilege of visiting the Al Basma (Smile) Center for disabled adults, which facilitates community and work such as making fuel blocks and paper out of recycled materials, weaving donated sheets into beautiful rugs, and carving ornaments out of olive wood. Adbullah, their “uncle,” founded the organization in 1988. Later they got some quality time with their host brothers, put some of Taylor’s plentiful resistance bands to use, and finally headed out to The Tent, a neat local restaurant which was an excellent viewing place for the Spain-France game (Vamos Spain!) and then experienced a local club, Cheers!

Julie and Sophia had lunch with many members of their new family, and later went to a children’s festival in Bethlehem next to the Nativity Church with Ibrahim, their “brother” (who lives upstairs with his wife Shareen, an employee of Musalaha) and his two children. Then they went to a barbeque at Abdullah’s house, meeting more members of the family and enjoying the cool evening.

One of Ibrahim and Shareen's children, Marcel

Overall, we are loving our experience so far! As we settle into a routine, we hope to give you more updates. The land is beautiful, our host families have welcomed us as relatives, and our work is interesting and informative. Thank you for keeping up with the team!

Jokes and Serious Questions

Four guys are standing on a street corner. . .
an American, a Russian, a Chinese man, and an Israeli. . . .
A reporter comes up to the group and says to them:
“Excuse me. . . . What’s your opinion on the meat shortage?”
The American says: What’s a shortage?
The Russian says: What’s meat?
The Chinese man says: What’s an opinion?
The Israeli says: What’s “Excuse me”?

-Mike Lee, Two Thousand Years

One of the ways the four of us prepared for Israel is by extensive
reading. Start-up Nation by Dan Senor and Saul Singer is a book about Israel’s
economic climate, one of the books I (Sophia) have been reading. The above joke is entree
into Senor’s and Singer’s first chapter. The chapter explains the punchline of the
joke (and proves its accuracy) by describing Israel’s culture through a series of
stories about Israeli entrepreneurs and focusing on a commonality that contributes
to their business success: persistence. One of the fastest growing economies in
the world, Israel has more companies listed on the NASDAQ than any other non-
U.S. country. The book goes on to describe Israel’s anti-hierarchical culture, the
translation of military experience into good leadership, and the information flow
necessary for wide-spread ingenuity. It is education by doing, not only by reading.

Israeli unfamiliarity with “excuse me” shows a deviation from formality
and “politeness”. Ideas are exchanged frankly and directly in the military, in
schools and in business with the understanding that the niceties add little (or
anything) to the carrying-out of ideas and distribution of information, which can
be done faster or more efficiently if people aren’t worried about offending anyone
and if people aren’t taking offense. In the free and competitive society no one
has the right not to be offended. Their exchange of ideas is freed from the often
artificial limitations of offense and formalities.

I have been told that I will leave Israel with more questions than I arrive with. I
can only imagine what that might look like especially because Start-up Nation
has already led me to ask many questions. Does American Christianity foster
a debate and idea culture? Do Christian communities fear argument? Has
Christianity in the West foregone a debate culture, where ideas reign? To answer
these questions it might be helpful for me to know the history of debate and ideas
within Christendom. Perhaps I must look to Paul’s letter to the Galations and
the argument between them. How much does civility in argument and debate influence our acceptance, consideration or rejection of ideas? Was Jesus uncivil when he overturned the tables? Was Jesus uncivil when he used sarcasm with the Sadducees or when he indicted the Pharisees as sons of
the devil? Certainly the idea of civility has many degrees and contexts. Put simply,
should the substance of ideas be given greater weight than the style of their
presentation. I realize that substance and style are both important, but excessive
emphasis on style can sometimes conceal a lack of substance.