Where it's Christmas every day...

I have started going through all of my "Saved as Draft" posts that I wasn't able to post while I was away and decided to start at the beginning...  the following is a post from July 23rd, shortly after we arrived (I edited it today to add in some extra reflections :)

Well, we are in Bethlehem and it's a strange mix of sad and happy...

We are staying at the "Christmas Church" (a Lutheran church here in Bethlehem) and it's truly amazing.  The food is fantastic (I eat about six pitas every day), it's HOT, and the call to prayer rings out all over the city 5 times a day.  It's hot and it's dry, but the breeze is the most amazing thing.  During the day it is light, but beautiful (especially when it catches in your skirt).  The evening it whips around everything and cools the whole place down.  My favourite thing by far is sitting on the balcony at night as the wind whips through and throws the canvas "roof" up in the air and stirs the trees all around.  There is so much I want to write, I hardly know where to start and there are things I cannot even share... (this blog post is going to be a little disjointed, FYI)

The following picture is part of the main balcony at Dar-Annadwa (the Guesthouse/community centre where we are staying here at the Christmas Church):

The first day we were here someone said to us, "We just want to live life - abundant life."  I thought that that was such a beautiful statement.  Isn't that what we all want?   And the Messiah speaks "I have come that you might have life and have it in abundance."  Beautiful.  I love that this movement is about that.  Loving Jesus and loving life with Him.

The Lutheran church here has a consortium of several different projects - a college, a health and wellness centre, the guesthouse and community centre where we are staying, etc.  This consortium is called Diyar.  Diyar's mandate is "from the womb to the tomb" and they focus on this idea that people are meant to live life in abundance - they are teaching people how to lead, training people in the creative arts, educating students in viable careers, aiding people in living healthy lives, etc.

One way they do this is in fighting to keep the Palestinian culture alive.  The premise is that one day this wall will fall, but when it does, what will be left of the Palestinian heritage and culture?

And so, they sing, they dance, they play sports, they do art, they learn.

This strikes me as so much deeper than fighting against a wall or the occupation....a much bigger resistance.  It's the quiet resistance that "We are people too.  We matter.  Our history matters.  Our heritage matters.  Our LIFE is worth living and worth living WELL."

I realized that this is what matters to me.  Let politicians fight over land and theologians argue over whose promise this really is.  Let wars rage and let the UN fight over whether or not Palestine deserves to be its own state.  But people will forever be the heart of this issue for me.  Because people matter.  No matter what their ethnic background, no matter what their religion.  They matter.

They matter just as much.

Let's never lose sight of that.