April 19, 2001

Marthame and Abuna To’mie.

After work today, we had a wonderful lunch with the Orthodox priest Abuna To'mie and his family. His wife's father was the last Melkite (Greek Catholic) priest, who passed away in 1985, and she directed the government girls' school for thirty years. Before Oslo, the school was under Israeli control. Those must be the bizarre moments of Occupation, where one country is directing the schools - even down to the uniforms - of another people's schools. During that time, it was forbidden even to use the word Palestine, and all correspondence from the school had to be written in Hebrew. Her husband was a teacher in Aqaba (a nearby village) for many years. At age fifty, he became the priest of St. George's Orthodox Church of Zababdeh after a two-year apprenticeship under the Greek priest in Nablus. We talked a great deal about possibilities for our work next year. His greatest desire for us is to communication to churches in the West are aware of the presence of Orthodox Christians in Palestine.

Thus began our "weekend" (split between Friday and Sunday), as we watched a movie and played cards with some of the other ex-pats here in Zababdeh.