November 3, 2002

Olive oil offerings at the Latin Church.

We worshiped this morning at the Latin Church of Visitation, Marthame taking part in the liturgy with Fr. Aktham and Deacon Firas. Today in particular, thanks was given for the oil of this year's harvest. Obviously for the church, oil has particular significance - symbolic of healing, used in baptism, anointing, as well as in simple things like candles - but for the people here, it is both an economic lifeline and a major food staple. Unfortunately, though this year's crop is better than last year's, the price of oil has plummeted. It's a buyer's market.

Pastoring is a 24/7 endeavor here.

Marthame visited with Fr. Aktham after Mass, as they began working together on a computer training project proposal. As they sat and worked, Fr. Aktham received a phone call. The son and wife of the man who was shot last week were visiting him in the hospital in Haifa (after receiving all of the necessary travel permissions and having to argue their way into Israel anyway) and had now returned to the Jalame to re-enter the West Bank and go home. Now they were being denied entry to the West Bank by the Israeli soldiers. Abuna called the District Coordinating Officer on one phone while he spoke to the family on the other. Within minutes, they were through.

In the evening, we had the chance to visit with a Palestinian-American friend we had only gotten to know by the internet - we have more and more such friends these days. She lives in California, but is spending a month volunteering in the village of Taybeh near Ramallah. It was good to connect and to be strengthened in our ministries together. We arrived home to find that a story we wrote for the Yale Alumni Magazine has been published. Old friends have begun contacting us to reconnect - a nice side benefit.