November 9, 2002 — Mudeif Productions

*The faithful gather for worship in Burqin’s Orthodox church.*

As Elizabeth headed off to school, Marthame went with Fr. Thomas to the church in Burqin. Fr. Thomas, who now has responsibility for three parishes, prays in Burqin on Saturdays. On Fridays he goes to Tubas, and on Sundays it's Zababdeh. Orthodox sacramental theology prevents anyone from celebrating mass more than once in a day, so he cannot serve all of them on the same day. Although the church in Burqin is called the fourth oldest Christian holy site in the world (from the chronology of Jesus' life and ministry) in honor of his healing of the Ten Lepers (Luke 17), the church is named in honor of St. George. Perhaps naming it after lepers isn't desirable.

On the way back to Zababdeh, we stopped by a house which had been blown to smithereens during an Israeli operation. Concrete cinder blocks littered the neighborhood - this in retaliation for someone in the family's political activity. News of an assassination in Jenin of a senior Islamic Jihad leader was the buzz of the village. That and the fact that Jenin was "open" in the afternoon - via some of the roads that Marthame has taken in recent weeks to get there.

Fr. Thomas also came by in the evening with the khouriyye (priestess), the name affectionately given to wives of Orthodox priests. They wanted to watch the video we took with them when Marthame went with them to harvest their olives. They also dropped off a large bottle of fresh oil and two containers of olives. This is our favorite part of the year!

We're also realizing that, no matter how much Arabic we've learned, we still have a long way to go. Marthame went into town looking to buy zbale, what we thought was the word for "garbage can." Hutha fil-zbale (put it in the zbale), people will say. But when he asked around town, all he got were strange looks. No one could quite figure out why he wanted so desperately to buy garbage! But now we have a new vocabulary word: baramil.