February 15, 2003

Members of the Latin School’s English Club.

Today was the first day of classes after the break for the 'Eid. Elizabeth worked with the English Club a bit, gathering the kids to take photos for the (hopefully) upcoming edition of the newspaper. We put out one issue last Winter, but were unable to send it out because of the lack of a Palestinian postal service and the unfamiliar Israeli postal regulations. We're trying to encourage the kids to do this one, but student initiative is difficult to cultivate when it runs counter to the top-down mechanics of almost everything here. If we stayed five more years, perhaps we could help build a lasting student-run school newspaper program. And possibly a number of other things too. In spite of this, we still feel called back to the States for ministry and life there.

Meanwhile, tanks resumed their positions on the two roads going from Zababdeh towards the University and towards Raba. Although traffic was progressing through these new checkpoints slowly, we hope this isn't a specter of things to come.

Israeli military vehicles on the road to the Arab American University just outside of town. The tank gunner is trained on the taxi in front of him.

In the evening, we met with Fr. Aktham to talk about our contingency plans. With the world situation such as it is, there's a lot of “if”ing going on. Our conversation swirled around these “if”s. Deacon Homam suggested we move on from “if” towards “g”.