March 16, 2003

Imposition of ashes at the Latin Church.

Today is the first day of Lent in Zababdeh, and the church has been appropriately draped in purple. After the service, Fr. Aktham imposed ashes for those who missed them on Wednesday.

The Latin Church is decorated for Lent.

After church, we went to visit with Fr. Firas at the Melkite Convent. The electricity has been installed, as have the wrought iron frontings on the windows. He is proud of the progress, and rightly so.

Fr. Firas speaks with one of the workers at the Melkite Church as it’s being renovated.

In the afternoon, we got some new international residents in Zababdeh. The World Council of Churches Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel has sent their team of three to the region as of today. After getting them settled in their apartment (and drinking the requisite coffee), Marthame took them around with two purposes: to get oriented to town (taxis, groceries, internet, etc.) and to have an initial meeting with various folks in town, particularly the clergy with whom they'll be working most closely. It will be nice to have a larger international presence in the area.

While driving up to the University, Marthame got a phone call from a friend who's a journalist in Jerusalem. An International Solidarity Movement volunteer had been killed, crushed by an Israeli bulldozer as she stood in front of a house in a Gaza refugee camp. The journalist was calling to see if we happened to know her - we didn't, but when Marthame repeated her name, Rachel Corrie, one of the group gasped. "I know her. I was standing with her in front of a bulldozer a couple of weeks ago." The International Soldarity folks have been down in Rafah refugee camp mostly trying to draw attention to the home demolitions that have become routine as the Israeli bulldozers widens the "Security Zone" by the Egyptian border. Hundreds of homes have been razed. The man who knew her, an American filmmaker who simply accompanied the team because he likes driving around and discovering more of the area, said that the bulldozers never stop for the internationals. "We had to jump out of the way."

How sad this news is to us. And how close to home it hits.