April 19, 2002

Another day at the ranch. Today we made calls, wrote, and worked on our summer plans. We checked in with friends in Bethlehem, who are living very close to the Church of the Nativity. They can't get any sleep because Israeli forces have begun blasting noise (screeching, screaming) at the Church, where a couple hundred people remain holed up. A kind of psychological warfare that is taking its toll on our friends and their two kids.

In Birzeit, the Latin Patriarchate School re-opened two days ago. We touched base with Abuna Iyad, who was anxious for news from Zababdeh - not only do they have many students at Birzeit University who are from Zababdeh, but he and Abuna Aktham are dear friends. It so happens that Abuna Aktham had just called, using his cellphone up at the Arab-American University to touch base with us. It was good to hear his voice and his persistent sense of humor.

In the afternoon, we received a call from a friend, a Korean Presbyterian missionary (and elder at St. Andrew's Church of Scotland in Jerusalem) who runs a kindergarten in Bethlehem. He and his wife and two kids have been there for ten years - something we greatly respect, seeing how hard this place can be to live in. They fled just before the most recent incursion, and, like us, have been going from place to place waiting to go back home. There's a restlessness that accompanies moving around so frequently and relying on the good graces of friends. They've got the additional burden of two children having to go through this, but better that than the continued hardships of Bethlehem. Their kindergarten has experienced minor damage - shattered windows from the war noises, a knocked-down front gate, cars outside crushed under the wheels of tanks. They've come to the Galilee for a few days both to get away and to get to know some of our connections - particularly the Presbyterian ones - here.

We’re missing the amazing nature that surrounds Zababdeh.

This place can be so bizarrely insular - Bethlehem is one universe, Jerusalem another, and the Galilee yet another (Zababdeh falls through the cracks again). We'd hoped to rent a car, but discovered that we can't do so because our credit card has expired, and the new one is stuck somewhere between Lubbock and Zababdeh. We're trying to arrange an emergency replacement (and getting a courier to deliver to an address with no street or apartment number). We'll see. It would beat the fearful uncertainty of busses (which we've avoided) and the extravagance of taxis (which have become our chariots).