May 1, 2003

Hot drinks are a necessary part of any social visit in Palestinian culture.

We continued our round of visiting today, realizing that we're never going to take care of all the people would should be seeing. We've touched base with locals, who say that during the feasts, they knock off ten visits a day. We average about three. A lot of people came to visit us, though, which was wonderful. Christian friends from Zababdeh and also from Jenin dropped by in a kind of rotating visitation.

Also stopping by was a friend of a friend who has been spending the last few months with the International Solidarity Movement in and around the West Bank. A self-described born-again Christian and a former Air Force pilot, this young man had terrifying stories. Once, when escorting children home from school, an Israeli APC let off machine gun bursts around his head; he said his hearing is still not back to normal. He's headed towards Rafah in the Gaza strip, where now two ISM volunteers have been killed. American Rachel Corrie was run over by a bulldozer, Brit Tom Hurndall was shot in the head by a sniper while trying to help a Palestinian woman and her children flee Israeli gunfire.

Needless to say, our friend is anxious. We spent some time in prayer for his safety and for work such as his to be made irrelevant. May such irrelevance come soon.