Home again, home again

It is good to be home! It was very hard to leave Bethlehem and all the new friends I made. Some were part of our group of United Methodists from across the US and the world--Oregon-Idaho, New York, Alabama, Indiana, California, Pennsylvania, Kenya, Philippines, South Africa, Germany and Norway (not an exhaustive list). Other friends included the guys who worked at our hotel, feeding and taking care of us, the people of various Christian churches, and the families who opened their homes to us.

It was hard to leave, but it is good to be home. It is good to have slept some and hopefully to be on the road to normalizing my sleep patterns--I hope I won't continue to wake up at 3 a.m.! I am grateful to my husband and my mother for holding down the fort while I was gone (sick kids and all) and grateful to the church staff who filled in for me in a variety of ways. I was very fortunate to be able to leave and not worry about things here.

I have to say that it has been hard to know what to tell folks about my trip. You may have noticed that I sent a couple of blog entries at the beginning of my trip, then didn't send anything else. That was partly because the more I saw, the less I knew how to talk about it. I will continue to pray and seek the words to tell the story of that beautiful land, whose people have suffered so much violence.

In closing, I will recommend a book to you: Blood Brothers, by Elias Chacour. Chacour is an archbishop in the Melkite (Greek Catholic) Church, a Palestinian who remembers how his community lost their village in 1948. He is a man of great faith, committed to peace and to the gospel of Jesus Christ. He is especially committed to the Beatitudes and to the radical implications for people who take them seriously. You will hear me talk about Archbishop Chacour, but his book is an easy read.

For now, pray with me for the peace of Jerusalem and all the people of Israel and Palestine.