Thursday and Friday, April 3 & 4

Friday, April 4, 2008
Hi folks. I spent so much time figuring out my picture situation yesterday, I never got around to writing. So here's a quick recap of highlights from the past 24 hours.

Evan the Terror Suspect (Thursday, April 3)
Yesterday our group went to the Temple Mount to see the Dome of the Rock, the al-Aqsa Mosque, etc. The security there is very tight, as you can imagine. The Western Wall is the holiest site in Judaism, and the Haram al-Sharif is one of the three holiest sites in Islam. They say that the Temple Mount is even more precious than the Prime Minister's life—you can always get a new Prime Minister.

So...of our group, guess which one of us was refused entry for being suspected of potential terroristic activity? Yep. You guessed it. The reason was this: my new little computer is so small and light that I've been able to take it anywhere, which has been great for storing my photos, writing updates on the fly, logging in anytime we have access to a hotspot, etc. So when I was going through security and they began digging through my bag, they found the laptop—but they didn't believe it was a real computer! They thought it was some kind of devious device, perhaps a plastic explosive, disguised as a laptop. So I was denied entry.



No matter. While the rest of the group toured the Temple Mount, I got close up to the Western Wall and took some colorful pictures, including a few of a guy from Nigeria on a pilgrimage who was wearing bright green “pajamas” with pictures of Jesus and the Bible all over them. (You'll see these when I upload pix.) Beth W. says she wants to go back to the Dome anyway, since the group got pushed out early so the Muslims could say prayers. So there's still a good chance I'll see it. I'll leave my computer home next time.


The Martin Luther Schule (School)
Thursday afternoon we toured the Martin Luther School right next door to the Church of the Redeemer. Dr. Charlie Haddad, school superintendant was our host. The school has several sites throughout the region and takes students of both Christian and Muslim backgrounds, empowering them with education. The MLS hopes to have Jewish students some day too, but this cultural climate isn't quite ready yet, it seems, for that degree of ecumenism. But someday...

The Ballcap of the Holy Sepulchre (Friday, April 4 )
Friday was a great day for pilgrimage experiences. In the morning we went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; in the afternoon we went to the Garden of Gethsemane. Now, a lot of the religious sites in this city have a pretty shaky pedigree as far as authenticity goes. I mean, it's very hard to verify that “this spot is the precise location where Mary was met by the Angel Gabriel,” or “this brick is the exact one that Peter's tears fell upon when he wept bitterly after denying Jesus.” But the very best archaeologists and historians assert that, of all the religious sites, the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is very probably the actual location where Jesus was crucified.

The church itself is an amalgam of Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Armenian, Russian Orthodox, Coptic, etc. A veritable mutt of Christian architecture and tradition. But it's an intriguing place, and quite conducive to moments of sincere spiritual reverence. We got there early enough that the line to go into the “tomb” (the main attraction as it were) was very short, so we went for it.

There are beefy guards and one huge, linebacker-sized Greek Orthodox monk who keep pilgrims from spending too much time in the inner chamber of the tomb (which, suffice it to say, puts a little pressure on you to “hurry up and have your once-in-a-lifetime spiritual experience already!”). As I was going in, the Rasputin-like monk admonished me to remove my white “Maisons sur Mer” baseball hat. “Boy,” I'm thinking, “you've got to COVER your head at the Wailing Wall, you've got to UNCOVER your head here—why can't the religions come to a consensus as to whether or not God wants to see the tops of our heads when we're in His house?”


So I removed my hat, went into the tomb, had my 20 second allotment of wonder, and then was promptly summoned out. Ten minutes later, Rasputin walks up to me holding my white ballcap. “Yours?” I was delighted that he remembered me and even sought me out. He could have just chucked it in Lost & Found (or in the garbage). So I was quite grateful. And then I realized: My hat was inside Jesus' tomb longer than any pilgrim is permitted to stay in there. Is my hat a holy relic now?


We Came to Do More than Eat and Sight-See
Did I mention that the print room in the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer is really coming along? Well it is! We've got some very talented and hard-working people along who are using all their many complementary talents to make it happen. The pictures I will upload will prove it.

Haggling!!
They say you can't buy anything in the Middle East without haggling. I just don't have the haggling gene, so I've simply avoided buying anything. But today, as we were walking away from where we ate lunch, a vendor came up to me and said, “Sir, I want to show you what *I* make. Please. Let me show you.” For whatever reason, I began to think I was meant to see what this craftsman had to show me. He was a jewelry maker. My wife likes—no, loves—jewelry. So I began to look at his wares. Well, he had incredibly beautiful mother-of-pearl/abalone pieces set in silver jewelry that I KNEW Rhonda would LOVE. So I picked out the best looking bracelet, then found a matching necklace and felt quite pleased that I had nailed the perfect gift to bring home. “How much?” I asked naively.

“For you? I give special deal. You want to pay in cash or charge?”

“Cash.” (Thinking that would get me the best deal.)

“Dollars or shekels?” I didn't care. I had both. I assumed he might prefer dollars.

“Okay.” So he picked up his calculator, played a nimble arpeggio on the keys, then smiled and said, “Your special price, my friend.” The display read: 625.

I said, “Is that 62 dollars, fifty cents? Or six dollars, twenty-five cents?”

“No sir. Six-hundred twenty-five dollars.” I gasped. I told him I'm not a rich man; that I had about 70 dollars in my wallet and maybe 110 shekels.

“Okay then. For you, since you are my friend, I give to you for 550 dollars.”

So Rhonda, if and when you are reading this, please know I was really thinking of you and hoping to score THEE gift that would make you happy. But I figured you wouldn't necessarily want me to squander our mortgage money on something I think I could find in the States for a LOT less. So, um, anyway...it's the thought that counts, right?

God's Fiber Optic Infrastructure
I've got pictures to upload of where we ate lunch today. The venue came on the recommendation of one of the local guys who works at LCR. It's a place tourists would never go, and wow, was it ever good. Kebab sandwiches that could blow your mind. But as we were served and some of the hungrier among us began to dig in, my Crossways International reflexes kicked in and I suggested a blessing. And so I began to pray. But only several words into my prayer, our host/waiter interrupted us to tell us that Friday is Muslim prayer day, and that he had to go away to pray, but would be back after 10 minutes, when prayers were over.

He left, and I continued my prayer. “Lord, we thank You for all of Your provision and grace. And we know that so many people are praying to you right now, that the lines are pretty busy. So we won't take up any more of your bandwidth. Thank you, Amen.”

Yes, it's been an incredibly reverential, spiritually meaningful day—but we're having fun, too. Or should I say AND we're having fun, too? God likes us to have fun, right?

April 3, 2008 – A Story: "The Christian Thing to Do"

Last night, after our gathering on the Mount of Olives, Pastor Holman's wife Marcia drove our group back to the hotel in the van that belongs to the church. Along the way, she had this story to share about the van we were in.

About a block from the Holmans home is a Hospital of the Red Crescent, the Arab version of the Red Cross. It serves as one of the primary maternity hospitals in the region.

One day Mark and Marcia Holman were driving past the hospital in the van and spotted a young Palestinian woman walking away from the hospital, carrying a tiny infant in one arm and pulling a suitcase on wheels with the other.

Marcia commented—not quite seriously but more for ironic effect—“It would be the CHRISTIAN thing to do to offer her a ride.”

Suddenly Mark stopped the van, turned around, and doubled back toward the woman. “What are you doing?” Marcia asked. “We're offering her a ride,” Mark replied.

The Holmans speak very little Arabic; the woman spoke no English. So, trying to make their good intentions clear through smiles and gestures and such, they did their best to communicate that they wanted her to get in the van and let them take her home. She was very cautious and reluctant, with all the protective instincts you'd expect of a new mother.

Finally the woman took stock of her situation and—if you saw the Holmans you'd understand how they are incapable of looking particularly menacing—she decided to get into the van.

They drove away and the woman pointed out every right and left turn. The van wound its way down the steep, uneven roads deep into the valley. and they just kept going—roughly about five miles according to Marcia's estimate.

When they finally arrived at the woman's humble home, they were greeted joyously by the entire extended family. The woman explained to her family what the Holmans had done for her and they were insistently cajoled with invitations to come into the house and join in the celebratory homecoming feast—which Marcia says would hardly qualify as a feast by our standards but was nonetheless the best and most these very poor people could put together. (Marcia's eyes fill with tears here as she continues.)

And since you never refuse hospitality in the Middle East, the Holmans came inside and celebrated among the family of this tiny newborn whose mother had heretofore been in the impossible predicament of having to carry baby and luggage five miles on foot over rugged terrain on steep, winding roads.

We take our conveniences and amenities for granted, don't we? We need to work harder to share and distribute the resources of which we are intended to be responsible stewards more equitably, don't we? As Marcia said, “It would be the Christian thing to do.”

April 2, Midnight

Mordechai Vanunu
I got to meet this guy tonight (right side of the photo; that's Pastor Mark Holman on the left) and talk to him all about his imprisonment and so forth. (See link below for more information about Mordechai Vanunu's life.) It was mind-boggling. If someone hasn't written a screenplay on his story already, I'd like to get dibs on the rights!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordechai_Vanunu

Our conversation occurred on a breezy, cloudless summer-like evening on top of the Mount of Olives in a spot that some church traditions claim is the site of the Ascension since it is (arguably?) the point of highest elevation in Jerusalem. It's also the spot where Emperor Titus is known to have camped with the 10th Roman Legion the night before his troops sacked the city and demolished the Second Temple in 70 AD. The hill also still has trenches dug into the side of it where Jordanian troops hunkered down following the 1948 war. Suffice it to say, this place has history.

Currently, it is the site of the Lutheran World Federation, which does all kinds of benevolent and peace-building work in the region. And we had a group of about 50 or 60 people there from maybe a dozen countries tonight to eat, talk, and play volleyball together. Hard to believe so much violence happened in a place that seemed so idyllic and peace-filled tonight.

April 2, 2008, Church of the Redeemer

It's 3PM, and we just finished lunch at a rooftop restaurant near the Church of the Redeemer with spectacular views of the city all around us. Can't wait to upload pictures.

Presently I'm sitting in a small stone-walled chapel within the church for a moment of quiet reverie before we get to work in a short while with our efforts to renovate the print room in the basement of the church.

I am half a world away, yet feel entirely at home. There is nothing quite like a little down-time for prayer and reflection, in solitude, in a chapel or church sanctuary. It brings me back to relatively early childhood, sitting in the church sanctuary waiting for Daddy to finish up something in his study.


This morning we met with the Bishop for the ELCJHL (yes, it's a mouthful: it stands for Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jordan and the Holy Land). Bishop Munib Younan is a remarkable man—something of an Arab-Christian version of Gandhi, both in terms of his deceptively diminutive stature and his great moral gravitas. The bishop said so many illuminating things that my pen could not keep up.

I won't try to recreate all of my hand-written notes here and now. But let me share just a few reflections. “Peace is not merely the absence of conflict. It is the presence of justice.”

The Bishop remarked that the resolution of the conflict here in the Middle East could be achieved in one day. Furthermore, the vast majority of all parties involved more or less agree on the means and terms of such a peace. But, the Bishop added, until the people eager for peace stand up and speak out and become willing to get involved, there will be talk and more talk and more talk---so that the solution that could be achieved in one day stretches out until the end of time.


Over lunch, Pastor Siler shared more of his perspective from years of living here. I liked this comment: “A Westerner can come here for three weeks, go back home, and write a book. Or come for three months and go home and write a magazine article. Or stay for three years, and then be unable to write at all. It's just that complicated.” He added: “By far the most marginalized and vilified people in this region are peace-seeking Jews, Christians, and Muslims.”

Dave Dynneson of our group was rightfully irked by all the pessimism and said so. “Where's the hope?”

Yet hope does persist. You see it in the perseverance of the indigenous people here. You see it in the continuing efforts of groups like ours to come over here, see it for ourselves, make friends and establish partnerships with the people here. Why even bother if there's no cause for hope? And finally, as Bishop Younan said, “Hope is fundamental to all people who see truth in resurrection. Hope arises where the culture of life is chosen over the culture of death.”

See what I mean about the Bishop being a cool guy?

Okay, I better head down to the print room and get working. Love to you all, -Evan

First Night In Jerusalem, April 2, 2008

When I was in my twenties, I had a lot more energy and stamina than I do now. That's why I'm surprised that I've been up for over 32 hours straight now—not a wink of sleep—and don't feel tired. It may hit me any minute. The adrenaline rush is bound to ebb.

At the moment I'm sitting up in bed, typing. It's 11PM Jerusalem time, 3:00 PM back home in Minnesota. Jim Thomson from Peace Lutheran is sacked out in the (very tiny) twin bed next to me. (He's tall and says he feels “short-sheeted.”) We just got back literally minutes ago from our first walk around town. I may keel over at any second myself, so this dispatch may not be very long or substantive.


The flight seemed to go faster than I expected, and we have a great group to travel with. When we arrived at MSP airport yesterday, our tour leader Pastor Mark Nelson was standing next to a pile of cardboard boxes containing 100 brand new copies of the new ELCA hymnal (the “cranberry” book, now replacing the beloved old green book after decades of noble service). The hymnals had been lovingly donated by our friends at Mount Olivet Lutheran—and they thought we'd be good mules to transport these books to the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in the Old City, where our group will be doing the bulk of our work here.

So I have to be honest and confess a flash of righteous indignation when I first heard we'd be expected to carry more than just our luggage. Those uncharitable, selfish thoughts about my personal comfort quickly melted away when I watched the group adapt to the challenge. Someone had had the idea that the boxes were 25 pounds each, and so two could be taped together creating one parcel that did not exceed the 50 pound limit. The airport scale proved us wrong—each box was precisely 26 pounds! We had ten boxes of books, with ten of us (of our full group of 12) leaving from Minneapolis.


However, one person already had two check-in items to declare, meaning the other nine of us had to carry a full box, plus however many extra books from the leftover box that we could manage. I got one hymnal in my already overstuffed suitcase, and two more in my carry-on. I think Mark put three in his suitcase.

In the end, getting the books into Jerusalem turned out to be kind of a rewarding “bonding” experience—especially considering how much these books are likely to be appreciated by our brothers and sisters struggling to keep our faith alive over here.

For whatever reason, I just couldn't sleep on the plane. Each seat had its own video screen with on-demand programming, so I ended up watching five movies—mostly ones I know Rhonda wouldn't want to watch with me back home. John C. Reilly in “Walk Hard” had the 12-year old boy that still dwells within me laughing like a fiend—even as I could almost hear Rhonda saying, “This is one I don't need to watch with you, sweetie.”

The plane landed at about 5:30 PM—almost exactly 24 hours after we left Minneapolis (not accounting for the time difference). We were met at the airport by Pastor Russ Siler (one of Mark's old friends; they worked in Jerusalem together in the past), and by Marcia Holman, wife of Pastor Mark Holman, who leads the English-speaking congregation at the Church of the Redeemer. We left Minneapolis during a snowstorm (on the last day of March, mind you!) and landed in Tel Aviv to 70 degree temps, lush spring growth, colossal palm trees, and possibly the sweetest-smelling, freshest air I've ever savored. If they could bottle it, I'd buy it.

A short van ride from Tel Aviv and suddenly, here we are, Jerusalem. Our hotel (the Golden Walls) is literally across the street from the ancient parapet-bedecked walls of the Old City. I had a goose-bump moment when I looked up and beheld their enduring magnificence.

We all checked into our rooms and then, minutes later, reconvened in the lobby to eat in the hotel's restaurant. We had a buffet that included fresh and aromatic dolmas (stuffed grape leaves), a fine (basmati? jasmine? jasmati?) rice, and two savory meat dishes—apparently lamb and pork. (Yes, pork.) Alas, this turns out not to be a Jewish owned hotel—hence the decidedly unkosher pork.


Over dinner, Pastor Holman briefed us on his years here and offered some rather profound insights. One that resonated and stuck with me all evening: “There is nothing you can do here that is not political. Where you buy your clothes, where you shop for food, where you buy a new computer, which roads you can or choose to drive on—there is a political implication in every case.” I know this is only the beginning of the thought-provoking moments this trip will provide. Another trenchant comment from Pr. Holman: “I have an identity here as a Christian, and I have an identity here as an American. The two do not always coexist comfortably.” I've had that same gut-feeling for years.


After we ate, about six of us went for a few miles' stroll around the Old City. The walls and their gates are breathtaking at night. We wound our way through narrow cobblestone streets that run though the city like a labyrinth. Fortunately Mark Nelson and Beth Warpmaeker were with us and know this place the way I know lower Manhattan.

Seeing very young-looking Israeli men—and women—wearing army uniforms and loaded to the nines with lethal weapons including submachine guns is something I hope I don't get used to seeing. We had to go through a security check with metal detectors just to get near the Western Wall. When we finally stepped out of the labyrinthine streets into the open air and beheld the Western (a.k.a. “Wailing”) Wall—I had another goose-bump moment.


I've seen the Orthodox Jews praying fervently at the Wall in the mass media, but seeing it in person was an altogether fresh experience. And I've read before that in ancient days, one never turned one's back on the holy site, and so walked away from the walls backwards. It turns out that this is still true today. It was fun to see groups of devout men and (in their own segregated area) women, casually conversing as they took their backward steps away from the Wall.

We stopped at a convenience store for some water and soda, and I got to break my first 100 shekel bill. I love foreign money—how it looks, trying to learn what the denominations are worth, etc. I asked the clerk if it was acceptable to expect him to break a hundred shekel note for a mere can of sodapop. He laughed and said, “Of course! One hundred not worth that much!” My more savvy friends then told me it would be roughly like asking an American vendor to break a 20. No big deal.

Then I got to do my first linguistic botch of the trip, too. Wanting to say thank-you to the Israeli vendor, I said (in Hebrew) “Toda!”

Beth W. (who lived here for a year about nine years ago) laughed and whispered to me, “He speaks Arabic...”

My first interaction and I blew it! But I quickly recovered with a second blurting: “Shukran!”

“Righhhhht,” Beth said, encouragingly.

So now my dilemma: How do people know WHO speaks Arabic and WHO speaks Hebrew?” I clearly have a LOT to learn in this place.

Well, all for tonight. This bumbling American needs some rest.