Against the odds

We travelled up into the Galilee hills to visit a factory! It was situated in an industrial park and seemed ordinary enough, but behind it lay a fascinating story of a woman fighting against the odds.

Gamila is a Druze lady, and in her childhood she learned all about the medical and healing qualities of herbs from her family. She put this knowledge into good effect by making soap using the various herbs. It started in the family home, but gradually it became a business, as Gamila wanted her children to go to good schools and have a chance in life.

As a woman she encountered much opposition; her fellow villagers felt her place was in the home, rather than running a business, and she had to suffer their taunts. In the end, however, she succeeded, and her soap has hit the luxury end of the market and exports all around the world. Her family have benefitted (her son was the first from the village to go to university), and so has the community.

It was good to visit the factory and see that Moslems and Christians, Jews and Druze, were all employed. As part of its procurement policy, the Hotel is going to use Gamila’s soap. It is also buying its olive oil from Sindyanna, a fair trade company based in the Galilee and is at present sourcing bed ‘throws’ and rugs through Sunbula.

International Womens' Day, 8 March 2011

Tension

On Tuesday I travelled to Barta’a, a town which straddles the Green Line, which separates The West Bank from Israel. I was with a friend who has his dentist there, and all was very peaceful.

Yet the very next day the television pictures were of events in the neighbouring town of Umm el Fahm, another large Arab town, where extremists Jews had been given permission to march, waving Israeli flags. Confrontation was inevitable, and indeed it ended up in mayhem, with tear gas, secret police and arrests. The pictures were broadcast around the world, and Israel’s name is tarnished once more.

To me it is sad, especially as a lot of my Jewish friends were aghast at such a provocative march being allowed to take place. Only a week ago there was also some trouble in Safed, one of the four Holy Cities for the Jews and which stands in the hills to the north of the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee). The rabbi there had urged people not to rent out rooms to Arab students studying at the local College and to shun those who did. This led to a confrontation between extremist students on both sides of the ethnic divide.

In both cases, it seems that the extremists throughout Israel, who are very much in the minority, are gaining more and more power and are creating situations of tension. Once again it saddens me, as so many people in both communities want to live side by side in peace.

Christmas Part Two!

Christmas seems never to end here! Last week, on 7th January, the Orthodox Christmas was celebrated, and I attended the service at Sakhnin. It was held in a new church they are building (memories of Zambia!), and they needed it, as I would estimate 350 people attended of all ages. Quite something, as technically it was a working day. It was a lesson in fashion, as everybody seemed to be in sharp suits and figure-hugging dresses. I felt distinctly informal in my sports jacket. Black was the predominant colour for both sexes. The service lasted for hours, but, as in Zambia, people were arriving at any time. After communion, everyone rushed to the back for the most wonderful cakes, leaving the poor priest finishing the service alone.

I was touched over Christmas and New Year by all the greetings of ‘Hag sameach’ or ‘Kol aam oul ento bkheer’ (happy holiday) by Jews and Moslems, and one of my high points was to receive a Christmas gift from Moshe and Tareq, two of the members of the hotel staff – one Jew and one Moslem (a plate with a picture of Santa and Rudolf in the snow. It is still up, while the other decorations have been taken down).

Another high point was being invited to the Baptist Church Christmas party in Haifa. Along with the bible quizzes (fortunately I was not part of a team, as I would have done very badly), there was the most wonderful Arab music and then a glorious spread of Arab food. Santa also appeared – and it seems that he plays a big role in the celebration of Christmas in the Arab communities.

At some point over Christmas, Galilee turned green – something to remember in the hot, arid months of summer. Amazingly while Europe freezes, Galilee glows with sunshine. Good for my guests at the weekend – Victor and Blessing from South Africa and Carol from the States, who have just finished the EAPPI programme, accompanying Palestinians on the west bank, as they sought to get through the checkpoints. A very different experience from mine, and I admire them tremendously. They have finished their three month stint, and a new team has just arrived. I feel I can offer hospitality away from their daily tensions.

Wishing everyone a good new year!

Christmas in Tiberias

Tiberias is one of the lowest places on earth. Coming from Nazareth, there is a sign proclaiming ‘Sea level’, after which the road rather dramatically plunges down about 650ft to the lakeshore. It means that it is often hot and muggy. Last Wednesday was an incredibly clear day, however, and Mount Hermon appeared so visibly to the North, covered with snow. It was so wonderful to look at – an early Christmas present. Certainly to be savoured, as the next few days were horribly dreich – cold, grey and wet!

Tiberias is, of course, a Jewish town, so you have to look very hard for any sign of Christmas (unlike Nazareth, where there are Christmas parades).The Scots Hotel is, however, rather tastefully decorated for Christmas, as are the church and manse – Joanna my elder came with a bootful of holly, ivy and pine-cones. At the church we began our Christmas services with Lessons and Carols on Sunday evening – interesting, as half the congregation were Jewish! On Christmas Eve, we’ll have a carol service, and it will be interesting to see who turns up to that. After it (or after the mulled wine at the end) we’ll join our friends at St Peter’s Fransciscan Church for a meal. There is a new priest who is very keen on ecumenical links. There will be a communion service on Christmas morning.

Christmas is about God’s commitment to humankind, and I continue to be touched by people’s commitment to justice issues. Yesterday I visited Sindyanna, a fair-trade organisation run from Cana in Galilee by a remarkable Jewish woman, Hadas, which seeks to empower the women from the local Arab villages. They market soap from Nablus, as well as local herbs and olive oil. They are also just about to open a visitors’ centre nearby, where women are involved in the most marvellous basketry, talk about their experiences and offer a ‘Palestinian’ lunch. A good place for tours!

Wishing everyone a peaceful and joyful Christmas and a blessed 2010.

Encounters with some saints

Almost a month has now passed since I arrived in Tiberias, though in many ways it seems far, far longer. A good sign, as I feel very much settled here. What’s more the unbearably hot weather which has been characteristic of my stay here so far has ended, and the heavens have opened with rain. Not just that, but the wind has been strong, rattling the windows and banging doors all night! The last few years has seen the level of the Sea of Galilee fall drastically, as there has not been much rain, so people are really excited, as a several inches have been added on over the weekend. Maron the reservation manager at the hotel, has linked the weather to my coming, but I think he is just being kind.

I am gradually getting into a routine, with my Ulpan lessons a priority – Ulpan is my Hebrew class, and it is going really well, though with just too much homework. I do try to practise, but inevitably people answer back in English! I always try to be at the hotel, chatting to guests and staff. At the moment I find that I need the staff more than they need me, just to help me feel more rooted here, but saying that, I like the staff immensely and find them incredibly welcoming.

I also spend some time at the office down at the church, which is situated on the road down to the waterfront. I like to keep the church door open, and it is amazing how many people look in. Some are locals who are just curious, but many come in specifically because it is a church. One was a young woman, fashionably dressed, who entered the church and fell prostrate in front of the cross, and stayed in this position for several minutes. Later she told me that she was Russian living in Tel Aviv (one million Russians have emigrated to Israel in recent years: many are Jewish, but some are Christian with a Jewish connection in the family). She was married with a baby, and she said she missed church so much!

Last Sunday, immediately after the service, a young Palestinian couple walked in and sat in a pew. They had been living in Chicago for the last few years, but have now decided to move back to Israel. She was obviously pregnant, and they asked for prayers. Again, a couple of days ago, it was a Japanese girl, working on a kibbutz, who came in. Her boyfriend is Jewish (and from a very religious family) and she needed to talk to him about her faith, because she is a Christian. She was delighted to find a church. Just a few examples, but in these and many other cases, they seemed ‘holy moments’, somehow charged with God’s presence.

It is a different kind of ministry here, in that I talk with so many people, whom I will never see again. Yet to me, there have been many memorable encounters, and I pray that I will somehow be used!

Happily I had my largest congregation to date yesterday (1st Nov), with 40 there. Again, because I left the church door open on the Sunday afternoon, and a few Dutch people came in, found out that there would be a service, so phoned their friends to come (which accounted for just over half the number). It did through me into a panic, as I had to rush to get more bread for communion (it was a bit like Loaves and Fishes, especially with the wine) and print more orders of service. We also need to invest in more hymnbooks! Still, a nice position to be in.

Wee photo gallery

The Scottish flag flying over Galilee. A view over the Scottie garden. The small turret is part of the Ottoman city walls - I would love to turn it into a small chapel, but we'll see!

The view from my balcony, looking over the southern part of the Sea of Galilee to the Golan.

Tiberias is not the most attractive of towns,but has an earthiness which is appealing.

Shabbat

The Shabbat (Sabbath) is the Jewish holy day, and starts from dusk on the Friday till dusk on the Saturday. Shops shut, and traffic grinds to a halt. Often it is the day that families join together for a special meal, so I felt really privileged to be invited to join in a Shabbat meal last Friday. I was invited by Joanna, who is originally from Bristol and my sole full member (!) at St. Andrew’s Galilee. She is married to Lenny, who is originally from Newton Mearns in Scotland, and they live on a kibbutz on the Golan, some 40 minutes away from Tiberias, up a road full of hair-pin bends. They had also invited Mary and Paul, an American couple from the Mid-West living in Tiberias and active in the small Catholic Church.

The meal was like any other meal, I suppose, except at the beginning Lenny put on his kippah (skull-cap) and said a prayer over the bread and then another over wine, which we then ate and drank. Only then, did the meal begin with some liver pate, then chicken soup, etc. I found it deeply moving to be part of such a tradition and, of course, reflected on communion.

Last week, I caught the bus to Jerusalem, where I joined my colleague, George Shand (Minister at St Andrew’s Jerusalem), to attend a meeting of the Lutheran clergy, one of our strong partners, for a Bible Study. Towards the end, the Lutheran Bishop in his pastoral role advised us all to be conscious of how we moved and what we said in Jerusalem. I had been aware that Jerusalem was far more tense than Galilee. The Goldstone report had been published on War crimes in the recent Gaza conflict, and there had considerable disappointment among Palestinians over what they saw as the seemingly soft approach of Mahmoud Abbas (Palestinian President) concerning it. As many Palestinians gathered for Friday prayers at the mosque, there seemed some likelihood of the tensions spilling over into violence, but fortunately the imam had cooled the temperature.

We travelled an hour west of Jerusalem to Lod, once the predominately Arab city of Lydda. Now it is a mixed city, with Israeli Jews in the majority. Many Arabs had to flee their homes in the 1948 Nakba (catastrophe). Here we visited an Anglican school called St George’s (St George was supposed to have come from Lydda or was martyred in Lydda.). The headteacher is Christian, but 99% of the pupils are Moslem, but that doesn’t seem to bother anyone. The human side of people of different faiths living together! I was impressed by their obvious desire to learn, as well as the warmth of their welcome.

Religious holidays, driving in Tiberias and learning the language

This week the Jewish community is celebrating the Feast of Sukkot (or Tabernacles), which lasts for roughly a week. It is a traditional holiday time, so Tiberias is full of holiday makers, mostly religious Jews, who like to come to Tiberias as one of the 4 ‘Holy’ cities in Judaism. Sukkot is a time for families to build booths in their gardens, where they will eat and even sleep. It commemorates the time the Israelites wandered in the Wilderness, and so needed to travel light and with structures that were easily dismantled and put up again in another location. For a Christian, I feel it speaks to us about how we clutter our lives with unnecessary possessions, habits, etc and need to learn to ‘travel light’.

I have now begun to drive. After having a pick-up in Africa, I find the Peugeot here both lower and lighter. I am getting used to both the automatic transmission and also driving on the right. Israelis also have a bad name for aggressive driving, but after 7 years of Lusaka driving, I am used to anything.

I have also found a good supermarket, though Israelis seem to do their week’s shopping in one go, so have their trolleys piled up, which is frustrating if you only have a few things. Most of the packaging is in Hebrew, so it is often a lottery whether you choose the right thing. Certainly, I bought what looked like a butter spread, only to find it was something else completely. Anyway, that should be remedied in the near future, as I start my language lessons at the Ulpan. With so many immigrants, everyone learns the language together, so everything is in Hebrew. You either sink or swim! As Tiberias is a predominately Jewish town (and with my background in Biblical Hebrew), I felt it might be easier to learn Hebrew first, and try to pick up Arabic as I go on (although the alphabets are different, the two languages are related). It is vitally important, not least to converse with the staff.

Shalom from Tiberias

I am now one-week old in Tiberias, but needless to say, it seems far, far longer! It is SO good to be here, and I have been welcomed so warmly, especially by the staff at the hotel (I am desperately trying to learn names, and am not doing too badly). Already I feel very much at home. Talking of home, the manse is a double storey flat, a 15 minute walk up the hill from the church and hotel (or a 10 minute down!). It is a lovely spacious flat with views over the Lake (Sea of Galilee), so it is good to sit out on the little balcony. THOUGH, we are below sea level, so the temperatures can be quite high. Fortunately there are air-conditioners in the flat – how did I last 15 years in Zambia without them.

The first few days I ate at the hotel – marvellous food, but just too tempting. However, I realised I that I needed to eat at home, so I am trying to remember how to cook. In Zambia, Stephen cooked dinner for me every day, so I have become lazy.

Sunday was my first service. It is held at 6 o’clock in the evening, as Sunday is a working day here. Officially there is only one member, Joanna (I will double the membership!), but often we are joined by visitors to Tiberias. On Sunday, we had eight! Two Dutch visitors (both of whom had marvellous voices and who also knew the hymns), while the rest were all local. The church is situated close to the front, so people are always walking past. Some look in, take a snap and go; others look and stay, which is super. Certainly I was delighted with the way the service went – very informal, with a special atmosphere.

Tiberias has been packed with holiday-makers this week – not necessarily pilgrim groups, but local Israelis. Mostly religious with lots of the Orthodox Jews in their black clothes and prayer shawls. And lots of children! The reason is that it is the Feast of Sukkot, which lasts for just over a week. This is the time when many Jewish families build booths in their gardens – made out of reed-mats, branches, anything which is available. It commemorates how the Israelites wandered in the Wilderness and had to dismantle their homes and put them up again. So they had of necessity to travel light. Lots of good symbolism there for Christians, but also it hit home on a personal level, as I have been giving away various bits and pieces in order to travel light to get out here. Also, regarding Sukkot, the booths have ceilings made of twigs, which means they allow the light in through the cracks (and also the rain!). So, according to my source, God’s love shines unexpectedly on us.

Too much to take in and too much to say!

Tiberias, here I come!

The bags are more or less packed, but there is always something I have missed which I somehow have to squeeze in. Yesterday I even resorted to buying a bigger suitcase to give me more space (just hope that at 06.30 in the morning, the check-in person will not be awake to just how overweight my case is!). I have of course been in this situation so many times before, but I always seem to end up wearing 2 layers of clothes, whilst my fellow passengers travel wearing T-Shirts!

It really shouldn’t be like this, as the manse at Tiberias is apparently pretty well furnished, with plenty of furniture, bed linen, plates, glasses, etc. It is a far cry from Zambia, where ‘furnished accommodation’ in my first two ‘stations’ meant a steel bed frame and a couple of metal chairs with one piece of foam each to sit on. No wardrobe, so I would just hang my clothes on nails on the wall! No problems like that in Tiberias. In fact, the manse has a walk-in, re-enforced cupboard (a dressing-room, in fact), which doubles as my bomb shelter in case of emergency.

Over the last few weeks I have managed to meet up with a number of people with Tiberias or Israel/Palestine connections, which has been so valuable. Thus, I am filled with a tremendous sense of excitement and anticipation, as I enter this new phase of my life/ ministry, but also almost overwhelmed by the responsibility of it all. It will, of course, be good to return to a place where I was a volunteer 27 (!) years ago, but of course the place has changed and I have changed in the intervening years, whilst the issues of Israel/Palestine seem to have become even more complicated. However, I relish the challenge of being part of the church’s ministry in that troubled but fascinating area.

Your prayers, as always, will be much appreciated!