Bethlehem

Written 2:00 pm Thursday afternoon ~ Posted on Net 1:30 am Friday

I’m sitting on the roof right now looking down at the city. It’s a beautiful day. The winds a bit cool, but the sun is very warm. I just finished my Church in the East class. I feel like every time I leave that class I’m ten times more confused than when I went in. It’s a good kind of confused though. Everything we talk about is just so deep and multi-dimensional. It feels like some of the topics are just on the fringe of human understanding, so for a second I get an idea, but then it slips away and I’m totally lost again. I don’t really know how to explain it. I’ve started recording the prof though, and researching just after class some of the things I didn’t understand. It helps, but I’m still left with a whole lot to think about.
Anyway, I planned on writing a bit about my trip to Bethlehem yesterday. It was an experience. My friend Ben goes to Bethlehem Bible College for Arabic class. The professor used to come here, but she can’t anymore because of the checkpoints. So JUC goes to her. He left his hat in class the other day so we went over to go get it and look around. Ben’s been there a lot so he was a great person to go with. We caught a bus off of Hebron Road. It’s pretty crazy how many people they’ll pack into one of those things. It dropped us off right outside the West Bank wall. This is my first time going through a check point. It’s pretty surreal actually being there after hearing about them all the time. We waited in a short line and all together it wasn’t that bad. In the morning and evening though, when people are trying to get to work, it’s usually a disaster. As Americans we pretty much get waved right through with a quick glance at our passport. However Arabs will wait for hours to get through the line. George, one of our cooks, has to go through every morning and evening. He’s been hassled, held at gun point, and just given a rough time, even when he has all the paper work. It’s pretty sad and I feel bad walking right through, as a foreigner, when everyone else has to wait hours just to get to their home. I’m not saying it’s not necessary and I’m not claiming to be Pro-Palestinian (I’m also not claiming to be pro-Israel). I’m just laying it out there; it’s tragic (not just the check points but the whole situation which affects every aspect of these people’s lives), and put the politics aside, it’s a horrible situation that is too easy to look at objectively and not see the people who are hurting. And I’m not talking about the people blowing themselves up. I’m talking about the common Palestinian like George who is threatened to be strip searched, or Adnan the shop owner who can hardly provide for his family anymore, or the student at Bethlehem Bible College who is a student at JUC but can’t get to classes here. It’s a whole city and real people who are suffering because of some blood thirsty radicals. And the more that is done to control the situation, the angrier people get, and the more need there is to control. Again, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that we need to get rid of these security measures. I have no political agenda in this post. Actually, even if I had a political agenda I wouldn’t know what to say. I guess if there were any easy solution to write about we wouldn’t be in this mess. There’s truth to what one man said at the book store in the New City: “These people have gotten themselves into this mess and God is going to have to deal with it”. However, I think everyone can be included in “these people”, not just Jews and Arabs.
Well, that was a little off track, just some thoughts that are floating around in my head while I try to make sense of the situation. As soon as we crossed into Bethlehem there were about 30 taxis waiting. There were only a handful of people entering the city and buses only drop people off every once in a while, so I figure most of the drivers probably wait all day for maybe one ride at most. They were all yelling and trying to get us to go into their cab, but we just kept walking. Again, I felt kind of bad. It starts to feel like giving people business is charity work. There is some truth to it. I’ll choose to spend my money in some areas rather than others. I needed a mug, so rather than buying one in Jerusalem, where tourism is flourishing, I waited until I got to Bethlehem. We picked up Ben’s hat and I met some of the students at Bethlehem Bible College, including the JUC student who can’t get to school. He waved us goodbye saying, “I hope to see you again. Hopefully my papers will come and I will see you at school”. The road that used to be the entrance to Bethlehem (now blocked by the wall) was completely shut down and pretty much deserted, it looked like the streets of the Old City when everything was closed due to snow. It used to be the main drag.

Entering the wall after going through the checkpoint.

The graffiti was unreal. There were a lot of things written in Arabic that I couldn’t understand, but a lot that was written in English. There were both angry statements and calls to peace written side by side. There were tons of pictures voicing people’s feelings. According to Ben a lot of foreigners paint on the wall. I guess I have mixed feelings about this. It’s cool that everyone can post their opinion on the wall, but I don’t like the idea of people taking something so raw and horrible and turning it into a tourist attraction. If that’s the case, its really none of their business painting on the wall then going back to their comfy lives, while people are still being imprisoned behind their portraits.

Ben in front of the wall (above)

"MADE IN THE USA" painted at the bottom of the cement slabs

After getting Ben’s hat we walked down to the Church of the Nativity, which commemorates the birth place of Jesus and many believe that the stable was located there. On the way we stopped at Adnan’s shop. Adnan is a shopkeeper that Ben has gotten to know. He gave us seats and bought us some tea. We asked how things were going and he said that business was rough. Christmas didn’t provide the business it usually does in Bethlehem. We also asked him about George Bush’s visit and if he had seen him. He told us you’d have been crazy to go outside and would’ve gotten yourself shot. The city was on lockdown I guess, all the shops were closed and everyone had to stay in their homes. One of the cab drivers said he had seen Bush, but I’m pretty sure he just wanted us to get in his cab.
I bought a mug from Adnan and he gave me a bracelet as a gift. Then we headed over to the Church. The Church was really interesting but I don’t know too much about it. We just looked around a bit and the guard let us down into the stable area early (it was closed for a while for some reason) so we could get in before the big tourist groups. I’m going back to the Church for class so we didn’t stay too long and I don’t have too much to say about it yet. The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. We got back on a bus and went through another checkpoint and back to Jerusalem.
So that was pretty much the trip. Nothing too eventful, it just really made me think. It’s so easy to look at politics and pick a side when I’m so far removed. But when I see the regular people that it affects so strongly, it doesn’t look so black and white. I know things still need to be done in order to maintain order and protect lives; but even so, it’s not a simple matter to just overlook the lives which these drastic measures affect. It looks as though we (as in humans - not Jews or Arabs or Americans) have gotten ourselves into a rather hopeless mess. It’s a good thing we have a merciful God that’s bigger than all of the junk we can create.
Sorry if that was all really unorganized and hard to follow, or it may not have accurately expressed my thoughts. Maybe I shouldn’t be squeezing something so heavy in between classes.