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My experience with Israel’s Interior Ministry began more than 25 years ago, whereby I have been seeking an ID card for my wife who hails from the West Bank. I am a Palestinian from East Jerusalem and I have an Israeli ID card—which gives me the status of a foreign resident in the city of my ancestors and where I was born. 

Christine, 23, is from the West Bank. She met a young man from Jerusalem when she was studying at one of the Palestinian universities in the West Bank. As their emotions towards each other grew by time and a sincere love flourished into their hearts, they decided to get engaged. At this point, they didn’t think of any barriers that might stand in front of them. 

“Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” (Mt. 8: 20)

As a Pentecostal, I have “dreamed dreams” and had visions aplenty, but often it has been the WCC that brought those dreams and visions to life. What is found in this report fulfills a vision that I took with me to Geneva in 1989 in a meeting with then-general secretary Emilio Castro. During that visit, I called on the WCC to bring together 120 Pentecostal scholars from around the world to the WCC 7th Assembly known as Canberra ’91.

An article on an interesting subject? No, not this time. I can only write from the deep crisis situation we are in at present. There is nothing else that keeps me more busy than the question of how to live with the anxiety and fear of the coronavirus and what to make of it.

This will be my last weekly posting of a news article from the past week related to violence against women and girls around the world. Following the 70th anniversary of the World Council of Churches a year ago, I decided to join the WCC movement of #ThursdaysinBlack, to speak out against violence and discrimination by wearing black and by posting on Facebook each week, for the duration of one year.

Using Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech, I crafted the following text to reflect the timelessness of Dr King’s speech, and to share my own personal dream within my context of the Holy Land. I am attempting to honor the original words of Dr King while, at the same time, making it clear that his passion and unflagging determination are still badly needed today. May the spirit of our dreams find unity in pursuing peace and justice for all human beings.

This Christmas Season I will have concrete places in my mind when I listen to the story of the shepherds in the fields of Bethlehem. I will think of the Bedouin community in Suyica, near Yatta, a Palestinian city in the West Bank. They live in tents and in caves because they are not allowed to build houses. Together with about 20 Methodists from around the globe representing the World Methodist Council, we visited them in October.

“You are never safe, you never know when they will come.” When Israel issued Ilham with a demolition order for her home in the Palestinian village of Al Walaja last month, she knew that it was not an empty threat.

Ecumenical Accompaniers walk children to school, accompany shepherds, serve as a presence of peace, and share what they see. They are the fruit of the WCC-EAPPI, and offer reflections from a variety of settings and the life around them.

This week we continue celebrating the foundation of the World Council of Churches at the Amsterdam Assembly in 1948. Since its founding 70 years ago, the WCC has held assemblies in Evanston, New Delhi, Uppsala, Nairobi, Vancouver, Canberra, Harare, Porto Alegre and Busan.

Ecumenical Accompaniers from the World Council of Churches Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (WCC-EAPPI) report that residents, international non-governmental organizations, media, politicians have joined local Palestinian and Israeli peace activists in nonviolence resistance, protesting demolition actions by Israeli forces in the Khan al Ahmar Bedouin community.

When it comes to the stance of churches towards the so-called conflict between Israel and Palestine, it is useful to understand it as a process of grief. The theory of the five stages of grief from Elisabeth Kübler-Ross is a creative way to describe the “dying” and “mourning” process of the churches and international community. The creation of the state of Israel in 1948 was seen by the Western world as a sign of justice for the suffering Jewish people after the Holocaust and centuries of persecution of Jews in Europe. Two elements played a major role in this initial excitement: the historical guilt of Europeans and the fulfilment of biblical prophecies related with the reestablishment of Israel.

The Ecumenical Water Network (EWN) of the World Council of Churches (WCC) has been observing World Water Day since its inception. It is an important occasion for all those working on water issues, including the WCC, to highlight the global water crisis. Particularly the Lenten campaign of the WCC, the “Seven Weeks for Water”, is an opportunity to galvanise its constituencies to discuss issues around water.

After a long walk in the streets of Bethlehem, we finally had the chance to wander around in the market for a couple of hours. Each Palestinian had to be a leader for some of the youth that were in the group, so a South African, two Germans, and a Swede formed my group. While hanging around on the roads, we passed by some tourist buses. One of the youths who were with me said: “Wow, there are a lot of tourists in Bethlehem. I’m glad I’m not a tourist but a pilgrim!”

At our first meeting in South Africa, a few months before going to Sweden for the first part of the international youth pilgrimage “Walking to Emmaus”, we were exited to meet each other and to know that we would all be going on a plane. It was a first for all of us so I’m sure you would imagine the excitement you could see on our faces going down the terminal and into the aeroplane.