Israel/Palestine

Peaceseeker Award Recipient, 2011

Victor Makari

For 20 years the Rev. Dr. Victor Makari served the PC(USA) as an Area Coordinator with World Mission, relating at various times to partner churches in the Middle East and Asia Minor, Europe, and South and Southeast Asia.

Preamble

How long, O God, will they steal our livelihood? Oppress, imprison and humiliate our people?Deprive our children of their childhood? Indeed how long, God, will the multitudes of Christians of the world ignore the anguish of our Palestinian sisters and brothers and all of the oppressed?

“Come and see,” said the Christians of Palestine. “Come and see the olive groves, the bulldozers, the ancient terraces, the segregated cities. The situation is worsening.”

More than 60 participants from 15 countries heeded an urgent call by Kairos Palestine. On 4-­10 December 2011; they joined Palestinians in the Kairos for Global Justice Encounter/Conference in Bethlehem.

by Rick Ufford-Chase,
Bethlehem, Advent, 2011

For more than twenty years I have carried a quote from Martyred Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador that went something like this:

“Try not to have hope, for unfulfilled hope leads to despair, and we have no need of a despairing people. Try instead to live in Faith, doing that which needs to be done each day. . .” Over those twenty years I’ve reflected personally and publicly on the meaning of Romero’s words, and a few friends and I have an ongoing dialog about the appropriateness (or lack thereof) of living in hope.

by Rick Ufford-Chase

This morning I left the Bethlehem Hotel on foot shortly after the sun came up. Across the valley I could see the huge wall that divides Bethlehem from Jerusalem.

10:00am

Attend at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D. C., or view the webcast live at http://www.nationalcathedral.org.

5th Annual Bethlehem Prayer Service.

A joint simulcast service with the people of Bethlehem at the Washington National Cathedral.

An Overture to the 220th General Assembly for Your Session to Consider

On Responding to the Call from Palestinian Christians for Economic Solidarity