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Seeds of Hope Now
Needed in Holy Land |
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After two thousand years, Christian families are still living and
worshipping in the land where Jesus was born, died, and was resurrected.
These Christians are not immigrants. They are not converts from Judaism or
Islam. They are descendents of those who first believed in Jesus Christ.
They live in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and other places in the
Occupied Territories and Israel. They are Arab Palestinian Christians -
Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant. Together, they comprise the Mother Church. If you speak with the Christians of the Holy Land, you hear that their children have not been allowed to attend schools due to strict curfews and, even before the curfews became the norm, many children had to pass through several checkpoints on their way to and from school each day, making their commute last several hours each way. You hear that the families in Bethlehem, Beit Sahour, Beit Jala, and elsewhere are only able to leave their homes for a few hours per week due to the current curfews. You hear that Christians are forbidden from worshipping in their churches per week due to the current curfews. You hear that Christians are forbidden from worshipping in their churches and that their churches have been invaded and occupied by the Israeli military. You hear that church leaders are prevented from passing through checkpoints to minister to sick or dying parishioners. United Nations and World Bank statistics reveal that half the populations of the West Bank and Gaza Strip live in poverty (defined as less than $2 per day). The devastating effects of this financial milieu are compounded by the fact that Palestinian Christians face the daily threat of personal violence; home demolitions; land confiscation; shortages of food, water, and medical supplies; and strict restrictions on movement. As you might suspect, when you speak with Holy Land Christians, you hear many stories of people who feel forced to leave the land that their families have inhabited for centuries, the land where their Savior was born.
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Christians in the Holy Land are often referred to as the forgotten
faithful. Many Christians from around the world do not even know that
there is an indigenous Arab Christian population in the Holy Land. Even
fewer know the severity of the conditions they endure. The mainstream
media simply do not depict the daily lives of Palestinian Christians. As a
result, Palestinian Christians have come to feel as though they suffer
alone, without the solidarity of the rest of the Body of Christ, and they
are leaving the Holy Land in vast numbers. In 1948, the Christian
population of the Holy Land was over 18%. In 1999, it was less than 2%,
and it shrinks daily as Christians emigrate to safer conditions. In a
study conducted in 2001, by the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem (the Roman
Catholic diocese), it was determined that 53% of the Christian residents
of Beit Sahour (a predominantly Christian town adjacent to Bethlehem)
have taken steps within the last year to acquire emigration visas. The Holy Land
Christians are the living church in the land where Jesus was born, died, and was
resurrected. They are living vessels of Jesus message of peace. They do not want
to leave the land that their families have lived on for centuries. If the
economic and social conditions created by the occupation continue to force them
to leave at their current rate, there will soon be no living Christian church in
the Holy Land. There will always be holy sites to visit, but there will be no
living stones, any living Body of Christ.
Visit Chris Rice's blog Page: http://www.chrisrice.blogspot.com/ |
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