wfn.org | Palestinian family builds bridges at home, abroad

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

Nov. 23, 1999        News media contact: Tim Tanton·(615)742-5470·Nashville,
Tenn.     10-21-71BP{633}

NOTE: The Rishmawis' names are spelled correctly. A photograph is available,
and this report may be used as a sidebar to UMNS stories #630, 631 and 632.

HOUSTON (UMNS) - Practicing the Christian faith is not always easy in the
region that Christians call the Holy Land.

In fact, for Palestinian Christians, it can be difficult.

"For many years, Israel has put restrictions on our movement," said Elias
Rishmawi, a pharmacist and Orthodox Christian who lives in the Beit Sahour
area of Bethlehem.

A family must obtain travel permits to go from Bethlehem to Jerusalem to
celebrate Easter, and the Rishmawis have found it all but impossible to do
that because three of their four children are teen-agers or adult.

Elias Rishmawi and his wife, Iman, discussed their lives and faith during a
Nov. 20 interview with United Methodist News Service. They were in Houston
to attend the World Methodist Council's Millennium Event, Nov. 18-21. 

The couple's 5-year-old son, Cameel, played a central role in the Millennium
Event. In a moving ceremony Nov. 19, Cameel relit a candle that he had first
kindled at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Standing in front of a
crowd of 1,800 in Sam Houston Park, Cameel passed the rekindled flame on to
other children, who in turn lit the candles of the adults around them. As
the candles glimmered in the darkness, the crowd prayed and sang Christmas
carols.

The candle-lighting ceremony symbolized the spread of the Gospel into the
new millennium, the Rev. Joe Hale, WMC top staff executive, said.

Though the Rishmawis are Orthodox, Cameel was baptized when he was 3 months
old in a United Methodist church. His family and other Palestinian
Christians had formed bonds of friendship with United Methodist volunteers
from North Carolina. When the Rishmawis visited the state in 1994, they
decided to have their infant son baptized at First United Methodist Church
in Waynesville, N.C. The pastor who baptized Cameel was the Rev. Rob
Blackburn, who is now senior pastor at Central United Methodist Church in
Asheville, N.C.

The baptism hadn't been planned, Iman said. When the family visited
Waynesville, they found the people so warm and welcoming, that they decided
to request the baptism, she said.

Their Orthodox priest back home accepted the baptism, noting that if Cameel
was baptized in the name of Jesus Christ then the ceremony shouldn't be
repeated, Elias said.

"We have a member of First Methodist Waynesville now living in Beit Sahour,"
Blackburn said with a smile after the candle-lighting ceremony in the park. 

Cameel wasn't daunted by the task of lighting the candle in front of so many
people. He smiled the entire evening.

"He feels that all the people love him," Iman Rishmawi said. 

"It's a real honor to be here," her husband said. "We are so proud that we
are doing this and we are helping to bring people together."

The Rishmawi family has been active in trying to bring people together not
only in the Christian community but also back home, where tension between
Israelis and Palestinians is a fact of life.

Elias Rishmawi can trace his roots in Bethlehem back to the time of Christ.
His mother's family has been in the area for at least that long. "She is a
descendant of the first Christians that believed in Jesus Christ," he said.
His father's family has been in the Beit Sahour area of Bethlehem for at
least 300 years, he said.

Beit Sahour is 80 percent Christian, making it the largest Christian
community in Palestine. Bethlehem proper, in contrast, is 35 percent
Christian. The broader Rishmawi family, which numbers some 800 people in
Beit Sahour, includes Lutherans, Roman Catholics and Greek Orthodox.

Religion doesn't matter in terms of how the Palestinian Christians are
treated by the Israelis. "A Palestinian is a Palestinian to them," Elias
Rishmawi said. "Christian Palestinians are a more dangerous species because
at some point they might be sort of a link between Palestinians and the
West."

Iman Rishmawi recalls that when she was living in Gaza as a young person,
her family would regularly go to holy sites in Bethlehem and Jerusalem to
celebrate Easter.

"Nowadays, it's very difficult," she said. She must go through a long,
complicated process to get a travel permit, and it is impossible for her to
get a permit at the same time for her husband and their three oldest
children, ages 16, 17 and 20, she said. "We can't go to Jerusalem as a
family."

Her husband said he is not optimistic in light of the ongoing confiscation
of Palestinian land by the Israelis.

Water rights are another problem. Israel controls the water in the region,
and the Rishmawis say that Palestinians do not have the same access to that
resource as the Israelis - even though the water comes from their land. 

Israel also collects a large amount of tax revenue from the Palestinian, but
puts a relatively small amount of that back into the Palestinian
communities, according to the Rishmawis.

"It's almost impossible for a Palestinian to get a building license in
Jerusalem," Elias Rishmawi said. As a result, Palestinians build without
licenses and their homes or buildings end up getting bulldozed by the
Israelis, he said. Much of the land that Palestinians have in Jerusalem is
regarded as "green land" and cannot be built upon, he said. 

It was in this climate that the Rishmawis' relationship with United
Methodists from America took root. A Volunteers In Mission team from North
Carolina came to Beit Sahour in 1993, during the middle of the Palestinians'
struggle for independence and justice, Elias Rishmawi said.

"These beautiful people came in and said, 'We love you and we support you,'"
he said. "They recognized us as humans. That was very unusual, I would say."

The following spring, 150 United Methodists visited Beit Sahour, and 30
Palestinian homes were opened to them, said Bonnie Jones Gehweiler, of Lake
Junaluska, N.C. Gehweiler is a friend of the Rishmawis and frequently leads
group trips to Palestine. "People are still writing to their host families."

In addition to building those bonds, the Rishmawis and other Palestinians in
Beitsahour have been trying to form relationships with Israelis. Elias
Rishmawi said he has been arrested three times for nonviolent resistance and
peace activities, including work related to establishing a grass-roots
dialogue with Israelis.

The nonviolent struggle resulted in the town of Beit Sahour receiving the
Fellowship of Reconciliation's World Peace Award in 1997, Gehweiler said.

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United Methodist News Service
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