wfn.org | Palestinians' plight becomes personal for bishop

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

March 13, 2002  News media contact: Tim Tanton7(615)742-54707Nashville,
Tenn.  10-71BP{105}

NOTE: Photographs are available.

By United Methodist News Service

Late on Sunday night, March 10, Bishop Beverly Shamana felt compelled to
call the Rev. Mitri Raheb, halfway around the world in Bethlehem. 

"I just felt I needed to talk to him and find out what was happening," said
the bishop, who leads the United Methodist Church's San Francisco Area. She
wanted to be sure that the pastor, his family and congregation were safe
following the latest violence in the Middle East.

Shamana met Raheb while visiting the Middle East as part of a fact-finding
delegation in February. She preached to his congregation at the Christmas
Lutheran Church in Bethlehem on Feb. 24 and later spent time visiting with
him, discussing the violence and struggles affecting the people of the area.

"There's just a real commitment to stay involved as a result of my visit,"
Shamana told United Methodist News Service. "Their plight doesn't go away."

Shamana was joined on the trip by three other United Methodist bishops, two
top executives with general church agencies and a staff person. One of the
group, Jim Winkler, top staff executive of the United Methodist Board of
Church and Society, visited the church with her.

By phone, Raheb shared with Shamana his concern about the Dar al-Kalima
Model School and Wellness Center, which he founded as an outreach of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church and the International Center of Bethlehem. The
school, serving 240 children, was damaged during Israeli military action
over the weekend. 

Three tanks were stationed at the school before being withdrawn on March 9.
Afterward, Raheb and other school staff hurriedly assessed the damage to the
school. 

They discovered that seven windows had been broken and eight iron doors and
four interior wooden doors destroyed, according to an e-mail message from
the Rev. Sandra Olewine, a United Methodist missionary working with Raheb at
the International Center of Bethlehem. 

The wooden cross at the school's entrance had been removed and destroyed,
along with a ceramic cross that had been a gift from an Evangelical Lutheran
bishop in the United States. Some of the children's artwork and paintings
had been trampled upon, Olewine reported.

In addition, the rooms for the counselor and social worker in the Wellness
Center had been damaged, and the men found signs of forced entry into the
offices of the headmaster and secretary. A tank had struck a corner of the
building, and other damage had been inflicted upon telephone lines, the
school's garden and driveway, according to Olewine. Several interior walls
bore bullet holes and graffiti left by the soldiers.

Despite the withdrawal of the tanks, Raheb told Shamana by phone that he
feared the army would return to the campus, which sits on a hilltop
overlooking part of the city. On March 11, Israeli tanks did return and
troops reoccupied the school buildings.

Soldiers were seen destroying a helicopter landing area often used as a
parking area during school events, according to an e-mail report by Raheb
and Nuha Khoury, school coordinator. "We are afraid that the Israeli army
may use the school as a detention camp for the hundreds of civilians that it
has and continues to round up from the neighboring Deheisha Refugee Camp and
surrounding villages. Schools are for educating people and should never be
used to imprison them. 

"As no one is allowed to get close to the site, we do not as yet have a full
picture of what is going on in and around our school," they wrote. "The
physical and moral damage done to the site, the destruction of the access
roads leading to the school, the psychological harm done to the school's
children and the children from the neighboring refugee camps is of deep
concern to us. 

"The Dar al-Kalima's deep commitment to quality education, healthy and well
community, and to nonviolent creative resistance is being challenged by this
occupation," they wrote. "Nevertheless, we are determined to continue
providing children with a place for wellness, which will help them to
overcome all of the traumas, including those created by this latest attack."
 
The Wellness Center, to open in May, will focus on helping traumatized
children and adults heal. 

Many of Raheb's church members and coworkers have witnessed the latest
shelling and F-16 attacks, Shamana said.

Raheb told Shamana that the people continue going about their business
despite the violence. "They're just showing such strong reserve and such
faith," Shamana said.

Preaching at the church in February, Shamana brought a message of hope,
based on the spiritual "Hold the Light." "You're not alone," she told the
small congregation. "We're holding the light with you as you work for peace
and a just resolution." Church members expressed appreciation for her words.

Church youth were practicing hand bells during her visit. "They're carrying
on the normal work of the church in spite of all this threat all around
them. They just keep going on. That's what just pierces your heart. They
just won't give up; they won't give in."

The International Center of Bethlehem's programs include a workshop on
"traditional women's art," covering such activities as glass blowing,
pottery, hand art and mosaic work, Shamana said. Raheb sees art as a means
of strengthening the spirit of the people for "creative nonviolent
resistance," the bishop said.

Shamana's visit to the Middle East and her friendship with Raheb makes the
Israeli-Palestinian situation real for her. "It's no longer something you
read about or see on CNN. You know that it's real people, and they have a
story to tell that has not been given headline importance." She added: "It
makes you hungry, I think, to find out the real story."

Shamana draws hope from the current visits to the Middle East by U.S. peace
envoy Gen. Anthony Zinni and Vice President Dick Cheney. "We have so much
more that we can do as a leader in the world community, and we have just
been very reluctant to take even tentative steps," she said.

United Methodists must be involved as a church community, she said. United
Methodists can work for peace in the area by writing letters to their
elected leaders, making phone calls, sending funds to support human rights
efforts, she said.
 
"We have a lot of moral power that we can bring to bear that I would like to
see us use." 
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United Methodist News Service
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