Bethlehem

I was awoken this morning by the dawn call to prayer. I seem to be the only one in my tour group who heard it. Although how they missed it I don't know. It's LOUD.

This morning the group went to the Shepherd's Fields. Well, one of three possible sites for the shepherd's fields. There were caves that you could tell had centuries of fires in them. And fields. Small fields. Then shopping at a Christian Palestinian cooperative, where everything is hand made by 35 Christian families.

Our next stop was a private grade school. I really liked their facility. Too bad school was out, they start up in one week. This school was interesting because they are a Christian school but they deliberately have a half Christian half Muslim student population so they can promote peace and understanding between them. All the students must learn both faiths.

Then the very busy Church of the Nativity in Manger Square, where you get to see the "exact" spot where Jesus was born (a star with 14 points in the floor) and the manger directly across from it. Perhaps more interesting to me was the tiny room where St Jerome spent 30 years of his life translating the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin. That was called the Vulgate and was the source of the English King James Version of the Bible.

After lunch we ran down to the Milk Grotto with Peter and Gill. Here's an interesting story: Supposedly one day Mary was going by breast feeding Jesus, and a drop of her milk fell onto a stone and turned it bright white. But really the church itself was small and beautiful. The ceiling and walls were a natural cave.

In the afternoon we passed by Bethlehem Bible College where you can still see the bullet holes in the sign. Then visited a place called House of Hope. They take in about 35 blind and disabled students a year and they make brushes to sell at the market.

After we got back to the hotel we went with our new and very good friend Sebastian (from South Korea) on a walk to see the wall between the West Bank and the rest of Israel. Our hotel is in the West Bank. We read all the graffiti on it, generally expressing how oppressed the Palestinians felt. It's quite an imposing structure. The Israelites hastily put it up 10 years ago because they were being attacked by terrorists quite often. It's very haphazard in its path. It's guarded by Israelite soldiers at various checkpoints. Tourists like us can get through quite easily, but if you are Palestinian trying to get into Jerusalem, they could be held up for more than half a day. It's an intimidation tactic meant to discourage Palestinians from crossing, and it works. We went into the nearby Palestinian Centre here and we were chatting with the owner, who is a Christian. He says when he wants to go over to the other side, he is grilled like a criminal and finger printed. The wall has really affected the economy here. The wall just happened to fall directly across the street from our hotel, and they landed on the wrong side of it, so now all the tourists go to hotels on the other side. I had a Palestinian chasing me down the street trying to sell me a necklace, but I didn't have time to stop because my group was ahead of me going to the bus. He asked why I wouldn't buy anything, was it because he was Palestinian, and he wanted to feed his family. So I bought it.

It's so interesting to get the Palestinian West Bank point of view for a few days. Our tour guide Shmuel did not come into the West Bank with us. Our new temporary tour guide is Hanna (a variation of John). He is 38 and stays at home to support his 12 brothers and sisters. For this reason he has never gotten married. He is a Palestinian Christian and loves to tell stories.

Each side believes that God gave the land to them, and they are very passionate about it. It's hard to break when it goes back 5000 years, but it's as if each person here has heard from God directly. For the Israelites it started with God promising the land to Abraham and his descendants. And the word Palestine comes from Philistine, the people Abraham took the land over from. Mike was very smart to bring us here. We will survive not having a posh hotel, because we are learning and experiencing much more this way. Part of the problem, of course, is that the hotel is not able to make upgrades since the wall went up and they lost their customers. I have no complaints (except for the constant puddle on the bathroom floor). The room is clean and the meals are good. It's interesting to be the only people staying here. But sad.

Every evening the call to prayer goes off at around 8:30 and seems to last forever. I am told that is the sermon part, although it all sounds the same to me.