Bethlehem!

I finally have some time to catch up a little bit on my blogging...so we went to Bethlehem a while ago. It was a really speical experience to be able to go to the Church of the Nativity, to remember and commemorate the birth of the Savior in the city where He was born. Bethlehem is now in the West Bank so you have to go through a checkpoint, I was struck by the graffiti on the Bethlehem side of the Seperation Wall, there was a lot of art work crying out for the breaking down of the wall and peace. I think that this is the message the Savior brought at His birth, one of peace and joy. And of course, we ate at this amazing resturant under a great big tent. They had wonderful pita and hummice...oh how I am going to miss that pita and hummice when I come back to the States. But anyway, I really enjoyed going and visiting Bethlehem :)

Seperation Barrier

About a month or so ago we had the opportunity to go on a little tour of the seperation barrier between Israel and the West Bank. The wall is about 1/2 mile behind the place I live. As I learned about the wall I had very mixed feelings. I can understand Israel's desire to put up a wall because of all the bombings and attacks that they had to endure. This city lived in constant fear of another bus bombing for far too long. They felt the only way to truly stop the attacks were to put up a physical barrier between themselves and those doing the attacking. The unfortunate thing about the wall is that it has cut off thousand of Palestinians from family, healthcare, and education. Just behind the Jerusalem Center there is the wall, and just beyond that wall is a Palestinian town that does not have access to the hospital located right down the street from the center, probably about 5 minutes away from the Palestinan town. They cannot come to this hospital in an emergency because the check point to get across and over to here is about a half an hour away. Lives have been lost because of inadequate hospital access in the West Bank. To some the walls may be neccessary but the implementation of the building of the walls has caused much heartache. I look forward to the day when this wall will come down and Jerusalem can live up to its name as the true and eternal city of peace.