2009 Middle East Travel Seminar

Today is Christmas for Armenian Christians. We got to visit the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem this afternoon and were blessed to see the Patriarch of the Armenian Church process into the church with many priests. They wear black head coverings that come to a point and unfortunately reminded us of the KKK. They are beautiful singers. We saw the tradtional site of Jesus' birth, where he lay in the manger and where Joseph was told by the angel to take his family to Egypt. The church is controlled by three different religions: Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, and Armenians. A lot of repairs need to be done but it is difficult to get a consensus from the 3 groups so they have decided on a neutral group to do the repairs... if there had been Presbyterian influence they'd still be picking a committee.



This morning we attended worship at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church. We walked through streets filled with markets and were told that the ones that were closed were owned by Christians and the open ones were Muslims. A group from a Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis joined us in worship with the natives and Trisha was invited to do one of the scripture readings. The first hymn was "Fairest Lord Jesus" which is one of the first songs I learned as a child. A bishop from Germany did the sermon which was more or less a conversation between him and the Arab Lutheran pastor of the church. The bishop spoke of living in Germany before the wall came down and compared it with the walls built by the Israeli's to keep out the Palestinians.



In late afternoon we visited a refugee camp for Palestinians and I was saddened by the way these people live, in squalor. I saw children who were riding trikes and bikes that were so sweet and wanted their picture taken. If they wanted to go to Jericho they would have to get a pass from the Israelis who don't always grant them. I visited Jericho with no trouble a few days ago.

Most of all, today, I prayed for Portland Avenue Church and hoped that the Holy Spirit was working madly in the hearts and minds of the members this morning. I thank all who may have gone to show their support.