On June 25, 2007, a Christian Reformed Church ad-hoc Middle East study team, under the leadership of the Office of Social Justice and Hunger Action, boarded a Boeing 777 at Newark airport and embarked on a journey that has not yet ended. This report is one result of our experience, but it is not the final product. 

The final product, we pray, is that we and our denomination will stand in love with the struggling and diminishing community of Christians in the Middle East and will work, as individuals and as a denomination, for peace and justice in that tiny piece of the world where our Lord walked. 

GOALS

The study team was asked to provide detailed input for this report, assessing whether or not the CRC should increase its involvement in the Middle East, with particular attention to possible partnerships with Palestinian and/or Israeli Christian groups or communities, in order to learn about and contribute to the work of peace and justice.

In case a positive assessment was returned, the team was asked to provide input for recommendations to denomination-related agencies and institutions, suggesting ways and means of working toward peace and justice in this part of the world.

The team itself added a third task: to identify ways and means for contributing to peace and justice in our personal spheres of action and influence. 

More on our goals and our group itself can be found here.

NARRATIVE

We traveled within Israel and the West Bank for ten days. We visited, both formally and informally, with numerous Palestinians, both Christian and Muslim: an Anglican Bishop, an Anglican pastor, a number of Reformed/Presbyterian pastors, a leader of the Bethlehem Bible College, several lay Christians (including the guide who accompanied us all ten days), the founder of the Holy Land Trust, the founders of Sabeel, the families with whom some of us were housed in Bethlehem, the mayors of two towns, two vice-presidents and four professors at a Palestinian University, several university students, a lawyer who is a former member of the Palestinian Authority government, and two farmers whose lands had been confiscated or were cut off by the wall.

We visited with a few Israelis: a young volunteer for the Israeli Committee Against House Demolition, a Jewish man who participates in the Bereaved Parents Circle, one or two Israeli soldiers, and a few Israelis we met in restaurants or other public places. And we talked with several “internationals,” people from other parts of the world who are in Palestine or Israel to work: an RCA pastor who has been there two years, an American who has volunteered for several years for the Bethlehem Bible College, a worker for World Vision International, a Scottish volunteer who works for a peace-keeping team, a young British woman who works at the Bethlehem Bible College, and an American Jewish woman who works for an Israeli human rights group. 

While we certainly claim no expertise on either the history or the current situation, there are impressions we gleaned, many of which surprised almost all of us.

This is our story.

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