Merry Christmas

Two days ago, I crossed the partition wall and went to the West Bank- Bethlehem, to be specific. First we went to the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem where this Palestinian guy lectured for over an hour on the percentage of land Palestinians no longer have because of the evil Israelis. I got all the fine details of how much percentage of land is being allocated to military use, govt use, and how much is going to other things I don't care about. The first 20 min were interesting, but after ten bajillion powerpoint slides with copious, albeit biased/over exaggerated statistics, i was done.

Then we went to Bethlehem University and had a Q&A with 5 Palestinian students there. As cliche as this sounds, they are just like every other college student. Some were Muslim, some were Christian, some wanted a 2-state solution, others wanted a 1-state solution. For lunch we ate a this tent restaurant- the BEST pitas and hummus/garlic spread/salsa stuff. PS a group of us ate at the foccacia bar in West Jerusalem on our free day-the best meal i've ever had. hands down. I love food.

THE BEST part, obviously, was going to the Church of the Nativity where Christ was born. Bethlehem is so built up (the shepherd's fields could hardly be called a field) that it's hard to imagine Mary and Joseph wandering through the streets looking for a place to stay. But, our group went down to these underground parts in the Church and we sang Christmas hymns. There was a little hole in the ground I reached my hand into to touch the original stone of the cave Christ was born in. That's all that's left. As i was singing Christmas hymns the feeling came so strongly to me that this is where our Savior was born. This is where His life began.

I am so grateful I was able to celebrate Christmas in June and in Bethlehem.

ps: i bought some olive wood kitchen stuff. way better than Williams-Sonoma.