Nina's Notes for Monday

Monday, February 6 A miracle has happened! One of my fellow pilgrims figured out how to change the words on the blog site from Hebrew to English. Now I won't be posting things that have no content because I can actually read the instructions in English! My life is now complete :-) We went to Bethlehem today and saw the birth place of Jesus which is located inside the Church of the Nativity. As with most places around here, several people groups claim this site as their own and share space within the church. Thus you will see a very ornate section belonging to the Greek Orthodox church and a very simple chapel belonging to another group. The church is built around the cave where Jesus was born and one can see the manger that Jesus was laid in as a newborn baby. The Catholics didn't get a place within the church so they added their own wing onto the building. On the door of the church is this message: We are hoping that if you enter here as a tourist, you will exit as a pilgrim. If you enter as a pilgrim, you would exit as a holier one. Indeed! Bethlehem is located in a part of the city that requires one to go through a check point where passports are examined and people questioned. There is a wall that separates the people of Bethlehem from the city of Jerusalem. This results in a great deal of tension and prejudice among the people of this land. It is a very complicated situation and we were able to talk with pastor and scholar, Rev. Mitri Raheb of Christmas Lutheran Church about this today. He wrote a book about Palestinian Christians that we read before our trip to Israel. It was an interesting conversation where he spoke about contextual theology and peace making. There was much food for thought as a result of our time together. Tomorrow we head to the Dead Sea, Jericho and Qumran.