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excerpt

Blessed

by Caley Ortman

This past January, I had the chance of a lifetime to make a class trip to Israel/Palestine and the surrounding areas. For a Bible and religion major, there is nothing more exciting than to have the opportunity to see where so much of Scripture took place and to walk where Jesus walked. To look over the Promised Land where Moses once stood. To spend Christmas Eve with the Eastern Orthodox in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, built over the birthplace of Jesus. To walk along the Sea of Galilee where Jesus ministered to so many. To follow the Way of the Cross in Jerusalem to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the traditional site of Christ’s crucifixion, burial and resurrection.

But this was only half the experience. The second half of our time was dedicated to observing and learning more about the complexity of the political situation in the area or, as our instructor, Patty Shelly, would put it, “learning about the living stones of the Holy Land.” Learning by listening to the experiences and perspectives of the everyday people on the streets, by immersing ourselves in a culture very foreign to our own and by braving occupied Palestinian territory, where few tourists care to go.

What I saw and experienced shocked, angered and saddened me. And this in the end is what made the biggest impression on me – what changed my perspective, not only on the ongoing conflict in the Middle East but also on how I live my life from day to day.

I witnessed the oppression of a Palestinian people who have been packed into an ever-shrinking portion of land. Of a solid concrete wall, twice as tall as the Berlin Wall, that snakes through the land, separating Israel from Palestine but also at times separating farmers from their fields, workers from their jobs and family members from their families. I witnessed checkpoints where Israelis were allowed through on paved roads but Palestinians were not – not because they posed a threat but because of their nationality. I stood on a hilltop looking at the well-funded Israeli neighborhoods on one side of the wall while 20 feet away run-down Palestinian communities struggled to make ends meet.

It is easy to see such injustice and become bitter, to be overwhelmed by the hopelessness of the situation and try to block it out and move on with your life. After all, when it really gets down to it, it doesn’t affect my day-to-day life. But I feel that as Christians we are called to do something different: to seek hope and growth where it is not immediately visible.

For me, that has come in the reminder of how blessed I am, every day.

Blessed when I don’t feel like going to my campus job after a hard day of school work – because many Palestinians struggle to find work at all.

Blessed when the walls to my mod seem to let in more noise than they keep out – because at least my room has walls, unlike the house of a Palestinian family that we visited, which has been bulldozed four times by Israeli forces and where the family lives in fear of the destruction of the fifth house.

Blessed when I worry about where the money will come from to cover the cost of my trip – because unlike most Palestinian passports, mine will let me leave the country.

Blessed when I have been traveling on a charter bus with the choir for eight hours straight in a cramped seat – because on our way across the country, we have not been pulled over and searched once.

Blessed when my alarm goes off on Sunday morning and I do not feel like going to church because I am under-rested and behind in homework – because many Palestinians, living only miles from Jerusalem, are not allowed past the checkpoints to worship at their holy places.

And blessed when I feel that life isn’t going my way – because I live in a country that allows me to receive an education and take the steps toward being able to do something about the injustice in this world.

May we never forget the potential that God has for us and may we never let a day pass where we take that for granted.

Caley Ortman is a senior from Marion, S.D. As a member of the Bethel College Concert Choir, he went on the spring 2007 trip to venues in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Kansas and was one of the featured speakers for the tour. This was his presentation. with the confusion and the pain and the suffering – physical, psychological and spiritual – that this tragic accident has caused.