Delegation day one

Today was the first day of our delegation. I'm with an awesome group of people, all whom share an obvious thirst for justice and peacemaking.

Steve Ramer is the only guy in the first picture with a CPT hat. He is our delegation leader and has experience leading CPT delegations in Israel/Palestine and the Philippines. He has a great sense of humour and a calm voice. I respect him as a leader already.

In the second photo, as you may have noticed, we are all wearing the red hats. Going from front to back, left to right here are their names: Mary-Anne, Steve, Eric, Cathy, yours truly, Dyck, Marie, Peggy, John, Hope, Ryan, John.

I got my itinerary, so this is some of the stuff we will be doing. We will be doing a lot of learning, talking to Palestinians and Israelis affected by the violence. Tomorrow we will be meeting an organization of Israeli and Palestinian parents who lost their lives in the conflict. We will be meeting with Palestinian Christians and Muslims who are working peacefully to end the military occupation of the West Bank and the abuses that are committed against the Palestinian people. We will be meeting Israeli activists and ex-soldiers who are working with Palestinians to find a peaceful solution to the conflict.
We will also be taking part in some direct actions. We will be attending protests against evictions of Palestinians as well as walking kids to school and staying in homes of families who are facing harrassment from settlers. We may be able to arrange a meeting with Israeli settlers to hear their perspective. We do not know if they will agree to speak to our group.

There is a wide variety in age. There are pastors and retired people in the group, as well as university students and young adults. There is a wide variety of church backgrounds, although almost half are Mennonites. We were asked to list a thing that we hope will happen and one that we hope will not happen.
I hope that through our actions we represent Jesus to both Palestinians and Israelis. We will not be able to prosyletize and it is not our mission although if oppurtunity for interfaith dialogue arises I will take it. I had some awesome discussions with some backpackers in the hostel I was staying as well with a Muslim trader at the market. I am sure they will come again. I hope though that when people see us, they will see Jesus and hope to learn more about Him. I also hope that I see Him in people we will be working with.
I hope that I will never grow to hate the Israeli people, or the Israeli soldiers and settlers we will be meeting in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. We will be talking to Palestinian victims of IDF and settler violence and may encounter opposition to our work. I pray that I do not hate the people who may be hating us. We are called to love our enemies. That can be hard sometimes. It will be good to put that to the test.

We are staying in the Old City for three days, then we set out for the West Bank. We are all getting along well and I really look forward to the next 12 days. There is a lot of poverty and injustice in the West Bank, but plenty of internet access so this blog should be updated often, inshallah.