Category: YMCA & The Holy Land

Why the Walls Still Fall at the Jericho Y

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Peter Nasir, General Secretary for the East Jerusalem YMCA hosted our OnPrinciple team at the Jericho YMCA Vocational Center and explained in stark terms why and how they live out God’s calling:

“We work with youth whose back is to a cliff.”

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Peter Nasir standing between four of his fellow Y leaders.

“If we don’t care for them, they are gone.”

There are still walls in and around Jericho. For too many youth and adult men, they are prison walls. Too many families are hemmed in by refugee walls. Border walls loom ominously, protected by barbed-wire walls and guard towers.

“We are in the business of selling hope; we keep kids out of prison. Youth choose violence out of revenge, despair and hate.”

Peter pointed out to us the unending anxiety that undergirds Palestinians regarding their displacement from their homes, villages, fields and land.

The YMCA in Jericho seeks to bring down the walls of despair that imprison Palestinian youth, subverting the foundations of injustice that support those walls with the gospel of Christ Jesus.

This gospel is embodied through a safe place with wise and loving mentors, practical training in vocational trades that can equip youth to care for their families and take responsibility for their own welfare, as well as forge friendships that support a new hope and justice.

“Palestinians want skills, not relief; we want your friendship.”

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Peter Nasir sharing with Jared of Washington and John of North Carolina

As a minority people in the Holy Land, Palestinians face complicated and dire circumstances. Palestinian Christians are a smaller minority amongst their people, yet they play a crucial role amidst the violent conflict as peace-makers.

The YMCA is a place where Palestinian Muslims and Christians can come together to build up hope, skills, wisdom, and aspirations for justice using non-violent, constructive means.

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The Y has a special, highly respected, much-needed role in Jericho. In 1948 when Palestinians were driven out of Jerusalem and other major communities, it included Palestinian Christian leaders and staff at the Jerusalem International YMCA.

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They were thrust into dangerous, chaotic, desperate situations amongst their displaced people, whereupon they immediately began to put their Y mission into practice, organizing efforts to love, care and serve. Many Palestinians were sent to Jordan, thus going through Jericho, which is where Peter Nasir’s father concentrated his YMCA work.

It goes on today.

The experiences in Jericho with the Y caused me to reflect deeper about the youth in my own community who have their backs to a cliff. What is our Y doing for them? What can we learn from our fellow Palestinian YMCA leaders?

For me, I was struck by their clarity and resoluteness, how they grounded their Y work in the Christian mission, specifically for Peter it is the gospel of Jesus Christ. I was inspired by how they welcome and serve all the Christian and Muslim youth in their community that came to them.

What will be the motivation for our YMCA to come alongside youth with their backs to the wall?

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Mike Bussey, former CEO of Jerusalem International YMCA with Jericho YMCA youth

Youth are driven to the cliff’s edge by violence, anxiety, vengefulness, despair, hate. What will motivate us to meet them in the darkness? To stay with them as long as it takes?

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Jericho YMCA youth in a computer information technology class

Where does the light come from that we are seeking to bring to their place on the cliff?

From whence comes our strength, perseverance, loving-kindness, wisdom?

For Christians who engage in this kind of youth work, it becomes clear how much we must draw upon the strong, uniting, merciful Spirit of Christ, who calls us to such work, equips us for it, and sustains us.

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A 1,500 year old sycamore tree in Jericho.

Our visit with the Jericho YMCA ended with a devotion next to a sycamore tree, much like the one Zacchaeus climbed to see Jesus. This sacred place reminds us that Jesus sees us where we are; he sees us when we come looking for him.

And like this tree-climbing sinner, when we are seen by Jesus, we too are sent with a mission to embody the good news. We are sent to make right what we have wronged, to be generous with our resources, and to add light where there is darkness.

As little Christ’s, when we see youth with their back to the cliff, may they see Christ in us and respond to the invitation to a life of hope, meaning, justice, and peace. And may the YMCA continue to be a space where new life takes root, for all.

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Living Y sign in the Jericho facility

 

What Can You “C” in the Holy Land Via the YMCA?

The YMCA provides a unique lens through which to see the Holy Land.

Since 1878 Christian Y workers have been embodying their mission there, focusing on peace-making work in spirit, mind, and body.

In 1933 a building was finally constructed to give the Jerusalem International YMCA a permanent home from which to extend it’s influence and services to the wider community.

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80+ years later, a lot has changed in the Holy Land.

Though James Michener helps put “change” in perspective in this sacred place, what’s transpired in the past couple of generations has its own unique element.

With the devastating tsunami of consequences from the Great War, to the horrific pogroms and holocaust of the Jews, and the shifting tectonic plates of nationalism in the last century, Jerusalem has become epicenter to peace and conflict in the modern world.

The Y has been deeply embedded in this storm and is positioned to strengthen opportunities for truth, justice, and reconciliation non-violently.

There is so much to look at in Jerusalem and the surrounding cities, towns, villages, and countryside. So much to see. Like everything, we get to choose how we see what we look at.

Everything is interpreted, it is given meaning, significance, relevance, value. We in part get to choose how we see what we see.

And because of the sacred nature of Jerusalem and the Holy Land to Jews, Christians, and Muslims, along with many others, there are many perspectives existing alongside each other; there are many ways to see the same sites and circumstances.

What does my Christian faith shape how I see Israel and Palestine?

What kind of lens does Christ make possible for me as I seek to understand what I can see there?

How do I “C” the land where Jesus was born, lived, gospeled, was crucified and raised up? I don’t pretend to have an easy answer – everything it seems is complicated in Jerusalem.

But am I aware of my assumptions, my biases, of what I don’t know that I don’t know, of what I may be a misunderstanding?

Thanks to emerging friendships and conversations, it’s slowly stumbling in that direction. I can be a dense, obtuse learner.

The YMCA offers a unique way to “C” the Holy Land due to its historical and organizational striving to put Christian principles into practice without delving into doctrinal differences.

The Paris Basis of the YMCA is a genius document that emphasizes imitation of the Lord Jesus Christ, the good news of his kingdom, and harmonious relationship for all who believe.

It allows different kinds of Christians to work together for peace, focusing on what we have in common, and building bridges over what we can’t agree upon.

This is important ecumenical Christian work that the Y offers, especially in light of the historical reality – that Christians are willing to kill each other over doctrinal and cultural divergences.

It matters in a place where people are willing to kill each other over beliefs about who ought to have the right to live and flourish in the Holy Land.

The YMCA is radically committed to non-violent practices that forge friendships in unlikely circumstances, not only among Christians but among those of all faiths or no faith. The Y isn’t the only organization striving to do this, thankfully. 

When our OnPRINCIPLE YMCA group had its first tour stop on the Mount of Olives, it was a grey, bitterly cold, wet and windy morning. Miserable.

Shivering we looked over Jerusalem, seeing in the foreground ancient Jewish cemeteries. Our eyes were drawn to the aging walls surrounding the Old City, particularly the blocked up Golden Gate, which faces the east.

Behind it is the temple mount on which sit two sacred mosques. In the far background across the horizon are church steeples representing many different nations and traditions.

What did I see?

I saw a city beloved by three major world religions who all call Abraham father – yet a city whose streets have cruelly run with blood and tears from the children who have yet to found a way to live in peace here.

Like many, I see a city that yearns for peace but is unable to secure it.

I also see an opportunity to join in with my global neighbors to learn to love – in my case inspired and instructed by Jesus – to love not only those who love me back, but strangers and sojourners, and most importantly, our enemies.

On our way from the airport to our lodgings at the Y, we had to pull to the side of the road due to motion sickness from one of our fellow travelers.

We happened to stop at an entrance to a Palestinian village. I stunned by the guard tower, roadblocks, armed soldier, barbed wire, and a foreboding sign warning Israeli’s to avoid entering this dangerous area.

A stark reminder of the violent reality that infects the foundations of society in the Holy Land.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Either we can see those military outposts and accept the status quo, or we can “C” another way to build towers of hope that beckon enemies to reconcile and become friends.

That’s what I want to “C” in the Holy Land via the YMCA.

What Are Ways The YMCA Is For All In The Holy Land?

Since 1878 the YMCA has worked in Jerusalem to work for holy and loving peace among Jews, Christians, and Muslims as well as between international political and ethnic powers seeking to control the land.

There is still much more peace-making work to do in this place that sits at the center of the universe.

The Y is in the middle of it, striving to nurture loving, caring and serving with flourishing for all.

Let’s find a way to join in it.

The Holy Land is revered by millions of Jews around the world, along with billions of Christians and Muslims.

Jerusalem is a sacred city, the epicenter of the story of these three Abrahamic faiths that make up the majority of the world population.

The Psalms call us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem – one that we would all love to see answered in our lifetime.

For the religious among us, it’s almost as if Jerusalem is the center of the world, the point where heaven and earth have met, still meet, and one day will reconvene.

To be a peace-maker in the Holy Land is to embody the deepest hopes and calling of those who identify as children of Abraham.

And yet war, terror, fury, revenge, and hate corrode the foundations of what is most beautiful about the Holy Land.

So what is the YMCA doing in this land?

As an organization with Christian origins and heritage, with a commitment to living out the kingdom of God in the world harmoniously and for the common good, it ends up having a unique role in many communities across the world.

Especially in the Holy Land.

What does it mean for this kind of organization with this kind of Christian legacy to advocate for inclusivity amongst its membership and leadership?

At one level it creates space for Jews, Christians, and Muslims who do want to work, pray and play together to do so.

The synergy and love that develops around their efforts together not only becomes compelling attractive but healing as well as inspiring.

For those that feel like their only options are withdrawing from violence into safe enclaves of like-mindedness or wading into the conflict to show how right they are, there are other ways of being a peace-maker without being identical.

There are plenty of similarities and differences between the Jews, Christians, and Muslims who serve with the YMCA in the Holy Land.

But it’s the inclusive nature of the mission that both allows them to draw on the best of their faith traditions without requiring strict adherence to their religious doctrines or spiritual practices.

Mutual respect, compassionate caring, genuine honesty, and mature responsibility go a long way in allowing talented people of different faiths to do YMCA mission-work together.

Within Christian traditions, there can be the belief that God will only bless his people when they are holy and loving.

Thus there is always a striving to be more holy and more loving.

The problem is that these two desires can sometimes (often) cause conflict with each other.

Sometimes to be more holy I might feel the need to withdraw from those who are different or less pure than myself.

But to be more loving is to be more compassionate and healing to those least like me.

We can see this tension being played out in the stories of God’s people throughout recorded history. Including in the YMCA.

Since 1878 the YMCA has worked in Jerusalem to work for holy and loving peace among Jews, Christians, and Muslims as well as between international political and ethnic powers seeking to control the land.

There is still much more peace-making work to do in this place that sits at the center of the universe.

The Y is in the middle of it, striving to nurture loving, caring and serving with flourishing for all.

Let’s find a way to join in it.

(featured image is the domes of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the foreground, the Dome of the Rock mosque in the middle, and a Jewish cemetery in the far background)

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