Fostering a just peace in Israel and Palestine through education

November 2023

MEEI teaches: Discover in the other a brother,

and never look for the enemy in your neighbors.

MEEI is in the light blue areas requiring safe rooms for students. There is an urgent need for Safe Room renovations. Read in this E-News how you can help.

Executive Director Message

Dear friend,

As you are likely aware October brought a troubling upsurge in violence across the land considered to be holy by the three monotheistic religions. The past few weeks have been devastating and our elected leaders are not skilled peacemakers, quite regretfully, while this is exactly what we need.

We have been in touch with our partners in I’billin, the West Bank, and in Gaza. This past month has brought more death, more pain, more suffering, more fear, more upheaval than previously. Of course, particularly in Gaza — unimaginable horrors have rained down upon the 2.2 million residents of this besieged stretch of land.

They ask for our prayers and we willingly send them, begging for a just peace and a path to reconciliation, NOW! This is too much, it’s gone on too long, we need an end to the horrific displays of inhumanity!

As you can imagine, we chose to cancel the Living Stones Pilgrimage this fall. We still hope to continue with the Study Tour planned for April 2024 — while of course keeping our eyes and ears on what is happening in the region. If you are considering joining this trip, just know that your pilgrimage fee will be returned in full if the trip is similarly cancelled.

Year-End Fund Raising Begins

We are beginning our end of year fund raising campaign. Honestly, I feel quite unsettled about asking for funds for a school in Israel when the need in Gaza is tremendous right now. However, these past few weeks of violence and grave human rights violations reminds me, again, how badly we need leadership - we need voices of peace and reconciliation, we need exactly what Mar Elias inculcates in the students through a curriculum steeped in dignity, respect, and acceptance. MEEI instills in children the readiness to discover in the other a brother, and never to look for the enemy in their neighbors.

At MEEI, the young people learn that hatred, madness, ignorance and agony spell ‘destruction’. As Father Chacour says, “What we want is for our young people to work for ‘construction’. It is much harder to achieve because you need reconciliation, sacrifice, compassion, love and vision. Vision without action is a daydream. Actions without vision is a nightmare. Construction is not easy, but it is the way of Christ. Jesus sacrificed himself to show us the way of love and compassion.”

Further, we have just received word of an urgent need at MEEI for ‘Safe Room’ renovations. You’ll see in the newsletter below a bit more about this need. We appreciate your support of our work to continue raising peacemakers on the desktops of students.

Praying from the depths of my soul for a light to shine illuminating a path toward healing and justice,

Many Blessings,

Essrea Cherin

Executive Director

Donate Now

MEEI Update

EMERGENCY SHELTER

needed for students to return to school

Can you help?

I am writing to ask for your help for a vital and urgent project at Mar Elias (MEEI).

Administrators are deeply committed to ensuring the students and staff's safety and well-being. Still, unfortunately, they have realized recently that the safe spaces at school do not meet the requirements of the Security Department at the Ministry of Education. The Ministry of Education experts are visiting all schools in Israel to see if these schools can reopen soon. The existing student shelters at all MEEI schools require substantial structural improvement and renovation to fulfill their crucial role during emergencies better.

This ambitious project requires significant financial support to the tune of $130,000 to become a reality.

We need your help now to get the students back in the classroom.

Double the Impact of Your Emergency Shelter Gift

A very generous donor just offered to make a

$40,000 matching grant for the shelters.

Donate now to help kids get back to school in a safer place.

For now, the Ministry of Education has allowed MEEI to bring back a limited number of students this week. To bring back all students, they must complete all the shelters. We certainly have no wish to keep them at home, they have suffered enough during the pandemic and now face one more round of anxieties and social distancing. People are always indoors, and streets everywhere are empty, awaiting what might occur next.

Please help us get these spaces renovated as soon as possible,

Need to expand openings

Donate Now - Renovate Emergency Safe Rooms

Many of you have donated to Renovate the MEEI Library and we have sent $40,000 for this purpose. They purchased a new A/C system to make the space feel "fresh" and burden-free, especially when the weather is hot. In addition, they have purchased new shelves and new desks are on their way.

We are grateful to the many generous donors who supported this effort!

Message from Abuna

Dear All our friends at Pilgrims of Ibillin,

In this confusing situation, where we live now unnerved every day with alarming sirens, and with the news about increasing numbers of Children of God terminated in an act of revenge for the numbers of other Children of God.

All this are worrying us and corner us to live in a precarious situation. Are we doomed to receive one of those criminal rockets or by an exaggerated reprisal? And all these inhuman reactions make, us cry twice whenever a Jew killed as well as when a Palestinian home in Gaza is reduced to rubble on the heads of its inhabitants.

Both ‘terrrorisms’ are acted in the name of the same God. I imagine that God is twice sad for the massacre of his own Children. I imagine God says, “What for are your prayers, your supplications don’t reach my heart. You are killing each other and doing so, you crucify my son twice, once when any Jew is massacred and twice when any Palestinian is also massacred.” God wants us to be his messengers, God doesn’t kill, God gives life to all of us even to those who act with violence as if they take the place of God to kill and to demolish without pity and without Compassion.

We are torn between two evils. No one is winning. Both are losing and so causing God’s sadness. Not to say more…

You please who are on neither side, in the name of God, I urge you to pray for all the victims of this criminal war. Please don’t forget to pray for those who have the power of decision making, so that God changes their hearts of stone and replaces them with hearts of flesh.

This is the message I gave this morning to our junior students gathered some with fear, others with rage and others with anger. This is the time for us to become ambassadors of reconciliation and this what we want you to be, or to become.

We will keep you posted on future developments. God is in control.

Yours Sincerely,

Abuna Elias Chacour, Archbishop Emeritus of Galilee

Fresh Paint for MEEI HS

Painting the benches at a school can serve several important purposes, contributing to the overall well-being and aesthetics of the school environment. In our case, and especially in these times, well-maintained and visually appealing surroundings at the high school can have a positive impact on students well-being and academic performance during these challenging times they are going through.

Physical Education teacher and his able helper bring color to the HS campus.

New MEEI Bell Tower

The Church at Mar Elias has received a new bell tower. Overall, the completion of the church's bell tower is a significant achievement that holds religious, cultural, and architectural importance.

The tower, which Abuna worked so hard on, enhances the church's functionality and strengthens its presence within the community and its role in fostering a sense of togetherness and tradition.

Giving Tuesday, November 28

Mark your calendar to give on November 28 — GivingTuesday when people all around the world will come together to tap into the power of human connection and strengthen communities to change our world. Will you be one of them?

Pilgrims of Ibillin will participate in GivingTuesday

and we need your help!

By joining the GivingTuesday movement, you’re proving that in times of uncertainty, generosity can bring the whole world together.

Here is how you can get ready to give:

Mark your calendar and

Give on November 28 –

go to this page to donate

We really appreciate all the support you can offer.

Giving Tuesday, November 28

As someone who cares about the plight of Palestinian Christians and youth, please spread the word. Encourage your friends and family to join you in creating real impact on November 28 by sharing what our mission means to you and why you support our organization. Make sure to use hashtag #GivingTuesday and tag us so we can share!

Let’s rally together to

build stronger communities and the

more peaceful world we long for.

Living Stones Pilgrimages Status

The events that began on October 7 and continue to this day forced Pilgrims of Ibillin to make the unwelcome decision to cancel the Fall 2023 Living Stones Pilgrimage.

We remain hopeful that the tension, the violence, the horrors of the past several weeks subside to the degree that we are able to bring a group, as scheduled, to the Holy Land in April 2024.

Obviously, it is quite difficult to promote a trip to this distressed land with the stream of violent images across our screens, day in and day out. Just know that if the circumstances are such that we have to similarly cancel the April Study Tour, we will refund your payments in full, with no penalty whatsoever.

Providing that the ability to travel safely to Israel and Palestine resumes, we will lead this trip. When you sign up to join us, you are signaling your optimism for peace to reign over the land that has been divided for many decades now.

So, as hard as it may be to imagine returning at this moment, I encourage you to envision the future that will allow this trip to go forward and consider joining us!

If you are curious, enjoy learning about culture, history,

politics, human and environmental rights, and

want to meet and engage with the people who

live where you travel - this trip is for you!

April 7 - 19, 2024

Submit your deposit before Dec 15

you not only receive a $500 discount off the pilgrimage fee

(or a total of $3,000 rather than $3,500), you also hold your spot

on what promises to be a trip of a lifetime!

I'd like to learn more about the April 2024 Pilgrimage

Book Discussion with Father Chacour’s

We Belong to the Land

We are hearing from folks who have held group book discussions and they are requesting more copies for different groups. What they have found is that the readings and discussions are helping people make sense out of the current events.

Here is one discussion leader’s (slightly edited) comments about how valuable it was to his participants:

“The first [book group] went VERY well. Nearly every participant expressed a surprising new awareness of the problematic history and negative/combative efforts of the Israeli military and educational system's efforts to prevent any return to the village (as legally demanded by the [Israeli] Supreme Court), AND to thwart any/all efforts to develop the school and affiliated efforts to work for peace and justice. (Most participants had only "heard" the current media propaganda which always paints Israel as the "victim".) And [now] folks are off and reading other sources of information."

Blessings, Virgil Nelson

This is exactly our hope. Please consider taking advantage of this incredible opportunity to share what you know about Palestine with those in your wider community. We still have 100s of copies to share with you — and I would love to get them into your hands, as many as you’d like, we only ask that you cover the cost of postage. (We leave it to you to distribute the books however you wish).

Go to this web page: pilgrimsofibillin.org/we-belong / and complete the form to request your copies of We Belong to the Land.

The form only allows you to select 10 copies, but if you wish to receive more than that, please let us know how many in the comment field.

We are grateful for a donation from Middle East Books in Washington DC of over 1,000 copies of Father Elias Chacour’s influential book, We Belong to the Land.

First Advent in Palestine Book Discussion

Dates: 5 Wednesday nights,

from Nov. 29 - Dec. 27

Time: 7:30-9 pm ET / 4:30-6pm PT

Where: on Zoom

Kelley Nicondeha’s book The First Advent in Palestine invites readers to examine the advent narratives of Matthew and Luke from the perspective of the original Palestinian context of resistance, abusive rulers, and an oppressive empire, while at the same time, learning stories and hearing the voices of today’s Palestinians in their current context of occupation. Into both contexts God is incarnate.

For this upcoming advent, the Rev. Loren McGrail, pastor of Holmdel Community UCC and former Global Ministries mission co-worker in Israel and Palestine, and Pilgrims of Ibillin Board member, Rev. Gail Doering, are offering a five-session online book study of The First Advent in Palestine.

“From the tumultuous days of empires past to the present uprisings and military actions, the land of Advent still throbs with intense pain.” Kelley Nikondeha

To register, email Loren McGrail at Pastorloren3@gmail.com.

To read an excerpt of the book and watch an interview with the author, go here.

Seeking Graphic Design Volunteer

Pilgrims of Ibillin has been blessed with the talent, creativity, and passion of a graphic designer who volunteered with us for many years — Mary Sue Alexander. We are profoundly grateful for her years of service and commitment to the mission of Pilgrims of Ibillin.

The time has come for Mary Sue to step away in pursuit of other of life’s offerings.

We are therefore seeking graphic design support and assistance. Perhaps you are looking for a way to plug in and support our work to foster a just peace for all in Palestine and Israel through education? And promoting Archbishop Chacour’s vision of building peace on the desktops of students?

Please reply to this email if you have graphic design skills and experience with InDesign, Photoshop, Constant Contact, Wordpress, or other sorts of design skills and would like to help out — I’d love to have a conversation with you to learn more about your skills, interests, availability, and all that! Thank you so much for considering!