Late Recap

7/11
Today we attended a worship service at the Redeemer Lutheran Church in the Old City. The service was in Arabic, German and English. Harrison made an impromptu thank you speech for us. He did such a great job, everyone thought he had prepared something. Then we went to the courtyard in the church after the service. We met Tom who will be going with us to the Sea of Galilee. We ate shwerma sandwiches with the youth and Tom. Then we went to the Yad Vashem holocaust memorial. Israeli soldiers are required to go there as a part of their training when they are in their 4th month. I have never seen such gruesome and painful photos or videos about the holocaust. There were pictures of mothers holding their children as they are shot or a video of a bulldozer pushing bodies from a camp into a pit. But the one thing that I couldn't wrap my head around was the fact that at the very end of the tour, there was a reading of an Israeli document that says that they are all for peace and tranquility and equality however they can't see that they are oppressing the Palestinian people much like they were once oppressed. There were walls in the Jewish ghettos much like the wall that makes Palestinian life so hard. The oppressed have become the oppressor. I want to know if they see any of these obvious parallels between how their life was and what Palestinian life is like now? As an outsider, I can see the undeniable parallels. To me it seems like all you would have to do is open your eyes. But I guess that whatever anyone can't or won't see won't hurt them. "Out of sight out of mind". After Yad Vashem we went to the hotel. We chilled with Joudeh and made friendship bracelets. I got numerous comments from Joudeh about my bracelet and how it didn't look good, which was very true. That's why it is a friendship anklet not a bracelet. We were able to get Joudeh to open up about his life as a Palestinian christian. He said that not only are they oppressed by Israel, but hey are terrorized by Muslims too. I hope that God will bring Christians out of fear and back into the Holy Land. The only way I can see that peace will ever be reached is if the Muslim and Christian peoples work together against a common opposition. For dinner we had "upside down". It is basically this huge pot of rice, fried cauliflower and spices and chicken that they dump onto a tray and serve. Of course I got the good seat in the house so everyone would have to give my a hug in order to get to the best pieces of the upside down. We also watched the World Cup but I was too tired to even try and stay awake for the extra 30 minutes.