United StatesReconciliation MinistriesP.O. BOX 238Medina, WA 98039USATax ID: 91-1960797

United KingdomThe Andrew Christian TrustRockwood, Storth RoadSandside, MilnthorpeCumbria LA7 7PHUK - Charity: 327845

The NetherlandsNear East MinistryP.O. Box 30, NL-3780 BAVoorthuizenNL

United StatesFor Presbyterian ChurchesThe Outreach Foundation381 Riverside Dr., Suite 110Franklin, TN 37064USA

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CanadaHOPE Outreach of Canada, note: Musalaha.P.O. Box 20033Woodstock, ONN4S 8X8519-537-3511

AustraliaMECO Australia, note: Musalaha.P.O. Box 136KerrimuirVictoria 3129

positions of betterment at the expense of the rest of their people.

In reconciliation, we challenge the status quo. For many, this is threatening as we become accustomed to the way things are, and we, like the Israelites, are fearful of change. Where will reconciliation lead us? It seeks to lead us away from the Nile, to a place where we have to trust God. It leads us to a place free of fear, enmity, and socio-economic oppression. Yet we benefit from the status quo. We know our place; we have our work and our community. Like the overseers, we might lose something if we choose God’s different path. Yet in our shortsightedness, it is difficult to see that God is calling us to something better. We hear the words, we know with our heads, yet we have to let that message sink into our hearts.

In the New Testament, we see that Jesus also faced resistance to his message. There were many on that day that welcomed Jesus, but when it came to standing with him and believing in the truth of his message, his followers ran away. Jesus was a threat to those in power, and in the end even Judah collaborated with the leadership that opposed Jesus.

The stories of Moses and Jesus are the stories of the great liberators, those who challenged those in power, and those around them. The message of reconciliation

Youth Desert Encounter

Women’s Training

Young Mother’s Group

In this issue...

“But the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron and gave them a charge about the people of Israel and about Pharaoh king of Egypt: to bring the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt.”- Exodus 6:13

Summer 2014

When we recall the story of Passover, we often think of Pharaoh as the one who rejected Moses’ call. Yet it was not just Pharaoh, but the children of Israel that needed to be convinced (Ex. 6:9). The message of the plagues is not just a message to the Egyptians, but to those needing liberation.

The enslaved children of Israel knew what to expect as slaves, and they were resistant to change. They were part of a great empire, even though they were at the bottom. Change is threatening; change induces fear. Moses asked them to leave what they knew, to leave the life of the Nile in exchange for the dryness of the desert. Moses called the children of Israel to an uncertain and even threatening future. It is better to live along the Nile than to go mad from thirst in the desert, they must have thought.

First Moses had to convince the elders of Israel, and then he had to deal with the Israelite overseers. Among the children of Israel were those who benefited from the oppression, those Israelites who oversaw the labor and reported to Pharaoh. In many situations of oppression around the world we find examples of those among the oppressed that collaborate with the oppressor and benefit from the situation. As we see here, the overseers collaborate with Pharaoh, and resist, not just because the future is unclear, or they are worried where change might lead, but they are worried about their

is a message not just for the powerful, but for all of us. Moses and Jesus called for a change in the status quo, and while we may be comfortable where we are, walking in reconciliation requires trusting in God. The message of reconciliation is a message to go into the desert, a message to stand with our Messiah even when his message is ridiculed. We need to heed the voices of these great liberators and God’s call to be agents of reconciliation, acting with obedience so we can see the greatness of promise and resurrection that God has in store for us.

Let My People Go: The Challenge of Change

Munayer family updateI don’t usually write updates this often but there is news to share and it is good, so why not?

Jack has been and is working for Musalaha. His critical thinking, sharp mind and understanding of most things have earned him a reputation as a person of integrity, consequently he has been asked to be on various young adult committees. Although this time at Musalaha is temporary until he decides his next step everybody seems to be benefiting from it. He is working and using his brain, Salim gets help in the office and I have him at home to help carry heavy things about and help me with the computer.

Daniel will be spending 2 months studying at Cambridge University this summer. He applied for and earned a position as a group leader at the American University – this is great for his CV and great for our ‘UNI budget’ as all his expenses are paid! His autumn term will be at SOAS [School of Oriental and African Studies] London University. He is still teaching Hebrew and has returned to swimming. He recently sang the ‘Happy Birthday’ song in several languages to me over SKYPE. 10/10 for buttering up his Mother!

John was accepted to all the UNI’s he applied to and is taking his first choice reading of Politics, Religion, and Society at Kings College, London starting in September. A big relief all round that he got what he wanted…that is a relief for us until we saw the fees …Now it’s worry! He is beginning to reduce the number of jobs he is working in a wind down before leaving Israel to ‘do’ the ‘Stans’ with Jack in August . This is some sort of brother adventure involving

countries ending in stan (Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan) and a backpack.

Sam won a silver medal at the winter Israeli swim nationals last February. He is now taller than John and threatening Jack [as the tallest]. He turned sixteen and a corner and becoming

quite lovely as a person after several dodgy years which I am already forgetting about [!!]. Matriculation exams are beginning for him, and I agree with him that it’s hard to follow the three who have gone before him. At school he changed from Media Studies to Geography for his ‘high level’ so that is already different than the others.

Salim and I are trying to organize a brief family holiday in August for the 6 of us. There are about 6 days in between Cambridge, SOAS, Kings College, the ‘stans,’ school starting, work, and a Bank Holiday in the UK. If all goes to plan we will be 4 days in Scotland for our 8th and ‘Last Family Holiday.’ I really did believe several years ago we were having our last family holiday, but experience has taught me if you pay for it they show up!

At 59 [Salim in July] and 54 [me] we managed to clock up 27 years married last month. What a journey, what an achievement! We are both involved in our own work/ministries and help each other out whenever possible. Last month we had 4 days when all the boys were away on a trip and it was sooooo much fun to be alone; it felt like we were dating again!

Salim’s new book ‘Through My Enemy’s Eyes,’ which he co-authored, has been published. He has been on numerous

trips and travels with many speaking engagements. My small charity and fair-trade endeavors flourish, which makes me very, very happy.

Physically I have some challenges, my arthritis advances causing spin off ailments which so far can be countered by a great physiotherapist. I have to see her more often though. Salim, John, Sam and I ran the 10km at the Second International Palestinian Marathon in Bethlehem this past April. Due to my arthritis I walked it, but Salim ran it with John and Sam by his side [to make sure he didn’t stop or collapse]. It was GREAT fun and worth all the blisters. Salim and I spent several months beforehand training several times a week whereas on the marathon morning John and Sam donned shoes and said they ran extra slow for Salim hardly getting puffed!

I really could go on and on with family tales but it’s probably enough for now.

Please keep us in your prayers with all our plans for this summer, especially Jack and John in the ‘stans.’

Kay Munayer [as usual for all of them]Musalaha 2014

coming soon...

*If you would like to sponsor a child for one of of our three camps this July 13-26,2014, please see one of the addresses on the back page or visit our website at www.musalaha.org, click on the ‘Give’ button and designate it as “camp scholarship.”

In 2006, I met a lady from the

other side who changed my life. Our life stories, which

aren’t easy, are nearly identical. This drew us together, and over time,

she became my very best friend. Today we can talk for hours. We pray, we laugh,

we cry, and then we laugh again. She encour-ages me to do my dishes late at night when I

don’t feel like it. She sends me sermons to hear, and then we discuss them together. I pray for her and her children, and she does the same for me and mine. We are one in Jesus, and synchro-nized in soul, heart and spirit. We are aware of each other’s need for prayer and encour-agement. Due to the wall and checkpoints between us, we only meet three to four

times a year. But we have our phones, and the internet, and for one true relation-

ship, we have all we need!

-Palestinian participant

Shalom. I am the lady from the

other side. Eight years ago, in a neutral setting in Cyprus, I

attended a Musalaha women’s con-ference. It was my first time attend-

ing a Musalaha meeting, and there I met Branka, who would become my best friend and dearest sister in the Lord Jesus Christ.

We praise and thank Him, our heavenly Father, who brought us together, supply-

ing our needs. Together we grow in our faith. Together we stand and reject fear. Together we overcome boundaries. God’s grace and love reconciled us to Him and to each other. We both know the importance of Musalaha, and we see the need for reconciliation for our respective peoples. Together, we became partners and leaders in Musalaha’s wom-

en’s ministry. We hope and believe that many other true relationships will follow, from women on both sides.

-Israeli participant

Young Mothersform A new group

This past April 4-5, we held our spring national women’s conference. Fifty-five women attended, and we were blessed to see many in our group use their tal-ents among us. For example, a few of our teachers were recently trained in teaching the Musalaha curriculum, and used these new skills to teach some

of the sessions over the course of the weekend. A few others used their skills as translators to help with the commu-nication. Another, newly trained as a worship leader, led us in some deeply spiritual and cleansing times of wor-ship. And countless others served each other, helping with registration, trans-portation and facilitation. This was a wonderful snapshot of what we seek to do at Musalaha – train people to serve each other.

As we have experienced in the past few conferences, some of our women have been involved for many years, and oth-ers for a shorter period of time. There-fore, we had two separate teaching ses-sions, one on Listening for the newer women, and another a continuation of Remembering Rightly for our more vet-eran participants. In the session on lis-tening one of our new teachers began with an exercise where she divided the group into pairs, and each person was instructed to listen to a hurtful event from the other person’s life. It was an opportunity to actively practice listen-ing. Most of the women found that they became empathetic with the person in front of them. We then discussed the “Ten Commandments of Listening and Hearing,” including listening until

Listening and rememberingWomen’s Training

This past March 21, we started a new women’s group. Most of the women in our programs have older school age children, and there is a gap in our programs between young adult women and women about 35 and older. We have wanted to start something for our young moth-ers for some time, but due to babies at home, these women have been unable to commit to our longer meetings. Those who have tried attending have often dropped out. With these thoughts in mind, we decided to start a local Jerusalem/Bethlehem area group that would meet for a few hours at a time and we welcomed them to bring their

children, and we provided childcare.

We were expectant about this group of young women, and recruit-ment went smoothly. We had five Israelis and five Palestinians attend our first meeting, and nearly as many children. The children played together nicely as we met. The women chatted easily, and few ice breakers were needed to encourage the women to begin conversing.

Rittie Katz, one of our veteran women’s group leaders who has been involved in Musalaha for over 20 years, came and shared with us of her experiences and biblical principles of reconciliation. She told us that we all get married with “exquisite misunderstandings,” and we embark on the journey of reconciliation in a similar manner. We come from different backgrounds and cultures, and we have different expecta-tions of what this journey will look like. It is a wonderful journey as it engages our spirit, emotions, minds, and bodies. Sometimes it will be easy, and other times it will be quite difficult, but she encouraged us to stick with it, even when it will get hard. Through the challenges, our perspectives will be broadened, and our identities affirmed. In her closing words, she exhorted us to let the message of reconcilia-

tion go from our heads, to our hearts, to our hands.

Rittie’s message resonated with us, and as we broke into small groups to discuss her message further and its application for us personally, we began to open up to one another. One woman excitedly asked us to think of a vision for our group. This is something we will all reflect on

until we meet again.

As we shared prayer requests, the women opened up more, and we realized the differences between us, our lives, and our experiences with the conflict. It was a small snapshot of where we are in our lives right now, and a glimpse into how we can support one another. Until we meet again, our women committed to pray for another. This group is excited to continue to meet, and have already set the next two

meetings.

Please pray for us as we begin this process of sharing our lives and our walk in reconciliation. There were a number of women who will join this group in future meetings but could not attend this first time. Pray that God would prepare their hearts for this journey, and that God would guide us as we come up with a practical vision and outwork-

ing of our efforts in reconciliation.

---Musalaha Publications Department

the end, listening without pre-conceived notions, and listening without judging. We discussed the importance of using these skills and we had the opportunity to apply it throughout the session and the rest of the conference. A number of women shared that this was a timely topic for them, and often times when engaging in conversation, they spend more time talking than listening, or for-mulating the next sentence with-out fully and attentively listening to the other’s words. Afterwards, one woman commented, “I normally con-centrate on saying what I want the other person to know. And listening to someone can be healing, even if I don’t agree.” Listening is a message we can apply to all areas of our lives, not just to reconciliation.

In our session on Remembering Rightly, we discussed our collective memories as respec-tive people groups. We reviewed a list detailing the pain of our peoples in the con-flict, which another Is-raeli and Palestinian w o m e n ’ s group com-piled two years ago. Using their list as a guide, we delved into the real and p e r c e i v e d hurts of both sides, and reflected on the emotions they evoked. In one of our exercises, we designated one side of a board to the negative feelings we have held at one time or another, and shared those memories. Then we drew

a line down the middle and called that line “Reconciliation,” and asked how those feelings can be or have been re-placed and reshaped to move forward in a positive manner. We considered how these memories can be used to build each other up instead of tearing each other down.

We had many other activities through-out the course of the weekend as well. We had a language class in Hebrew and

Arabic, which was something fun, but also practical for our ladies. The wom-en asked that we continue with this language teach-ing session in the future.

We also held a bazaar to raise funds for needy children to at-tend some of Musalaha’s sum-mer camps. This is a popular event we hold every year now. It all started when sev-en of our women asked what they can actively do in

the conflict. We quickly discarded ideas that embraced particular political lean-ings and decided that raising money for children in need was a neutral way to work together. This year, we sold the

newly published “Through My Enemy’s Eyes” by Dr. Salim Munayer and Lisa Loden, various sweets and other food items, jewelry and olive wood prod-ucts. Most of the items were less than ten dollars so everyone had a chance to buy something and participate. I re-turned home with some hot peppers from a garden in Bethlehem canned by the hands of a good friend.

All these sessions, and particularly the worship, were blessed and moving for all of us. We happened to have our wor-ship sessions in a room that, during the week, is used as a kindergarten. One of our newer women remarked, “The worship in so many different lan-guages [Russian, Hebrew, English and Arabic] was amazing, and I really felt God’s presence with us. It was really great that someone pointed out that we were in a kindergarten, sitting in little chairs, and we are to come to God as little children. I really felt that freedom and grace from God. The experience, I feel, changed me.”

Our leadership team worked well to-gether, and it was significant for me to see many women using their gifts and serving each other during the week-end. I see us as moving through our conflicts and misunderstandings and finding our space to serve, each ac-cording to her gift, the other side.

---Hedva

Everything is standing still under the hot sun. We are on a journey carrying only our essential belongings. All day we have been walking, and it seems we have hardly moved because the scenery looks the same. It wasn’t hard for our 32 Israeli and Palestinian youth to imagine themselves trav-eling from Jerusalem to Jericho during our April desert trip.

On the first day, we focused on the religious people in the Good Samaritan story. We expect our religious leaders to do the right thing because they know what “right behavior” entails. However, in this story the Levite and the priest choose not to help the injured man. Do they avoid helping the injured man because of their religious obligations to keep clean? Or, do they avoid him out of fear, wary that this may be a trap to rob them? Regardless, it is evident that they were thinking of themselves instead of the injured man. They valued their own religious and social norms and did not con-sider the injured man’s life.

As followers of Christ, we know that Jesus calls us to love one another. Some of us can even quote countless Scrip-tures mandating that we love. It is one of the pillars of our faith as Messianic Jews and Palestinian Christians, and we educate our children and youth accordingly.

As for the expert whose question is answered with this par-able, he too shows similar reservations to Jesus’ teaching about loving his neighbor. Jesus challenges the notion of a neighbor both from a personal and group perspective. As individuals we are prone to regard our family, friends and society as neighbors. And as members of different groups, we regard those who share our traits (gender, race, culture, etc.) as part of our in-group. We are very good at keeping our worlds separated and we know who is in and who is out. Yet in this story, Jesus stretches our notion of love. The out-group becomes the in-group and the stranger becomes the neighbor. Even as believers we have in-groups and out-groups because we are human and it is part of our social structure. Sometimes we refuse to stretch our own understanding of Jesus’ love. As one of the participants said: “Before this trip, if you had asked me to consider going to Bethlehem, I would strongly say no, because I am afraid of Palestinians. But now, after I have made a few friends, I am willing to con-sider it.” Even as believers, we deny others love and our pres-

ence because they are not part of our in-group.

Not much is said about the Samaritan except that he is traveling on the same road. He immediately goes to rescue the injured man. He does not pause to think about who this person could be. He cares for him using his oil and wine to

stop any immediate bleeding. He takes him to the nearest city and stays the night with

him.

There are two main les-sons I take from the

Samaritan’s example. First, he was willing to disregard religious

and social norms for the sake of helping another in

need. Whatever the implica-tions or potential consequences, the

Samaritan did not seem to be bothered by it. Second, the Samaritan acted without shame. He did not try to hide the injured man as he took him to the nearest city. He did not try to enter the inn through a back door so that no one would see him with the injured man – a Jew.

From this we learned to value the other, and act without shame. In our context where our participants are minorities in their respective cultures, we often find that Messianic Jewish and Palestinian Christian youth are ashamed of their faith. Or, Palestinians are ashamed to meet Israelis, and Israelis are ashamed to meet Palestinians as they fear what the majority will think of them as a result.

The parable tells us that the injured man is left half dead and half alive. What does he feel when he sees the Levite or the priest? Is he trying to wave for them to rescue him? After all, they are from his in-group and they are his religious leaders. And how disappointed and hopeless he must feel as they pass him by.

On the other hand, he must be frightened to see a Samaritan approach him. Imagine your enemy approaching you when you are most powerless. Perhaps he tries to push him away with the little strength he has left, or perhaps he pleads for

mercy. And what does he feel when he realizes this man is actually helping him. The Samaritan then carries him and gives him shelter. Can Pal-estinians imagine an Israeli settler help-ing them when they are most powerless? Can Israelis imagine a Palestinian Muslim helping them when they are most powerless? This parable stretches our understanding of Christ’s love where sworn enemies become brothers and sisters through the cross.

On the last night, one of the participants gave a great inter-pretation of the Good Samaritan. To him the Good Samari-tan represents the desert; the injured man represents our group; and the religious people represent where we come from. The desert gives us the oil and the wine that we need in order to bind our wounds. As injured people, perhaps we object to being in the desert because it is not our natural habitat and it goes against our culture; it even takes us away from spending time with family. But in the end of the trip, despite the heat, long hikes, repeating scenery or the healthy food, we realize that we need the desert in order to love our enemies.

Usually when we reach the bus on the final day and before heading home, we stop for lunch. And because the youth have been eating sesame paste, Bedouin bread, yogurt and vege-tables every day and every meal, they crave something fatty and greasy. So, as we return to civilization and join in with other people having lunch too, we are very comfortable with

one another, and we naturally speak Hebrew and Arabic together, forgetting that people are

staring at us in confusion. One mother approached me and inquired about

our group. I proudly told her that we are a group of Israeli and Pales-tinian youth who just spent four days together in the desert. We

are not ashamed nor are we afraid of who might see us because we have

changed in these four days, and we have become an in-group.

---Shadia Qubti

Youth Desert Encounter