Thursday, Sep. 03, 2009

A life changing experience

Local priest travels to Israel, Palestine

Emily Jarrett, Journal Staff

http://www.lsjournal.com/100/story/36005.html

Not many people get to travel the world. And an even fewer percentage go to countries that are conflict zones. The Rev. Cindy Howard recently took a trip to Israel and Palestine and came across an interesting fact - every Israelite and Palestinian she met wanted the same thing – peace.

“There are people in every culture that make up the radical few who only want to fight,” she said. “But the vast majority of people I met wanted peace between the two countries. It didn’t matter what side of the Gaza strip they were on. They all wanted the same thing, peace for their families.”

Howard, an Episcopal priest and rector at St. Anne’s Episcopal Church in Lee’s Summit, was part of an Interfaith Delegation from Kansas City that traveled to Tel Aviv last month.

“A few people from a group called the Citizens for Justice in the Middle East suggested I be involved in the delegation,” Howard explained. “I was very flattered they offered this opportunity to me though it took some serious thinking about if I would actually do it.”

Howard said she talked to family and friends about the possible benefits and risks of the trip but ultimately decided it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

“I was a teacher for many years and I’ve taught in Armenia and Bosnia, so going into a conflict zone wasn’t a new thing to me,” she said. “I always think that travel is a life changing experience and I knew a trip like this wouldn’t come along very often.”

Howard, along with 22 other delegates, arrived in Tel Aviv July 27. During the next two weeks they would travel to Bili’n in the West Bank, Nazareth, a refugee camp in Bethlehem and Jerusalem. First though, they had to get through security.

“Obviously, when you fly internationally it’s always a wait at security,” Howard said. “They ask you a lot of questions and check your passport and ID over and over. We were traveling with a college student, a woman whose father was Palestinian, so she, obviously, had a very Palestinian name.

“She was detained for six hours in security, right when we arrived. After about four hours most of the group left to go on to Jerusalem, where we were staying that night. But two people stayed behind to wait with her, they were both Jewish. I thought that was very telling about the power of people’s perceptions.”

Another “telling moment” Howard had was visiting the Deheishe refugee camp, located south of Bethlehem.

“I always thought refugee camps were temporary places for people to live,” she said. “But we met a young man who was the third generation living in the camp.”

The Deheishe refugee camp was founded in 1949 for Palestinians who fled during the 1948 war. Howard said there is a mural in the camp that depicts a sunrise with clouds. On the clouds, members of the refugee camp had written the names of the villages they fled from.

“That was a powerful, moving sight,” she said.

The group stayed in Jerusalem nearly every night and were within walking distance of the Old City, where the Jewish Wailing Wall is.

“Something I didn’t expect about the Wailing Wall is that there are metal detectors and security everywhere,” Howard said. “Either you had to show your passport or they went through your belongings. There was a definite military presence everywhere we went.”

One night, Howard said, they stayed with Palestinian families.

“The family I stayed with made a wonderful meal,” she said. “That’s something I noticed nearly everywhere we went, the people had incredible hospitality. Even though the family was of meager means, they managed to cook dinner for 15 of us. They share everything they have with one another.”

Howard said the group also saw the barrier wall Israel is building in the Gaza strip.

“It’s a 20-foot wall with barbed wire around the top, it’s taller than the Berlin Wall,” she explained. “When talking with people they told us that the wall was splitting villages or making it impossible for someone to live on one side if they worked on the other. People’s livelihoods were also affected because their olive groves were on the opposite side of the wall.”

Walls separating the two countries, and religions, were also seen in unexpected places, she said. At the Tombs of the Patriarchs, the burial places of Abraham and Sarah who are major religious figures to Muslims, Christians and Jews, Howard said there are separate entrances for Muslims and Jews.

“When you got through security they would ask you what religion you were,” she said. “If you were Muslim, you went through a Mosque. If you were Jewish, you went through the Synagogue. If you were Christian, you could go through either.

“Each side was looking at the same tomb, just from different viewpoints. And there was a wall separating them.”

Despite the heavy military presence and danger of being in a conflict zone, Howard said she would travel back to Israel and Palestine if she got another opportunity.

“I would go back tomorrow if I could,” she said with a smile. “It was an incredible, amazing opportunity and I’m so glad I got to experience it.”

Howard will give a speech about her Israel/Palestine trip experiences at 7 p.m. Sept. 7 at St. Anne’s Episcopal Church, located at 1815 N.E. Independence. For more information, call 816-524-5552.

To reach Journal reporter Emily Jarrett, call 816-282-7018 or e-mail ejarrett@lsjournal.com.