4 - Fear

Josh and Paul helped us load all of our things into the van, and we began the trip from Tel Aviv to the West Bank.  On the drive, I began thinking about this new found fear that I had. I have never in my life felt afraid for my life. I have never known the fear that a rocket could fall anywhere at any time. I was realizing that I had never had to trust God with my physical life before, and I didn’t know how to. In America, I had the luxury (or delusion) of feeling protected without having to trust God. Here, it was a different story. 

We pulled up to Paul and his Palestinian wife, Reem’s, house for lunch. They lived in a flat overlooking the city and the view was amazing.  They had been living and working in the West Bank for over 20 years. Over lunch they told us stories from their many years in the area and welcomed us to our new home.  I was amazed at the stories they were telling. I felt like I was getting to watch the story of God unfold in this area.  These people I was getting to work with, this story I was getting to be woven into, was so much bigger than me and that felt good. It was so big that Paul and Reem don’t even claim ownership of it.  They knew it was God who had done these things and through his power.  They were on the front lines and it was messy, but they were going for it. I still honor them for that. They are passionate and unafraid, and that is rare.

After lunch, Paul and Josh took us down to the city we were going to live in. It was a small, quiet Palestinian village in the West Bank. The school we were working at was in this town also. We moved into a flat under an elderly woman named Nour who would be our landlord. Our apartment was nice, and the area was beautiful. Although I was homesick, I was awestruck by the beautiful rolling hills and the vast desert. On a clear day, when there wasn’t a lot of dust in the air, you could see all the way to the mountains of Jordan in the distance. It was beautiful. Our rooftop had a stunning view of the sunrise over the hills. 

As we moved in and got our bearings of our new home, we realized we are already the talk of the town. Wherever we went, whether that was the vegetable shop or butcher shop, the owners already knew who we were, where we were living, and what school we were teaching at. I don’t think I realized, until I visited Amman just before I left, that our town was more of a village than a city. With a population of around 12,000, we had moved into a tight knit community of people. On top of that, Arab culture is way more communal and community oriented than the West. Everybody knows everybody, and everybody is always together. “Alone time” is not a thing. It took me a while to get used to this but I grew to love this type of living. I see it as a reflection of God’s design for his people. 

As the first few weeks went by, I truly enjoyed learning a new place and being a part of a culture I have only heard about. I loved hearing Arabic everywhere and getting to practice my speaking skills. I was excited to get better and better at Arabic and put my minor into practice. 

*

The first few weeks were filled with meetings, lesson planning, cleaning, and talking about the war. Every shop, restaurant, and house had the TV tuned into the news. Another missile, another death, another riot, and it was all anybody could talk about. I was spending most of my time trying to forget I was in such an unstable place, but all this talk was rendering my efforts impossible. As I said before, I had never feared for my life before and I was not prepared to handle that. I didn’t know what to do with the fact that war is a mere 30 miles away.  It wasn’t in our area, but it always seemed to be just a matter of time until fighting broke out in the West Bank too. I knew that Israel supposedly dropped leaflets before they dropped a missile in an area but that isn’t exactly comforting. We were constantly looking at the video footage of Gaza and it didn’t look pretty. 

During the two months of war, Israel had struck a UN school where civilians were taking shelter, hit multiple ambulances taking the wounded to hospitals, and an Israeli armed drone struck twice and killed 4 young boys playing soccer on the beach. It was hard to feel safe while Israel was striking places that were meant to be safe havens for civilians. 

At church on Sunday, we prayed for a family in Gaza whose father was killed in an Israeli missile strike. He was a pastor there and we prayed that the work of the Church would continue even in the midst of war. There was a ministry from the West Bank that was allowed to go into Gaza and help with relief work. We heard updates from them and it was heartbreaking. 

War is unforgiving and relentless. I was completely overwhelmed by it. I didn’t have a worldview of suffering or war. I also didn’t have a vision of God that could handle it. In those first few weeks, I was simply making it one day at a time. I didn’t have many deep thoughts about human suffering and war and the sovereignty of God, I was just trying to make it through the day without having a breakdown. 

One day, as we were preparing for school to start, we were unpacking boxes and boxes of children's books. As I was taking out books that I had grown up reading, I had vivid memories of my parents reading them to me and my sisters as kids. I was already feeling extremely homesick that day and those books did not help.  As those memories flooded my head, I could feel the tears coming. I felt so silly and embarrassed that kids books were making me cry just by taking them out of boxes, but they took me straight back to a time where I had felt comfortable and safe. They reminded me with a heavy hand that I was not at home, I was not safe, and I could do nothing about it. 

An Arab co-worker, Shireen, who quickly became one of my dearest friends in Palestine, came into the room and asked me if I was okay. I wasn’t going to tell her that I was crying because of kids books, so I let her assume that I was overwhelmed by the start of the school semester. She started to comfort me saying, “We’re going to do this together, habibti. I know it’s a lot to think about right now and I’m stressed too, but we are going to do it.” I let her comfort me and thank her. I quickly pulled myself together and went back into the other room to continue unpacking boxes.

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Written - August 2014

fear.

do you actually have me?

now I am hidden 

in the safety of your arms

he’s got the whole world

in his hands

the safety of his hands

you're never going to let me down

he knows the birds of the air

the lilies of the field

how they are clothed

how much more value are you than they

he who did not spare his own son

how could he not also 

along with him

graciously give us all things

come to me

all you who are burdened

my burned is easy

my yoke is light

why, when a son asks for bread, would 

a father give him a snake

if you earthly fathers know how to give good gifts

how much more does he

he actually has me.

he actually leads me.

he actually loves me.

we are actually at peace.

there is no fear in love.

no fear in love.