Sunday in Dheisha

What a privilege to take a group of folks with me on my last adventure.  My love for this place deepens with each visit and with every step I take, with every corner I turn and every person I meet.  I am truly blessed.

On Sunday the group here at the College had a free afternoon.  Because I couldn't go to Nablus I decided to go into Bethlehem to Dheisha, a refugee camp formed in 1948,  I had been there before and loved the artwork on the walls that tell the story of their pain and loss.  

We piled into two taxi's and headed off.  For most of them it was their first trip through a check point and a first time seeing the wall - the real wall in Israel that reaches 12 metres high and steals the sky.  The group is sombre as we arrived to the walls that surround Dheisha.  The first thing I notice is that the check points are gone meaning that the 13000 people who live in this 1 KM square camp can move freely.  But they can't really because there are no jobs, no money and no way to travel throughout the land to find work.

We are met by the director who happily welcomes us into the Ibdaa cultural centre.  It is here that the paintings on the wall tell their story.  Tombstones on the wall mark the 45 villages that were lost to occupation in 1948 - their names never to be forgotten.  A man reaching a baby into the freedom of the sun and women behind barbed wire.  A tank and a boy swinging a molotov cocktail with candles burning for all who were lost.  Dheisha tells the story of all that has been lost and yet has great hope for the future.

The provide services - championship  girls & boys basketball, soccer & volleyball allowing the youth a chance to travel and succeed.  Social workers help with addictions and schools provide education.  There are many people, we are told, with Masters degrees and PhD's with no where to work.  We  walk the crowded streets seeing laundry hangin above our heads and the children come out for their "photo shoot".  Bright eyed and happy they pose for the camera and then ask to see their images on the screens.  We take pictures of the graffiti that cries out for freedom and we shop in their little store and we are done.

Our taxi drivers take us through to Bethlehem so we might get a close view of the wall and the story it tells.  We double back and go through "the easy border" - our drivers are not allowed to drive through the one I normally travel.  Back at the College I realize how profound this experience was for the seven who accompanied me.  It was a spur of the moment decision and I'm glad that I invited them along.  To see it through their eyes for the first time was such a gift, God is great.