(My phone died after taking this picture of Shela, so I didn’t get one, but it’s ok because Shela is awesome! And she is also working to be fully funded! Check out her blog at shelachan.theworldrace.org)
When I first moved to Ethiopia in 2016, I found myself coming into, what seemed to be, a place of peace and acceptance. As life in ET became normal, I discovered a different side of the country. During my time there one of the people groups began to revolt. Upset by the government’s stealing of their land, they began to fight back. As they fought back, the government shut riots, and disrespect for the establishment down, through bloodshed. As I was forced to process this bloodshed and these lives loss, all I could think about was this concept of Rocks vs Bullets. Coming from a practical stand point, I understood that the government needed to maintain order, but when I weighed the tactics, the scale felt uneven. For me, when weighing Rocks vs Bullets, Bullets will always outweigh the Rocks. (DISCLAIMER: I am in no way saying that these situations are the same. I am in no way saying the the Palestinians have only brought rocks to war. I am simply explaining what I experienced and parallels in what I felt during my time in Palestine.)
As I entered into Palestine, I had no idea, but those feelings from Ethiopia, would soon come rushing back. I entered into Palestine by bus. It was a simple ride. We took a taxi essentially to the bus station, then a bus to the closes stop to our hostel. Then, what felt like a 15 mile excursion by foot. (It was actually only a mile, but it legit felt like 15!) We made it to the Hostel in the middle of the night, found our beds, showered and went to sleep. Little did I know that I was in store for a rude awakening the next morning. The morning started off normal, a little worship, prayer, and house rules. Then we were set free to embark upon the journey of a life time. A couple of us really wanted to get to Jerusalem to see all the Jesus spots so we headed out as a team to see some initial sites, then decided split and head to Israel. As the decision was made a taxi driver drove up and in broken English told us that he could take us where we needed to go, for just a little more than the bus fee! So we were excited, little did I know, my world was about to be rocked. Our taxi ride last all of 5 minute, until we come face to face with a large concrete barb wired wall and our driver says we have reached our destination. What we didn’t know, is in the midst of this miss communication, the taxi driver was telling us that he would take us as close to Jerusalem as he could, because most Palestinians aren’t allowed to drive in Israel. (I would later learn, that not only are many not allowed to drive, many aren’t even allowed to enter.) After finding a random stranger that spoke English we renegotiated price, paid the driver and started walking towards the wall. It was this next process that would rip my heart out.
As we walked through the sea of people, taxi drivers and merchants, we eventually entered a long ramp, that lead to an open asphalt court yard, that lead to a building with a revolving single entry gate, that lead to a metal detector and airport like luggage screening for my jacket and purse, that lead to multiple armed military guards, that checked my passport, that permitted me to exit, that lead to the other side of the large barb wired concrete wall that began this journey. I stepped on the other side of freedom and every ounce of air was sucked from my being. The air on the other side was thinner, free from the thickness of oppression. As we waited for our bus to take us to whatever “Jesus site” it is that we were traveling to, I couldn’t help, but be silent. Since August, I’d been wondering if something on this trip was going to give me significant cause for pause, but I didn’t expect it to be this.
(BTW…to get back into Palestine…You just walk through two gates…one to leave Israel, across the court yard and one to enter Palestine…)
