Yesterday, July 20th, we left Nazareth with a truly heartfelt and sad goodbye.  Many of us were calling the Fauzi Azar and the Old City home by now and had made great friends that we did not want to leave.  We all crammed into a taxi and headed on our 2 hour ride to Jerusalem.  ONce in Jerusalem we came to a extremely quick awakening.  We were no longer in the wonderful north.  It was dirty and incredibly crowded.  A bunch of Americans with luggage stuck out like a soar thumb.  Once we dropped a few things off at the hostel we will stay at in Jerusalem (starting Thursday), we got on a public bus headed for the check point to enter Palestine.  I got the privilige of sitting in front of a few guys who like my eyes and wanted to take me dancing (more uncomfortable than flattering if you ask me).

Once we reached the checkpoint, it took about 15 minutes for us to move through into Palestine.  It was like herding cattle into a stahl for lack of a better way to describe the humiliation the lucky Palestinians who get to travel to Jerusalem feel every day.  Once we crammed all ten people into a non-airconditioned, six person taxi we found the main road was closed down because the British Prime Minister was making his way through Bethlehem (where we were then located).  We all decided to step out of the taxi and explore.  All there was before was a 25 foot high concrete wall, two and a half times taller than the Berlin wall.  I think I wanted to cry for the first time on this trip.  People are not pigs that need to be caged in.  The worst part?  American tax dollars payed for this wall, it payed for the guns the Israeli soldiers were holding when we past them, and it payed for the bullet holes we saw in various things.  When the road finally opened we jumped in the taxi and headed for ATG, to meet our host families in Beit Sahour.  Me and Alyssa had the privilige of going home with one of the workers and got to go out to a nice restaraunt with her and her friends.

Today started off early.  We met at ATG at 8 AM and began a day of touring.  The first place we stopped at was Herodion (King Herod’s Bethlehem castle).  The mountain it stood on was man-made and there were tunnels all through the mountain.  From the top of the moutain where the castle remains were we could see Bethlehem, Beit Sahour, and the desert of the surrounding area.  We also saw a very large settlement ( a blocked of town of Jews who illegally move in and take over areas of Palestine) and an outpost (the startings of a new settlement).  Next, we went to the Shepeherd’s Fields (where the Star of Bethlehem was first seen by the shepherds).  There we learned that many people lived in caves as a means of protection and that Mary and Joseph would have been staying with relatives in one of these grottos when Mary went into labor.  But, the grotto would have been so full of people she left to give birth to Jesus in the stable right next to the grotto.  After that we went to get a closer look at the settlement (which is off limits to anyone but people who live there and Israelis).  We saw the road the settlement had constructed surrounded by barbed wire and electric fencing.  We realized this was not to keep people safe, but to cut of Palestinians from land and to box in the cities so that movement was very restricted.  If the way Israel was cutting Paletine into chunks was not enough we took a trip back to the wall.  People spray painted “Made in USA” on the wall and many other things that spoke of the oppresion and dispair these people were feeling.  The graffiti that stuck out to me the most was a baptismal covenant that said, “Will you strive for justice and peace and respect the dignity of every human being?”  I have been thinking about this all day.  It seems like nobody is striving for this.  If we were we would be fighting harder than ever for the Palestinians, because they lost their diginity little by little until the wall destroyed it all.  I know I should not choose sides and I know I am just scratching the surface of the conflict here, but I can not help feeling an immense pull toward the Palestine plight.  Our next stop was lunch, a great way to kind of refresh and take in everything.  After lunch we went to a refugee camp in Bethlehem.  These peoples homes were so cramped, but at least they had homes.  The worst thing was to think about the fact that these people, including children and infants have to national identity.  Nobody has, or may never have, the rights of citizenship in any country.  They have been casted out of their lands and homes, never to return.  After a day of deep realizations and thought we headed to the Church of the Nativity.  We got to see the spot where Jesus was born.  I imagined an incredibly humbling experiece.  It never came.  The church was incredibly ornate and crammed with people.  Even the site where Jesus was born and laid in a manger was highly decorated.  Most of us came away with mixed feelings about the site of our Savior’s birth.  After a night of meditation I think our experiences today will be more substantial than what they are now.

After a long day we went back to ATG under the pretenses of a debriefing, only to surprise Aarin with a birthday cake and candles!  What a incredible place to spend your 18th birthday!  Later this evening Alyssa, Rick, Jon, and I decided to get some ice cream, but ended up getting lost on the way back to our host families.  It was nice though because we had the opportunity to talk to some other Americans on missions and some local people on our quest back to our houses.

This has been an incredible trip for all of us.  I know we have all felt the Spirit moving in our lives.  Thank you all for your prayers and continous support!!!

-Amanda Kinsinger