Preparing for Travel

As I prepare for the beginning of my trip, I've been reading about what is currently going on in Bethlehem, where I will visit the Lutheran Christmas Church. This past weekend Christians from around the world came to Bethlehem to make a Living Clock in Manger Square, in front of the Church of the Nativity. It was part of the Church Action for Peace, sponsored by the World Council of Churches, to mark the sixty years since the "nakba," the "catastrophe," when Palestinians' lands were seized, villages destroyed and people removed from their homes to make way for an independent state for Jews in 1948. Check out my newest link, the Living Clock, to see this event and take a look at other YouTube video links on that page, expressing the Palestinians' frustration over the lives and lands still being lost in the fighting.