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Wednesday, 6/19/02: We spent twenty-five hours in airplanes and airports, familiarizing ourselves with the napping possibilities of four different airport floors, until we finally arrived in Lubbock, Texas, Elizabeth's home town. It is good to be anywhere and it is good to sleep (and not use our luggage as pillows). The news from "back home" isn't good - several more suicide bombings - but the news is rarely good these days. There is also a lot of talk of building a wall between the West Bank and Israel, which to us seems like another destructive division. But walls can be torn down. |
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Thursday, 6/20/02: After sleeping in, we went off to run a few errands. It went so well and smooth it gave us culture shock! No roadblocks, no waiting for taxis to fill up, no need to drink tea and chat for half an hour before getting to business, and no "come back in two days" (something we hear often in the West Bank). We spent much of the afternoon at the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal talking with the religion editor Beth Pratt. We had done the same when we came through town last year, which ended up in a nice article, and she had written two more pieces about our work and ministry during the past year. In a town and a region where Zionism and Christianity seem to be synonymous (as the 24-hour Christian pro-Israel UHF channel points to), building this relationship has been wonderful - both for us and for the community here. |
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Friday, 6/21/02: Elizabeth's brother and his girlfriend arrived from Austin today. We were hoping we would have time to go there and visit them, Austin being such a great place, but won't have time - their visit is very welcome! |
 Saturday,
6/22/02: Elizabeth's mom brought a group of her friends and neighbors
over for a party tonight. A diverse group including her co-worker
coming from the youth boxing center he runs in his spare time, a neighbor
teaching in the African-American Studies Department at Texas
Tech University, a high school classmate of Elizabeth's who had left
a career of designing and making pet clothes and recently moved back to
town. The highlight was the ninety-four year-old neighbor who came
over wearing the cross we gave her last year -
a gift from our Melkite friend in Zababdeh. People were very curious
to find out about the political situation, but also about what daily life
is like. As we described what the houses like, what the food tastes
like, what the family situation is like, a Mexican-American friend commented
how similar it sounded to what he remembered as a child growing up in a
Texas border town. Cultures are often not as distant as they may
seem. |
  Sunday,
6/23/02: We worshiped this morning at Covenant Presbyterian Church.
We had been there right before we left two years ago and shared our story
as it was just beginning. In the intervening years, we also developed
a pen-pal link between Marthame's religion class and their youth group.
We attended their early morning family communion service, sharing some
sung Arabic liturgy with them. At the larger worship service, Marthame
and the pastor, Davis Price, preached a dialogue sermon
using the two texts to reflect on different understandings of "family"
- both from a West Texas and a West Bank perspective. We then spoke
with a group of folks (the largest group they've ever had!), sharing stories
and pictures and a short video from Zababdeh. The reaction was welcoming
- especially since this is our first stab at trying to communicate the
last year of our experiences with an American audience. It's nice
to be welcomed with grace! |
 Monday,
6/24/02: Hammocks. In the midst of running errands today, we
stopped by Green Eggs and Hammocks,
a store run by one of Elizabeth's high school friends. The store specializes
in - you guessed it - hammocks. Big and small hammocks, toy hammocks,
hammock accessories. One hammock two hammock red hammock blue hammock.
They've managed to find a gaping nitch for themselves in the hammock market
and have made a great little business out of it. They get their hammocks
mostly from the Yucatan in Mexico, where they've gone to visit the families
which make them--in a system like a family guild system. These people sit
and sleep on hammocks, so they know what they're doing. Cotton is sent
from West Texas down to Yucatan, spun, dyed, and crafted into hammocks,
and sent back to West Texas. A NAFTA industry. The Green Eggs and Hammocks
folks are interested in soon moving into more hemp hammocks and even organic
cotton hammocks. We know what we're getting for chairs when we move back... |
 Tuesday,
6/25/02: We headed out this morning to the National Wildlife Refuge
near Muleshoe, a town an hour west of Lubbock. It was the first time
any of us had been to this treasure, a place first founded in 1935 as a
refuge for waterfowl. As the water level lowered, fewer of them came, but
more and more sandhill cranes - who love the shallow water for wading -
arrived.  Each
winter, this place hosts the largest concentration of sandhill cranes in
the world. Twenty years ago, there were as many as a quarter of a
million on any given day. This past winter, several thousand came
- the environment is changing. The ephemeral lakes are getting smaller
with increased water usage and frequent droughts throughout the Texas panhandle.
We arrived in summer, though, and the cranes have more sense than to hang
out during panhandle summers, leaving behind a landscape of salt flats,
evaporated lakes, and little vegetation. We drove off to the town
of Muleshoe, chuckling at the idea of telling our friends in Zababdeh about
this place, named after the foot of a donkey - two very offensive icons
in the Arabic culture. Afterwards, the enticing town of Plainview
beckoned. Elizabeth and her mom went dress shopping while Marthame
pondered the secrets of the ya-ya sisterhood. Once back in Lubbock,
we shared in coffee with friends who are from Nazareth originally, but
have been living in Lubbock for decades. Our last night in Buddy
Holly's hometown was celebrated with a steak dinner - it's cattle country
around here. |
 Wednesday,
6/26/02:  Before
leaving town, we went to Texas Tech University's
Museum. Currently showing there is a real surprise - the Vatican
Museum is sharing 11th, 12th, and 13th century frescoes with the United
States by bringing them to Lubbock, Texas. This is the only place
this exhibition will arrive, the effort of a local Catholic priest to bring
these treasures to a part of the country that would otherwise have few
opportunities to see them. The frescoes of St. Nicola and Agnese
had been rescued from two chapels in Rome, peeled off the walls and mounted
for display. Elegant and enriching. After a delicious Tejano
breakfast of huevos rancheros, Elizabeth and her mom planted a few flowers
in the backyard before we drove southeast towards San Angelo. Elizabeth's
Dad moved here full-time not long ago to enjoy retirement to the fullest.
His house sits on the edge of Lake Nasworthy, a refreshing spot for a Texas
summer. We escaped the late afternoon heat to see a well-air-conditioned
movie (Minority Report, the new Tom Cruise movie) and then shared tasty
Texas steak suppers. |
  Thursday,
6/27/02: We stepped out onto Lake Nasworthy this morning courtesy
of a jet-ski. As Elizabeth took her turn, she puttered quietly along
the "no wake" nature spots enjoying the watery greenery and spent some
time watching a green heron and a lined ground squirrel along the water's
edge. Marthame, on his turn, found speed. And lots of it. To
each his/her own... |
 Friday,
6/28/02: We relaxed again in San Angelo, waiting for Elizabeth's
brother and his girlfriend to join us again from Austin. While we
waited, the lake beckoned - Marthame on the jet ski, Elizabeth in a rubber
dingie, finding our interests. Elizabeth drifted into the reed islets,
seeing mud dauber nests. She rowed back, mostly spinning and drifting
due to a busted paddle. Marthame, meanwhile, ran out of gas in the
middle of the lake, blown by the wind (and grace?) back to the dock.
It sure is nice to get the chance to relax. Being in a flight path
leaves us slightly on edge, though - air traffic overhead in Zababdeh is
never civilian. When all had arrived, we went off to enjoy another
steak dinner before sharing our pictures from our time in Lebanon
and Syria as the moon lit up Lake Nasworthy. |
 Saturday,
6/29/02: We left San Angelo and the calm of Lake Nasworthy early in
the morning, meeting Elizabeth's mom at the Lubbock airport for some tough
farewells. A year and a half feels like a long time right now.
Elizabeth's mom brought with her the morning Lubbock
Avalanche-Journal which had a two-page
spread written by the religion writer from our interview. We
were
very pleased with it, and surprised to see our picture on the front page
of the paper (a teaser for the inside article). Our minds flashed
to Harrison Ford in The Fugitive as a passenger on the El recognizes
him from his newspaper picture - feeling a bit infamous! From Lubbock,
we flew up to Chicago, arriving in time to have pizza with friends at their
home up in Wilmette. A long day from Lake Nasworthy to Lake Michigan. |
 Sunday,
6/30/02: First Presbyterian
Church of Wilmette was our worship home for two years while Marthame
was on staff there. They continue to be our strongest source of financial
and spiritual support, and so it was wonderful to come back and share with
them. We worshiped on the shores of Lake Michigan, as we did so many
times in the summer months, sharing in communion before moving worship
inside on the church grounds. We learned that one of the home-bound
members of the church (who turned ninety this year) had tried to come to
worship, but her wheelchair was too big for the chairlift. And so she had
to return home. It's a good thing construction on the elevator begins
tomorrow. We stopped by to see her as we continued on our pilgrimage
point, the Original Pancake House and its bacon blessings. Not a
lot of pork products "back home". In the evening, we gathered back
at the church to share our program. There were a number of folks
from Wilmette, but also from Park Ridge, Morgan Park, and a number of other
communities around there. They braved the incredible heat (we had
almost forgotten how hot Chicago can be in the summer), and as we closed,
they gathered around us to lay hands on us, to pray for us, and to send
us forth again in safety and blessing. What gifts we are receiving!
We are trying to discern how to share these intangible gifts with our brothers
and sisters in Zababdeh. We came somewhat expecting to find a more
suspicious, more patriotic, more hardened American culture. While
we have witnessed that, and while perhaps that is the prevailing trend,
there is far more nuance, far more discussion, far more debate than we
could judge from overseas. That is heartening. |
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