What You Want to Know about Life in Palestine: How It Has Changed My Opinion

Welcome to the next installment in the miniseries where I answer your questions about life in the Palestinian Territories, specifically West Bank. Unless I receive other requests for topics, this will be the last post in the series. If you missed the earlier posts on grocery shopping, Muslim/Christian relations, treatment of women and children, and major differences betweenPalestine and the United States, you can find those by clicking on each linked phrase.

Today’s post is a bit more personal, as I’ll be answering the following question from a reader:

Could you please discuss how your Western upbringing, thoughts, and ideas regarding Palestine and Palestinians differ now that you live there?

I’ve touched on this a little bit in a previous series entitled, “How I Fell in Love with an Arab,” but I’ll go a bit more in depth here. I should note before I begin that my thoughts regarding Palestinians have changed significantly, and I’m almost ashamed to admit what they were in previous seasons of my life. But I want to answer honestly, even if that means I have to share some cringe-worthy perspectives I no longer hold. All that to say, please don’t stop halfway through this one.

A number of factors influenced my opinion of Palestinians in my younger years. There was, of course, the backdrop of 9/11, which, while not directly tied to Palestinians, did affect the impression I had of them as a subset of the Arab world. September 11 was my introduction to Arabic, and when your first exposure to a language as a young girl is hearing it used to celebrate an attack on your homeland, it’s hard not to develop negative associations for that language and those who speak it. I also held the idea that Arabs surely hated me as an American.

In the following years, as the media covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the bleak and dusty images of desolate regions in the Middle East informed my understanding of that region as a whole. I was under the impression that the Middle East was a homogenous desert land with no greenery, little water, and few comforts or modern conveniences.

But while the media shaped my ideas of Palestine in a broad sense through selective portrayals of the language and broader region, it was largely the Church that most profoundly influenced my ideas of Palestinians. I grew up in a church culture that saw no distinction between the modern state of Israel and the biblical nation of Israelites, which was frequently referred to instead as “God’s chosen people.”  Verses from the Old Testament, e.g., Genesis 12:3 (“I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse;”), which was spoken to Abraham (then Abram) when God first called him to journey to Canaan, were applied to the modern political state of Israel. Such an application did much to instill fear. In no way must I be against Israel, criticize them, or even think ill of them, or I would be in danger of bringing a curse on myself. If I forsook “God’s chosen people,” I would be forsaking God Himself. And who wants to be on God’s bad side?

So who were the Palestinians in this narrative? They were the children of Ishmael, the “bad, unchosen” son, the one who resented Isaac, the “good” son of promise. (Cringing here, but I press on…) And what were they doing today? They were persisting in their ancestor’s supposed animosity toward “God’s chosen people.” Conveniently ignored were the passages that stated God’s promise to/regarding Ishmael to bless him and make him a great nation, his participation in the covenant of circumcision, the reality of God’s being with him, and the apparent lack of ill-will between Ishmael and Isaac when they were grown (see Genesis 16:10, 17:20, 17:23, 21:13, 21:18, 21:20, and 25:9). 

Instead, the only verse regarding Ishmael that seemed to matter was Genesis 17:12, “He shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen” (ESV), or as the NIV translation says, “he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.” This particular interpretation of that one verse was applied not only to Ishmael but to Arabs generally and Palestinians specifically and was held forth as the simple explanation for why there was still (and always would be) conflict in the Holy Land and in the Middle East at large. Why were Palestinians fighting Jews (not Israelis, mind you, but Jews)? Because they were descendants of Ishmael and destined to rage against God’s chosen people, plain and simple. (I wish I was kidding, but I’m not.)

That was the theological world I grew up in. Add to that the fact that the only Palestinians I heard about were those on the news who were called “terrorists,” and you can start to see how I had an entirely negative view of Palestinians. Keep in mind that I had never personally met a single Palestinian (maybe not even a single Arab) the entire first two decades of my life.

But as I’ve written about in the “How I Fell in Love with an Arab” series, all that began to change in college when God graciously began working on my heart and opening my eyes to see Palestinians through His. The first Palestinian I ever saw/heard from in person was a Christian man from Bethlehem. (See this post for more about that.) The second was another Christian man—who would become my husband. In some ways suddenly and in some ways slowly, through those two encounters my ideas and feelings regarding Palestinians began to change.

I began to learn Arabic before I moved, and the process of learning the language, as well as the reality of being immersed in it after moving, took away my guttural fear of hearing it spoken. Now I see and hear the intricate beauty of the language (even as I still throw up my hands in frustration sometimes at how difficult it can be for an English-speaking brain to learn).

The incredibly welcoming and hospitable atmosphere in Palestine was not what I expected. Even now, I have people from back home warn me about seeming “too American” in fear for my safety, but I have never experienced any animosity personally directed at me as a foreigner, especially an American one, and I have not felt the ingrained hatred for Americans that I had assumed all Arabs held. (On the contrary, I have experienced the affectionate qualities of Arab culture, which you can read more about here.)

Upon my first visit to Palestine, and even more-so after moving, I realized that the dusty images on the news had very little in common with the rich beauty of the topography, flora, and fauna of this region. (Although there is still way more dust than I was used to!) I also started to internalize the geography of the Middle East and realize just how distinct each country and its culture is from the others. (In case you didn’t know, Iraq and Afghanistan are very far away from us—and Afghanistan isn’t even an Arab country!) Far from the third-world status I had envisioned, Palestine revealed itself to be full of modernity, and I thought on my first visit that it even reminded me of Europe.

As I began to meet Christian Palestinians, many of whom were exponentially more passionate and outspoken about their faith than most American Christians I knew, I began to realize just how much the American Church was missing by ignoring the lives of these brothers and sisters and how much that must hurt God’s heart. On top of that, it dawned on me that it seems unlikely that God would curse those who are in Christ, so how did Palestinian Christians who spoke out against Israel fit into the narrative of my upbringing? And why were they speaking against Israel, anyway? Could it be that they (and by implication non-Christian Palestinians) had reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with their genetics?

Furthermore, if “God’s chosen people” were oppressing God’s redeemed, Blood-bought people, did I really think God wouldn’t care about that or would forsake His Blood-bought children in favor of His chosen people, even if His chosen people were forsaking Him by rejecting Christ? In other words, would He overlook the suffering of those in Christ who were suffering at the hands of people who are not in Christ?

Once I moved to Palestine and began understanding and experiencing firsthand the real reasons why Palestinians (of all religions) push back against Israel, God grew in me a deeper compassion for them and continued to convict me that I should care about injustice against any of His image-bearers, regardless of whether they are my brothers and sisters in Christ or not. Do I agree with or condone every action of every Palestinian? Goodness no. No more than I do for my own country’s people. Suffering injustice does not give anyone the right to inflict injustice on others. But now neither do I condone every action of every Israeli under the impression that they are somehow specially favored and thus beyond criticism. Again, suffering injustice does not give anyone the right to inflict injustice on others.

So now, instead of looking at Palestinians as a homogenous group of faceless, nameless people, reduced to mindlessly living out one description of one of their ancestors, I see neighbors; I see family; I see friends. Now I know actual people with actual lives who commit actual acts of good or evil, who receive actual treatment that is just or unjust. Now I have experienced the difficulties of life in this ongoing conflict. Now I have family who have lived through decades of unthinkable circumstances. Now I know the true stories of a whole other set of image-bearers of God.

I recognize it is only by the grace of God that I have come from where I was to where I am now. His grace has pardoned my prejudice, instructed my ignorance, and forgiven my faults. He has taken me from a place of blinded partiality to a place of clear-eyed compassion, not only for all those who live in this land but also for the many who remain in the mindset where I once was. I firmly believe that God blesses us to be a blessing to others, and I pray that He uses the work He has done in my own life to help others along the same journey of breaking down the walls in their own hearts and minds and seeing the people of the Holy Land as He does—with love.

To God be the glory, great things he has done!

So loved he the world that he gave us his Son,

who yielded his life an atonement for sin,

and opened the life-gate that all may go in.

Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord,

Let the earth hear his voice!

Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!

Let the people rejoice!

O come to the Father through Jesus the Son

and give him the glory, great things he has done!

~Fanny Crosby

PC: Mais Salfiti. Used with permission.

What You Want to Know about Life in Palestine: Biggest Differences from America

Today on the fourth installment of the miniseries where I answer your questions about life in the Palestinian Territories, we’re looking at the following reader-submitted question:

Besides language what is the biggest difference between there and the US?

If you missed the earlier posts, you can read about grocery shopping, Muslim-Christian relations, and treatment of women and children by clicking on each phrase. And now to the topic in question…

It’s hard to identify the single biggest difference between life in Palestine and life in the US. Truth be told, it’s probably related to the level of freedom that people in each place experience, but that’s something I’ll have to share at a later time. That major difference aside, here are just a few other differences that I have found to be the most obvious, most jarring, or most distinctive.

Family Dynamics

As I’ve mentioned in an earlier post, Palestinian culture, as a subset of Middle Eastern culture, is more collectivist than individualist, whereas the US is more individualist. This manifests itself in many ways, but one of the most significant ways is the value placed on the family—i.e., the extended family, not just the nuclear family unit. It is not uncommon for multiple generations of a family to live together, either in the same home or, as in the case of my husband’s extended family, in a family building made up of different apartments. (My father-in-law recently built another such building made up of four apartments, one for each of his children, with he and my mother-in-law living in the apartment belonging to the youngest son who is still at home; we will eventually be moving to that building as well.) Because of this family bond, there are not many nursing homes in Palestine. In most cases, the elderly are cared for by the younger members of the family. Generally speaking, there are also greater expectations in Palestine for how often and in what contexts you see family members.

Smoking

Smoking is a serious issue in Palestine. It’s difficult to go anywhere without being exposed to second-hand smoke, sometimes to a great degree. Although it’s predominantly men (and boys) who smoke cigarettes, both men and women frequently smoke hookah/shisha. In fact “coffee shops” here are really places where people gather to smoke. Whereas in the US, smoking in restaurants was effectively prohibited during my lifetime, non-smoking laws in Palestine for indoor facilities are not enforced. When we go out to eat, we tend to frequent the few restaurants that have a separate non-smoking floor or survey the area and ask to be seated as far away from smoke as possible.

Plumbing

This might seem to be a silly difference, but it definitely takes adjusting! As in other places around the world, the plumbing system here cannot handle toilet paper, so toilet paper has to be thrown in a trash can instead of in the toilet. Because of this, almost all toilets will also have a bidet sprayer nearby. When we visit the States, it always takes me a few days to remember to throw toilet paper in the toilet—and another few days to readjust when we come back to Palestine!

Weather

Another major difference—at least for me, having grown up in the Eastern US—is the pattern of seasons here. While there are technically four distinct seasons, the year is more clearly broken down into two: dry season and rainy season. Dry season lasts from approximately May to October. During these months, we typically see zero rain. Instead, rain comes entirely in the winter (with an occasional snow in the mountains). So the concept of a warm or hot rain or midsummer thunderstorm is completely foreign here.

Government Services

In some ways, dealing with government bureaucracy is easier in Palestine, and in other ways it’s more difficult. In the US, there’s typically information online to help you figure out where to go, what documents you need to present, etc., for any particular service. In Palestine, the process can often be opaque. But on the flip side, if you know what you need to do, things happen much more quickly.

For example, when our daughter was born, the process to get her American passport involved booking an appointment at the embassy six months in advance, reading several government websites to determine what forms and documents we would need to take with us, going to our appointment on time, then waiting a couple of weeks for her passport to arrive. For her Palestinian passport, we sent the needed documents (many fewer than needed for the American one) with someone else to the appropriate office; then my husband went to sign on our daughter’s behalf, and twenty minutes later he left with the passport. (It still took some time for the passport to be registered with Israel so she could actually use it, but on the Palestinian side, you can see how much quicker things are than with the States!)

Another interesting feature of Palestinian life, at least in our city (I’m not sure how it is in other cities), is that the municipal government offers a discount on utility fees (sewage, sanitation, etc.) during the first four months of the year. (Fees are due at the beginning of the year). If paid in January (i.e., on time) you get a 20% discount. In February, the discount is 15%, in March 10%, and in April 5%. This incentive (which technically even applies to late payments, as you can see) is necessary because of another cultural difference…

Sense of Time

America runs on productivity and punctuality. Yes, there are still people who show up late or don’t find motivation in finishing tasks, but speaking of the culture as a whole, it’s characterized by a keen sense of time, making and keeping to a schedule, and valuing efficient work. As one example, if people are running late to a wedding in the States, the wedding still starts on time, and the people who are late are considered the rude ones for not being punctual and respecting the families of honor and other guests. In Palestine, it’s the opposite. Again using weddings as an example, people rarely show up on time, so weddings rarely start on time, because if they started before certain guests arrived, the hosts would be the ones considered rude. Of course, this is also generally speaking; there are people in Palestine who appreciate punctuality, but on the whole, if you want to start an event at 7:00, you need to tell people it starts at 6:30 or even 6:00.

This different conception of time also plays a role in long-term views of schedules. The church provides a good example. At the churches I was a member of in the States, the schedule of services, events, trips, etc., was set many months, sometimes even as much as a year or more, in advance. There were announcements of what we would be studying in discipleship classes and Sunday school over the coming weeks; church retreats, choir tours, and mission trips were put on family calendars months ahead of time, because if they weren’t other things would take their place. In contrast, in Palestine we sometimes don’t know week-to-week what we’ll be studying in small group; events (except for Christmas) are typically announced only days in advance; trips are relatively last-minute endeavors as well. And if you try to plan or announce things earlier, it just . . . doesn’t work.

That honestly has been one of my biggest adjustments to living in Palestine. I am very much a planner and love to have an idea of what’s coming on the calendar. But I’ve had to learn to be flexible and ready to have things pop up at a moment’s notice. Sometimes days end up looking very different than I thought they would, and I’m learning to let go and find the joy in embracing the last-minute invitations and welcoming the spontaneous guests.

Medical Services

Generally speaking, the quality of medical care here is not inferior to the States as many people might assume for a third-world region. There are, of course, some limitations as far as types of specialists available, but the biggest difference in my experience thus far has come not in quality of care but in organizational details. For instance, offices don’t always work by appointment. Whereas in the States, sometimes you have to wait weeks or even months to get in to a particular doctor’s office or get a certain test run, in Palestine you can often just show up and be seen the same day after a relatively short wait. Even those that take appointments usually will schedule them only a few days in advance or even the same day.

Our primary care doctor takes walk-ins from 9-10 A.M. every day. My OBGYN went back and forth from an appointment system to a first-come-first-served system multiple times during my pregnancy, and we often didn’t know of the change until we called or showed up for our next visit. Blood work and other lab tests are always done at separate labs. The labs send the results directly to your phone via WhatsApp or text, and it’s your responsibility to send them to your doctor.

While this system of receiving your lab results directly gives you more control over your health information in one sense, it also means your information is sent over unsecure channels. Furthermore, if doctors or their staff know your family well, they often have no qualms about discussing details of your care or test results with other family members without your knowledge or consent. There is no such thing as HIPAA in Palestine and often no concern for medical privacy.

Work/School Week

Because the national government is Islamic and the occupying government is secular/Jewish, the weekend in Palestine is Friday (the Muslim holy day) and Saturday (Jewish Sabbath). So the work/school week is Sunday through Thursday. The one exception to this is Christian schools. They take Friday and Sunday off and have school Monday-Thursday and Saturday.

Call of Prayer

Because Palestine is a Muslim-majority nation, there is at least one mosque in every neighborhood. At the top of the mosques’ minarets are loudspeakers that broadcast the call to prayer five times a day (before dawn, midday, late afternoon, sunset, and nighttime) and a sermon midday on Fridays. If you live in a region of the States that has tornado sirens, think of how you can hear them pretty much wherever you are in the city, and that’s how it is with the call to prayer here. The early-morning calls used to wake me up, but now I sleep through them most of the time.

Metric and Celsius

Need I say more here?

Other Differences

In addition to these major differences, there are others worth mentioning:

-        Taxes are included in the price at stores, restaurants, etc., so what you see is what you pay.

-        You don’t tip wait staff at restaurants, and you typically don’t have one designated waiter.

-        Unlike the US where drive-thrus are ubiquitous, there are relatively few of them in Palestine. Our city has less than five that I know of, some of which are just different locations of the same chain.

-        Whereas homes in America are mostly made of wood and/or brick, homes here are made of concrete, steel, and stone with tile floors. Because of this, homes here get much colder inside in the winter and hotter in the summer.

I hope this has helped you learn a little bit more about Palestine—and maybe about America too! Stay tuned for next time when I’ll explore another topic, and, in the meantime, let me know in the comments if you have a question you’d like me to answer about life in the Palestinian Territories.

PC: Nadia Basha. Used with permission.

What You Want to Know about Life in Palestine: Treatment of Women and Children

Welcome to the third installment of the miniseries where I answer your questions about what life is like in the Palestinian Territories. If you missed the first post about grocery shopping, you can read it here. Today’s reader-submitted topic, “How women and children are treated in general in comparison to USA,” builds on some of what I shared in the last post about Muslim/Christian relations, so if you haven’t read that post yet, you might want to take a moment to read it here. I should also note that because my firsthand knowledge is of West Bank, I’ll be sharing the following from that experience and within that context.

Just as there is a stereotype of Muslim-majority countries severely persecuting Christians as I mentioned in the last post, there is also a stereotype of oppression of women. But just as Muslim-majority countries fall along a spectrum when it comes to their treatment of Christians, so too does the attitude toward and treatment of women and children in the Middle East generally and in Palestine in particular.

In West Bank, on one extreme, there are situations where women are oppressed or even abused. For example, they can be pressured to have as many children as possible and suffer abuse if their husbands find out they’ve been using birth control methods. And, of course, as anywhere else, women are not immune to occasional harassment in the community. But on the other extreme, there are families whose culture is no different from the stereotypical West. Women are free to work outside the home, and many do.

The spectrum of interpretation within Islam results in some women wearing hijabs (head coverings) and some not. And among both groups, you will find both single and married women as well as women who work outside the home and those who don’t, either by necessity or by choice. Women who are not Muslim are not required to wear hijabs or follow any of the other standards of Islam. Women can drive, attend university, own property, file for divorce, vote, and run for political office.

When it comes to women in the workplace, the landscape is largely similar to the States, with most professions open to women. There are women doctors, dentists, pharmacists, engineers, architects, professors, mayors, governors, nurses, dietitians, lawyers, human resource officers, administrators and managers, IT professionals, designers, teachers, and other businesswomen. At the same time, there are other occupations that, while technically open to women, are typically done by men. Among these are taxi drivers, sanitation workers, construction workers, produce store owners/staff, butchers, factory workers, gas station attendants (as in, the people that actually pump your gas—those are still a thing here), and mechanics. Another male-dominated field, unlike in the States, is the restaurant industry. While there are a few waitresses, the vast majority of wait staff are men.

Treatment of children likewise varies greatly depending on the family. Generally, children are highly valued in Arab culture and spoken to with a wide range of endearing terms. Most children are given nicknames that are formed by taking one or two syllables of their name and adding the “oo” or “oosh” sound to the end. For example, Layla would be Lulu or Layloosh; Samir would be Soosoo, etc. Children rarely outgrow these nicknames; even into adulthood, the terms of endearment are still used by family and close friends.

Another way of referring to children that is different between Palestine and the United States is the practice of addressing the child with the name that they would address you with. For example, mothers often call their children, “mama” (regardless of the child’s gender), and it’s not uncommon to hear a father say, “Yalla, ya baba” (Come on, Daddy) to their child. Grandfathers and grandmothers call their grandchildren “Sedo” and “Tayta” (the Arabic words for grandfather and grandmother), respectively. This even applies to aunts and uncles. As an American, this practice is very strange and confusing to me, but it is widespread in Arab culture and one I’m trying to get used to now that I have a child of my own.

While there is a wide range of parenting philosophies in West Bank just as there is in America, one difference is the greater acceptance in Palestine (and Arab cultures generally) of corporal punishment. It has become the stuff of humor among Arab comedians, but the jokes about beatings with belts or shoes are based in reality. It’s not uncommon to see a mother smack a child in public, even on the face. But at the same time, there is the other end of the spectrum with highly permissive parents who rarely discipline their children at all, along with the middle ground of non-physical forms of discipline.  

One major difference is the attitude toward children playing in the streets. There are some public and private parks with playgrounds, but not as many as you might find in the States, so it is much more common for children to play in the streets (even highly trafficked streets) mostly without adult supervision. Whereas in America we would be terrified to let children roam and play in the city on their own because of threat of kidnapping, etc., here there isn’t that worry, and people don’t think twice about letting their children go out and about. It’s not uncommon to see a preteen walking down the road with grocery bags, having gone on an errand for his or her parents. School lets out anywhere between 1:00 and 3:00, so if parents work, children often hang out with their friends outside around school. The grocery store near our house is always flooded with kids from the school across the street when school lets out each day. In a lot of ways, seeing kids hanging out in groups, buying candy bars from the grocery store, or playing games in the street reminds me of how my grandparents described their own childhood in America.

Another difference is means of transportation. It is relatively rare to see an infant or child riding in the car in a car seat. More often than not, they are sitting in a parent’s lap in the front seat (even in the driver’s seat), or if a bit older, hanging out the window in the back seat or sticking their head out the sunroof.  I’d venture to guess that most parents here would laugh at the strict safety measures in place in the U.S.

This is just a small glimpse of what life is like for women and children here in West Bank. I hope it’s been enlightening. Next time we’ll look at another question submitted by a reader, so stay tuned!

Do you have a question or topic regarding life in Palestine that you’re curious about? Let me know in the comments below!

PC: Mais Salfiti. Used with permission.

What You Want to Know about Life in Palestine: Muslim-Christian Relations

Welcome back to the new miniseries where I answer your questions about life in the Palestinian Territories. If you missed the first post about grocery shopping, you can read it here. Today we’re looking at the following topic submitted by a reader:

How Muslim and Christian culture interact today.

First, it will be helpful to establish some context. Many Americans (including my younger self) have a very limited understanding of the Middle East generally and Muslim culture specifically, based on a set of stereotypes that we have been introduced to. We tend to hear about the conservative extreme of Islamic societies such as Saudi Arabia or Iran and apply that perception across the board, assuming that every Muslim country is the same. Imagine someone from outside America assuming that New York, South Carolina, Texas, Wisconsin, Kentucky, and Oregon all have the same culture just because they’re all part of America. We would laugh, right? In some ways they couldn’t be more different. And yet we do the same thing with countries in the Middle East.

What we often don’t realize is that, generally speaking, there are three types of “Muslim countries” (not all of which are in the Middle East, by the way), meaning Islam is the majority religion. In the first group, which includes places like Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Afghanistan, you have zero separation between religion and government. Islam is the state religion, and other religions are forbidden and/or persecuted. In the second group, there is no official separation between religion and government (i.e., Islam is the official state religion), but other religions are freely practiced by minorities. In the last group, there is complete separation between religion and government, the majority of the population just happen to practice Islam.

Palestine falls in the second category. The majority of the population is Muslim, and Islam is the state religion, but Christians enjoy freedom of worship, and there are a growing number of people who do not practice any religion. When it comes to Christianity, many different denominations and/or traditions are represented here. In our city alone there are Baptist/Evangelical (at least 3 different churches), Lutheran, Episcopal, Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic (Melkite), and Coptic.

The fact that there are Christians in the actual birthplace of Christianity shouldn’t be shocking, but to many Americans it is. I remember the first time I realized there were Palestinian Christians. (You can read more about that in another post.) That was the first step in a journey of discovery I continue to traverse today as I learn more and more about our brothers and sisters in Christ in this region. But Christianity in Palestine does not merely exist; in some areas it is highly visible and even more a part of public life than it is in the States.

Ramallah and Bethlehem, two cities in the West Bank portion of the Palestinian Territories (the other portion being Gaza), are considered “Christian cities.” Among other things, this means that by local law the mayor of each city must be Christian. Of course, that could just mean “Christian-in-name-only” (I’ll use the acronym CINO for short) and not an actual follower of Jesus, but it means that they cannot be Muslim, atheist, etc. Ramallah, the seat of Palestinian government in the West Bank, was founded by a Christian family in the 1500s. Today, there are Christmas, Palm Sunday, and Easter parades, Christmas concerts, and a Christmas market. The municipal government sets up giant Christmas trees throughout the city, hosts a Christmas tree lighting for the largest one, and displays a nearly life-size nativity scene on the grounds of City Hall. Even on the national level, despite Islam being the state religion, Christmas and Easter are official holidays.

Christianity also shows up in education. In several cities, there are multiple private Christian schools, attended by both Christians and Muslims. Because religion is a mandatory subject, these schools teach Islam classes for the Muslim students but are able to offer Christianity classes for the Christian students. When taking the national high school exit exam, students will be tested on either Islam or Christianity depending on their religion. Which brings me to discuss how religion and identity are closely tied together here.

When people are born, their religion is recorded with the government. Until about a decade ago, it was also displayed on their IDs. There is very much a sense of being born into a religion here, and that association lives with you regardless of whether or not you believe and/or practice that religion. So while practically everyone will identify as either “Christian” or “Muslim,” the number of people who actually live according to either faith is smaller. “Christians” are a small minority in Palestine, but because of the large amount of CINOs, true Christians, i.e., people who have actually trusted Christ as their Savior, are an even smaller minority.

And now that the contextual background has been painted, we can look at how Christians and Muslims interact with each other in daily life here. Many Christians in America, never having met a Muslim and forming their understanding based solely on what they hear and see on the news, have the impression that all Muslims hate Christians and want to attack them, burn churches, etc. What we often fail to realize is that just as with any other religion, there is a spectrum on which people fall, and there is much disagreement within Islam over how the faith should be lived out. While there likely are Muslims in Palestine who hate Christians, there are others who simply disagree with Christianity and have no problem being friends—even close friends—with Christians.

Muslims and Christians live and work alongside each other just as people of different faiths do in the States. Using our own experience as an example, we have many close friends who are Muslim; we have hosted them in our home and visited them in theirs. We have attended Muslim weddings and funerals, and Muslims have attended Christian ones alongside us, each ceremony being conducted according to the beliefs and practices of the given religion.

In the workplace, Muslims and Christians in the public sector and banks, are all given days off for both Islamic and Christian holidays. In the private sector, some companies give Muslims the Islamic holidays off and Christians the Christian holidays off, while others give everyone the Islamic holidays off and give the Christian holidays only to Christians.

During holidays like Ramadan where Muslims are to fast from both food and drink (including water) from sunrise to sunset, Christians, though not required by law to fast, will often abstain from eating or drinking in public out of consideration for their neighbors. Muslim-owned restaurants will also be closed during fasting hours, while Christian-owned ones will remain open.

I hope this has given you a glimpse into the cultural dynamics that exist between Muslims and Christians here in the West Bank. Stay tuned for the next post where we’ll look at a different aspect of life in Palestine.

Do you have a question or topic you’d like me to discuss in this series? Let me know in the comments!

PC: Eric Eanes. Used with permission.

What You Want to Know about Life in Palestine: Grocery Shopping

It’s been almost two years since I moved to the Palestinian Territories, and during that time I’ve encountered lots of questions from Americans about what life is like in this corner of the world. So today, I’m starting a new series to answer some of those questions and help you gain a better understanding of a place that many Americans don’t know much about.

First up, I’ll be answering the following question submitted by a reader.

“I genuinely want to know how grocery shopping works! Similar to here [America]? More frequent? Large shops?”

Grocery shopping is both similar to and different from shopping in the States in various ways. There are dozens of “supermarkets” here, but don’t let the term fool you. Most of them are smaller than your average pharmacy in the US. There are two or three chain grocery stores that are more along the lines of a Walmart Neighborhood Market—with groceries, produce, meat, personal care products, and home supplies—but only one as big as a Publix, Harris Teeter, Food Lion, etc., and that one is in a huge shopping mall. We have one store a block from our home where we do most of our shopping, and it’s about the size of an Aldi with three checkout lanes. Self-checkout doesn’t exist here.

One of the chain grocery stores

We typically grocery shop once a week, after I make a meal plan for the week. But one difference here is that instead of buying our produce at the chain grocery store, we go to a separate produce store because the quality is much better. These small produce shops are also ubiquitous in our city, and the one we go to is a Christian family business that has wonderfully fresh fruits and vegetables. It’s one of my favorite places to go.

Our favorite produce store

We also buy our meat (beef, chicken, and our Thanksgiving turkey) from a butcher shop—another type of store that there are dozens of in the city. We typically go to the butcher every 2-3 months and stock our freezer with ground beef, chicken, and sometimes burgers, then go back if we want a special cut of beef. Because the two predominant religions in this region (Judaism and Islam) forbid eating pork, pork is very hard to find here, and when you do find it, it’s very expensive. I have to admit, I miss the variety of being able to fix a pork meal every now and then.

Our favorite butcher shop

For fish and seafood, we also go to a separate store dedicated to that type of food. While there are some frozen options in the chain grocery stores, a seafood shop offers better—and sometimes cheaper—options.

Our favorite seafood store  

When it comes to variety of products at the grocery store, there is definitely less than in America, but generally enough to satisfy. There are typically multiple brands of most items, but sometimes the types of items are limited. For example, when it comes to canned fruit, you have a choice of four or five different brands of pineapple and maybe one brand of fruit cocktail, but no other kinds of fruit. I’ve found a couple of stores that sometimes have canned peaches or pears, which are a luxury. Canned mandarin oranges I have yet to find and are one of the things I miss most from the States. The rest of the canned goods aisle is predominated by beans, olives, pickles, mushrooms, and chickpeas. I’ve only seen canned green beans once and peas occasionally. So we typically buy fresh or frozen.

Similar to pineapple, when it comes to canned tomato products, you can have your choice of nearly a dozen different brands/sizes of tomato paste, but whole, diced, crushed, or sauce are hit or miss. And since the labels might be in another language (other than English or Arabic), sometimes we have to play the “buy it and be surprised when we open it” game.

The language differences are because products come from all over the world. Many are Palestinian-made or Israeli-made, but there are also a higher number of items from other countries than what you would find in the States—countries like Jordan, Egypt, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Italy, and more. And of course, there are a plethora of American brands and products, although not all look or taste the same as they do in the States. As just one example, regular Lays potato chips come in a red bag here and are made with a different kind of oil, so they taste different. But some stores sell the yellow-bag regular Lays like what is sold in the States.

These stores are typically on the higher end of the price scale and specialize in imported products, many of which are American. When I need to find a special ingredient or product, e.g., cranberry sauce, canned pumpkin, or pure maple syrup, we go to those stores. Another item we have to venture to these stores to find is General Mills Honey Nut Cheerios. In the regular grocery stores, only Nestle Cheerios are sold, and I’m pretty sure they’re just Honey, not Honey Nut. In any case, they taste different. Before moving here, I associated Nestle with other things than cereal, but apparently Nestle and General Mills have a partnership, and both get to use the name “Cheerios.” You can look it up if you’re curious what the Nestle Cheerios look like.

One of the high-end grocery stores.

The final difference in grocery shopping is the cost. Food is generally more expensive here than in America. A 2-liter of milk (a little more than ½ gallon) is over $3.00 (as of today’s conversion rate, which changes daily). A 2-liter bottle of orange juice is $7.57. A regular-size box of cereal is between $4 and $5. The nice thing, though, is that those prices include tax.

I hope this has given you a taste of life here in Palestine. Stay tuned for next time when I’ll answer another question about what life is like. Do you have a question you’d like me to answer? Let me know in the comments below.

Known by Name

Aside from Psalm 23, probably the most well-known passage that discusses the Lord being our Shepherd is found in John 10. It is here that in a lengthy metaphor Jesus distinguishes Himself from false shepherds (vv. 1, 8, 10), identifies the purpose of His coming (v. 10), reveals that His flock includes more than just the original group of sheep (v. 16), and foretells the sacrifice He will make on the sheep’s behalf (v. 15, 17-18). Each of these statements is powerful and meaningful in its own way, but today we’re going to focus on another small phrase that is nestled among these wonderful words of Jesus.

In verses 2-3, Jesus says, “But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out” (ESV). Did you notice it? Jesus calls his sheep by name. To Americans reading this passage, that idea is easy to skim over without a second thought. We live in an individualized society where we are used to being primarily identified/understood by our unique name (rather than our family’s name). We’re so conditioned to revel in our uniqueness that we give our children middle names to distinguish them from others who might share the same first and last name. So in a society where we pride ourselves on being distinct as an individual and tend to think the world revolves around us, the statement that Jesus calls us by name isn’t that striking. But take a step back and think about it for a minute.

In Middle Eastern culture, both ancient and contemporary, collectivism rather than individualism formed the basis of identity. We see examples of this in the Bible where people were referred to as the “son of” someone else (e.g., “Simon, son of John” in John 21:15 and the “sons of Zebedee” in Matthew 26:37, ESV) and today in Arab cultures where people are called “Abu (or Em) so-and-so” (i.e., Father or Mother of so-and-so) rather than by their own names. Similarly, instead of receiving unique middle names, like those given in individualist cultures, Arab children are given their father’s first name and grandfather’s first name between their first and last names, highlighting the importance of their heritage and their place in the larger family group.

Reputation, also, was/is tied to one’s family. The goodness (or scandal) of a family name played a huge role in how an individual was perceived. Although this is lessening to an extent in some areas of the Middle East today, it is still common that people are judged by whether or not they come from an honorable family. Someone’s first name carries a lot less weight than his last name does, because it is the last name that reveals to what group he belongs, and his identity is viewed primarily through the lens of that group rather than his own personal merit or lack thereof.

So when Jesus says that He calls his sheep by name, it is actually somewhat revolutionary. He doesn’t view us as who we are in relation to anyone else besides Himself. In other words, when it comes to our relationship with God, it doesn’t matter whose earthly child we are, who our extended family is, who we work for, who our friends are, or who our pastor is. What matters is whether we are one of His sheep or we aren’t.

But there’s another sense in which Jesus’ calling us by name is remarkable. Despite our conviction that we are supremely unique, it’s also true that each of us is just one person among billions of other people who have lived and will live throughout the history of the world. Each of those people, as an image bearer of God, is of equal value. None of us is more special than another. And yet, Jesus not only knows each of our names, He calls us by them. He knows what makes us unique because He has designed and created us. He calls us personally by name because He desires a personal relationship with each of us individually. He does not call people by family group or by ethnicity or by nation; He calls us one-by-one by our names. And while He loves all of His sheep equally, He loves us each individually too.

So the next time you get discouraged, feel invisible, or feel trapped in an identity constructed by the groups or systems of which you are a part, remember that Jesus, the Good Shepherd knows you intimately and calls you by name. Listen to His voice and let it drown out all the others, because He is the One who knows you best and loves you most.

PC: Yandle Multimedia Photography. Used with permission.

Love Overflowing

Much has been said and written about the connection between language and culture, and while this connection is something I was loosely aware of on a cognitive level, it wasn’t until I moved to the Middle East that I began to understand it more experientially.

Arabic and English are very different languages, from sentence structure to the way words are formed and even to the direction of reading and writing. In many ways, the two could not be more different. As I’ve mentioned in another post, these differences shape (or are shaped by, depending on your argument) the very way that people think. But they also are related to the way people express their thoughts. For example, as I pointed out in yet another post, the English language and English-speaking cultures tend to be very direct, while the Arabic language and the cultures that utilize it tend to be more circular in communication. But there is another major difference between these languages/cultures: one related to the expression of emotion.

Since living in the Middle East, I’ve learned that Americans are often thought of as “soft” (as we would say in English), i.e., that we have a low tolerance for suffering and hardship and that we tend to complain about minor things. (When you compare the average life experiences of an American to those of someone from the Middle East, you begin to understand why this opinion is formed.) In other words, Americans are thought to be much more emotive than Arabs, even melodramatic, when it comes to dealing with inconvenience, suffering, or pain.

But there is another way in which Americans are much less emotive than Arabs, and that is in expressing affection—and I’m not just talking about romantic affection. I’m talking about every level of affection that can be felt by a human being. By way of example, though, here’s a humorous take on what this looks like when it comes to romantic affection:

To an English speaker, the number of words, breadth of descriptive vocabulary, and intensity of the all-caps in this example convey an over-the-top expression of affection. But to an Arabic speaker, the verbosity, descriptiveness, and intensity are all perfectly normal—normal even to the point that such expression is only mildly modified when the affection is something less than romantic, e.g., between friends.

Not long ago, my husband and I were in a men’s clothing store in our city and were being helped by the owner. Shortly after we arrived, another customer came in who obviously knew him. I wish I had had the presence of mind to record or at least write down the conversation between the two men because they went back and forth multiple times exchanging expressions of greeting before ever getting to the point of why the customer came in the store in the first place. The length alone of that introductory exchange, while completely normal in Arab cultures, is still disorienting to my American, English-speaking self, but what made the exchange, and others like it, even more disorienting were the actual words and expressions used. It’s not just a “Hi, how are you?” “Oh, hi, I’m well, how are you?” repeated over and over. It’s more like:

Man 1: “Hello, My Dear! Welcome!” [Those familiar with Arabic even a little will recognize that “my Dear” is “Habibi.”]

Man 2: “Hello, My Age! What’s new?”

Man 1: “My Eyes, praise God, all is good, My Dear. All is well?”

Man 2: “My Dear.”

Man 1: “My Heart, welcome.”

Man 2: “My Precious One. How is the family?”

Man 1: “Well, well, My Life, thank God.”

Etc.

This effusive mode of expression is not just limited to greetings, however. The Arabic equivalent of “Happy Birthday” literally translates to “Every year and you are healthy,” which is a way of wishing prolonged good health upon someone. Instead of “Congratulations,” which translates “Mabrook,” it is more common to say “Alf mabrook,” i.e., “a thousand congratulations,” (or even “alf alf alf mabrook”). When you post a picture of your meal on social media, comments are less likely to be about how delicious the food looks (which is typical for American responses) and instead are more likely to be of the “bon Appetit” variety but that literally translate to, “Health and total wellness” or “Two health.” And when that Arab equivalent of “enjoy the food” is said to you, the appropriate response literally translates to “On your heart,” which is a way of heaping the blessing back on the one offering it. And of course, it is not uncommon for each of these to be followed—or surrounded—by one or more of the “my life, my heart, my eyes, my precious one,” type of phrases.

As an American, I am not used to this overflowing expressiveness, and my manner of communication reflects that. But as much as I am unaccustomed to offering such effusive expressions, I am even more unused to receiving them. I find myself completely at a loss as to how to respond to words that to my ears seem to convey a depth of feeling only reserved for those most romantically in love with each other. A simple, “Thanks” or “You too,” never seems sufficient in the face of such outpouring, and yet I never quite know what to say, so I usually end up resorting to a smile and nod and feeling the weight of my inadequacy to reciprocate such apparent depth of emotion.

Of course, in some ways, these expressions are merely part of the culture and have just become what people say without really thinking about it. But even still, the fact that these deep and flowery phrases are part of normal communication reflects an emotiveness inherent in Arabic-speaking cultures that English-speaking cultures lack.

To be honest, at times, this cultural difference can be incredibly frustrating. It can leave me feeling awkward or like a terrible person for not feeling rushing swells of emotion at every turn. It makes me think I come across as rude or insensitive or shallow for not being easily able to roll expressions of adoration off my tongue. But in another sense, I’ve come to see that this cultural difference, like so many others, is yet another opportunity to learn more about God.

Numerous times, the Bible speaks of God delighting in those who follow Him. And in one of the most beautiful verses, we read:

“The Lord your God is in your midst,

    a mighty one who will save;

he will rejoice over you with gladness;

    he will quiet you by his love;

he will exult over you with loud singing” (Zephaniah 3:17, ESV).

 

It wasn’t until I moved to the Middle East that I began to get a glimpse of what it really must be like for God to delight in us, to rejoice over us, to exult over us. His love is not just an “I love you” kind of love. It’s a “My adoration for you cannot be quantified nor expressed merely by the written word. The death of a thousand suns can’t match the energy of My love for you. I didn’t just face death, I met and defeated death to prove my commitment to you, o beloved one, my precious child” kind of love.

 

The Creator of the Universe, the All-Powerful God, is an emotive God who is overflowing with love (not to mention being Love itself) and who expresses that love by rejoicing over us with gladness and exulting over us with loud singing. He is effusive in His expression of affection toward us. And that’s something that I think our Arab brothers and sisters in Christ can understand on a deeper level than we Americans can.

 

As I continue to adjust to communicating in a different cultural dynamic, I pray that God uses my exposure to this more emotive manner of expression to enlarge my capacity for grasping and receiving His overflowing love for me. And for my American family of faith, I pray that you likewise “may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:18-19, ESV).

PC: Mais Salfiti. Used with permission.

A New Chapter for An Iris Awaits

It’s hard to believe it’s been over seven years since I started this thing called “An Iris Awaits.” Since that time, God has graciously allowed me to share things that He has laid on my heart on a variety of topics, but all with the view of challenging and encouraging others to go deeper in their relationship with Him and to see how that relationship is, or at least can and should be, integral to every aspect of our lives, not just put in a “spiritual” or “Christianity” box that we keep separate from everything else.

Over the last seven years, we’ve delved into passages from the Bible; we’ve looked at lessons to be learned from classic literature; we’ve heard from friends on a breadth of topics they are passionate about and heard how their faith informs their work in those areas; we’ve examined current events in light of truths from God’s Word; and most recently we’ve begun exploring how interacting with different cultures—particularly Middle Eastern culture—can help us better understand God and the Bible.

From the beginning, my primary audience has been the American Church, because believers from my home country were the majority of my community, and they were the ones my heart was most burdened for, desiring to see their faith become solid, vibrant, and authentically lived-out. But in the past few years, my community has rapidly expanded to include the Arab Church, both with family and with friends. And while my heart is still very much burdened in the same way for my American brothers and sisters, that burden has now grown to include my Arab brothers and sisters as well.

Time and again as my husband and I have been serving in church or having conversations with friends, biblical resources have come to mind that would be incredibly helpful in the given situation but that are only available in English. And while English is essentially a second language where we live and many people are able to speak fluently and read fluently (or nearly so), it is still frustrating for us and others not to be able to share these biblical resources with people here in Arabic, their heart language.

Sometime last year, my friend and Arabic teacher asked me if I had ever thought about publishing posts in Arabic. I hadn’t really, but thanks to her question, I gave it some thought at the time. As she pointed out, there are not many written resources for Christian discipleship in Arabic. It wasn’t long, though, before the idea had slipped to the back of my mind as other things took precedence. Fast-forward to the end of 2022, and as I was thinking about the new year, the Lord suddenly and strongly brought the idea to the forefront of my mind. This was something I knew I needed to do in 2023.

Over the past few months, the Lord has given confirmation through responses from others with whom I floated the idea and by providing several friends to help with translation work. So beginning this month, I’m opening a new section here on the blog that will be dedicated to posts in the Arabic language. While I will continue writing and posting in English (typically every other Monday), this new area will contain Arabic translations of selected posts from the past seven years (typically published one Wednesday a month for starters).

Will you join me in praying that these Arabic-language posts will make their way to those who need them, that our fellow believers who speak Arabic will be challenged and encouraged in their walk with Christ, that those who are “Christians in name only” will recognize their need to make a personal decision to follow Christ, and that those who have no interest in knowing Jesus will begin to see the beauty of a relationship with Him? I have no idea how God wants to use this meager offering of ours, but I am beyond excited to see what He will do. All glory to His Name!

PC: Issa Basha. Used with permission.

What a Power Outlet Taught Me about God

People often ask me, “What is the biggest difference between living in America and living in the Middle East?” And while there are certainly some big differences, most of the difference comes from the accumulation of a lot of little things—things that you don’t even know to think about until you experience them. Take power outlets, for instance. Pictured below is a contemporary standard outlet in America.

Until I traveled outside the United States, it never occurred to me that any other kind of power outlet existed (other than the two-pronged version found in older houses). Turns out, there are a lot of different types of outlets across the world, including here in the Middle East, where the outlets look like this:

Growing up, I became familiar with outlet adapters from staying at my grandparents’ where we had to use them to convert our three-pronged plugs into two-pronged ones, so having to use adapters for my phone and computer chargers when I moved to the Middle East wasn’t that foreign of a concept. But it isn’t just the plugs and outlets that are different.

The voltage is different too. So it doesn’t matter whether the plug fits in the outlet if the voltage capacity of the device doesn’t match the voltage coming from the outlet. In that case, the device either won’t turn on, or it will fry. To fix the problem, you need a voltage adapter as well as an outlet adapter to help convert the electricity into something that the device can handle.

While it may not be a perfect analogy, thinking about all these adapters made me think about the spiritual adapters we need in our lives. God’s Word, the Bible, is like an outlet adapter. We come to it in our fallen humanness and through it are able to encounter God, the Power Source. As the primary means by which we learn about God, the Bible is one of the main ways that we become connected to Him.

But not everyone who reads the Bible understands what they read or receives strength and encouragement from it. I’m reminded what Paul wrote about preaching God’s Word: “we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:23-24, ESV). To some the Gospel and God’s Word is a stumbling block or folly instead of the power and wisdom of God. So what makes the difference?

God’s Word is powerful on its own, yes and absolutely (see Isaiah 55:11 and Hebrews 4:12), but there is a means by which the power of God’s Word is effective, and that is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the One through whom the human writers of the Bible were divinely inspired (see 2 Peter 1:21 and Acts 4:25). And the Holy Spirit is the One who equips human readers to understand the truth that they read.

So If God’s Word is like the outlet adapter, the Holy Spirit is like the voltage adapter. Without the aid of God the Holy Spirit, we are not able to handle the power coming from Him as the Power Source. But the Holy Spirit, our Helper (see John 16:7), equips us to handle the power of receiving and processing the Word of God.

Before Jesus, God the Son, was crucified, He told His disciples that there was much more they had yet to hear and understand: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now” (John 16:12, ESV). When and how would they be able to bear them? We find the answer in the next verse: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you” (John 16:13-14, ESV). With the help of the Holy Spirit, the disciples would be able to bear the truth without crumbling under its weight. In the same way, with the help of our Voltage Adapter, the Holy Spirit, we are able to bear the incoming power of the truth of God’s Word. He enlarges our capacity to receive what God the Father has to give us.

So how are you trying to live your life as a Christian? Are you dragging along without much power? Does God seem distant and disconnected? If you feel as if you never hear from God or experience His power in your life, try asking yourself if you’re really utilizing your Outlet Adapter (the Bible) to plug into God’s very thoughts and words delivered to you in writing. And if you’ve got your Outlet Adapter securely in place, but you still feel like you’re disconnected from the Power Source, be sure to plug into your Voltage Adapter (the Holy Spirit) before, while, and after you read. Ask Him to give you the understanding, to guide you into the truth, and to help you internalize and live out what God Almighty, the Power Source, has delivered to you in His Word. 

PC: Daniel Basha. Used with permission.