From Boyden-Hull to Jerusalem

Marlin and Sally, Damascus Gate, 2006

In 1998, Sally travelled to Israel/Palestine with a group from Western Theological Seminary. This group of students primarily stayed in Bethlehem at the Bethlehem Inn. Because no one came to Bethlehem in 1998, there was plenty of room. Sally came home from that experience with mixed emotions. She was sad and angry both at the same time. She could not unsee what she had seen. She saw one people being held down by another people. But here’s the thing—no one here in the US wanted to hear about it, including me.

In 2001 Josh spent a summer in Jerusalem studying Hebrew. In 2002 I did the same. I stayed in what’s called a Moshav near the city of Abu Gosh—an Arab town within the State of Israel. The Moshav was Jewish. A Moshav consists of like-minded people working in concert to make a quality life. It is sheltered, insular and safe. Josh stayed on the campus of Hebrew University, where he mostly heard the Jewish Israeli perspective. Josh and I had much different experiences than Sally had. But we were there and we saw enough to realize that something was not right about the way Palestinians were being treated.

In 2005, Sally and I took the job of Mission Engagement Facilitators to Israel/Palestine. The leaders in the Reformed Church in America Global Mission simply told us to go and create something long term. Since then we have led over 70 immersion trips to the region, participated in one home rebuild, and developed the film The Law and the Prophets, which will be seen by thousands of people both in the US and abroad. We’ve made hundreds of friends who make possible our continued advocacy for a world of basic fairness and respect for all people. We work with courageous individuals, people of integrity and decency, and we try to be the same. What we do is next to nothing, to be honest. We make little or perhaps even no difference. But we try. We maintain the worthy struggle without any guarantees of victory . The work of redemption and justice is mostly done in this way: little people doing what they can to help make the world a little bit more like what Jesus imagined it could be.

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Marlin