March 2003

My purpose in writing is to encourage you and assure you that the grace of God is with you no matter what happens (1 Peter 5:12).

Dear Friends:

Greetings and blessings from the Far Side! As we here in the Middle East wait for what seems to be the inevitable beginning of another Middle East military conflict, I can't help but wonder what God must be thinking. Is He trying to show us another example of how silly we are? Or could it be that the forces of greed and selfishness are just too strong within certain circles?

Hala and I have been asked by the Middle East Council of Churches to help them with their programs in support of the Iraqi people. Here in Amman, they have set up an office to handle aid that will be brought in. Hala will be helping out in the area of social work and administration. I have been asked to help them with reporting what is happening with the programs and with the situation of the people. The MECC is acting as the coordinator for a large group of church aid organizations that are preparing to show that the grace of God is with them. Together, we are hopeful that we will be able to send a positive message to the peoples of Iraq who have known only suffering for so long now.

Turning to the other side of the River Jordan, this past week, I had to visit some organizations in Ramallah, on the West Bank. When I entered the Israeli military checkpoint outside the city, I was not spoken to by the machinegun-toting 20-year-old Israeli soldiers, but was simply scowled at. Their looks sent a chill up my spine. However, they did speak to me when I was leavin. After standing in a line of persons trying to pass the military checkpoint for about 45 minutes, my turn came. I walked to the soldier, he looked at me from under his glasses and said, "What are you doing here, why are you going into Ramallah? You don't belong here." Knowing that he could not really stop me from passing with my new Israeli visa in my U.S. passport, I simply looked him in the face and said, "It is not your business to ask me what I am doing here. You can only check to see if my visa is current." He waved me off with his AK 47, allowing me to pass.

It's only expected to get worse with an attack on Iraq by the United States, Britain, and a few other countries. The only thing that I could say to the people that I saw was, "God is big and He sees everything. Everything will be better at some point." People nod their heads, because even if they have lost the will to believe those words, they desperately want to believe them. They hope that if things are not eventually better for themselves, perhaps they will be for their children or grandchildren. Death by heart attack has become the largest killer of males in the Palestinian territories now, surpassing the number-two killer, the Israeli military.

Then we turn our heads and look east of Jordan again and we are looking towards Iraq, the world's greatest challenge right now. Here in Jordan, people are praying that the United States will get it all over with quickly. No one really believes that war will be averted. People are scared. Not because they think that Saddam will try lobbing missiles at Jordan, but because the economy, which is already in very bad shape, will only get worse. All that we can say to people when speaking about the economy here is, "God willing, things will get better. King Abdullah is working very hard and the government here is pretty good comparied to many other places."

Though Hala and I are not in the thick of the suffering of Palestine or Iraq, we do see our witness here in Jordan as a positive one. Jordan acts as a staging ground for many of the programs that are dealing with the suffering of the countries we are surrounded by. We must simply try to remember, and let others remember, that the grace of God is with us, no matter what happens.

In His Service,

Chris, Hala, Nadiim & Adeeb

The 2003 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, page 156