April 2008

Dear Friends and Family,

Spring greetings from Jerusalem! Although the city’s Western (Christian) population celebrated Easter last month, April marks the celebration of both the Eastern (Orthodox) Church's Easter and the Jewish Pessach (Passover). The streets are in a constant tangle of honking traffic that extends to the periphery of the city from dawn until dusk. At times like these you must ask yourself just how badly you need to join the mayhem, how necessary any errand is, or if it can wait!

Diving into the torrent of traffic, Michele recently accompanied a friend who is a leukemia patient as she underwent her periodical battery of tests to control her condition.

When we arrived early in the morning at Israel's Hadassah Hospital, the parking lot was already full. But my friend has been through this procedure so often that she knew just where to go to find additional parking. Entering the hospital, she guided me through an ever descending labyrinth of corridors until we were so far underground that our cell phones wouldn't work!  I had no idea how large this hospital is, and it was comforting that my introduction to it was by someone who really knows her way around.

Once she checked in and the first lot of blood had been drawn, we settled down to a complimentary breakfast of bread with butter and jam, coffee and yogurt, while we waited for her test results.

As we ate, I noticed a parallel corridor running from the same waiting room, and I asked her what department it served. She explained that it is the IVF, or “in vitro fertilization” ward. The services this ward provides would seem unremarkable in any other hospital, and yet it was at this moment that I became aware of the numerous couples surrounding us in the waiting room of this Israeli hospital—they were Arab.

My friend went on to explain to me that medicine is the one place in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict that transcends war and occupation to guarantee fair treatment to all patients, regardless of race or nationality. Because of the political situation, most West Bank or Gaza Palestinians would not be successful in getting Jerusalem permits to be treated at this hospital, but it is not for the lack of commitment on the part of the doctors or medical staff.

Israel and Palestine have, for some time, been locked in a demographic race, with each seeking to create a larger population than the other. So it seemed odd that Israeli doctors and hospital staff would so graciously aid Arab couples in their pursuit of having a family (and consequently increasing their population).

In the whirl of hospital activity, this realization gave me pause to think and adjust my perspective. I’ve never been fond of hospitals, and I think most people would agree that it’s not a place, for the most part, that you look forward to visiting! Yet in the midst of an oppressive and tense daily atmosphere I suddenly saw the hospital as an oasis or refuge where people can escape the inequities dealt to them in the rest of their lives and be cared for with dignity and compassion.

In the aftermath of this visit, I discovered that there are countless Israeli and Palestinian physicians and medical professionals committed not only to impartially treating those of the opposite side in the conflict, but to working in cooperation in programs and projects such as Saving Children, Peace Through Health, or Physicians for Human Rights. Hadassah Hospital participates in numerous programs, and it also employs Palestinian doctors.

As God's faithful, we are called to hope, and the hospital visit became my springboard for optimism in the constant face of adversity for those whom I have come to serve. I have wondered since how those of us outside the medical profession could learn from this example and commit ourselves to searching harder to find ways in our own lives and work to alter our propensity toward division and look to concentrate our mutual vision on human need and betterment.

This week I will return with my friend for her periodical tests, but I will look forward to the experience much differently, and think upon Romans 14:19, “Let us then pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.”

Grace and Peace to you,

The 2008 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 328