05176
April 1, 2005

‘A learning experience’

Middle East tour was more than Hezbollah visit, GAC, COGA are told

by Toya Richards Hill 

LOUISVILLE — A trip to the Middle East in October by the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) was more than just its controversial visit with the radial Shiite Muslim party Hezbollah. 

     In fact, the trip also included meetings with the presidents of Syria and Lebanon, worship and mission witness with Christians in Jordan, Israel and Egypt, and consultations with clergy of Presbyterian and Orthodox churches in Iraq.  

     “Our trip to the Middle East has been a learning experience,” said ACSWP member Esperanza Guajardo. She said the group saw things it “never would have imagined.”

     Guajardo and another ACSWP member, the Rev. B. Gordon Edwards, discussed the trip during a joint meeting of the General Assembly Council (GAC) and the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly (COGA) on Thursday, March 31. 

     The Oct. 14-31 trip included 10 ACSWP members and staff and involved meetings with more than 150 people and more than 45 organizations, governmental units and religious bodies, according to a report submitted to GAC and COGA. 

     It attracted a great deal of attention when the group met with Sheikh Nabil Qauk of the Hezbollah party, spurring some Jewish leaders to declare the PC(USA) anti-Semitic. But Guajardo and Edwards talked about the trip in a broader light. 

     Guajardo recounted the groups’ experience in Jerusalem, which has become a pawn in the struggle between the Israeli government and the Palestinian leadership. She said the group could see that the people there were in pain. 

     “We watched the dehumanization of checkpoints” through which Palestinians must pass, she said. She added that the separation wall being built by the Israeli government to stop suicide bombers “is creating ghettos.” 

     “We are grateful for the opportunity we had,” said Edwards, who called the participants “ambassadors of reconciliation.”