Diving into The Holy Land

For 9 months, my wife and I had the privilege to live in the Palestinian city of Bethlehem, the place where our Lord Jesus was born.  We were living and volunteering alongside the wonderful people at the Diyar Consortium, a Lutheran-based cultural organization who’s goal is to provide the locals community building, the arts, education, development and outreach with the mission of being a place where they can have abundant life.  We got to experience first-hand the beauty and the mundane of both Palestinian and Israeli culture.

Our time was beyond life-changing. We never knew how truly beautiful the culture is… the hospitality, the food, the humor, the language, the importance of family and deep-rooted ties to the land.  We dove in head-first and did our best to integrate deep into the daily rhythms and the culture. We were blessed to have been immediately welcomed into the community.  We heard intimate stories of life on both sides of the wall, attended weddings and baptisms, worshipped with our Palestinian Christian brothers and sisters at church, learned ancient recipes from ALL the grandmas, ate the best food in the world in the most generous homes, and walked every nook and cranny of the city. Often we would even take a bus into Jerusalem, just 20 minutes away, just to spend an afternoon there when we were bored. But best of all, formed life-long friendships and was fostered into many families there.

For our work, I was visually documenting the organization, making films and photos for marketing and storytelling, while my wife was working with the youth doing art workshops, swim lessons, and collecting stories.

For the photos I have here, I wanted to showcase a little bit of what life looks like there and what one might see if they were to visit: the people, the streets, the religious aspects, the countryside, the churches, the art, and images showcasing the complicated political situation.