From Max and Jane Carter:
Fourteen participants formed the 2018 Friends United Meeting “Living Letters” service-learning group in Palestine and Israel from the 22nd of Sixth Month to the 10th of Seventh Month. Led by Max and Jane Carter of New Garden Friends Meeting (North Carolina Fellowship of Friends), the group spent the first week painting at the upper school campus of the Ramallah Friends School and cleaning and gardening at the Friends meetinghouse. Funds from a $750 grant from NCFF were used to purchase paint and cleaning supplies and provide housing for group numbers that exceeded the capacity of the School to offer. A $500 grant from New Garden Friends’ social concerns committee enabled us to meet with members of an organization that brings together Israeli and Palestinian parents whose children have been killed in the violence. Other generous donations by Friends helped make the trip affordable for those with lesser means.
After the week of work, the group traveled through Palestinian villages, learning about their nonviolent resistance to the encroachment of Israeli settlements on their land; journeyed into Israel to meet with Jewish and Arab Israelis to learn about challenges to coexistence and a just peace; and visited Bethlehem and Hebron, again to meet with and learn from both Jews and Palestinian Muslims and Christians about efforts to use “beautiful resistance” in efforts to end the military occupation and bring a lasting and just peace to the region.
The group had the opportunity to worship with Ramallah Friends on three First-days, and we met with staff of the Friends School to learn about Quaker education in Palestine. Time encountering the religious aspect of the region included a day in Jerusalem, a day in the Galilee, a visit to the Dead Sea Scrolls community of Qumran, and Sixth-day prayers at a mosque. Speakers who met with the group included leading political, business, religious, and civic leaders in Palestine and settlers, kibbutzniks, bereaved parents, former soldiers, educators, and religious leaders in Israel. A highlight was almost nightly meals hosted for the group by families of students who have studied at Guilford College.
We are grateful for the support and encouragement given us through local Friends organizations and individuals and welcome participation on our next FUM “Living Letters” delegation in the summer of 2019, tentatively scheduled for Sixth Month, 21 – Seventh Month, 9 (June 21st—July 9th). If you would be interested to know when registration opens for the next trip, please send your contact information to Ben Snyder at bens@fum.org.
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