Fourth Church Members and Staff Visit Middle East

In June 2007, a group of 21 members and staff of Fourth Presbyterian Church travelled to the Middle East for 11 days for work, study and meetings. The group included Executive Associate Pastor Dana Ferguson, Director of the church’s Lorene Replogle Counselling Center Thomas Schemper and 19 laypeople from the church.

The trip included a visit in Jerusalem to Yad Vashem, the Jewish people’s memorial to the murdered Six Million, and a visit to Bethlehem Bible College, an interdenominational Christian Bible college located in Bethlehem, Palestine.

The group flew to Jerusalem and went first to Bethlehem, where the trip participants worked at the Bethlehem Bible College and other organizations. From there, the group went to the Sea of Galilee, the West Bank, Jericho, Qumran, the settlement nearest the hiding place of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Masadah, the ancient mountaintop fortress in Israel which was a Jewish outpost holding out against the Romans.

The group’s work included painting buildings and working alongside disabled adults in Bethlehem. Members of the group also met with Israeli leaders to discuss economic development. Fourth Church has set aside one percent of its endowment for investment in the Middle East. The church has invested $200,000 in Israeli companies so far and has donated $20,000 to UNICEF for relief of Palestinian children.

“There are several points to a trip like this,” said Sam Evans, one of the trip’s leaders. “First is having a common experience with people you don’t know well. Second is that the more you learn, the more you’re kind of stunned at the complexity on both sides. The third part is doing good works. And the fourth part is showing solidarity with both sides, Jews and Arabs.”