Articles
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, November 2008, page 54
Waging Peace
Teens Return from Holy Land Tour
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FIFTEEN teenagers from nine churches within the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, CA returned Aug. 15 from a 10-day pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Early the next day, nine of them talked about their travels at a luncheon in the Diocese Cathedral overlooking Echo Park.
A special surprise was the appearance of Bishop J. Jon Bruno, who questioned the youths about their impressions of the trip, for which each had raised $3,000 to cover travel expenses. When the Bishop mentioned he had just talked to their Jerusalem hosts on the phone, the teens spoke fondly of each person he mentioned by name.
“This pilgrimage to the Holy Land will change your life,” Bishop Bruno said. “Before you left, you thought you were going to Israel. Now you see there are two lands there. In the future, if you hear someone say Arabs are terrorists, you can object with your personal experiences with Palestinians. Your bus driver, Ali, is a haji, which means he has made his pilgrimage to Mecca. When you were touring all those churches, Ali probably laid his prayer rug beside the bus and prayed.”
When he asked what the travelers thought of the Wall, they mistook his question as a reference to the Wailing Wall. Specifying that he meant the separation wall, Bishop Bruno asked how they would feel if a wall was built around Monterrey Park to keep Asian Americans out of Los Angeles, or between East Los Angeles and the rest of the city.
“There have been other border walls in history and here in 1942, Japanese Americans were trucked away to concentration camps in the desert,” Bishop Bruno continued. “You must remember none of us is pure in race and we shouldn’t want to be. We’re exactly the same in the eyes of Jesus. The bad ones are rabid fundamentalists in every religion.”
To see testimonials by the teens about their pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Nazareth, Beit Jala, Beit Sahour and Caesarea, visit <www.LADiocese.org.youth>.
—Pat McDonnell Twair
