Book Delivery

Elly with the books

Saturday morning we left early on the bus to meet the Rev. Elly McHan at the gate of Augusta Victoria Hospital on top of the Mount of Olives. I had met Elly last summer in Bethlehem, and we had planned this back then. Lutheran churches all over the U.S. had collected children’s books needed in the libraries of the Lutheran schools in the West Bank and sent them to Wartburg Seminary in Iowa, who was sending them over with travelers, usually about five at a time. Elly and I arranged for our group to bring twenty duffel bags of books, 600 pounds, who knows how many.

After all, it is the Sabbath

Wartburg volunteers packed them into boxes and mailed them to each of our pilgrims’ homes. With help from Jo Lucas and Peggy Casteel at First Presbyterian Church in Columbus, Indiana, I had raised the money among our group, and friends who had visited Bethlehem, and folks who wanted to support the schools, to pay the airline baggage fees. And our travelers brought them all the way to Tel Aviv, loaded them on the bus. We delivered them to Elly at Augusta Victoria where Elly lives, and she will distribute them among the schools. It felt excellent to be part of such a large project with so many contributors—the churches, Wartburg Seminary, the donors who helped with the fees, and the travelers who brought the books here, and Elly who made it all happen.

We spent the rest of the morning walking down the Mount of Olives, visiting churches along the way, walking across the Kidron Valley, and into the Lion’s Gate of the Old City. I always look forward to stopping at St. Ann’s Church, a crusader church built next to the ancient double pool of Bethsatha (also Bethesda), known in John 5 as the place where Jesus healed the man who had been sick for thirty-eight years. 

The church is acoustically amazing, and groups love to stand in a circle in the front and sing. So we did. As we sang I remembered with gratitude all the many groups I’ve brought to sing there, the utter surprise on their faces, the awe, and the joy, and the pure beauty of the music. Sometimes another group from another part of the world will join us if they know the song. Sometimes we sit and listen to another. Today we had the church all to ourselves as we sang Hava Nashira, and then Holy Holy Holy. As we were finishing Amazing Grace, a Catholic group came in behind us and sat down. Some of us didn’t know they were there till we finished singing and they began clapping. Then we moved aside and they took our place and sang.

I love the crowded, jostling streets of Jerusalem, the aromas, the sounds, the variety of people, the surprises around every corner. It was a good day to walk the Via Dolorosa, to experience the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. After lunch I took three of the group to the Western Wall, then two of us walked back along Al-Wad street to the Damascus Gate, stopping in a tiny hardware store to replenish our supply of plug adaptors, and at a coffee stand to buy sahlab, a hot thick milky cinnamon drink, and outside the Damascus Gate to take pictures of all the bustle below us.