Tears and Celebration

     Last week started out with very sad news at Bethlehem Bible College.  One of their recent Media Program graduates passed away after battling cancer for the past year.  Based on the outpouring of grief, Ghaith Shomaly was obviously a beloved member of this community.  Of course, it is always tragic to lose someone who is so young and just beginning to live into their potential.  What makes this loss so poignant, at least to me, is that the Palestinian Christian community here already loses so many of its young people to emigration.  The Christian community in the Holy Land has shrunk from being 9% of the population in 1931 to less than 2% today. Bethlehem Bible College's mission is to prepare Christian leaders to serve Arab churches and society, with the hope that they will choose to stay here.

     But then the week ended on a high note. BBC had already scheduled an "Open Day" for Thursday (what I would call a "Fun Day") with classes cancelled and activities planned for students, staff and faculty. In spite of the sadness, they went ahead with Open Day which was planned around the theme "Where are we headed?" and focused on addressing the students' sense of hopelessness and despair. The day started by honoring Ghaith in Chapel, followed by sessions that discussed  how to set goals and overcome obstacles in order to reach your potential, how to keep Christ at the center of your life as well more light-hearted activities like building towers out of spaghetti noodles and marshmallows ...tallest tower wins!  (see mine below).   The day ended with a big celebration lunch and a much lighter mood.

The winning tower!

     A day of celebration continued into the evening with an invitation to an engagement party for the daughter of a BBC staff member.  Well...engagement party hardly scratches the surface.  To call it fantastic is an understatement. This "party" had about 300 guests, and the bride was fully decked out in a ball gown.  The bride and groom entered the party to such a fanfare that I thought I had perhaps stumbled into an Olympic medal ceremony.  Then came the blessings from the priests...five of them from the Orthodox church.  This was followed by their "first dance"...complete with what could only be called fiery cannons of sparklers lighting up the whole dance floor.  We were served candies in fancy wrappers, then cake, then champagne.  Then much like a wedding reception at home, once the cake and champagne was served, everyone lined up to greet the engaged couple and head home. Apparently, engagement parties such as this are quite common here, though I understand this one was grander than most.  The Palestinians are a people who love to celebrate good news and an engagement is good news, indeed.  I can only imagine what a wedding reception looks like!

Chocolate favors

The happy couple