Easter Greetings 2008


Alex & Brenda Awad



Dear family and friends,

Love and greetings from Jerusalem!

After a cold winter, we are seeing some nice spring (summer-like temperatures) weather, though it is a bit hazy and dusty on occasion at this time of year. However, as we look at weather patterns around the world, we feel blessed to have somewhat predictable climate conditions. We hope and pray that you and your loved ones are safe and not suffering unduly due to floods and/or tornadoes that may have come your way.

Easter is a very special time of year for the Christian community in the Holy Land and is celebrated with various parades, marches, and traditions beginning with Good Friday and Palm Sunday. Our congregation and others (see the attached Easter message) join together in various ways to celebrate.

Since we last wrote, we were blessed to have a first grandchild born in Pai, Thailand on Christmas Day; his coming has filled our hearts and minds with a sense of awe, wonder and expectation. Babies have a knack for doing that. We were with our little wonder--Skylor Lucas—for a short time in January and thoroughly enjoyed our time with him, Christy (daughter), Dave (son-in-law) and Randy (son) in quite an enchanting country. Some of you may have received the announcement that we sent out.

January and February were quite the busy months, with many visiting groups--among them the United Methodists’ Annual Conference pilgrimage: Seeking Peace, Pursuing Justice--coming to both Bethlehem Bible College and East Jerusalem Baptist Church. It has been a joy to connect with friends and acquaintances on our home turf.

Members of our church community have been nomads for the past 6-7 weeks due to an ongoing renovation project in the church sanctuary. We are attempting to expand the opening that separates the pulpit area from the congregation. Our desire is to create a beautiful stone arch edifice in this space, but the architect has not been honoring our original requests; hence the work is still incomplete. We are persevering and United Methodist contributions to our Advance #: 14907N will be appreciated and help in the completion of this project. Alternately, contributions can be sent via check to our address included with this email. Perhaps when the work is done, some of you will be able to worship with us in Jerusalem. We say in Arabic: Ahlan w’ Sahlan (Welcome).

Happy Easter! Rejoice in the power of the resurrected Christ!

Alex and Brenda