In a letter from East Jerusalem this spring, Omar Haramy writes to the leaders of U.S. denominations: “I’m asking you to come over here. Soon. It has become that urgent.” With his Sabeel colleagues, Omar has dedicated his time and energy to just this: sharing the Palestinian experience of genocide with Christian leaders around the globe, showing us what he means, introducing us to his people’s pain. “The world is not listening,” he writes. “It’s marginalizing the activist Christians who have been coming for years. It’s ignoring delicately balanced expressions of concern. We need you, the leadership, to show us you care, and show the Christians who look to you for guidance that this has become a moral imperative on par with standing with African Americans at the start of the civil rights movement or Native Americans as they were beginning to be eliminated with impunity.”

In response, a delegation of around 15 Christian leaders from American denominations will travel to the West Bank in May. Among them will be the Revs. Linda Noonan and Dave Grishaw-Jones (Co-Chairs of the United Church of Christ Palestine Israel Network). The intention is to listen closely and then to feel to burden of the stories and testimony we here. The delegation will meet with community organizers, religious leaders, nonviolent activists working tirelessly for an end to apartheid, and a beginning to something radically new. “I won’t deny that I’m angry at the seeming indifference of the church universal,” Omar Haramy writes. “It infuriates and frightens me. But I have to believe it’s largely out of ignorance, and not cowardice, that these atrocities are being tolerated by so many Christians.”

Two additional members of UCC PIN-- Rev. Sara Ofner-Seals and Rev. Crystal Silva-McCormack-- will also be traveling with delegations to the Holy Land this spring. "It's our intention to listen faithfully and bravely," says Grishaw-Jones, "to our partners, to their pain and anger, and to their urgent cries for consequential solidarity. It’s our hope to collaborate with other denominational activists in bringing back to this country plans for concrete action, costly discipleship and powerful organizing. That we might be faithful to the covenant of the kin-dom which we claim at the very heart of our tradition."