Bible camp brings a smile back
to suffering Mahira

Mahira at the dinner held on the last evening of the Bible camp organised by the Palestinian Bible Society (PBS) in partnership with a local Orthodox church. West Bank. Photo: PBS / Simon Azazian (WBK03DJ-1.JPG)

WEST BANK — A Bible camp in July for young people from the Greek Orthodox Church around Bethlehem represented the first time the Palestinian Bible Society has partnered the local Orthodox Church in a youth program.

Political pressures have led many Christians in Bethlehem to leave the West Bank over the past two years, in search of a better life abroad. The Bible Society therefore holds it important to strengthen the ties of young Christians to their roots and encourage them to go on living the life of Christ in and around the town of his birth.

Active

A series of meetings and discussions led the Society to invite 20 of the most active young Greek Orthodox to an initial two-day Bible Camp. The 20 all attend a youth gathering which St Nicholas’s, an active Greek Orthodox Church in the Bethlehem area, regularly hosts on behalf of a number of local churches. The idea was that the group would then act as ‘messengers’ to the youth in their own churches, so that another camp could be held, similar to the first but larger.

The Society invited guest speakers from varied church backgrounds to talk to the young people about how they had applied the teachings of the Bible to their lives, showing them how to find reassurance in the Word of God.
One testimony, in particular, touched the students deeply. ‘Brother Esko’, who works for a Christian medical organisation based in Finland, spoke of how powerful the word of God had been in changing both his own life and the lives of others he had met.

At the end of his talk, a young girl called Mahira put up her hand to ask him a question.

“Esko,” she said, “what can I do to overcome my sorrow? My brother was shot dead in our house in front of our eyes by a sniper.”

The tragedy took place during the Israeli incursion into Bethlehem earlier this year. Naturally, it had affected Mahira and her family very deeply. She has subsequently found it very hard to live the ‘normal’ Christian life she enjoyed before, and she had started to seek answers to her profound questions.
Esko told her that God is love, and that it is only in him that people can find a truly peaceful refuge.

“Can you tell me of any promise or any word from God as to why this happened to me and my family?” she asked.

Esko looked at her with a smile. “I don’t have answers,” he said, “only he does. I am sure that everything is in the Bible, read it and you will know the truth.” Later, the Bible Society team shared passages from the Bible with the young people and urged Mahira to seek answers to her questions through Scripture.

Smiling

At the following day’s session, Mahira came in carrying a Bible and smiling.