Children find joy amid tension and violence

WEST BANK — The Palestinian Bible Society’s ministry team regularly visits children in schools and villages across the region who are living under the pressure of conflict and deprivation. With the permission of the village authorities, they present biblical themes of love and forgiveness in the form of puppet shows, music and clown acts.

All travel in this troubled area is challenging, but the town of Tulkarem, some three hours’ drive from Jerusalem, is particularly difficult to reach. Located on the western border of the West Bank, it is of commercial and military significance and is therefore subject to especially high levels of security.

For four consecutive days, the Bible Society team made the journey to Tulkarem. Hundreds of children were waiting anxiously for them on the other side of the checkpoint, but after hours of waiting the team were denied entry. Determined to succeed in their mission to brighten up these children’s lives, the team persisted. And finally, on the fifth day, their prayers were answered and they were allowed in.

Their show in Tulkarem, designed as a celebration of International Children’s Day, combined a wide range of elements, including music, clown acts and games, to which the children responded enthusiastically. When the show was over, representatives of local organisations which had assisted the Bible Society in arranging it took the team to visit a local children’s centre. They were shown a room in which all the walls are painted black. This represents the difficult circumstances in which the children live, they were told.

The children are encouraged to cover the walls with drawings or sayings in white, so that eventually no black paint will show. Ghassan, one of the local representatives, explained that he had recently been reflecting a great deal on a biblical text that one boy had painted on the wall: “What will you gain, if you own the whole world but destroy yourself? What would you give to get back your soul?” (Matthew 16: 26, CEV)