{"id":593,"date":"2025-04-01T13:24:49","date_gmt":"2025-04-01T19:24:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/elcaracialjustice\/?p=593"},"modified":"2025-04-01T13:24:49","modified_gmt":"2025-04-01T19:24:49","slug":"steadfast-accompaniment-elca-sumud-initiative-seeks-just-lasting-peace-in-holy-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/elcaracialjustice\/steadfast-accompaniment-elca-sumud-initiative-seeks-just-lasting-peace-in-holy-land\/","title":{"rendered":"Steadfast accompaniment: ELCA Sumud initiative seeks just, lasting peace in Holy Land"},"content":{"rendered":"

In honor of Arab American Heritage Month, ELCA Racial Justice Ministries will be elevating the voices of our Arab and Middle Eastern Descent peers and reposting their works from others sources around the ELCA. The following article is cross-posted from Living Lutheran online. The original post can be found here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Steadfast accompaniment<\/span><\/h1>\n

ELCA Sumud initiative seeks just, lasting peace in Holy Land<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

By\u00a0Anne Basye<\/a> | <\/span>April 1, 2025<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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Rodny Said, a pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL), leads a children\u2019s sermon at the Church of Hope in Ramallah. Photos: ELCJHL<\/p><\/div>\n

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Said leads a bible study with youth during a youth retreat in Jordan.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Sani Ibrahim Azar, bishop of the ELCJHL, delivers a sermon at the Church of Hope.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Two spouses living in two places\u2014kept apart by two kinds of government ID.<\/p>\n

It may sound like Romeo and Juliet, but that was life for Rodny Said, a pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL).<\/p>\n

With a Jerusalem ID, Said could cross the checkpoints between his East Jerusalem home and his congregation, the Lutheran Church of Hope in Ramallah. His wife lived with her parents because she couldn\u2019t enter East Jerusalem with her Palestinian ID.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe started the process of reunification, as the Israeli government calls it,\u201d he explained during an Advent Pilgrimage 2024 webinar, \u201cbut it can take years for a person from East Jerusalem and a person from the West Bank to live together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fortunately, Said\u2019s wife received her permit shortly after the webinar, and the couple can now live and travel together between the two communities.<\/p>\n

The webinar series was a program of\u00a0Sumud<\/a>, the ELCA\u2019s initiative for justice in Palestine and Israel. Previously the ministry was known as Peace Not Walls, named after the 440-mile barrier wall that the Israeli government was building to separate Palestine from Israel. The wall is complete today.<\/p>\n

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“To us,\u00a0sumud<\/em> means to in our country and continue bearing witness.”<\/span><\/h3>\n
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Sumud,<\/em>\u00a0an Arabic word meaning \u201csteadfast,\u201d conveys the determination it takes to be a Palestinian Christian. \u201cPalestinians struggle to get to work, to universities, to churches and schools,\u201d Said noted in the webinar. Since the onset of the Gaza War in 2023, many lost their jobs because they are no longer allowed to work in Israel. Many families are separated even though they live just a few blocks apart.<\/p>\n

Life has gotten so difficult that the number of Christian families\u2014already only 1% of the West Bank population\u2014who are leaving is increasing. \u201cThey don\u2019t see a future,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Emigration \u201cmeans more pressure on us as a Christian community,\u201d Said noted\u2014especially for the ELCJHL, whose six congregations and four schools are supported by only 2,000 members.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the easiest way is to leave,\u201d Said added, \u201cand the hard and painful way is to stay.\u201d<\/p>\n

Staying put, enduring and never giving up hope\u2014that\u2019s\u00a0sumud<\/em>. Through the initiative, the ELCA seeks to accompany Palestinians in their daily lives and advocate for peace with justice in Palestine and Israel.<\/p>\n

Creating possibilities<\/strong><\/h2>\n

For Maddi Froiland, program director for\u00a0Sumud<\/a>, a prime goal is making ELCA members more aware of what life under occupation is like.<\/p>\n

As someone who spent four years in East Jerusalem and the West Bank\u2014one as a\u00a0Young Adult in Global Mission<\/a>\u00a0(YAGM) volunteer and three years as communications officer for the ELCJHL\u2014Froiland watched Christians live out Luke 6:31 (\u201cDo to others as you would have them do to you\u201d) even with soldiers who had arrested their sons. \u201cThe experience,\u201d she said, \u201cmade me redefine what it means to be a Christian.\u201d<\/p>\n

Froiland said Sumud\u2019s webinar series drew over 100 viewers who heard ELCJHL pastors and youth group members share stories of \u201cresistance through existence\u201d by living and worshiping together under occupation. Attendees heard their main message: Christians living in the Holy Land need to know someone is listening to and supporting them.<\/p>\n

The Sumud initiative, Froiland said, \u201cunderscores that justice in Israel and Palestine means everyone has dignity and human rights. Right now the people who are lacking human rights are our Palestinian partners.\u201d<\/p>\n

Froiland is building synod-level networks of Palestinian Christians, YAGM alumni and others who can share their experiences in the region. \u201cThese networks will build communities that are both aware of the context of our siblings in the ELCJHL and are empowered through their faith to advocate for justice in Palestine and Israel,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

A new ceasefire currently being negotiated between Israel and Hamas could open the door for healing and recovery from a war marked by violence and displacement. The ELCA supports that process through Sumud,\u00a0Lutheran Disaster Response<\/a>, the ELCA Middle East and North Africa desk, and deployed personnel in the region. Witness in Society, the ELCA\u2019s\u00a0public advocacy team<\/a>, continues to advocate for a negotiated resolution to the Israeli occupation of Palestine and to ongoing acts of violence.<\/p>\n

On the ground, the ELCJHL creates possibilities for Palestinian Christians. \u201cWe do this through offering quality education for our youth, diaconal ministry for the vulnerable, environmental ministry for God\u2019s creation, gender justice ministry and supporting our youth,\u201d said\u00a0Sani Ibrahim Azar<\/a>, bishop of the ELCJHL.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo us,\u00a0sumud<\/em>\u00a0means to stay in our country and continue bearing witness as the Indigenous Christians of this land. This important and meaningful Arabic word \u2026 gives us strength\u2014that we are not alone, we have our partners, our brothers and sisters, who will be steadfast in accompanying us.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Anne Basye<\/a><\/strong><\/em>
\nBasye, a freelance writer living in Mount Vernon, Wash., is the author of Sustaining Simplicity: A Journal\u00a0(ELCA<\/a>, 2007).<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In honor of Arab American Heritage Month, ELCA Racial Justice Ministries will be elevating the voices of our Arab and Middle Eastern Descent peers and reposting their works from others sources around the ELCA. The following article is cross-posted from Living Lutheran online. The original post can be found here. Steadfast accompaniment ELCA Sumud initiative […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"featured_media":594,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17083,17052,1],"tags":[17084,17058,17047,17057,17056],"class_list":["post-593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arab-american-heritage-month","category-crosspost","category-post","tag-arabamericanheritagemonth","tag-crosspost","tag-elca","tag-interviews","tag-livinglutheran"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSteadfast accompaniment: ELCA Sumud initiative seeks just, lasting peace in Holy Land - ELCA Racial Justice<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/elcaracialjustice\/steadfast-accompaniment-elca-sumud-initiative-seeks-just-lasting-peace-in-holy-land\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Steadfast accompaniment: ELCA Sumud initiative seeks just, lasting peace in Holy Land - ELCA Racial Justice\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In honor of Arab American Heritage Month, ELCA Racial Justice Ministries will be elevating the voices of our Arab and Middle Eastern Descent peers and reposting their works from others sources around the ELCA. 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