Sep 12, 2022 | Author - Brad Jersak, Author - Mercy Aiken
“Blessed are the peacemakers. They shall be called children of God.” —Jesus I write this testimony of God’s grace while the events are still fresh in my mind and warm in my heart. For the anniversary of 9-11, I was invited to participate in an international gathering...
May 22, 2019 | Author - Mercy Aiken
If I’ve learned one thing living in Bethlehem, it is that someday the streets I walk down will be unearthed by archeologists. We are all walking in between layers of time, over the stories of those who’ve gone before us and beneath the stories of who will follow. In...
Apr 16, 2019 | Author - Mercy Aiken
It is the day after Palm Sunday, after a long weekend, and I am riding on a bus through Jerusalem, heading home. On Saturday I went to a wedding in Hebron. With my dear friend, the bride, and her closer friends, I danced in circles around the stage, trying to imitate...
Apr 8, 2019 | Author - Mercy Aiken
I am helping an American couple in Jerusalem get settled on the bus for Beit Jala. They have lots of questions and we settle down in seats next to each other to make conversation easier. I don't want to overwhelm them with information and so I take it "shway...
Mar 17, 2019 | Author - Mercy Aiken
The sin of Islamaphobia can never atone for the sin of anti-Semitism. They are two sides of the same coin. They are a rash, a sickness, fueled mostly by fear, that has simply moved from one part of the body of so-called Christendom to another part. Despite all the...
Sep 21, 2018 | Author - Mercy Aiken
It was a drizzly January afternoon in Jerusalem and I was sitting in the Mahane Yehuda market eating Iraqi bamia (okra) with an Observant Jewish friend. As usually happens in Jerusalem, the talk quickly turned to politics and religion. He’d read...
