Peter Nasir, General Secretary for the East Jerusalem YMCA hosted our OnPrinciple team at the Jericho YMCA Vocational Center and explained in stark terms why and how they live out God’s calling:
“We work with youth whose back is to a cliff.”
“If we don’t care for them, they are gone.”
There are still walls in and around Jericho. For too many youth and adult men, they are prison walls. Too many families are hemmed in by refugee walls. Border walls loom ominously, protected by barbed-wire walls and guard towers.
“We are in the business of selling hope; we keep kids out of prison. Youth choose violence out of revenge, despair and hate.”
Peter pointed out to us the unending anxiety that undergirds Palestinians regarding their displacement from their homes, villages, fields and land.
The YMCA in Jericho seeks to bring down the walls of despair that imprison Palestinian youth, subverting the foundations of injustice that support those walls with the gospel of Christ Jesus.
This gospel is embodied through a safe place with wise and loving mentors, practical training in vocational trades that can equip youth to care for their families and take responsibility for their own welfare, as well as forge friendships that support a new hope and justice.
As a minority people in the Holy Land, Palestinians face complicated and dire circumstances. Palestinian Christians are a smaller minority amongst their people, yet they play a crucial role amidst the violent conflict as peace-makers.
The YMCA is a place where Palestinian Muslims and Christians can come together to build up hope, skills, wisdom, and aspirations for justice using non-violent, constructive means.
The Y has a special, highly respected, much-needed role in Jericho. In 1948 when Palestinians were driven out of Jerusalem and other major communities, it included Palestinian Christian leaders and staff at the Jerusalem International YMCA.
They were thrust into dangerous, chaotic, desperate situations amongst their displaced people, whereupon they immediately began to put their Y mission into practice, organizing efforts to love, care and serve. Many Palestinians were sent to Jordan, thus going through Jericho, which is where Peter Nasir’s father concentrated his YMCA work.
The experiences in Jericho with the Y caused me to reflect deeper about the youth in my own community who have their backs to a cliff. What is our Y doing for them? What can we learn from our fellow Palestinian YMCA leaders?
For me, I was struck by their clarity and resoluteness, how they grounded their Y work in the Christian mission, specifically for Peter it is the gospel of Jesus Christ. I was inspired by how they welcome and serve all the Christian and Muslim youth in their community that came to them.
What will be the motivation for our YMCA to come alongside youth with their backs to the wall?
Youth are driven to the cliff’s edge by violence, anxiety, vengefulness, despair, hate. What will motivate us to meet them in the darkness? To stay with them as long as it takes?
Where does the light come from that we are seeking to bring to their place on the cliff?
From whence comes our strength, perseverance, loving-kindness, wisdom?
For Christians who engage in this kind of youth work, it becomes clear how much we must draw upon the strong, uniting, merciful Spirit of Christ, who calls us to such work, equips us for it, and sustains us.
Our visit with the Jericho YMCA ended with a devotion next to a sycamore tree, much like the one Zacchaeus climbed to see Jesus. This sacred place reminds us that Jesus sees us where we are; he sees us when we come looking for him.
And like this tree-climbing sinner, when we are seen by Jesus, we too are sent with a mission to embody the good news. We are sent to make right what we have wronged, to be generous with our resources, and to add light where there is darkness.
As little Christ’s, when we see youth with their back to the cliff, may they see Christ in us and respond to the invitation to a life of hope, meaning, justice, and peace. And may the YMCA continue to be a space where new life takes root, for all.
