Mission volunteers want to share Middle East stories.

By Claudia M. Williams
Staff Writer
Two mission volunteers have returned to Southwest Texas from three months in Israel.
During their time in the Middle East, Don and Gloria Delaplain said they "stood in solidarity with the Palestinian people."
The Aransas Pass couple hopes to share their experiences with congregations across Southwest Texas.
The Delaplains went to Israel with the stated purpose of teaching English.
But, Gloria said, "I knew in my heart that God had a special plan for us-more that just teaching English."
The trip was the Delaplains' ninth pilgrimage to the Holy Land. For the first six trips, they served as hosts with Educational Opportunities Tours, an organization whose trips are specifically for Christians.
"On our sixth trip, in the spring of 1998," Gloria said, "our bishop asked Educational Opportunities to introduce the United Methodist travelers from the Southwest Texas Conference to a more complete understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian situation."
This experience ignited the couple's interest. They returned to the Holy Land twice as part of Volunteers in Mission teams. This year's journey was their first as individual mission volunteers.
Don, a retired Southwest Texas Conference clergy member, and Gloria spent most of their time at Mars Elias Educational Institution in Ibillin, a village in Galilee.
The school was founded by the Rev. Elias Chacour, a Melkite Catholic priest who believes, according to Gloria, that by educating people-Christian, Muslim, Druze, Jewish-peace can come through reconciliation.
"We were in Ibillin to help the students brush up on spoken and written English," Gloria said. "Mar Elias is affiliated with Methodist-related University of Indianapolis, and second-year students go there during the summer months to study.
"We spent time with students who have the opportunity to be future leaders and maybe effect change. But our classes in English didn't work out as well as we hoped because of many scheduling problems the school had and the heavy course load the students carried."
Instead, relationships with students and faculty became more important than instruction, Gloria said.
"Father Chacour says, 'Being is more important than doing,'" she said. "We did do some teaching and tutoring. We also did other things, such as working in the garden and helping in the library and the Peace Center.
"But the most important thing we did, and the thing that we enjoyed most was just being-hanging out all over the campus, meeting so many wonderful people, hearing their stories and sharing their lives.
"Caring, loving, sharing, listening, hugging, laughing, crying and developing relationships were the most important things."
The experience gave Gloria a special feeling in her heart.
Political tension between Palestinians and Israelis was a constant factor during the visit, Gloria said. At the root of the enmity is disagreement over the right to live in the territory.
Palestinians in Galilee are citizens of Israel, but they do not have equal rights, Gloria said.
"On the surface, there is so much joy, so much happiness," she said. "But underneath is such suffering."
During three weeks in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Gloria said the couple visited many schools, hospitals, peace organizations and social service agencies "in an effort to learn more about the needs of the Palestinian people and conditions under which they live."
Palestinians living in the West Bank are "hopeful-and yet hopeless, becoming more desperate at the same time," Gloria said. That desperation leads to violence.
"There are many Jewish and Israeli people who want peace, who are working for peace," she said.
Their efforts are thwarted, Gloria said, by controls the military, government and Zionist forces have over the Palestinians.
Gloria said she and her husband are frustrated that people in the United States don't know about U.S. foreign policy that allows "huge amounts of tax money to build settlements, to build walls and roadblocks, to supply tanks and weapons and bulldozers" to suppress the Palestinians.
Gloria said she suspects that powerful interest groups are keeping that information out of U.S. news media.
She quoted Chacour as saying the most important thing the Dela-plains could do is "go home and tell the story."
"Over there, people have misconceptions about people in the United States just like people in the United States have misconceptions about them,"
Gloria said.
"I hope the long-lasting effect (of their trip) is that the Arab Israelis-as Palestinians prefer to be called-will remember that there are many Americans who do care and are working hard in the United States to tell their story."
Gloria said it was important to remember that the United Methodist General Conference, the denom-ination's top policy-making body, passed a resolution in May 2004 concerning the Palestinian situation.
That action urged United Methodists to engage in interfaith discussions about how to promote peace and justice in the Holy Land.
"It's been a struggle for us to bring this topic to the realm of consciousness," she said. "But when you believe something in your heart, it's important to stand up."
The couple made a presentation in May about their trip to the Texas Annual Conference session in Houston.
The Delaplains have been telling the story for more than five years.
Reaction has been mixed.
"More and more people have said, 'I am so glad to have information from you,'" Gloria said.
But others have made negative comments.
"If Don and I are not able to reach the masses," Gloria said, "then maybe we can reach one or two people. It's not going to happen quickly.
"It's not going to be easy to get people to change their minds about the Arab Israelis.
"It's not going to be easy to get them to understand that 'Palestinian' does not mean 'terrorist.'"