in the middle east

One of the cool things that has developed in the last few weeks is that we've found a church that we now call our home community. In the old city there is a prominent Lutheran church called Holy Redeemer. We've gone a few times and have met some really great people. One of the people we met was the director of the Lutheran World Federation here in Jerusalem, Mark Brown. The Lutheran church has a strong presence here in Israel/Palestine, and is very involved in initiationg humanitarian aid projects for Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem who don't have good access to health care. They run a large hospital on the Mt. of Olives, and across the street is a large olive orchard (800 trees) owned by the LWF as well. Every year they have volunteers come and pick the olives, which are then taken to a Palestinian-run olive press facility where the oil is extracted. The oil is then put into hand-blown glass bottles produced by Palestinians in Hebron. The olive oil is then sold all over the world to contribute to the poor fund of the hospital which allows Palestinian families from the West Bank to come and get health care. Last year, the olive oil raised $30,000 for the fund, no small amount. Jessica and I jumped on the chance to hang out with some new people from church and help an important cause. We had a blast learning how to pick olive trees and harvest the trees. Here are some pictures from our day of olive picking on the mt. of olives! Click Here.
If you're interested in ordering some of this olive oil and making a donation to the hospital here the website: http://www.lwfjerusalem.org/olive_oil.htm