Missionary to Palestine brings message home

Reverend Sandra Olewine stands in the pulpit of the First United Methodist Church. As a guest preacher, this is Olewine's first time in Bloomington, but her bond with the church is relatively old. First United is one of about 40 churches across the nation that supports her when she lives under occupation in Bethlehem, Israel. \nOlewine, 45, has served as the United Methodist liaison to Jerusalem for the past seven years. The Church established the position in 1987 in response to a plea for missionaries by the heads of the Palestinian churches.\n"Lots of your people come here for tourism," Olewine said, summarizing the Palestinian concern. "And they run where Jesus walked and they never get off the tour bus ... They don't even know people are living here today."\nA small, ornate cross hangs solemnly from a silver chain around her neck -- it was a parting gift from the Palestinian Christian Congregation in Bethlehem. She returned to the U.S. for six months to preach and lecture on the "reality of Palestine." To her, it is very different from the pictures shown on CNN. \n"In the early part of March of 2002, we had four nights in a row where the F-16s bombed Bethlehem," Olewine said. The bombs hit the police station, a half block from her house. \n"The first night, when I wrote the story after the first bombing, nobody had known it had even happened. There was no coverage at all."\nThe explosions blew the doors off of the hinges, but she cleaned up and went onto the next day. \n"When the firing starts, you duck like everybody else ducks, and hope that it just stops," she said.\nBut the firing won't stop until the occupation ends, Olewine added. \n"The reality is the occupation is not benevolent ... Certainly at all times it has been dehumanizing ... and now it is dehumanizing and brutal."\nOlewine said she believes the task of finding peace falls primarily on the Israelis. She argues that they chose to occupy the territories, and now they must choose to dispel the conflict by ending the occupation.\nBut, she added, this will not happen until the outside world applies pressure to the Israeli government. \n"The Israelis are being able to continue what they are doing because the international community is basically bailing them out," Olewine said. \nUntil there is a global change in opinion, Olewine believes the Palestinians will remain an oppressed people. \nOlewine uses her position as liaison to relieve that oppression wherever possible.\nShe took the job in 1996, trading her pastoral position in Southern California for the Middle East. For four years she worked in Jerusalem, traversing the country with tour groups. \n"My job," she said, "has been to try to take tourists to Palestinians and Israelis themselves so that they are hearing from people on the ground."\nWith her guidance, tourists observe the entire spectrum of Palestinian and Israeli life. They visit Israeli settlements and universities along with Palestinian refugee camps. Olewine said she hoped these encounters would destroy the stereotypes propagated by western media. \n"(In America), people think Palestinian equals terrorist, and that is completely unacceptable," Olewine said. "People need to confront the fact that they are like human beings."\nThe long-term goal, she said, was to inspire her tour groups into advocacy upon their return.\nInspiration came to Bloomington resident Dan Osen after his trip to Israel in February 1999. The concrete block refugee camps sitting across from the tiled roofs of Israeli settlements on the next hill left him sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.\n"It was a life-changing experience," Osen said. "I came back wanting to do something about it."\nAnd he did. \nSince his return, Osen, 73, has spent many hours reading and researching the Palestinian conflict. He is now a member of the Society for Biblical Studies and gives financial support to direct relief programs for the Palestinians. \n"I am a generous contributor," he said.\nSo is his church. One month out of the year, the First United Methodist Church collects outreach money to support Olewine in her Bethlehem office. Holly Hardsaw, First United's associate pastor of congregational care, said it donates between $1000 and $2000 each year. \nTouring the holy sites lost its popularity when the second intifada erupted in September of 2000. Olewine moved to Bethlehem that same year. For seven months during 2002, she lived under a 24-hour curfew that the Israeli military lifted only for a short time every few days.\nBut that did not deter Olewine from going to work or helping her neighbors in need. As a foreigner she had a definite advantage over the Palestinians when dealing with the Israeli guards, she said. Because of this, she often traveled into Jerusalem on food runs for her friends. \n"I broke curfew almost every day," Olewine said. "(I) trucked my way to the office and went to the church ... and then snuck back home."\nOlewine never forgot that she was in Palestine to educate the rest of the world. \n"If they weren't coming to me, I had to find some way to get the news to them. And so I started doing it through e-mail," she said.\nThe list started small, but soon it was several thousand strong. Each day her inbox was stuffed with more than 200 separate requests for information. Her daily stories of life on the ground gave her readers accounts she felt would not make it to the mainstream press.\n"There is not a single part of Palestinian life that has not been turned upside down. And that is the piece that most people, particularly in America, have no context, no concept of"