The pillow used for the rings was made by a very good friend, and I have to say it was very beautiful hand work.

At one point Tricia sang a song she had written (below), the old room made it sound all the more amazing.

Tricia & Gilberto, thanks so much for inviting me to be a part of your day!

Loved this shot (above), and it didn’t hurt that the creek was chock-full of fatty crawdads!

I have to say, Henry is quite the stud (above).  With blue eyes it’s hard to go wrong.

Again, soccer is a huge part of the family.  Nathan is top-notch, and his kids are following suit (even Henry!).

I have to say this was a really fun time, and I’m grateful to get to photograph so many awesome families!  Shout out to the Murrays in the comments!

I just handed an 11×14 print off to my friends, Alex and Beth.  This was the photo they chose to put up on their wall from the engagement session we did back in November.  Every portrait and engagement session comes with a complimentary 11×14, and it’s always fun to see who picks which photo.  I had just found this park in Princeton earlier the week before, so it was great to be able to come back here before all the colors vanished.  And it looks like I’ll be joining them for their wedding out in Pennsylvania this coming summer, so I’m looking forward to some more summer travels!  Again, great choice friends, and I can’t wait to see it up on your wall!

This organization (above) is the Holy Land Trust, and they work on behalf of Palestinians to protect their land, as well as doing other non-violent direct actions.  We were invited to join them in a demonstration against the security wall, but unfortunately we had other plans already set for that time. Below is a photo I took of a great poster up in their meeting room.

The following day we took two tours.  Our tour guide was Israeli, and she worked at the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem.  We picked her up in the Jewish quarters (western Jerusalem) and in the below photo you can see there were many parks and flowers like you’d see in American cities.  It was very clean and well kept.  Our guide is part of a group called, Zochot, who “remember” the Nakba.  The Nakba is Arabic for massacre, and it is what the Palestinians call the war in 1948 in which Jews were brought to Palestine/Israel by the British, following World War II, and “given the land” since no one else wanted to offer them room.  This might not be the nicest way of putting it, but that is literally what happened (although you’d get a completely different perspective from the Jewish settlers).  The war that ensued left many people without land, as they would leave targeted cities and then be denied return.  After being kept away from home long enough they were told their land was forfeit and to this day the civilians who fled have not been permitted to return to their homes.  We later went to the Deheisheh Refugee Camp where all the people are victims of this story.  They have been at this refugee camp since 1948.

Our guide (above) took us first to the village of Lifta, which happens to be located on the backside of the hill that the Holocaust museum has been built on.  This village was abandoned in 1948, being the first victim of the Nakba since they were located right outside of Jerusalem.

Above you can see Lifta on the lower left ridge, and part of the Holocaust museum in the background.  We then went to the Holocaust museum, which was very heavy in and of itself.  It began talking about the events that led up to the darkest point while you walked down into the tunnel, then you came up the other side as it built up the hope and popped you out the back looking at this amazing view of green trees and masses of Jewish settlements.  What is placed in your mind by the tour is that they were dragged through this terrible event (which it was) and came out of it to the land that God gave them.  What they don’t tell you is that Lifta is just off to the right of the view, and that Lifta and many other villages were attacked and their land was stolen so that these settlements could be built. 

One of the tactics used by the Jews during the 1948 war was to scare villages out of their homes and towns by talking up what they had done to one in particular.  I can’t remember the name of the village, but we learned that the Jews went in and literally killed all the men, women, and children, and then demolished the whole town in its entirety.  They would then go around using this as an example of what would be done to others if they didn’t give in.  Many would flee their villages, at which point the Jews would move in, take over the land, and not let the locals return.  This happened to both Palestinians and Jews, meaning that Israel is even denying their own citizens to return to their land.

From here we travelled to the Deheisheh Refugee Camp to stay the night in a home.  They were amazingly hospitable, and the children were a lot of fun.

The below photo is credited to Melanie, one of the delegates.  I was showing the children photos of my family on my iTouch, and they were quite enthrawled by the gadget.  The man on the right was the brother of the family we were staying with, and he headed up the Refugee camp.  He gave us a night tour of the camp a little later.

At one point we had a young lady come and present things the ladies in the camp had made, of which we bought quite a bit (below).  The embroidery was amazing, not like cheap trinkets in open market places I’ve been to before, but real quality goods that had been labored over for quite a while.

Above are the brothers, and below is their father, who we met on our late night tour.

Evan had been wanting to get a shave for a long time at a local barber place, so we ended up stopping in and watching him get a full on shave (there was quite a group of us packed in the small space).  We were also entertained by a Turkish soap opera about a man who is their James Bond.  We all thought it was pretty funny.

That concluded the two days.  It was a lot to take in, realizing the people at this refugee camp had been there since 1948, and not much was being done to help them get back to their land.  They’ve been forced to make due, which they’ve done fairly well at.  Walking through one would almost say they weren’t living that bad at all, but then you’re reminded of the fact that they are forced to live like this, it is not by choice.  To see, once again, such cool, welcoming people being forced to live like this was very frustrating and sad.  I only hope that sharing here and in other places will somehow have some eventual impact that can make a difference.

The CPT team in Tuwani (above).  This photo includes our delegation leader (far left) and two gals from Operation Dove (far right) who have been stationed with the CPT folk in Tuwani.  And one of the local members received more lovin’ than it’s probably seen in its whole life (the cat below).

For anyone wondering what a settlement looks like, the above photo is of one of the largest settlements in the West Bank, just outside of Bethlehem.  It’s called Efrat.  It is a fairly large eye-sore…how does the saying go… a city on a (stolen) hill cannot be hidden?  And if the folks inside the settlement didn’t feel safe enough with the armed military, gaurded entrance gates, and walls surrounding all of the illegal settlement (once again, all settlements are illegal under UN international law), the below photo shows the fenced off path where the 25 foot security wall will be built to further insulate the settlers from any contact with Palestinians (who are often referred to as “non-Jews”, and also hits close to home when one reflects on folks saying others are “non-Christian”).

Above we met and had lunch with a Palestinian organization called Wi’am.  They do conflict resolution for groups of people, among many other things.  I would highly reccomend checking their site out if you are interested in what they are doing.  Following the meeting we walked through the streets, passing a random stray horse with no owner in sight.

A few of us decided to go for a walk to the Church of the Nativity.  Below you can see the hole in which Jesus was apparently born.  It was weird to see this sight (as well as many other of the “holy sights” so embelished, with a building established on top of each one).  I was sort of reminded of when Jesus flipped the tables and drove out the cattle (tourists?!).

That concluded Day 6, I’ll be back with more soon.