While the Christian World is preparing to celebrate Christmas, the suffering Church in Bethlehem is praying that the curfew will be removed.

Rev. Simon Oberst, the rector of Bath Abbey recently wrote a letter to his friends at Bethlehem Bible College:

"I cannot sing this carol without thinking of the plight of my brothers and sisters in Bethlehem at this present time."

Special For Come and See, Dec 11, 2002

Salaam Jaro was born in Iraq. Prior to the Gulf war, he completed the mandatory two years of service in the Iraqi army before taking a job in a weapons manufacturing plant in Baghdad.
Jaro's work place soon became a target for American missiles. Although bombs struck the plant several times, miraculously he was not on duty during any of the attacks.
When the war over, he saw the time was right to flee his native Iraq to a safer place. He is now pastor of the Arabic Baptist Church in Toronto, Canada.

By Harold Camphell, Baptist Press, Dec 5, 2002

To encourage the faithful to stay in the Holy Land, the Franciscan Custody has launched a program to build 70 homes for Christian families.

Since the outbreak of the intifada two years ago, about 1,000 Christians, the majority young people, have left the nearby Bethlehem area in search of a better future.

JERUSALEM, NOV. 28, 2002, Zenit.org

Bishop George Kuweiter of the Greek Catholic Church likened the missionaries to terrorists, saying they operate in "cells" under the guise of Christianity.

"Even we wonder who is behind them, who brought them and in whose name they operate," he told the Associated Press.

Ted Olsen, Christianity Today Web Log, Nov 26, 2002

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat announced on Wednesday that this year's Christmas celebrations have been cancelled in Bethlehem, where Jesus was born, because of Israel's military closure of the holy town

News 24, Nov, 27, 2002

A day after the shooting of Bonnie Weatherall, a nurse assistant at an evangelical clinic, a leading Sunni Muslim cleric in south Lebanon said he did not condemn her killing but urged Lebanese to use other methods to show their contempt for U.S. policy.

By Cynthia Johnston, Reuters, Nov 23, 2002

Shas Party mentor and former chief rabbi Ovadia Yosef accused the non-religious parties of intentionally bringing Christian immigrants to Israel, reports Israel Radio.

Jerusalem Post, Nov 24, 2002

The body of Bonnie Weatherall was found with three bullets to the head inside a two-storey building in the port city of Sidon.

The building was used as a chapel and a clinic

AP, Nov 21, 2002

The leadership of the Egyptian Christian Coptic community has recently begun to express in public positions and complaints in a way uncommon in the past.
The Copt weekly Watani recently ran an editorial criticizing the treatment of Christians in Saudi Arabia and the Arab world in general

Memri Web site, Special For Come and See, Nov 19, 2002