For the last eight years the Jerusalem Friendship Fund collected donations from the evangelical community in aid of immigration and welfare projects in Israel. To date, the fund has distributed around $60 million.

By Yair Sheleg, Haaretz, May 29, 2002

"I was in Ramallah hours after the Israeli troops left and the day they were expected to return following a suicide bombing south of Tel Aviv".
"I was in Bethlehem during the siege and the standoff at the Church of the Nativity. I was in Palestinian East Jerusalem".
"Now, I know Israel and Palestine more fully. Do I no longer love Israel? God forbid. But I love it more realistically and responsibly.".

By Ron Brackin, ASSIST News Service, May 27, 2002

Denton Lotz, General Secretary of the Baptist World Alliance writes a letter to the Israeli Ambassador to the US: "We are very concerned about the state of our minority Baptist groups in all of the Middle East and Israel".
The wife of Gaza Baptist minister has not been allowed to return home after a visit to her family in Jordan.

Special for Come and See, May 23, 2002

For more than three years Mar Elias College at Ibillin has jointly with Indianapolis University been constructing University program and an infrastructure towards the inauguration of the first Arab University in Israel.
Bryson Arthur, Head of the Department of Divinity & Holy Land Studies, describes the program they will have.

Special for Come and See, May 22, 2002

Eleven persons will travel to Bethlehem, Palestine, on May 23 to lend support and encouragement to people seriously affected by the recent Israeli army occupation of the West Bank town.
"We pray for strength and perseverence and for vision on the part of all of us as Christian brothers and sisters to be effective ministers of reconciliation in these difficult times".

Special for Come and See, May 19, 2002

Christian Arabs in the Bethlehem area are getting back to normal life - which includes plans to emigrate.
"We have no political agenda except survival".
"Even 20 years ago France and Italy defended the Catholics, and the British protected the Protestants, and the Russians the Orthodox, and now they have stopped looking eastward".


Jerusalem Post, Matthew Gutman May. 16, 2002

The wife of the Baptist Minister in Gaza went to visit her family in Jordan eight months ago. She cannot get back home because the Israeli authorities will not issue her a visa.

Special for Come and See, May 15, 2002

LA Times photographer Carolyn Cole writes about her experience as the only photographer inside the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem

LA Times, May 11, 2002

Grace and Truth Congregation in Rishon Litzion is in the process of establishing a Fund to channel finanical assistance to Jews and Arabs.
The Fund has already been begun with a generous donation of $25,000 from Patmos International in Finland.

Special for Come and See, May 13, 2002