Missionary shares story of his Palestinian mother

The Rev. Alex Awad and his wife, Brenda, serve as missionaries in Bethlehem and Jerusalem through the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries. A UMNS photo by John C. Goodwin.

By Linda Bloom*

NEW YORK (UMNS)-The Rev. Alex Awad can trace the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through its impact on his mother's 90 years of life.

The 62-year-old United Methodist missionary also can trace the influence the Christian church has had on his mother and her family. His new book, Palestinian Memories: The Story of a Palestinian Mother and Her People, is a story of his mother's Christian faith and of the Palestinian people.

Alex and his wife, Brenda, have been missionaries for 29 years with the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries, serving in Bethlehem and East Jerusalem since 1994. Although his mother, Huda, eventually moved to the United States-settling near three of her children in Overland Park, Kan., and becoming a U.S. citizen in 1978-she never forgot her homeland and visited her family there as long as her health allowed it.

"She was the bond that kept the family together in spite of the distances between us and all the troubles we encountered," Alex writes in his book.

During a Sept. 9 visit to the headquarters of the Board of Global Ministries in New York, Alex said his family had hoped the story of their mother's life would be written down before her death. That didn't happen, but the idea reemerged at her funeral in 2006 as Alex's brothers and sisters traded stories about their mother-some of which he had never before heard.

At the time, he was writing about the political side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and realized that his mother's experience-similar to that of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians-would be a good way to introduce the general history.

"The story of Huda is not only a story of tragedy … but really, it's a story of victory, success, triumph over tragedy," he told United Methodist News Service.

Long Christian tradition
Palestinian Christianity has a long tradition in the Holy Land. Alex's mother's family had belonged to the Greek Orthodox Church for generations and, on his father's side, his great-great grandfather Alexander Awad, once the mayor of Jaffa, donated money to build the Maronite church there.

Awad’s book tells the story of his mother’s Christian faith and of the Palestinian people. A UMNS photo courtesy of the Board of Global Ministries.

Huda's story begins with her birth in Jerusalem on Jan. 14, 1916, to Nazirah and Musa Kuttab. Alex weaves the political history of the time-the British takeover of Palestine, the fight for Israeli independence in 1948, the 1967 Arab-Israeli war-with the hardships faced by her family, the influence of American missionaries and the steadfastness of her Christian faith.

That faith was crucial after Alex's father, Elias, was shot and killed when the family was caught in the fighting between Jewish and Jordanian forces in Jerusalem in 1948. Huda was left to raise their seven children-Nicola, the oldest at 11 years, followed by Bishara, Elizabeth, Ellen, Mubarak, Alex and six-month-old Diana, the youngest.

"My mother refused to take us to a refugee camp," Alex said. Instead, she enrolled in college to earn a nursing degree and spread her children out to orphanages and boarding schools.

"Though Mother was forced to quickly learn how to juggle many roles, certainly not least on her heart was her spiritual search," he writes in the book. "It was a very significant part of her life that helped her mature in her relationship with God and face the challenging life before her."

Alex felt called to the ministry so he could help the Palestinian people in the same way that other missionaries had helped his mother. But the 1967 Six-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors, which occurred while he was attending a Bible college in Switzerland, would have a profound effect on the Awad family.

Alex could not return to pastor a church in Bethlehem as planned because new laws prevented thousands of Palestinian students and workers who were abroad from returning home. "It was then, for the first time, that I realized I had suddenly become a person without a country," he writes.

Start of an exodus
Fortunately, he received a scholarship to attend Lee College (now Lee University) in Cleveland, Tenn., where he met Brenda. It was just the start of the exodus of his uncles, mother and brothers and sisters from Palestine. And Alex wasn't sure he would ever get back. "For awhile, I thought this dream of ministry to my people was far away," he recalled. "For awhile, I was trying to settle for the big American dream."

After his brother Bishara started Bethlehem Bible College, he called Alex home to Bethlehem to help. He, Brenda and their growing family were there from 1979 to 1987, when they were ordered to leave by the Israeli government. Despite being commissioned by the Board of Global Ministries in 1989 and assigned to return, the Awads were denied a visa by Israel until 1994.

Alex credits the continued pressure on the Israeli government by the mission agency, United Methodist Women, the Methodist Federation for Social Action and other denominations, including Rabbis for Human Rights, with eventually getting him back to the Middle East. The Awads, who live in East Jerusalem, now have clergy visas that are renewed annually. They have three adult children, Christy, Basem and Randy, who live in Thailand and the United States.

Today, Alex is dean of students at Bethlehem Bible College and pastor of East Jerusalem Baptist Church, an international and interdenominational congregation located next to the orphanage where he stayed as a boy after his father's death. He also is interim director of the college's Shepherd Society, "which takes care of the poorest of the poor in the Bethlehem area," he explained.

Brenda works in the college's English administration office and serves as the development liaison, "keeping up a connection between Bethlehem Bible College and our sponsors around the world."

The second half of the book relates to what Alex calls his "other job"-interpreting the Israel-Palestine conflict to Christians in the West and other groups. "My hope is that by viewing the conflict from the perspective of a Palestinian Christian in the Holy Land, the reader will gain a more complete and nuanced understanding of the situation, from its historical origins right down to present-day realities," he writes in the introduction.

A limited number of copies of Palestinian Memories: The Story of a Palestinian Mother and Her People can be ordered through the Board of Global Ministries, Literature Center, 475 Riverside Drive, Room 1518, New York, NY 10115. The phone number is (212) 870-3761. The price is $25.00 per copy, book rate postage included.

*Bloom is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in New York.