Youth from Redeemer Lutheran Church featured on the ELCJHL monthly calendar

Each month the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL) distributes a calendar page suitable for downloading and printing. This month's calendar featured activities of the youth of Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem. It isn't always posted on the web right away, but try this link: http://www.elcjhl.org/resources/calendars/

And here's the text:

October 2008
ELCJHL youth enjoy trip to partner church in Germany

With its many active members, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land’s Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem’s Old City is a hive of activity. The church’s youth group recently enjoyed a trip to Germany. They visited the town of Bad Tölz as part of an on-going exchange program with one of the church’s international partners, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria. With a special focus on the limited natural resource of water, the 13 Palestinian and Jordanian youth ages 14 to 20 participated in activities with young people of Bad Tölz’s 16 congregations. The youth enjoyed a weekend in the Bavarian forest together in addition to meeting the German church’s Bavarian bishop Johannes Friedrich.

Prayer
Creator God: You have given us a world diverse in flora and fauna, in valley and mountain, in culture and tongue. May we celebrate and be enriched by this diversity even as we acknowledge that we are one in our humanity, and our praise of you. In Jesus' name. Amen.

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Folks have suggested to me that joining in the monthly prayer is a good way to be connected to the Lutherans of the Middle East.

The church's home page is http://www.elcjhl.org/

You'll find lots more there, such as the recent article about Bishop Younan's address to the Swedish Lutheran Church.

Bishop visits Sweden, strengthens partnership

ELCJHL Bishop Munib Younan addressed representatives of the world’s largest Lutheran church body and signed a partnership agreement this week in Sweden.

Speaking before the church assembly of the more than 7 million member Church of Sweden, Younan told the 251 elected representatives he commended the church for its strong theology of accompaniment and hoped that it would inspire other churches. Citing a lack of charismatic leadership in the world, Younan called on the church to address the greed that contributed to the current global economic crisis.

Humanity must have "economics with ethics and politics with morals," he said. "It's not how much you can make but how much you are accountable in what you invest."

His well received address came just days after the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land and the Diocese of Strängnäs signed a second five-year partnering agreement. The agreement calls for the Swedish diocese to stand in solidarity with the ELCJHL and remember the Palestinian church in its prayers.

Younan and a small delegation are visiting Sweden in order to renew and deepen its partnership with the Strängnäs diocese, with which it has had a relationship since 1981.

“For us in Palestine this twinning with the diocese of Strängnäs is a sign of hope which expresses itself both in word and action,” Younan said. “To be church here in Palestine is to care for people’s needs, their struggle, their sense of powerlessness and their education.” [article continues at the web site: http://www.elcjhl.org/news/2008/oct.asp]

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