22/10/09 - English

Olive picking season is underway – and there is an unseasonable heat wave here. Sabeel has organized picking in Jeeb, Kufr Qassim and Birzeit. The Joint Advocacy Initiative of the YWCA and YMCA, as well as many other groups, are also hosting olive picking visitors. We pray for the health and safety of all local and international volunteers and that Palestinian farmers and their families, suffering from ongoing settler violence and the uprooting of their olive trees, may have a peaceful harvest.

The Sabeel Witness Visit will start Thursday 29 Oct. We pray for all those making preparations, we pray that the visit will flow smoothly and we pray for all the speakers, that their voices will be heard and their experiences valued. And we pray for those participants arriving in these days: for energy, for flexibility, for openness and intellectual curiosity.

We pray for the participants, including from Sabeel and Wi'am, who will participate in an Operation 1325 (named for the UN resolution) conference in Cyprus next week addressing the disproportionate impact of armed conflict on women, and the contributions women make to conflict prevention, peacekeeping, conflict resolution and peace-building.

Palestinian films have recently won awards; Palestinian poets and writers have been celebrated; Palestinian theatre groups are traveling around the world to share productions. Jerusalem is this year's Arab Capital of Culture.  Let us give thanks and pray for all those who, in the midst of injustice and cruel occupation, can still be imaginative and inspire the human spirit to rise above brutishness and flourish in the beauty of creativity.

This week we join with the World Council of Churches in praying for:

India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka