When Abouna Firas (Or Is It God?) Comes Calling. . .
by Dorothy Jean Weaver
God is in the business of calling. And God doesn’t give up on the first try, or even the second. Just ask Samuel, the young boy lying awake one night in “the temple of the Lord” in Shiloh (1 Sam. 3:1-18). Or ask Peter, taking a noonday prayer siesta on a roof in Jaffa one day (Acts 10:1-48). Me? I was just reading my e-mail in Harrisonburg, as I do every single day.
Sunday, August 17, 2025. The e-mail was extremely brief, just five words long. “Is your email still working?” That was it. No name whatsoever. The sender was, as it appeared, “melkite Catholic” at melkitecatholic@yahoo.com. And the designation below read, “Zababdeh parish, Melkite catholic.” What to make of this strange, brief e-mail? And what to do by way of response? I did indeed have connections, very brief connections from long years ago, with Zababdeh in the northern West Bank. So this could potentially be genuine. But this could just as easily be an e-mail phishing expedition. The extreme brevity and total non-specificity of the e-mail roused my suspicions immediately. It sounded exactly like a hoax. I didn’t respond.
Monday, August 18, 2025. A second e-mail, not quite so brief and this time with a name attached. “Did you receive my last message? Hoping to get a reply so I know. Regards, abouna firas khoury” This now began to have the feel of a genuine e-mail. I have met Abouna (read “Father” as in priest) Firas Khoury twice in my life, once in Zababdeh years ago on a trip up through the northern West Bank and once in Bethlehem. But what was this message about? I still didn’t know. And I still didn’t respond.
Tuesday, August 19, 2025. A third e-mail, this time with a photo of Abouna Firas standing by a bell tower. And this time there was a brief but substantive message: “After a long time of work and effort, we have built a new bell tower. This bell will ring for peace. For me, building the bell tower is a confirmation of the fulfillment of God’s promises with us.”
My response: “Thanks for your note! I am grateful that you could build a new bell tower. Blessings to you all!” And with this I may have thought that I was finished with the e-mails from Abouna Firas.
But I was mistaken. After a fourth e-mail (Wednesday, August 20, 2025), thanking me for my “kind words and blessings” and assuring me that they “always keep [me] in [their] prayers with gratitude for [my] friendship and support,” I finally learned the underlying reason for this intriguing and unanticipated e-mail chain.
Wednesday, August 20, 2025. E-mail number five. “Dear Dorothy Jean, I also want to share with you the situation of our parish during the war—many people have lost their homes. We are making the soaps here and planning to send them abroad. Could we correspond to find out how many parishes and churches would be interested in buying the soaps? Thank you for your love for my ‘living stones’ (our people). With gratitude, Abouna Firas”
Here was the answer. It took multiple tries. But finally Abouna Firas (and God!) had and have my attention. This is a genuine and urgent appeal coming from a Christian Palestinian community in the heart of the West Bank, a region increasingly threatened both by the vicious actions of angry Israeli settlers and the even more ominous calls for total “annexation” of the West Bank by the rightwing Israeli government presently in power.
And this is an appeal to which I can and must respond, as best I can. I may not know Abouna Firas well. But I care deeply about the people of Palestine and their decades-long struggle as people having lived through the Nakba (“Catastrophe”) of 1948 and the ongoing Israeli military Occupation of the West Bank from 1967 to the present day. And I don’t simply care. I also have connections, useful connections—in this case MennoPIN connections—through which to contact the “parishes and churches” which Abouna Firas wants to reach with his own parish’s soap-selling venture.
So I invite you to join with me in responding to Abouna Firas’ call
Your participation in this project of purchasing this parish’s soap will not end the Occupation. It will not initiate a ceasefire in Gaza. It will not change the course of major world events. But your participation in this project will provide hope and material assistance to the people of one Palestinian village, Zababdeh; people living in the midst of deep threat and profound uncertainty at this moment in time and this place in the West Bank. As Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb, President of Dar al Kalima University in Bethlehem regularly says, “Hope is what we do.” And with this urgent appeal from Abouna Firas there is “hope” just waiting to be “done.”
Could this be the “call” to your congregation? Could this be the “hope” which your congregation “does”? If it is, please contact Abouna Firas directly for details at melkitecatholic@yahoo.com and engage with the Zababdeh soap-selling project.
Block the Bombs Act
51 House representatives are now supporting the Block the Bombs Act. The bill would proactively block the U.S. government from sending more weapons to Israel in the midst of a genocide.
It is extremely important that Members of Congress hear from their constituents right now that they oppose giving more weapons to Israel. Write your Representative and urge them to sign on to H.R. 3565 (or thank them for doing so) and encourage others to do the same.
Christians and the Complicit Corporations Campaign
On Thursday, September 18 a large coalition of over 25 Christian organizations (including Mennonite Action, Friends of Sabeel North America, American Friends Service Committee, Christians for a Free Palestine, and Palestinian Christian Alliance for Peace) launched an economic resistance campaign focused on tech company Palantir and Chevron.
The Complicit Corporations Campaign aims to create economic and political pressure to reduce corporate support for the Israel government’s policies and help shift U.S. policy to end the genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank.
Why Chevron?
Per AFSC, Chevron runs natural gas extraction and pipelines off the shore of Palestine/Israel, making it a major partner in Israeli energy apartheid, the military blockade on Gaza, and the illegal exploitation of Palestinian land and resources.
During the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, a movement to boycott Shell Oil for its complicity in apartheid gained worldwide momentum with supporters taking part in gas station pickets and major divestment campaigns from the fossil fuel company.
Inspired by the South African liberation struggle, Palestinians and allies aim to build pressure on Chevron through a coordinated boycott until it no longer conducts business that gravely violates Palestinians’ human rights.
Join the Campaign and Sign Christians for a Free Palestine Pledge by Clicking the Image Below
Mennonite Palestine Israel Network
MennoPIN keeps you informed about Palestine/Israel through our monthly update, special alerts, calls to action, important resources and tour possibilities, all from an Anabaptist perspective. To find out more, please visit our website at www.mennopin.org
Feedback, responses, and suggestions for future updates can be submitted to info@mennopin.org
Steering Committee
Bob Atchison (Manhattan Mennonite Church, Manhattan, KS)
Lydia Brenneman (Lima Mennonite Church, Lima, OH)
Dave Janzen (Fellowship of Hope, Elkhart, IN)
Michael George (Landisville Mennonite Church, PA)
Jonathan Kuttab (Palestinian lawyer and human rights activist, Manheim, PA)
Dorothy Jean Weaver (Community Mennonite Church, Harrisonburg, VA)
Zachary Murray (Mennonite Central Committee, Washington, DC)
Adam Ramer (Co-coordinator of Mennonite Action, New York, NY)
David Bluford (Rainbow Mennonite Church, Kansas City, KS)
Gretchen M (Philadelphia, PA)
MennoPIN 