Council for World Mission wishes to express its commitment to solidarity with the people in the Middle East in their struggles. This Christmas our thoughts and prayers are with the people in Palestine. Our Christmas greeting card carries a painting by Zaki Baboun, a Palestinian Christian artist who specialises in Biblical themes, depicting the blessed family with infant Jesus walking through the Israeli Separation Barrier also known as the Apartheid Wall. The inside features the following poem by Dr Norman Habel, also from Palestine:
Why are you still so small?
With battered homes and crowded roads,
Surrounded by a wall!
Yet your dark streets shineth,
The everlasting light;
The hopes and fears of recent years
Still meet in you each night.
O Christ once born in Bethlehem,
You suffer there each day:
You feel the pain, with us the pain;
When will it pass away?
Send back the Christmas angels,
The great glad tidings tell:
The child with us, who died for us,
Is still Immanuel!
View the full Christmas Card