Welcome to our website:

Welcome to Musalaha’s website. May you share our vision to see reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians first among believers and then to those of interfaith communities as you browse through our pages. We hope that you will be informed and encouraged as you see the fruits of the work of Musalaha. Peace from Jerusalem.

 

Challenges that keep us looking upward

 

For many years Musalaha has invested its energies in bringing Palestinian Christians and Israeli Messianic Jews together and we are encouraged by the accomplishments and milestones different people have made in their journey of reconciliation. But, the larger society of Israelis and Palestinians that we’re living in is Muslim and Jewish. So, how are we going to move from being called light to becoming salt in our society? The apostle Paul tells us in Romans 12 that we are called to renew our minds. When we renew our minds, it will show in our actions as we begin to demonstrate love to fellow believers and live at peace with all men. It will then then be easier to love our enemies.

 

How do we promote reconciliation that is centered around our Lord, the Messiah with others in the community that do not have the same convictions that we have? Do we only proclaim him as the Savior and fall short of doing what Jesus called us to do when he said, “blessed are the peacemakers.” Where can we express and demonstrate the peace we have with our Lord so that it influences society around us? As ambassadors of the Lord, we must also be bridge builders between other people from diverse faith backgrounds without compromising tenets of our own faith by being humanistic or deceptive. We weighed these thoughts, carefully considering the consequences as we as a board sought how to best impact the rest of our society.

 

Reconciliation is not an easy journey; it has a lot of challenges, but it is also an act of obedience to bring the Messiah of peace into every aspect of our society whether it is social, political or economical. Aren’t we called to be a prophetic voice against hatred, anger, enmity and violence? If we shy away from it, we shun ourselves within a narcissist ghetto. How can people taste the Kingdom of God and see his fullness if we don’t move within society?

 

But the lessons we learned through our Desert Encounters and years of involvement in reconciliation gave us some confidence to move on within the rest of our society. Not only do we want to do it, but people are watching the progress that we have made in reconciliation, and are asking if they can join, wanting to know how they can be involved.

 

We are now seeing how we can implement the wilderness experience with other groups, and how we can have a major impact in their personal lives. In order to build bridges and impact the whole of society, we must start small before we move upward and onward. We began with a small group of Muslims and Christians who were willing to take these first small steps towards coexistence through using the Biblical principles of reconciliation and we were encouraged by their responses.

 

One of our other key bridge building initiatives has been our Sports Camp. Sports has been an excellent means to break down barriers between people as it has the foundation for creating unity. Our sports camp, which began in 2006, includes Jewish, Muslim and Christian youths who have the unique opportunity to build relationships with those of other faiths and deal with their differences. This program allows us to look for ways to share Biblical principles of reconciliation in a non-believing context and provide conflict resolution activities and training.

 

Please continue to pray for our bridge building activities such as our Sports Camp that God would provide funding as well coaches so that we can continue influencing a larger sector of society towards reconciliation.

 

By Salim J. Munayer, PhD