Dear Friends,
I want to thank all of you for your support and prayers that allowed me to be
a part of a very talented group of people visiting Israel-Palestine. I
would not be the person I am without all of your kindness and love, nor would
I be in a position to speak for such a large group of people without a voice. It
is from the bottom of my heart that I want to say how much I appreciate you all.
It has almost been one week since I returned from Palestine, and I am just now
beginning to figure out how to verbalize what I have seen. Maybe it just
takes this long for the jet lag to subside, but I am more inclined to say that
I have been experiencing a confusion like none I have ever felt before. After
each of my trips to Honduras I experience a certain amount of reverse culture
shock. I return home from a week or two abroad to a life that seems menial,
trivial. I return from a place where the people with which we work do not
rely on material possessions for comfort. I return from an environment
quite the opposite of the one in which I have been raised, and it takes me a
few days to stop feeling disgusted at the selfish lives we live. It takes
time for me set aside the anger and sadness I feel understanding the only reason
I have shoes and running water is because I was born in the United States. Certainly
it is true that even in the United States there is extreme poverty and unequal
distribution of resources, but it is not the norm here. In the end, however,
I eventually set aside my sentiments and try to return to a life and lifestyle
for which I am supposed to be grateful. I am grateful. And I am grateful
now to understand more of what my role is in the world.
To say that I have been more inspired by my trip to Israel-Palestine than I have
from projects in Honduras is inaccurate. I have been blessed to be able
to gain insight and perspective over the years by traveling to remote villages
along the Caribbean coast to witness and serve a population living in what we
would call extreme poverty. I am blessed to have had these experiences
over the past decade to prepare me for a life of service. Most of all,
I have been blessed with these experiences so that I was mentally prepared to
spend time getting to know a people not affected so much by poverty but by steady
persecution. Whereas in Honduras, families struggle to grow enough yucca
and catch enough fish to sustain their village, in Palestine I met a family who
struggles with obtaining permits allowing them to cross the street to bring crops
to market. In Honduras, families scrape up every last penny they have to
be able to visit a hospital, but in Palestine, I met a met a man who stood in
line at a border fence, behind thousands of other people, waiting for a chance
to be denied an opportunity to cross into the next town to see his grandmother
on her deathbed in a hospital half a mile away. In Honduras, people having
access to freshwater is sometimes at the whim of the clouds, but in Palestine
I met a family who has had their public water supply cut off by the Israeli government
in an attempt to force the family from its land. Poverty in Honduras is
more of a result of an economy that isn't succeeding. Problems in Palestine
are more of a result of an economy not permitted to succeed.
This is just one part of what I want to tell you all in person, and I need not
continue here. I hope to tell you more about the families I met and the
friends I made in a more intimate setting. I have many stories to tell,
some easy to understand and some with which I am still coping. With your
permission, I ask you to please let me come share my experiences with you, your
church or Sunday School, or your community/civic organization. Poverty
and winning souls are easier projects for missionaries to undertake, but I want
to tell you about a different problem that we Americans, we Christians, we humans
can solve.
Sincerely,
Michael Franklin
(334) 467-5777 |
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