{"id":2041,"date":"2019-05-20T22:51:05","date_gmt":"2019-05-20T19:51:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/?p=2041"},"modified":"2019-09-23T05:25:21","modified_gmt":"2019-09-23T02:25:21","slug":"a-beacon-of-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/2019\/05\/a-beacon-of-hope\/","title":{"rendered":"A Beacon of Hope"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Sunday, May 19<br>~ Madi Elsea<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The morning began with worship at Christmas Lutheran Church in Old Bethlehem, a church started by Lutheran missionaries in the 1850\u2019s and built in the 1890\u2019s.  It\u2019s a vibrant congregation of 200 with visitors from around the world. The service was in Arabic with an English bulletin provided, so we could speak and sing with many parts of the liturgy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"766\" src=\"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/IMG_1209-1024x766.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2043\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/IMG_1209-1024x766.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/IMG_1209-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/IMG_1209-768x575.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/IMG_1209.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption> Christmas Lutheran Church organ, Bethlehem<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The 130 year old organ had fallen into disrepair in the 1990\u2019s and with thanks to an American Lutheran congregation had been totally rebuilt in Minneapolis and returned to Bethlehem in time for Bethlehem 2000 festivities.  I felt the organ\u2019s power, joy &amp; symbolism\u2026.a beacon of hope in the midst of this scarred &amp; oft-broken community. The final hymn was \u201cAll People on Earth do Dwell\u201d and the last line reads \u201cGod\u2019s truth at all times firmly stands, and shall from age to age endure.\u201d Thanks be to God!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sunday, May 19~ Madi Elsea The morning began with worship at Christmas Lutheran Church in Old Bethlehem, a church started by Lutheran missionaries in the 1850\u2019s and built in the 1890\u2019s. It\u2019s a vibrant congregation of 200 with visitors from &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/2019\/05\/a-beacon-of-hope\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2019-may-pilgrimage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2041"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2044,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2041\/revisions\/2044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}