Rev. Laurie Lyter Bright Greets Pilgrims
Dear Pilgrims Family,
Happy New Year!
The Pilgrims of Ibillin annual review will be in mailboxes soon. Please let us know your preferences in communicating with you (email, website, mail) and provide us current contact information. Our funds can stretch further for our mission projects when we can communicate digitally. Thank you for your interest in Pilgrims!
I love being your executive director. This work of peace-building through relationships is challenging, and the hope we get to witness first-hand is inspiring.
Every time I get the chance to share the mission of Pilgrims of Ibillin with someone new, I tell them the same thing: that we’re about peace and justice, and the belief that you can’t have one without the other. I tell them that we actively resist the idea that we know all the answers, particularly in a place as complex as Israel and Palestine, and instead we try to show up with an open, inquisitive presence.
At our heart, I effuse, we are an educational organization. We seek to educate in the United States, and support education initiatives in Israel and Palestine that work towards cross-cultural and interfaith collaboration. MEEI is a peace-centered institution, bringing together low-income students and providing first rate education for students in Israel from multiple faith and ethnic backgrounds. A Jewish teacher of a gifted and talented program for Muslim and Christian children teaches down the hall from the only special needs program in the region boosting students from Druze villages across the Galilee region. This is a rare and extraordinary community.
The remarkable commitment to non-violence, to peace, and to hope is at the core of MEEI, Wi’am, and all our peace partners.
As division, animosity, and vitriol seem to take center stage, we ask you to join us in the most audacious goal of all: be persistently, relentlessly hopeful. Hope is not blind optimism, or naiveté, or an affectation. It is a rebellious, revolutionary act and one to which we are called to renew our commitment.
By that point in the conversation, most people are hooked, and understandably. This is a remarkable thing we get to do, Pilgrims Family.
Thank you for being a part of it and I look forward to sharing the road ahead with you!
With joy,
Rev. Laurie Lyter Bright
laurie@pilgrimsofibillin.org
www.pilgrimsofibillin.org