For the members of First Baptist Church in Palestine (Texas), sharing names with a Middle Eastern territory of Palestine has led to a connection with Christians on the West Bank.

Pastor Jay Abernathy said a BBC news team taking a Sunday detour from President Bush’s ranch in Crawford gave him the idea to capitalize on the shared name.

By Carrie Joynton, The Baptist Standard, June 24, 2008

Rhadia Qupty was invited to participate in a one day conference of the Friends of Sabeel of The Netherlands held at Zeist.

Rhadia gave a presentation on Complex Identity: as Christian Arab/ Palestinian Israeli.

She traced her life story starting with her birth in Haifa, Palestine in l944, growing up in the Baptist Orphanage for Palestinian children who were left with no families after the 1948 war, studying in the USA, and then returning to live in Nazareth and serve among the Arab Community as a social worker

Special For "Come and See", April 30, 2008

Though he is little known in the West, Coptic priest Zakaria Botros — named Islam’s “Public Enemy #1” by the Arabic newspaper, al-Insan al-Jadid — has been making waves in the Islamic world. Along with fellow missionaries — mostly Muslim converts — he appears frequently on the Arabic channel al-Hayat (i.e., “Life TV”). There, he addresses controversial topics of theological significance — free from the censorship imposed by Islamic authorities or self-imposed through fear of the zealous mobs who fulminated against the infamous cartoons of Mohammed. Botros’s excurses on little-known but embarrassing aspects of Islamic law and tradition have become a thorn in the side of Islamic leaders throughout the Middle East.

Raymond Ibrahim, National Review Online, March 25, 2008

The Middle East isn't known as a breeding ground for comedians. So it was no loss to the region when stand-up comic Nazareth Rizkallah emigrated to America when he was 19.

He's performed all over the United States. Everywhere he goes, evangelicals love him.

But he's careful to play down his Palestinian roots among his audience of fundamentalist pastors and congregations, at least until the show is over. The churches he performs in are largely ignorant of their Palestinian brethren, while ironically sending political and financial support to Israel.

Josh Dulaney, March 22, The Sanbernandino Sun

Police and sappers were once again dispatched to Ariel's IDF Street during the Purim holiday Friday morning. A few minutes earlier, a man had knocked on the door of the Leibovitz family home and left a cardboard box with the boy who answered the door. "It's mishloach manot, a Purim gift basket," explained the visitor before disappearing.

The boy and his older brother trembled with fear. Their parents, who were out of town, ordered the boys by phone to get away from the package and call the police. In another residential building, 50 meters away, a bomb planted in a Purim gift basket had exploded the day before.

By Yair Ettinger, Haaretz, March 24, 2008

A special reception was held on Saturday, the 8th of March, for Dr. Rev. Dale Thorne and his wife, Anita, in the Nazareth Baptist School hall. Baptists from Nazareth and veteran teachers of the Nazareth Baptist School (NBS) attended this reception.

Rev. Thorne served in Nazareth for 17 years (1966-1983) as a Baptist missionary and General Director of NBS. After leaving Nazareth, they moved to Haifa wherein Rev. Thorne served as Secretary of the Middle East and North African Region for the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention until they returned to the U.S. and started a new church in Cincinnati, Ohio. In January 2008 they returned to Israel in order to start a prayer center in the “Jerusalem House” in East Jerusalem.

Special For Come and See, March 9, 2008

On the 12th of February, 2008, Professor Aaron Ciechanover, the 2004 Nobel Prize winner for Chemistry, visited the Nazareth Baptist School at the invitation of the Principal of the school, Dr. Ousama Moalem.

Professor Ciechanover shared with his listeners a touching encounter he had after he won the Nobel Prize. A cancer victim approached him at a reception and told him that he has been dying from the disease just a few weeks before, but thanks to the medicine that was developed as a result of his discovery, he overcame the disease and recovered.

Special For "Come and See", Feb 14, 2008

A prominent evangelical pastor asks Evangelical American Pastors to learn more about Evangelical Palestinian Christians.

Dr. Bob Roberts Jr. is the founding pastor of NorthWood Church, a fast-growing church near Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX and is a leading practitioner and writer on glocal—local and global—transformation of individuals, churches, communities and nations. He tries to draw the attention of the Evangelical Church in the USA to the plight of Palestinian Christians.

Special For "Come and See", Jan 13, 2008

Will the last Mideast church leader be sure to turn off the lights?

No one knows precisely how many of the Middle East's 293 million people are Christians, but nearly everyone acknowledges that Middle Eastern Christianity has been in steady decline for decades. In some local areas, officials record declines of 75 percent or more. Recent violence in the region is accelerating that decline. Some observers estimate that the region's population of 10 to 15 million Christians will continue to spiral downward during the next 50 years.

David Aikman, Christianity Today, Dec 17, 2007

Christmas goes relatively unnoticed in the country of Israel. Only 2% of the population observes the holiday and this small celebration is lost amidst the Menorahs and Chanukahs of Jewish Hanukkah and the feasting of the Muslim Eid al-Adha. Nevertheless, some places make a special effort to draw attention to the holiday in a unique way.

In the boyhood home of Jesus, Nazareth Village is celebrating the season by presenting its eighth annual recreation of the Nativity story in a series of guided evening tours. Guests are invited to walk by candle light along a path following Joseph and Mary on the donkey as a guide re-tells the timeless story of the birth of Jesus.

Hannah Byrd, Special For "Come and See", Dec 7, 2007