We completed the 2nd day of training in Bethlehem. Bethlehem University was founded in 1973 by the pope. Many of the classes are taught in English. There are 2700 students on campus - 70% are women because their parents don't want to send their daughters a long way from home for university studies. 90% of the students are Muslim.
The open air theater on campus is behind us.
We met Hanadi Soudeh-Younan. She is chairperson of the English Department at Bethlehem University. She was an early recipient of the Palestinian scholarships given by the Jerusalem Center. She graduated from Bethlehem University, then got a masters degree from BYU in Provo in 1986.
She got a PhD from a school in New York before moving back to Bethlehem.
We had dinner at a nice restaurant on campus. Sandy and Barry Anderton are talking to one of the students about a common interest - baking in pizza ovens they each built.
After the training, Eran and Tawfic treated us to a tour of the Church of the Nativity.
This mosaic floor in the Church of the Nativity dates to about the 3rd century. Three churches have a part of the building - Greek Orthodox, Armenian, and Roman Catholic.
Linda is seated in one of the traditional locations for the birth of Jesus.
This beautiful stained glass window is in the church where St Jerome translated the Bible from original Greek and Hebrew into Latin.
This is another possible site of Jesus' birth and where St. Jerome did his translating.
St George slaying the evil dragon.
A Muslim minaret in the foreground and a Christian church in the background.
The milk grotto is the place where Mary went after Jesus' birth, on their way to Egypt to avoid Herod's plan to kill the new born babies. While she was nursing Jesus, some milk spilled and turned the ceilings white in the place she was hiding.
We stopped at some olive wood shops on our way out. Here is a man working a lathe to fashion olive wood carvings from a pattern in front of him.
This is a stockpile of olive wood, waiting to be carved. The shop owner said they are not allowed to cut down an olive tree, so they use the tree trimmings to make their carving.
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