Cards bring hope to Holy Land

“The West Bank? We can’t send mail there.”

That’s what a Canada Post agent told Paul Pynkoski in March when he arrived at a service counter with a package of cards to send to Christians in Ramallah.

Briefly stymied but still determined, Mr. Pynkoski thought through his options, then went back to the counter. Could he send the package to Jerusalem? “They said no, went back and checked, came back and said, ‘Ok, we could send it to Jerusalem, but it might take a long time.’”

In the end, Mr. Pynkoski was able to mail his parcel to St. George’s Cathedral in Jerusalem with a note asking staff to forward it to St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church. And just over a month later, he received an email confirming its safe arrival in Ramallah.

The package contained cards with messages of support from parishioners at Redeemer, Bloor St. in Toronto to the members of St. Andrew’s in Ramallah, a Palestinian city in the West Bank about 15 kilometres north of Jerusalem. Tensions have been high in the West Bank since war broke out last October, with violent confrontations between Palestinians and Israeli settlers, and raids by Israeli armed forces.

Amid this ongoing conflict, a group of parishioners at Redeemer decided to take action. Mr. Pynkoski, a member of Redeemer with a passion for peace and advocacy, had been part of a book study reading The Risk of the Cross: Living Gospel Nonviolence in the Nuclear Age by Arthur Laffin. The group’s conversation soon went beyond nuclear threats to consider peacemaking in the context of the Holy Land.

“Over the course of our study, we said this is not about ‘head knowledge,’ this is about engagement with the text and with the world. So what do we want to do?” he says.

That desire for action sparked an idea. “I’d been talking to Nicola Skinner, and she mentioned to me that they had sent cards to Jerusalem to say, ‘we’re praying for you,’” says Mr. Pynkoski. “And I thought, why can’t we make contact with an Anglican parish in the West Bank?”

The Rev. Canon Nicola Skinner and parishioners at Grace Church, Markham had sent their cards to Jerusalem in October. Canon Skinner had met many people in the Holy Land when she attended the “Palestine of Jesus” course through St. George’s College in the spring of 2023.

“When the war broke out, it really hit me how difficult it must be for them,” she says. “I thought, what can we do other than pray for them? Is there something we could do? And I thought, let’s write them notes to let them know that we’re thinking of them and that we care.”

The following Sunday, she provided her congregation with brightly coloured paper, and at the end of the service everyone who wanted to get involved took some time to write notes. In early January, Canon Skinner finally heard from the Very Rev. Richard Sewell, Dean of Jerusalem, to say he’d received the package.

“It really moved me to see such prayerful messages of solidarity,” Dean Sewell wrote to Canon Skinner. “Please don’t give up praying and advocating. We are standing firm in the faith and hope in Christ, who is our light in the darkness.”

As Mr. Pynkoski considered where Redeemer’s book group could send its notes, he remembered having heard the Rev. Fadi Diab speak about feeling broken because of the war and the silence of the Church. He suggested sending the cards to Fr. Diab’s parish, and the group quickly agreed.

“We asked ourselves, if you were sitting in Ramallah right now, what would you want to hear from your siblings in Christ? And we just wrote. Everybody wrote something different from their own heart,” he says.

Despite the parcel’s circuitous route to Ramallah, it arrived safely at St. Andrew’s in April, and Fr. Diab wrote to Mr. Pynkoski to thank the group.

“Your words and cards encourage us to keep going amidst all that is going on in our land. Discipleship, and in particular costly discipleship, calls us to step out of ourselves into a broken world that needs healing. Jesus gave us the example and continues to call us to engage our broken world by the power of the Spirit,” he wrote.

Fr. Diab also said that his congregation would pray for the people of Redeemer at each Eucharist they celebrated.

“Here are people that are being arrested, killed, lost their jobs, their congregation is shrinking, and they said they’re going to pray for us. It almost breaks your heart, but at the same time it’s so hopeful,” says Mr. Pynkoski.

He says that while sending notes and cards may not feel like a grand action in the face of large-scale violence, at Redeemer it offered the possibility of doing something concrete.

“At the very least, we can pray – and I don’t want to minimize what that means, because it changes us and it calls on the Spirit to change the situation and the world,” he says. “We get overwhelmed, and then we freeze and we don’t do anything, when there are small things that we can do and we can build on.”

Based on the reaction from people in both Ramallah and Jerusalem, something as simple as a card can have a great impact.

“Even if you do something that seems incredibly small, you have no idea how it will be gratefully received on the other end,” says Canon Skinner. “It can give somebody a glimmer of hope or some comfort. It’s the smallest thing that we can do, to try and be Christ-like in a very difficult situation.”

As the war in the Holy Land continues to evolve, with few signs of imminent or lasting peace, both Canon Skinner and Mr. Pynkoski say it may be time to send more notes of encouragement.

“The situation now for people in the Diocese of Jerusalem is even more painful,” says Canon Skinner, noting the forced closure of the Anglican-run Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza. “Maybe now is a good time to send some more notes. Maybe they need that Christian solidarity and cheer from us.”

For now, Mr. Pynkoski plans to keep sowing the seeds of peacemaking in the Redeemer community. He’s also interested in developing a network of Canadian Anglicans who are interested in peacemaking.

“I think we need to figure it out together. I think it means continually reaching out and saying, ‘Will you join me in this?’ or ‘This is the way I’m feeling,’” he says. “You do have a voice, and you can use that voice.”