Experiencing COVID-19 Abroad: Jerusalem, Israel

Similar to almost every country and city around the globe, the CoVid-19 pandemic overturned our lives and community here at Christ Church Jerusalem. Here in the Holy City we have just concluded a Holy Week & Passover week like no other that we can remember. The mid-week priestly blessing of Passover at the Western Wall usually attracts a crowd of over twenty-thousand, was held this year with only ten individuals.  The Easter season that usually is marked by huge numbers of pilgrims, was strangely quiet.  The typical marches of bagpipes through the streets of the Old City, pilgrimages to gethsemane and the Via Dolorosa, and the major Holy fire event of the Orthodox churches were extremely scaled back.  

We too at Christ Church spent our Holy Week in a completely different way. The usual activity that comes with having a museum, guest house, and coffeeshop was all absent.  We were blessed however, by two new opportunities for outreach during these unique times.  Not surprisingly, our mercy ministry which cares for the poor and the marginalized saw a major spike in requests for assistance. We were able to partner with many organizations (mostly religious, but even secular ones!) both locally and overseas, to provide food and support for families whose members had lost their sources of income. Utilizing our staff we were also able to to provide critical services such as food and medicine purchases to the elderly who were not allowed to leave their homes. 

Our second opportunity was to begin broadcasting all our Easter Week services online in multiple time zones. This amounted to 30 services, which we broadcasted on facebook and which reached over 70,000 individuals across the globe. So while it was a very different Holy Week for us here in Jerusalem, we are praising God for using the situation to His Glory.

The Rev. Darryl Fenton, Christ Church, Jerusalem