“Discovering” Bethlehem Bible College
“Discovering” Bethlehem Bible College
“My name is Montserrat and I am from a little town in the North of Catalonia (in Spain). I first heard about these Discovery courses when I was studying an online Arabic course for internationals, which was also organised by Bethlehem Bible College. My first Arabic course started in July 2020. I had been following Bethlehem Bible College on Facebook for some years. Why? This is a nice story: in 2007 – and again in 2009 – I was in Bethlehem for two weeks as volunteer in a summer camp organized by Holy Land Trust. After that first contact with Bethlehem in person, I started following Christian organisations and groups on Facebook in order to keep in touch with the reality in Bethlehem. I found Bethlehem Bible College and I started to follow the page.
“In Spring 2020 I saw that Bethlehem was hit hard by Corona and no pilgrims and no tourists would go there for a long time. From my home I was wondering how I could help people from Bethlehem and at the end of June 2020 I saw by chance on Facebook that Bethlehem Bible College organised an Arabic online course for internationals. So, although I am not an English speaker, I decided to sign up to help them a little. While I was in the Arabic course (Level 1), I was told about another online course called ‘Discover Bethlehem’ and I signed up in order to hear from a local perspective. I enjoyed that course and some months later I signed up for ‘Discover Jerusalem.’ As there were still restrictions due to Corona and there were no visitors in Bethlehem, my feeling was that by taking part in those courses I was helping a Palestinian Christian community at the same time that I was learning from the local perspective. I have attended several courses till now and it has been a great experience. The teacher is great and the fact that the lectures are recorded is useful because I can watch the videos and better understand the valuable information that is given to us. I am a Christian Catholic and I had never listened to Christian teachers from other churches. In this way, I have discovered that we have a lot of in common! I am very happy and grateful because in these courses I have met (online) several great people from Bethlehem and from all over the world.
“In my opinion it is important that these courses are given from a Christian college located in Bethlehem because it gives people the opportunity to return to the origins of Christianity and people from other countries become aware that there are Christian communities in Bethlehem that have a voice. Their voice can be heard through these courses.”
Montserrat’s story is participating in online courses with Bethlehem Bible College…
