South Valley residents will have a unique opportunity next week when Morgan Hill’s Advent Lutheran Church (16870 Murphy Avenue) will host a performance of the Diyar Dance Theatre on Tuesday, October 1 at 7 p.m. Admission to “Room for Hope” will be by donation.
Eleven co-ed teen dancers will share their lives through dance. Musician Ali Amr, a distinguished graduate of the Berklee College of Music in Boston, will begin the evening by performing on the qanun, a stringed instrument popular in much of the Middle East.
The talented and enthusiastic young performers are committed to reviving and empowering the cultural identity of young Palestinians. They are both “cultural ambassadors to the world and symbols of hope to the youth living under occupation in the Holy Land.”
The group comes to Morgan Hill following a three-day festival celebrating Palestinian creativity at San Francisco State University that featured art, film, dance, and lectures. An additional performance will be held on Thursday at Stanford University.
The dance troupe is a ministry of Bright Stars of Bethlehem, a nonprofit organization whose goal is to promote peace and harmony in the Middle East, providing Palestinians support through health care, education, and cultural and spiritual development. It aims to help Christianity survive and thrive in Bethlehem and throughout the troubled land of Palestine.
Bright Stars was begun as an outreach ministry of Christmas Lutheran Church in 1995. In 2003 it received its nonprofit tax status, and today it has thousands of supporters in the U.S. who enable it to impact the lives of 60,000 Palestinians in their homeland.
There are four main aspects to his ministry; together they provide hope to the people of Palestine, one of the most turbulent regions of the world:
*Diyar Academy for Children and Youth (sponsor of the visiting dancers)
*Dar al-Kalima College
*Azwaj Young Families Program
*Ajyal Senior Care Program.
Advent’s Pastor, the Rev. Anita Warner, is excited for this opportunity because “listening is the beginning of any real understanding. These Palestinian teens sharing their human stories will give us an important window into their world. They will share some of their beautiful culture with us at the performance; they will also be meeting with social studies classes at Sobrato High School that morning and sharing lunch with Sobrato students.”
Advent chose Bright Stars of Bethlehem as an outreach project to mark the congregation’s fortieth anniversary. “Our congregation has been so blessed by God with 40 years together, receiving grace from God and being sent to serve our neighbors in love. Bright Stars is a beautiful example of Christian service in the world, opening up possibilities for abundant life for everyone in the region: Christian, Muslim, Jew, Druze, and others.”
Pastor Warner invites the community to “come to the performance and through donations support Bright Stars of Bethlehem.” She has traveled to Palestine and seen the work of this organization firsthand; she is “impressed with their commitment to Palestinian culture and creativity, creating a culture of hope rather than despair and developing peacemakers as leaders for the Palestinians.”
Chuck Flagg is a retired teacher with a passion for religion. Reach him at cf****@sv**********.com.
