Last night some of us were speaking with a friend who is in Amman, Jordan. Well, it was last night here in Washington. In Amman, it was early this morning. I often have trouble wrapping my mind around the differences in time zones when speaking with friends or relatives who live far away. Our friend is in Amman temporarily. His wife is a Fulbright Scholar. The Fulbright Program is a cultural exchange program with the goal of improving intercultural relations and cultural diplomacy between the people of the United States and other countries through the exchange of persons, knowledge, and skills. The program enables students, scholars, teachers, professionals, scientists, and artists to study, teach, conduct research, or exercise their talents abroad. Citizens of other countries are enabled through the program to do the same in the United States.

The couple, who are both our friends, were supposed to be living and teaching in Bethlehem. Since we found out that they were selected for the program, I have been looking forward to their Advent reports from the historic place where Jesus was born. Those reports, however, are not coming from Bethlehem. Due to the deadly Hamas attack from Gaza and the response of Israel, the Fulbright Program has withdrawn its scholars from the region. Although Bethlehem is not in Gaza, but rather in the West Bank, it was deemed too dangerous for the exchange program to sponsor scholars, especially in light of the spread of the deadly violence that has claimed victims in the West Bank as well as in Gaza and surrounding territories.

Our friends are having a unique experience in Amman. While the professor is teaching at a university, her husband, a writer, has been working and exploring from their rooftop apartment. The commute to the university is a ten or fifteen minute walk from their apartment depending on the flow of pedestrian traffic through a major intersection in the city.

Jordan is a desert country. Most of its territory is very lightly populated, with nearly all of the country’s 8 million residents living in cities. About half of the population of Jordan lives in Amman. Amman is the capital and largest city. It is a modern city built on numerous ancient ruins. The historic Citadel includes the pillars of the Roman Temple of Hercules. On a different downtown hillside, the Roman Theater is a second-century stone amphitheater that can seat 6,000 persons. Mount Nebo, in Amman, is the site where Moses was able to look across the Jordan and see the promised land - a place toward which he lead the people of Israel in the Exodus from Egypt through forty years of wilderness wandering. The church we served in Rapid City has a mosaic cross that was made by an artist who sells his work at the Mount Nebo site. There are many layers of history in the city. The stories that our friends are gathering are as interesting as they might have gathered had they spent this year in Bethlehem. They are just different stories.

In Amman, as would have been the case in Bethlehem, their experiences involve living among Palestinians. around 2 million Palestinian refugees currently live in Amman making up about a quarter of the population of the city. Displacement and movement of populations has been the story of the region since at least the time that the people of ancient Israel came into the land that was known as Caanan in biblical times. In modern times, the Arab-Israeli War that lasted a little over 9 months in 1948 and 1949, led to the shifting of population and the creation of large numbers of Palestinian refugees. In that war, Israel was able to keep the area that was allotted to it by the Partition Plan and also to capture approximately 60 percent of the land allotted to an Arab State. Neighboring countries emerged as brokers of order within the borders of the newly established state of Israel. Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip. Jordan ruled in the West Bank. Refugees fled the violence. People were forced to leave their historic homes.

The stories of displacement have continued throughout the years that have followed. Different regional countries have played different roles in Israel over the years. And different neighboring countries have become home to Palestinians who have experienced multiple generations of refugee status. For those of us who read of the region in the news and even for those who have made occasional tourist visits to the area, it is hard to imagine what it means to live in a state of near permanent disruption with neighbors who have been refugees for all of their lives. Our friends, however, have been given the opportunity, through the Fulbright Program to live in Amman for an academic year and experience living in the midst of the people who have inherited the long history that has led to the current Israeli-Hamas war.

Perhaps we can learn from their experiences this year a bit more about the complexities of the stories of the region. Certainly, we will learn a bit more of the experiences of everyday citizens in the region. After all, cultural understanding is the primary goal of the Fulbright program. Our friends travels and their return and reporting to those of us who remain here in their home are intended results of Fulbright-funded travel experiences.

So far, however, understanding is a bit of an overstatement. There is so little that I understand about the war and its impact on the lives of the people who live in the region. One of the results of the current war is another wave of refugees. It is still uncertain how many people will be displaced by the war, but already millions are on the move. Some will end up in Jordan, traveling to be with relatives who have lived their for generations as the result of previous wars.

I am grateful for this small window on a world and experiences that are so different from those that have shaped our lives. At the same time I am worried about the safety of our friends though they are not in harm’s way at this time. I look forward to their return and opportunities to have longer conversations than Zoom technology can afford.

For now, like most of the rest of the world, we watch from afar and attempt to understand.