In the Face of Poverty & War, Children in the Holy Land Are Learning to Love like Jesus
Thank you for blessing the Christian community in Beit Sahour of the Holy Land through Jerusalem Evangelical Outreach’s children’s discipleship program, Connect Kids! These kids love coming each week, and the program is reinforcing the Christian community in the town as a whole.
In Beit Sahour, Christian Palestinian families are struggling in the midst of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Many families are fleeing the Holy Land because of the lack of resources and geopolitical stress, causing the Christian community in the area to deteriorate. Through your generosity, Jerusalem Evangelical Outreach (JEO) started a Connect Kids discipleship ministry in the town. Now dozens of children are learning deeply about God and reflecting the love of Jesus Christ in their community—and through the children’s relationships, Christian families are drawing together.
Beit Sahour is a Palestinian town east of Bethlehem in the West Bank, known by Christian tradition as the place where the angels told the shepherds the good news of Jesus Christ’s birth. It’s also one of the few predominantly Christian towns—80% of the population being Christian—in the Holy Land, where 74% of the population is Jewish, 18% Muslim, and only 2% Christian.
However, JEO notes that “people are becoming apathetic towards Christianity” and that “the traditional church in the Holy Land is dominated by religious doctrine and rituals,” with few people nurturing personal relationships with God. For children, Sunday school is a rarity and they are receiving very little spiritual support and education otherwise.
Further, Christian Palestinians have reportedly experienced significant discrimination, ridicule, and persecution from both Jews and Muslims, limiting their career opportunities and endangering their safety. This has led to many Christian Palestinian families emigrating to other countries, causing the Christian community in the Holy Land to dwindle.
When violence broke out in 2023, Beit Sahour’s tourism-reliant economy greatly suffered, and many families fell below the poverty line. JEO explains, “In addition to seeing their families struggle to put food on the table, children were filled with fear of the war. Several times rockets exploded over Beit Sahour. Children also were constantly seeing horrific images of war on their TVs and computers and hearing stories of war from the adults around them.”
Some of the kids’ parents have shared that their kids prefer coming to Connect Kids over any other activities! This JEO ministry has brought so many kids and their families together.
JEO saw the pain these children and their families were experiencing as well as the lack of spiritual support, and with the help of people like you, they established one of their Connect Kids discipleship programs in Beit Sahour.
At Connect Kids, around 30 children each week get the chance to learn deeply about God and the Bible, enjoy arts and crafts together, and play games—and feel safe. They engage with the gospel in fun ways, discovering practical ways for them to live out the lessons of love they learn from the Bible. And each child gets to bring home their own Bible! JEO ensures that any child from any background feels welcome and included.
One week, the Connect Kids team taught the children about Exodus 1-3, about how the Israelites were oppressed and enslaved by the king of Egypt before God moved to set them free. Along with this discussion, the team taught the children about bullying and the negative influence of this behavior on the one bullying as well as the one being bullied, encouraging the kids to be aware of the deeper psychological effects and to intervene with the love and kindness of Jesus Christ.
JEO shares, “One kid stood in front of all the other kids and stated that he mistreats others and bullies kids at his school. He pledged to stop bullying others and to change his attitude to a nicer one. Another kid also felt encouraged and did the same. Another boy shared how he felt bad when he was mistreated by other boys while playing soccer. After some time, when he was in a context where his friends bullied another boy, he demonstrated a Christian attitude. He said, ‘I don’t want the other kid to feel the same as I did.’”
Since JEO started Connect Kids in Beit Sahour, around 200 children have been reached with the gospel of Jesus Christ through their weekly program as well as special seasonal outreach events. Most of the children who come to the weekly program have given their lives to Christ, and one little girl even finished reading the entire children’s Bible the team had given her. Her enthusiasm to learn inspired her family, and now her cousin has joined the program as well.
As the children build bonds with each other, so do their parents. “Christian families and children in the area have gotten to know one another and are pursuing discipleship for their children together,” strengthening the Christian community in their town,” says the JEO team, “We pray that these children will grow to be pillars for Christ in their community and future leaders of the church in the Holy Land.”
