By Hannah Breckbill
Reprinted with permission; first published Feb. 19, 2025 for
Humble Hands Harvest. See Blog:
www.humblehandsharvest.substack.com
(Humble Hands Harvest)
For the past couple of weeks I’ve been spending my days with
the same 6 fellow volunteers on a farm near Bethlehem in Palestine. Five of
them are from Europe and in their 60s and 70s and the other is my age and from
Australia. All of them are delightful and impressive and committed and kind.
Two have lived in income-sharing intentional communities. Three are active on
climate justice, participating in big direct actions in European capitols. One
is a Christian theologian by training, another an electrical engineer, another
an interior designer. Another spent a big portion of his life as a squatter. I
am a farmer.
We all live on the farm, each in our own private
unheated-but-online cave, with a shared kitchen, washing facility, and
composting toilets. We’ve settled into a pattern of making our own breakfasts,
sharing lunch usually provided by the Palestinian family whose farm we’re
supporting, and then often sharing a light supper of leftovers in the meeting
cave after dark. So we have had a lot of time to get to know each other!
With more and more intimacy we’ve delved into ever-deeper
conversations about why we’re here. Frankly, this project that we’re supporting
seems futile. The Israeli settlers are expanding their construction to right
next to the farm, just over the fence (on Palestinian owned land), in defiance
of law and even Israeli court orders. (Huh—an interesting parallel with what
the President of the United States is up to). Tonight, new street lamps, 20
feet from the fence, went on for the first time: the illegal settlement
construction is on the grid while this Palestinian farm is not given the
opportunity to be!
The family who owns the farm is familiar with the settler
playbook: they’re dreading a day that the settlers confiscate the farm, declare
it a closed military zone or some such, because it is too close to the “facts
on the ground” of settlement construction, regardless of the fact-on-the-ground
that this farm has been here, owned by the same Palestinian family, for more
than 100 years.
Though it feels futile, hard to imagine that this farm will
still exist in five years, nevertheless we are here now. And we have to
acknowledge that, had international accompaniment not been present on this land
for the past 20+ years, this farm would be gone by now. So what we are doing
does have a purpose, even though when we look into the future we don’t see much
hope.
Years ago, when I was being trained with Christian
Peacemaker Teams, I remember the director saying, “We are not called to be
effective. We are called to be faithful.” I remember this often, and it orients
me in an important way when I’m not able to see hope. I can still have faith,
and I don’t have to judge my actions based on what they accomplish, but rather
based on the values they embody.
I find it interesting that so many of the volunteers here
are working for climate justice, which has a similar flavor of futility to
trying to keep Palestinian farmers on the land: momentum is dramatically,
terrifyingly against us. And yet, if we have a belief in the possibility of
humans living well with each other on this finite planet, it is clear where to
stand, in both cases.
It’s an honor to act in faithful solidarity alongside this
radical and diverse group of people, and to become globally connected through
acquaintance with the particularities of individuals. I’m reveling in the
diphthongs of Dutch and the question that has yet to be resolved, “is this
sarcasm or is this an Australian accent?” It’s fun to see where my new friends
see U.S. Americanness in me (my skill at shuffling cards, for one), and where
they compliment me with a “you’re not like most Americans!” (I’m quiet,
alright?) It’s also a delight to do mental math on the fly to communicate in
Celsius, kilometers, liters, and grams—it’s the least I can do when everyone’s
communicating in English for me!
All of life happens one day at a time. Standing with faith
in a seemingly-futile place is feeling like a worthwhile way to spend my days.
I feed the ducks, I saw up firewood, I pick rocks out of the garden soil, I
make food and do dishes. If nothing else, our presence here keeps up the faith
and the fight of the Palestinian family we’re supporting, and I think I speak
for all of us internationals that being able to be part of the struggle in this
simple way is far more meaningful than we even hoped.
Hannah Breckbill is co-farmer
at Humble Hands Harvest. She is a member
of the Friends tradition in northeast Iowa.
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