First Presbyterian Church

Elias Abu Ghanima, vice-principal of Mar Elias High School in Ibillin, Israel, will be a guest of First Presbyterian Church of Santa Barbara on September 29, 2009. His visit is sponsored by the Pilgrims of Ibillin, which is a United States based support group for the schools founded by Archbishop Elias Chacour in Ibillin, in the Galilee region of Northern Israel. (http://www.pilgrimsofibillin.org)

Abu Ghanima will speak about his experiences as an Arab Christian who is also an Israeli citizen. He will describe what it was like to live under the threat of rocket attacks during the 2006 war between Hezbollah and the Israel Defense Force. His talk will also include sharing the vision, the challenges, and the successes of educating 1,200 Christian, Muslim, and Jewish high school students to prepare them to be peacemakers in a land that knows little peace.

In 1965 Father Elias Chacour became priest of St. George Melkite Catholic Church in Ibillin, where Elias Abu Ghanima and his family were parishioners. At that time the school in the village of Ibillin was very poor quality and only went up to 8th grade.  Father Chacour dared to dream that he could build a high school on the mountain across from the village of Ibillin, and one Sunday he took young Elias Abu Ghanima outside to share his dream. Thirtee-year-old Elias thought that was impossible because the mountain, which was called the Mountain of the Monster, was a scary place of wild animals and caves. But the very next year Father Chacour’s promise became true when Elias was in the first class of ninth graders to enter the new Mar Elias High School.

After graduation from Mar Elias High School, Elias went to Hebrew University in Jerusalem where he majored in English literature and theater. He received his B.A. degree and continued to study toward an M.A. in English. The first Intifada, in the late 1980s, interrupted his pursuit of a master’s degree so he returned to his home in Ibillin. Father Chacour invited Elias to join the faculty of the Mar Elias High School where he has been an English teacher for twenty years, coordinator of the English department for thirteen years, and vice-principal for eight years. In June 2006 Elias Abu Ghanima completed his work for the master’s degree in Educational Administration, with distinction.

Elias has received many honors from the schools for being an outstanding English teacher whose students have scored the highest grades in the nationally administered Bagrut (Matriculation) exams. He is recognized by faculty colleagues and students alike to be an outstanding role model as teacher, administrator, and citizen.

Elias Abu Ghanima wrote the following in a letter to Don Griggs, a board member and past executive director of Pilgrims of Ibillin: The best hour of my day is when I wake up and leave for school. I don’t feel that I am going to work. Instead, I have the feeling that I am going from one home to another, which gives me great pleasure and joy. I pray that my students graduate to become persons whom we can be proud of because they carry the vision and the ethos of Mar Elias with them. They are the future for our people and we want their future to be prosperous and promising. My hope is that they live by the teachings of the Lord, which has to do with love, acceptance, and forgiveness. We nurture the students with Arab Christian values and ethics so that they will be able to live with acceptance, understanding and respect for all people. To be able to visit the United States is a dream come true. I want most to meet with people to say “thank you” for all of your support. I expect to meet wonderful people whose prayers and support have enabled us to survive hardships in order to share the true meaning of love and hope among all the people of the Holy Land. And, I want to share with those I meet the good news about what is happening at the Mar Elias schools in Ibillin.”