At the publishing house I directed for 24 years in Lebanon our chief translator and editor had unusual editorial skills. As a translator he never wrote a word until he was sure he understood the intention of the English author, and in the end the work seemed to have originated in Arabic. The classical language is difficult, and some Arab writers liked to impress the public with obscure words and fancy sentences. But the people in our market often told me that Jeries Delleh’s beautiful, simple style made it a pleasure to read our materials. Only now it occurs to me that this was an expression of his humility.
A quiet, self-effacing man, much loved in the community, he had a soft voice, a soft manner, a soft step, and a calm face. A Palestinian Christian, educated in Palestine, he had moved as a young man to Jordan with a conviction that God wanted him to go there and preach. When he made this decision in 1943 or ‘44, he had a very good job in Haifa, and his family felt he had lost his mind. For sure he did not anticipate what was soon to happen to Palestine.
Peaceful Exile
The establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 stranded him, making it nearly impossible to travel back to his home village of Kofer Yasif where he had left a mother, two brothers and two little sisters. Until now his children remember that he sometimes cried and told them how he missed his family. Once his mother and brothers were able to cross the border for only a day to visit them in Jordan. That day his children had a few hours to know their grandmother.
For 28 years Jeries did not see his home or his sisters. In 1974 he was finally able to travel to Palestine. Now a stranger whom no one knew, he walked up to the house of one of his sisters and told her, “I am your brother Jeries.” They spent one emotional week, sharing tears of joy for their meeting and grief for all they had lost. I remember his telling me this story in my office at the publishing house. By that time I had heard many stories from many Palestinians, so the lack of bitterness in his voice was notable.
He never lost sight of the fact that he had first left home to preach the gospel in Jordan. Everything had started with that. Now trained in theology, he took seriously the servanthood taught by Jesus. In fact, before I knew him well, I had heard a little story about Abu Sleiman, as most of us knew him. In Jordan another man said something insulting to him, said it outside of a church in the presence of an American missionary, then walked on. The two of them just stood there silently for a moment, then Abu Sleiman looked at the missionary and quoted John the Baptist, whose mission was only to prepare the public to hear Jesus. Softly Abu Sleiman said, “He must increase, and I must decrease.”
Once it happened that an American organization in Beirut held a demonstration promoting the rights of the Palestinians to go back to their country. This event caused the two of us to have the only discussion we ever had on this subject. He told me that the demonstration made him happy. It was the one time I ever heard him acknowledge that he had a right to his country and his home. He appreciated a protest against the injustice that had been done.
I don’t remember anymore the exact content of our discussion, and I don’t want to put words in his mouth, but I was left with the impression that he had struggled and struggled still. The Zionists had come and laid claim to the land where he and his ancestors were born. But he was a Christian. That was basic and more important to his existence than anything else. If the promises in the Old Testament were forever promises, as some people believed, what was he, a Palestinian, supposed to do? If, being a Christian, he was required to walk away quietly, he would do it. He didn’t need to feel that it was fair. I had difficulty understanding this. But, as an American I had been taught to stand up for myself, and what Abu Sleiman knew best was how to accept in humility whatever life gave him.
In fact, he had a reputation in Lebanon for mediating personal conflicts. He was trusted to sit with two people who were at odds with one another over something personal and help them to agree. A real peacemaker. (Too bad the political parties didn’t use him!)
He was not a bold man, but he was brave and loyal. Our office was in West Beirut, with most of our staff living on the other side of the East-West dividing line. When none of us could come to work because of fighting, he came just to protect the property by his presence. One day, just as he was leaving the office, a shell fell, and a little piece of shrapnel nicked his chin, leaving a scar.
Friend of the Muslims
When the Musaitbeh Baptist Church lost its pastor, he became the leader and stayed with the people whatever happened, though he could have gone to a safer place. Many Christians did leave West Beirut, but Abu Sleiman, who had a Jordanian passport and a temporary visa, loved the city and the Muslims who surrounded him in the neighborhood.
In the first year of the war shells fell frequently in Musaitbeh, and the inhabitants of the building where he lived would go down to the basement. At first he did not go, thinking that he was the only Christian in the building and his presence might feel awkward for someone, since the fighting had become Muslim against Christian at that point. He told me the story about a night when the artillery shells were raining down, and the people in the basement sent someone up to tell him that he must come down to the shelter. So because he was invited, he went. It meant a lot to him, that the Muslims were concerned about his safety.
He had a special Muslim friend in the area, an old hajji (one who has been to the hajj) who owned a little market in the building behind theirs. Abu Sleiman loved to walk around the corner and chat with him as he bought vegetables. He was deeply grieved when this man died, a casualty of the shelling.
Man of Faith
Abu Sleiman’s son, when asked for some memory, told me how he as a child had been impressed with his dad’s faith that God would take care of them and supply their needs in all situations and somehow God did. He recalled that once in Amman his dad needed to go down to the center of the city from the suburb where they lived. He was expecting a check that had been mailed to him at the Baptist Book Store, and he asked Sleiman, a small boy at the time, to go with him. As they walked to the bus stop he told Sleiman that he did not have any money for the bus fare. The child said, “But it is too far to walk.” Abu Sleiman told him, “We will get on the bus and sit in the back. The man who collects the fare starts at the front. We may ride a long way, before he gets to us.”
Sleiman sat beside his dad, a little worried and afraid. His dad told him, “The worst thing that can happen is that he puts us off the bus.” But when Sleiman looked up at his face, Jeries was smiling.
The conductor progressed from the front to the back, collecting the fares, as Abu Sleiman had said he would. When he got to them, he said, “The man on the front row paid your fare.” Then he turned his back. Sleiman again saw that little smile on his dad’s face.
It turned out that the passenger who paid their fare had once heard his dad preach in a small city an hour from Amman. It just happened that he had business in Amman that day, and it just happened that he was on the bus and had glanced over his shoulder at the right moment to see Jeries and his son board through the back door.
What his daughter Aman remembers is his response to the death of her mother, Wedad, who suffered a heart attack at the age of 57. Aman remembers that she and Abu Sleiman stood over her body, still in her bed, and noted the peaceful expression on her face. Then he lifted his arms toward heaven and began to pray, thanking God for Wedad’s life, for her faith and her faithfulness, for their beautiful years together. He and Aman were rejoicing, with tears streaming down their faces. Later, he would weep and say how he missed her, even telling Aman that he wanted to go soon and be with her and with Jesus. Had I even suspected that this might happen, I would have been deeply distressed, because we had no one else with his skills or his spirit on our staff.
Successful Author
In the early 80’s I challenged Abu Sleiman to write a history of the evangelical movement that had started in Palestine and swept through Jordan and Lebanon, resulting in the establishment of many new churches and a growing excitement about faith. I can’t really take credit for the idea; someone else pointed out to me that he had witnessed a great deal of this movement. Of course, writing a book was something he had never done been before, a ton of work and not on his job description. Knowing that it might prove to be very difficult, our dear editor began this major task and plugged along, squeezing it in between other tasks for which we had deadlines. And one day he brought me a piece of it, a handwritten manuscript, expressing as he handed it to me some uncertainty, suggesting that it might not be good and maybe it was just something he could not do.
I read most of it, going into his office several times for help, and it seemed to me that there was nothing wrong, though I did think the organization could be improved. I grabbed some clean paper, a pair of scissors and a bottle of glue and went to work. All I did was hack the manuscript into several pieces and rearrange them. After he left for the day I went into his office and lay it on his desk.
Sometime in the middle of the next day he strolled into my office and said, “Mrs. Fuller. Did I write that?”
Happily amused, I said, “Of course you wrote it. Every word.”
He said, “It’s beautiful,” and went back to his office. I will never forget that, because I know it is a wonderful thing to write something and then realize that it is beautiful.
A few days later he came in again and said, “Mrs. Fuller. I know now. I can do it.”
When I saw tears in his eyes I could not speak.
He finished the book, but before we could get it published he suffered a cerebral accident, lay in a coma for a few days and died. He had lived only fifteen months without Wedad. That part of his story is in my book, In Borrowed Houses. The bottom line reads, “I would have given an arm to have him back.”
It took us years to recover from that loss. Or maybe we never did.