Thirty Years Later, the Garden Still Blooms

One teacher. One school in Jerusalem. Thirty years of relationship.

A Palestinian pottery plate dated 1997 still sits among Rev. Dr. Tracy L. Hughes’ treasured belongings. Nearby are photographs of smiling schoolchildren, teachers, and a young Global Mission Intern who could not yet know how deeply one year in East Jerusalem would shape her life and ministry. Those keepsakes tell a much larger story.

As Global Ministries celebrates its 30th anniversary, Tracy celebrates a 30-year relationship with Rawdat El-Zuhur Elementary School, a longtime sponsorship partner in East Jerusalem. Her reflection offers a glimpse of what can grow from relationships nurtured across years, cultures, and generations. Rawdat El-Zuhur means “Garden of Flowers,” and for Tracy, the children and teachers she met planted something that has continued to bloom throughout her ministry.

In the summer of 1996, Tracy walked through the metal gates of Rawdat El-Zuhur for the first time. As a Global Mission Intern, she came to teach Palestinian Christian and Muslim children alongside their teachers. She had no idea, she says, how profoundly they would transform her life and call to ministry.

“My faith was radicalized the year I taught in East Jerusalem,” Tracy remembers. For her, that meant a faith increasingly rooted in justice, solidarity, and a deeper understanding of the resilience of people who continue to hope in the midst of hardship. The teachers and students taught her about resilience grounded in faith—whether Islam or Christianity—and helped deepen her understanding of justice and peace.

Rawdat El-Zuhur has long created a place where Palestinian Muslim and Christian children learn together in an environment shaped by what Tracy remembers as “cooperation, kindness, compassion, peace, strength of character, and mutual respect”.

For Tracy, however, some of the most enduring lessons happened outside the classroom.

Every afternoon, she walked toward the Old City with a small group of students who enthusiastically became her Arabic teachers. First, Musa would catch his bus. Mohamed would meet his father. Then Tracy and Amir would continue into the Old City until they reached his father’s shop.

Along the way, the children pointed to objects and called out their Arabic names so quickly that Tracy finally had to limit them to only a few new words each day. “I honestly loved those walks home,” she remembers.

Tracy remembers teaching English and physical education, learning Palestinian culture from her students and fellow teachers, and watching fifth graders learn the Dabkeh, the traditional Palestinian dance they would perform at their sixth-grade graduation. She also witnessed the difficult realities surrounding the children and their families. Teachers and students sometimes had to pass through military security checkpoints simply to get to and from school, and there were days when violence made holding school impossible. Yet what remained with Tracy was their determination. “I was always amazed at their tenacious spirits and zeal for education,” she writes. “Nothing was going to keep them from school.”

The school also taught Tracy something about honoring difference. Fridays and Sundays were days away from school so Muslim and Christian children and teachers could observe their respective religious traditions. She appreciated the intentional care given to each person’s religious identity while focusing on equipping the children to build a better future.

Thirty Years Later

Some relationships refuse to remain in the past. Tracy still keeps photographs of her students and her co-teacher, Rana. She still has the beautiful Palestinian pottery plate presented to her when she completed the academic year in 1997.

Years later, Tracy was able to reconnect with friends from Rawdat.  She and Rana shared tea with Amir one time while he was home from medical school. They listened as he talked about his studies and his dream of becoming a doctor.

Then, in 2026, another remarkable connection arrived. Salwa Zananiri, from Rawdat, sent Tracy a photograph of Amir and Hasim—two of the fifth graders Tracy had known. Both had become doctors with families of their own.

The Child and Elder Sponsorship Program has sought to nurture relationships for 30 years–not simply sponsorships, but relationships that connect people, communities, and generations. Behind each assignment, gift, report, and photograph are lives that intersect across generations. Children grow up, but they too remember connections made through sponsorship. They remember special gifts, cards, letters and prayers.

For Tracy, her year at Rawdat El-Zuhur profoundly altered the trajectory of her ministry. Over 28 years of ordained ministry, she has served local United Church of Christ congregations and worked internationally through Christian Peacemaker Teams and as a Global Ministries Mission Volunteer, with ministry experiences in Palestine, Chiapas, Mexico, Colombia, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. She returned to Palestine yearly from 2000 through 2004 and later served a full year in Hebron in 2006.

Today, amid the continuing violence and profound suffering experienced by Palestinians, Tracy carries concern for everyone there. “The People of Palestine will always and forever have a place in my heart,” she writes, describing them as her teachers of “solidarity, tenacious faith, and resilience in the face of unimaginable hardship,” while continuing to celebrate life as they reach for their dreams.

And Tracy’s story with Rawdat El-Zuhur may not yet be finished. She dreams of returning to the Garden of Flowers to reconnect with a community that helped shape who she became.

Thirty years after that first walk through the school gates, the photographs remain. The pottery remains. The friendships remain. The calling remains.

And the Garden of Flowers is still blooming.