HCCC Student Leadership Institute

Dear College Administrators, Students and Professors,

The Holy Land Christian College Community (HCCC) aims to build vibrant student groups across the United States that are dedicated to service on behalf of Holy Land Christians and the preservation of the Mother Church. As an ecumenical Christian student movement, we seek to educate our campus communities about the plight facing Christians in the Holy Land, as well as the numerous ways to actively support the Christian presence in the region.

In our second year since being established at Georgetown, George Washington and Xavier Universities, we are looking for motivated student leaders to join us as we embark on an ambitious national campaign.

On Friday 21 October, HCCC will be convening a Student Leadership Institute in conjunction with the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation's (HCEF) seventh annual International Conference – United by Faith for Action. Within the International Conference.s setting, we will introduce student leaders to the work and goals of HCCC and the plight of Christians in the Holy Land. In so doing, we are looking to train a new generation of collegiate representatives in developing HCCC campus chapters and programs. Building on Friday.s Student Leadership Institute and the HCEF conference, HCCC representatives will reconvene for a Young Adults Workshop on Saturday afternoon. We encourage students to attend both the Friday morning Institute and the Saturday afternoon Workshop. Students who attend Friday.s Institute will receive free admission to the HCEF conference.

As the HCCC, we work to support the numerous humanitarian, educational, outreach, and faith initiatives of the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation (HCEF), a non-profit, charitable, 501 (c)(3) organization, within our campus communities. Furthermore, we hope to nourish our faith, ecumenical understanding, and awareness of our religious heritage through service on behalf of the Holy Land Christian community.

After two thousand years, Christian families are still living and worshipping in the land where Jesus was born, died, and resurrected. Christian Palestinians, the living stones, are not converts to Christianity. They are the descendents of the first Christians. Christians live in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth and other places in the Palestinian Territories and Israel. They represent the spectrum of Christianity through Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant communities. Together, they comprise the Mother Church. They have maintained a vibrant, continuous Christian presence in the region, but social, economic, and political obstacles threaten their continued existence as the living stones. The reality of daily suffering and poor economic prospects has prompted many to leave the land that their families have inhabited for centuries, the land where Jesus Christ our Savior was born. The Christian population of the Holy land, the living stones of the faith, has been reduced to a mere 2% today, from 18% in 1948. As a result, the very existence of living Christian communities in the Holy Land is threatened.