Before dawn in Gaza, the sea breathes against the shore. Smoke still hangs in the air, the color of ash and morning. Somewhere, a church bell rings—small, cracked, but insistent. Inside, people gather among the broken pews. They light candles in jars, each flame trembling in the wind that seeps through shattered windows.

In the flicker of that light, you can see what survival looks like: a priest pouring water over the head of a newborn, a woman kneeling beside a friend’s grave, a child tracing a cross in the dust. Faith here has no luxury—it is breath and bread and blood. And still, they pray. They are the living among the dead.

“Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; He has risen.”
— Luke 24 : 5

In Gaza, new life is not a holiday—it is a daily decision. The people who remain are mostly refugees, descendants of those who fled their villages in 1948 and never returned. Now, their own children grow up surrounded by ruins older than they are.

The churches here—St. Porphyrius and Holy Family—are sanctuaries in the truest sense. When bombs fall, neighbors of all faiths come seeking refuge beneath their stone arches. They sleep on floors, sing lullabies to children, share water, bread, and silence. At night, priests walk among them, whispering the psalms: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…” And when morning comes, they sweep the dust, tend the wounded, bury the dead, and begin again.

“I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live.”
— John 11 : 25

If Christ were here in flesh today, He would walk through these ruins. He would touch the wounded and sit with the mourning. He would bless the bread passed from hand to trembling hand. And He would weep—because hope is born through tears.

The power of this place is not in its strength but its softness: the people who refuse to let suffering turn to hatred, who rebuild their altars again and again, who keep faith not because it is easy, but because they cannot imagine life without it.

In the midst of devastation, Gaza’s Christians still sing. They sing for the dead. They sing for the still living. They sing because the act itself defies the logic of despair. Each note is a protest, a prayer, a promise: Love will not surrender to fear.

Every Easter, the faithful of Gaza gather in the courtyard of St. Porphyrius. They carry their candles into the night and wait for the flame to be passed from hand to hand. In that moment, light travels faster than grief. It fills the courtyard, the alleys, the sky. The wall of darkness trembles.

This is what life looks like here: not victory, but endurance.
Not escape, but presence. The dawn always comes late in Gaza—but it comes.

This Advent, we light a red candle for Gaza—for the churches turned to shelters, for the families who have lost everything but love, for the faith that refuses to die.

Light a candle.
Pray for Gaza.
Because new life is not just an event—it’s what happens every time someone chooses love instead of hate, hope instead of despair.

Still, Christ is born among those the world forgets.
Still, light finds a way through stone and steel.