When Jamil Zoughbi and Claudine Faltas answered God’s call, they never imagined the twists and turns their journey would take. Their lives in Bethlehem and Jerusalem weren’t that different from those of couples all over the world, deeply rooted in community, family and faith. But an unexpected question from a visiting Lutheran sparked a series of life-changing events, eventually leading them to Wartburg Theological Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa.
Zoughbi’s father had long been a friend of pastors and other people from the ELCA, despite the family’s Greek Catholic (as opposed to Greek Orthodox) background. Years earlier, the family had hosted a young man from the United States who was visiting Bethlehem.
“He didn’t have a place to sleep, so my dad invited him to stay with us,” Zoughbi said. “He stayed with us a long time.” Zoughbi began to consider their guest a brother, and the man returned every few years. Eventually he asked Zoughbi, a deacon in the Greek Catholic Church, “Would you consider becoming a Lutheran pastor?”
Initially Zoughbi declined, content to serve God in his existing capacity. But as he reflected on the question, he remained open to God’s will. “I told him, ‘I’m not going to chase this, but if it’s God’s will, I’ll say yes,’” he said.
Months later, with the help of connections at Wartburg, the Upstate New York Synod, and the encouragement of Khader Khalilia, now ELCA program director for Arab and Middle Eastern Ministries, the pieces began falling into place. Zoughbi found himself questioning God’s plan but trusting the process.
“I asked God, ‘Why change countries? Why change denominations?’” he said. “But even in my questioning, there was trust. Everything lined up: scholarships, housing, seminary.”
The transition wasn’t without challenges. Securing a visa to the United States can be daunting for Palestinians; most applications are rejected for minor reasons. Zoughbi collected every document the visa office might need, even those most would deem unnecessary.
Zoughbi knew his chances were slim and remembers praying prior to the interview: “God, you have two minutes. Either this lady declines us—and I don’t want to beg her, I don’t want to feel like leaving is my choice—or this lady accepts us.”
The interviewer asked where they were going, and Zoughbi answered that he was heading to Iowa to study. She asked Faltas if she was going to study at seminary, too, who hadn’t considered the possibility at the time. She asked the kids if they were excited to visit Iowa. Then, to Zoughbi’s surprise, she approved their visa. The process took less than two minutes.
“I asked God, ‘Why change countries? Why change denominations?’” he said. “But even in my questioning, there was trust. Everything lined up: scholarships, housing, seminary.”
Zoughbi and Faltas quit their jobs, packed up their lives and moved their family to Iowa. Life in the United States was exhilarating and disorienting. For Faltas, the journey clarified a long-standing calling.
“Since I was 17, I’ve felt the call to serve,” she said. “Whatever we are doing to serve God is a calling. I never thought about leading somewhere or being a pastor somewhere. Where God is calling me, I would be there serving God.”
In Jerusalem, God’s calling led her to be a teacher and later a social worker. But over time, she felt increasingly distant from her spiritual purpose. “I felt like I wanted more, and social work wasn’t serving my call,” she said. “I asked God, ‘How can I be closer to you and at the same time in this busy storm of life?’ I am trying to give my life, and I told God, ‘It’s in your hands.’”
In Iowa, Faltas began volunteering, teaching English, and helping in a kindergarten. But something was missing. “I prayed a lot and felt that God was helping me to return—again and again and again—to him,” she said.
Faltas noticed the road God had laid out for her, surrounding her with female pastors. “I had known about this before,” she said. “I knew this about Sally Azar (the first female pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land), but I never experienced it until this moment.”
The calling became clear and gentle, and Faltas enrolled at Wartburg, joining her husband in pursuing God’s call to rostered leadership.
The couple’s faith journey can lead people to ask “why,” but both Zoughbi and Faltas haven’t had that concern. This summer, the pastor of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Dubuque invited them to lead worship. Faltas presided over worship for the first time, and Zoughbi delivered the sermon.
“After that day, the ‘why’ was gone,” Zoughbi said. God wanted their house to be the home of not one pastor but two. That could never have happened in the Greek Catholic Church, where women cannot be pastors. “In the ELCA, it is possible,” he said. “It gives a way—I want to say, bigger than a way—for anyone to serve God without limitations.” That, for them, is the “why.”
“Whatever we are doing to serve God is a calling. I never thought about leading somewhere or being a pastor somewhere. Where God is calling me, I would be there serving God.”
Now the couple watch from the United States as their family members and friends endure the continuing violence of the Israeli assault on Gaza, the West Bank and other places in the Middle East. The experience has left them sleepless.
“Their day is our night, and our night is their day,” Zoughbi said. Especially in the early months after the attack, he said, the couple would be up in the middle of the night, making sure family members were well and safe.
For Christian families in the region, the struggle is more complex. Faltas said their family members back home couldn’t leave their settlement to go to their jobs. Some people bring food to Jewish settlers, others deliver aid to Palestinian Muslims, but no one provides for Christians.
Despite these challenges, Zoughbi and Faltas find solace inside the seminary community. Professors and classmates have gathered to listen to them, pray with them and create spaces for healing.
“We’ve learned to hold both realities—the fear and worry for our families and friends back home and the expectations of being students,” Zoughbi said. “It’s not completely learned, but we have been able to hold both of them. It’s hard to stay up all night and then listen to a lecture and write an assignment.”
After seminary, the couple hope to serve in Upstate New York. “I am looking forward to [mission development] and work with immigrants with every background and marginalized people, as we are one of them,” Zoughbi said. “We have experienced what it means to be in a different country and what it means to be a minority.”
For Faltas, the mission, while centered on God, also includes empowering Arab women to see themselves as leaders: “I want them to know it’s possible.”
