Faithful Recreation

On display at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church is a work of art unlike any other in the world. 

It is a historically accurate model of Jerusalem in the days of Jesus’ life, hand-carved from olive wood by an artist whose family has lived in the Holy Land for generations and generations. 

As the artist was making the carving, he knew that he wanted it to belong to St. Luke’s because of the deep friendship he had formed with recently retired pastor Bill Barnes over a few years and thousands of miles. 

“They call this ‘Bill’s Model,’ and they tease me and tease me,” Barnes says. “But everybody who comes to see it says, ‘That’s an amazing thing.’” 

FAST FRIENDS

Barnes has taken groups from St. Luke’s to the Holy Land since the 1980s. He stopped for a while in the 90s, during a time of unrest — not because of fear, but because some of the most important sites were closed to pilgrims and tourists.

“You don’t want to take people who are going to go once in their life and they can’t go to Bethlehem or they can’t go to Nazareth,” Barnes said. “I wanted to go when I knew we could get to every place.”

About six years ago, Barnes met a new guide: a Palestinian Christian named Wisam Salsaa who lived in Beit Sahour, a suburb of Bethlehem. He has been Barnes’ guide in that area ever since.

“He was assigned to me on one trip; we became friends — like brothers,” Barnes said.

In addition to guiding pilgrims and tourists in Bethlehem, Salsaa is an olive wood carver.

“(Salsaa) is so renowned, that if you see other olive wood and then you see his, it’s like night and day,” Barnes said. “He is the premier olive carver in the world, because all of the olive wood is carved in Bethlehem.”

Olive wood is dense, heavy and difficult to work with, but Salsaa includes detail in his pieces that other artists often avoid or don’t have the skill to carve. When Pope John Paul II visited Bethlehem during his papacy, the city presented him with a gift: one of Salsaa’s carvings.

Salsaa learned the trade from his father, who, because he was a Palestinian, was denied access to Jerusalem after he retired, even though he had worked there most of his life.

“That’d be like working in Orlando, and you lived in Ocoee, and you went to work every day,” Barnes said. “When you retire, you’re no longer allowed to go into Orlando.”

But he knew Jerusalem so well that he carved a large model of the city in its modern state by memory. Just before his father died, Salsaa was inspired by the current-day model to create a similar but smaller model of the Jerusalem that Jesus knew.

Salsaa’s wife, an architect, first designed the base of the model to correspond with the exact topography of the city. Then, Salsaa carved each individual structure in the city: the city wall, the temple, King Herod’s palace, the high priest’s house and more. 

One day while Barnes was visiting, Salsaa took him into his workshop to see the ancient model under construction.

“He said, ‘Bill, I want you to have this at St. Luke’s,’” Barnes said.

There were just two problems. Barnes didn’t know where the church would be able to put such a large work of art, and with the piece valued at about $150,000, there wasn’t a place for it in the budget, either.

Salsaa offered to sell it to St. Luke’s for $30,000, which was eventually split among three families from the church who volunteered as donors. Shipping was an additional $3,800, which was raised collaboratively by a number of people whom Barnes had taken on trips to the Holy Land throughout the years.

MAKING SPACE

In 2012, Salsaa shipped the model — even before he had been paid for it, and also before Barnes knew where he was going to put it. Salsaa said he had needed to free up the space in his workshop.

Barnes was in New York when he got a call from his administrative assistant at the church.

“Your model’s here,” she said. “It weighs 900 pounds, and they won’t take it off the truck. And where are we supposed to put it?”

Barnes suggested moving some furniture out of the way in the church office reception area. The carving has been there ever since.

St. Luke’s has plans for a new building on its campus, which will be used for a number of purposes. The building will house the Barnes Learning Center, which will include a biblical resource room and a place in the lobby where the model can be displayed with spotlights.

Barnes became the pastor at St. Luke’s in 1992. He retired from his pastoral work June 30, 2015, with the Rev. Jennifer Stiles Williams taking his place. Barnes will continue to lead at St. Luke’s as the director of the Center for Church Leadership.

Contact Catherine Sinclair at [email protected].

BY THE NUMBERS

3: The number of years it took to construct the model.

15: The number of trips Bill Barnes has taken to Israel.

900: The model’s weight in pounds.

$3,800: The cost to ship the model from Bethlehem to Windermere.

$150,000: The estimated value of the model.