JERICHO – This Arab town may look like a rocky, barren desert, but after five years of laboring in obscurity, American missionary Karen Dunham has seen it become an oasis of hope and salvation in the Palestinian territories.

“Now Jericho is given into the hands of the Lord,” Dunham told Israel Today. “There isn’t anywhere you can’t talk about Jesus.”

While most Palestinian towns—and Israel for that matter—are closed off to evangelism, Jericho has been plied open by Dunham’s ministry. She lived, with her teenage son, in a refugee camp, distributing humanitarian aid, killing scorpions and suffering water shortages and blackouts with the people while some Moslems tried to run her out of town.

She runs a church attended by up to 300 Palestinians. No one leaves empty-handed—but no one gets humanitarian aid without also getting a tract and a Bible.