Israel in Song

Our hearts remain in Israel.

An Opportunity to Look and Listen

December 6th, Anna-Lee and I were given the rich opportunity to share with our home church about our trip to Israel.
What a blessing.
You can actually listen to our talk at this link:
http://www.wocc.ca/Listen
Our learning will never be done...

Over but not over

We've been home for a few days now.
Doctor's appointments, jet lag, and working at reestablishing routine has been our game plan.
The things learned in Israel do not stop with the blog though.
My learning will come out in Sunday School teaching, in the way I read the Bible, in my prayers, and a host of ways I likely do not yet know.
If you are interested in continuing listening to our thoughts, drop me a comment and I'll send you the url to my and/or Anna-Lee's main blog site.
Thanks for joining us in Israel!
Shalom

Tower of David

A couple days ago we met a friend's daughter outside King David Citadel or also known as The Tower of David Museum which includes the Citadel.
It is intriguing and fascinating from the outside, so today, on our day off, Anna-Lee and I decided to venture in.

If it is this magnificent on the outside, what is on the inside?

Inside the courtyard of the citadel, now made into a museum of the history of Jerusalem dating back 3,000 years.

Giving us a map and a "phone" with a  prerecorded self guided tour programmed in English,, Anna-Lee read the map to direct us to the 36 every-which-way stations. Each staion was a history lesson of a particular time period.

I thought I'd done most of the stairs we'd have to do this trip. But no, we decided to climb every stair possible to the highest point in one of the towers - station 4. Here we looked over a 360 degree panorama of Jerusalem. This photo shows the Temple Mount, Dome of the Rock and the inside walls of Old Jerusalem.

Inside the walls of the citadel are rooms with the history of Jerusalem in all the different time periods - Ottoman, Byzantine etc.
This is one place I would enjoy returning to as we only got about 15% of it done.

It helped me use up my remaining shekels however, as we prepared to depart to the airmport and begin the long route home

Waiting at our guest house patio for our bus to take us to the airport

Saying goodbye to one of the four feral cats in our guesthouse as it waits to sneak into the dining room.

Waiting with our team at Ben Gurion airport - Tel Aviv for our 1 a.m. 12 hour flight. Linda was selected as the sacrificial lamb to represent our team for security purposes by the security supervisor. Glad I paid attention to names as I was quizzed on the name of our tour guide and bus driver, where we'd stayed, what we did, how many on the team, what was our connection to one another, where were the other people from, if anyone else joined the team during our tour...

There were around ten stations to security. Just when we thought we were through, we had another one! Other questions I was asked were if I had an Israeli passport, if I was a part of a Jewish organization, how did I know the tour leader and if he was part of a Jewish organization, why did I want to go on the tour, and why now?

An incredible experience from beginning to end.

Shabbat Shalom - Part 2 of our day

S

Celebrating Shabbat tonight with Rifka, an Israeli Mom, and three of her four daughters.

Breaking bread

Shabbat dinner held at our guest house

A lovely time of worship, fellowship and food.
Anna-Lee slept most of the day, so managed well at the dinner.
Off to bed.

Images of Old Jerusalem

Anna-Lee is pretty run down this morning so our guide took us to a clinic nearby on Greek Street to see a doctor. The clinic was closed. Also clinic number 2 was closed and so was the pharmacy.
It is Friday - some getting ready for Shabbat. Others take it as a weekend day. Some open late.

We decided today to just take it at our own speed, so we did not go with the majority of the group to the Jewish market on this our first free day..

Instead we wandered the nearby area of Old Jerusalem catching some images.

The money changer is quite active here in Old Jerusalem. We need NIS - New Israeli Shekels.Money changers seem to be on every street corner, but this is the one we were told to trust by our guide and guesthouse. Granny getting some shekels for lunch time.

Shop owners opening up by putting their wares on display. This is in the Armenian quarter.

 

Jewish men in black and motorcycles - both very common. I think the Orthodox Jewish men walk even faster than our tour guide!

Within Old Jerusalem there is an upscale outdoor "mall." Names recognizable in our Canadian malls, very posh, Also lots of cafes. Sculptures for sale at the door to every store.

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Columbia, Adidas, Nike, Mango, Shoppers Drug Mart, American Eagle, Clark shoes...

And of course everywhere are the soldiers. Some Israelis we think were in training at this location, as groups of men were carrying huge back packs with rocks in them.

One of the more amazing sculptures

Granny with her latte.

This surprised me. A very common sight to see the Orthodox Jewish men pushing the strollers. Definitely not out for a leisurely stroll though. Before you can click the camera, they are gone.

Taking time to rest.
Sounds of Old Jerusalem through our guest house window.
church bells
cats meowing
Muslim call to prayer
Hebrew language
birds

...And on the street

• many languages - Hebrew and Aramaic, and Greek for those who live here, and then for tourists, every language, tongue and nation.
• shop owners coming out to ask you to come be their "first customer" or "let me show you my store" or "where are you from?" or "what do you need?" or "what is your favorite thing in my store?" 
• Men standing on the streets asking "do you need a guide?"
• Taxi's driving by asking "taxi, taxi, do you need a taxi?"
•  scooters zooming by
• Muslim call to prayer
• church bells

Mount of Olives, Cats, and Tombs

OK. Some of our posts have been a bit heavy because quite frankly, Israel is a place of depth.
It is also a place of cats.
We have not gone anywhere where we have not seen feral cats. 

At every hotel including wandering the dining rooms, sleeping on a patio chair, and waking us up in the night with their cat fights.

on the roads and even on the wheel of a stopped tour bus we walked past

 

and in a first century tomb we looked at.

Speaking of this tomb... this was fascinating for me. It is not at all what the Bible pictures I have seen portray.

Looking at a first century tomb minus the roof. It would have been a cave

In the Old Testament, the tombs would have had the bodies stacked up on top of one another. In the first century, there was a family tomb which you see here. But, in each tomb there are these nicches ) the holes in the walls). This is where bone boxes would be put. Sounds all dreary and gross but wait.
First, they lay the body in the tomb wrapped in clothes and spices. On the third day they would normally come back to check on the body and make sure the person was really dead. Think Lazarus. Dead for four days. Very important because they would have already checked to make sure he was really dead.
Now think Jesus. The women come back on the third day as is custom to check that the body is dead. And it is gone!
But also think Jesus. Not having the family tomb.
Just as a PS, the body then stayed in the tomb for one year, then once decayed, the bones would be put in a bone box into one of the niches.
Our guide tells us we can tell a lot by a culture by their burial customs.
As Greek mentality came into this area, the wealthy started to get their own coffins and become more separate from family.

We were up on the Mount of Olives today with lots more teaching, however here is a quick taste of some of the sights.

We don't have a sign like this outside our church! But here, signs like this are common.

Line up for garden tomb view. Not the tomb of Jesus though. In case you think no one is coming to Israel because of the "situation." We have seen tours from Florida, Nigeria, Switzerland, Austria, Norway, Italy, France....

Devotional time with Alan Gilman, our tour leader, at the Garden tomb location.

View of Old Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives

There are 8 gates in the Jerusalem wall. This is the Eastern gate - the only one that is closed.

 Anna-Lee is feeling pretty sick tonight with her cough and aches and exhaustion so she is unable to blog tonight.

The weather changes, from warmish in the sun, then it clouds over and the wind picks up and rains. T-shirts, to sweaters to jackets and raincoats...