Outside the very modern and comfortable YMCA in Basel.   I hooked up with two other chaps from here, one is from Argentina and one is Chinese.

Just about 11pm, New Year’s Eve, this church had people on a balcony doing playing brass instruments for a while, then there was a church service at 11.30, instead, we headed down to the river.   The city was treated to a pretty nice fireworks display which lasted about 20 minutes, some of the pyrotechnics were coming from a different direction from some distance away, maybe from France or Germany which are only less than a mile away from here.

Had a bit of a sleep in, although didn’t actually drink the night before, took a wander down for breakfast, my new friends were not there, as they were heading to Italy.

This was part of breakfast in the canteen type area   Actually only 2 small pieces of cheese were laid out at a time on the table, as if people might of been pinching it and putting in a bag for lunch later.

Later I got to head to my good friend Matthew’s house for lunch, he introduced me to Raclette for lunch…

Raclette is cheese put in a small purpose designed table-top grill in small metal shovel type things, once melted your scrape it off onto your plate and serve with potatoes and other vegetables.   I was warned that non-Swiss people tend to not able to eat that much, he was right, I had 3 and half pieces, I was full, I guess eating cheese with the Swiss is like trying to playing drinking games with Russian people!

I got on a tram back to the centre of Basel and walked to the Youth Hostel to pack my things and get a train to Interlaken, a small town surrounded by the Swiss Alps.

More soon…

http://muslims4jesus.wordpress.com/2012/01/15/ugandan-pastor-treated-at-israeli-hospital-after-attack/

I think this hospital is meant to be the most advanced in the whole of the Middle East/Africa region.   Its wonderful that this man can get treatment there after pledging support for Israel in his home country.

Genesis 12:3 -And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

Meanwhile I took sometime out after flying to see family at Christmas, I wanted to do something different for New Year, the 1st of January is a non-event in Israel, and I am bored with the drinking culture in UK, as Basel is reachable by Easyjet from Luton, UK and I can get back to Tel Aviv via Geneva, I thought it would be a good opportunity to see my good friend Matthew who is a Swiss Christian who was studying Hebrew and going to the same church in Jerusalem, last year.

Railways in Switzerland are probably the best anywhere, this one is a palace in itself with attractive paintings on the walls, escalators and nice shops, and generally an accurate representation of Switzerland’s precise and efficient approach to everything.

There are lots of museums in this country, this one is meant to be the smallest in the world, I am not sure if its just a window of stuff or if you can go in.   I didn’t get time to visit any of the other ones which was a shame.

Basel is a truly beautiful place.  This was my first visit to Switzerland, so I was really looking forward to it, its quite different from Germany even before I got near any mountains, its like they have a German attitude to efficiency and engineering and use the French and Italian influence for design flair.

I like the mix of oldy worldy shops and modern retail places too.   Watches are a big thing of course, as top brands in fashion too.  Funny thing is, I didn’t see any places boarded up, so the recession hasn’t affected Basel, or the Swiss are good at quickly dressing up defunkt businesses with different signage, unlike UK and the US!

This shoe place is a worth a mention for its amusing name

It is kind of horribly expensive, I went to Starbucks and paid CHF7 for the cheapest coffee, (1 Swiss Franc is almost the same as a US Dollar at $0.96)

I got to see my friend speak at a very old (400+ year) church and also another congregation who meet in a plain looking office type building too.

In town I came across a large and big Synagogue, which its own 24 hour security guard.   Normally you can go in there to visit, but it was shut over Christmas (!) as the security office wasn’t manned during the holidays.

My friend drove us to the outskirts of the city to see overhead from a hill.  There is an odd layer of fog over the city which is not that visible from the photo, Basel I think is just above sea level unlike the mountanous parts of Switzerland I visited later.

This was a tall old folly or castle which was about equvilant of a 4 story building, Matthew kind of gets a bit crazy standing up here!  I think contrary to Swiss being supposedly boring running banks and financial institutions, they treated the rugged parts of their country as a playground for skiing, snowboarding and lots of other outdoor sports they like the live dangerously!   and yes, they eat a lot of cheese and chocolate.

Although this might not seem in regular theme of my blog visiting bible places, this country gave me some interesting perspectives on my spiritual life, which I will explain soon…

http://www.mohabatnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3766%3Amember-of-kuwaiti-royal-family-embraces-christ&catid=36%3Airanian-christians&Itemid=279

From the article:- “First of all, I totally agree with the distribution of this audio file and I now declare that if they kill me because of this audio file, then I’ll go into the presence of Jesus Christ and be with him for all eternity.”

In today’s world where there is a mire of deception all over the world, with vague rumours of some people becoming a Christians, although no link to the said audio file is given, I am willing to bet with the above bold statement, this is probably totally genuine.

If you have a heart for the Persian people in Iran to be set free from Islam as well of course as its scary nuclear ambitions and threats against Israel, its worth keeping Mohabat News in your browser favourites, there’s encouraging news and ideas for prayer strategy for Iran and other Islamic states.   I have family that worked in Iran in the pre-1979 days.

My friend from Canada demonstrates.

Our guide told us this room of the synagogue was actually for a ministry to children;

Looking at the floors, you see some interesting patterns here, Kind of like hopskotch but too small squares for even the smallest of children’s feet I think.  I guess its from some kind of game, its hard to say from what era the markings are from, makes me wonder how the first generation of Christians kept their kiddies amused though….

The cemented bit here has something that looks like Latin, I am sure that bit is modern I think….

Ok the apartment blocks in the background don’t really ‘go’, but this is a garden is part of the museum with plenty of olive trees, is intended to show the outdoors to the visitor of being a neighbour of Jesus.

This actor is demonstrating looking after a flock of sheep and goats.

This tomb is quite a lot like the Garden tomb in Jerusalem, this one is a recently made mock up made to look like what a wealthy Jewish person would of pre-booked whilst they were still living, just like Joseph of Aramathea.

The carpenter’s workshop.   Here there is a selection of tools you often see by tradesman today, not shown is a drill which is a bit unusual as it requires the string to be turned using this bow type instrument to drive to tool into the wood.   Of course wood is relatively scarce in Israel, so some theologicans think that Jesus and his earthly stepfather Joseph actually did a lot of work with stone as well.

In another room, a local woman is spinning wool, and demonstrating how wool is dyed to get different hues.  Onions, pomegranates are used to get oranges and reds here.  The bible talks about rulers and rich people having clothing  of certain colours being a thing of expensive taste.   I learned today that wool with a violet or purple hue is made from certain types of sea-snails that had to specially imported which were costly to buy.

In a more recent (January 2012) conversation with the staff of the museum, I was sad to hear that the museum had be broken into and badly vandelised at the end of last year, there are still grafitti on some of the doors.

I will be honest, and say I was a bit silly and thought this building was a bath house!  Its actually a Synagogue!   Worshipers sit on the simple stepped seating that covers all around the room.  The front of the building is very plain without much decoration. I know there are some grander looking holy places from the same age, just look at Capernaum, but here Nazareth was a very small village back during Jesus’ time.

Its interesting to think, after the highly decorated design of the Basillica Catholic Church in Nazareth’s main city, that this is a much simple design of building where Jesus would of given his teachings then.

1. The Fauzi Azar – 2. The uglier sides of Nazareth – 3. Welcoming the king with palm leaves? – 4. Looking for the Jesus village – 5. The replica village of Jesus – more soon…

http://fromthetopcom.blogspot.com/2011/12/palestinianisation-of-jesus.html

Unfortunately, this happens quite often, and Palestinians turn to promoting history revisionism to naive Christians visiting the holy land.   One example of this I have heard is Samson being the first suicide bomber!!

1. Cost.   Either a large amount for complete ownership of the handset (£500+)  or having to pay £30-40 or more per month for a contract, that’s a lot of money you could spend on a holiday or many other things.  At the moment, my pay as you go phone on Cellcom IL means my 57 shekels (~£10) worth of credit lasts me about a month.

2. Long commitments.  I reckon people don’t often always think they are stuck paying for this thing for 18 or 24 months (3 years typically in Israel for an iPhone) without a simple way to get out, if the service or the handset don’t meet expectations.  The novelty appeal of the phone may wane way before you are able to get an upgrade or switch to a different payment model.  I wonder if less young people these days will go off traveling, doing volunteer or overseas work when they realise they can’t get shot of the mobile phone plan without an expensive exit fee.    Someone I know who is coming to Israel from the US was paying $106 a month and was struggling to get out of it!

3. Being forced to be doing work stuff when you are not at work.   People I know in the hospital I worked hated their blackberry handsets for this reason.   Employers don’t always plan that staff are doing work without always getting on-call commitments recognised in their actual salary package.

4. Fear of theft or damage.   One of the IT professional web sites I am a member of recently said that in a typical corporate environment, 10% of the phones get destroyed or lost in a year.   I suspect figures for consumers are not that far off.  I have seen many people crack the glass displays on an iPhone, and so therefore your monthly bill may need to have an insurance cost also added on that too.

5. Creditworthyness for getting a contract phone.  This is always checked in phone stores, not everyone qualifies for this.

6. Saying something you later regret online.  More easier to do on a device in your pocket that it is on your regular PC or laptop.

7. Not telling everyone a running commentary of your life’s problems on social media.   Its better to meet up or call a close friend and spill out to them.   Seriously.   Social media provides the tools online for narcissists to talk about themselves all the time too.

8. Enjoying life not being online.  Hiding behind that little device may mean you miss out on some of life’s things like sights of the countryside, getting chatting to strangers in a queue in a shop, and going camping when refraining from anything with an LCD display.

9. Chatting to a friend about a funny story you heard, can be done by A) showing said-item in Youtube or Wikipedia on a phone, or B) using the power of words and acting, in some ways, B can often be more appealing in the same way a good comedian just uses his hands and microphone stand to stimulate the imagination of the audience without any props.

10. Being antisocial in general.   If you are in a party or at a pub, people getting out their phones and then discussing which celebs they follow or what apps they have, are similar to loved-up couples that are too preoccupied with themselves to think about other (non phone obsessed) people around them.  I was watching the popular British motoring TV show Top Gear once when they had writer and actor Stephen Fry on there once, he decides to talk about an app on his phone he uses for gay cruising. geez, keep you nasty habits to yourself please, I used to have a lot of respect for him until this.

Fiddling with a phone in a job interview, theatre/cinema, in church or cell group or also examples of this I have seen being annoying to other people around you.

11. Being technologically unsatisfied.  Some people hop from one model phone to another and regardless of what the features of this and how new it is, are never seem happy.   despite all phones have limitations in one way or another.

12. Metering cost of data.  Its easy to go over the data allowance per month when using data on 3G network, which can make monitoring how much data consumed hard, to avoid any nasty shocks when the bill comes.

Of course, smart phones are incredibly handy for all kinds of things these days, with email, calender, navigation, web, media playback just for starters, but respect that not all people will be associated with the problems above, I have decided I myself would rather just do these things on a regular computer at home.

To get there, I had to follow the purple dots painted along the walls, this was quite fun actually, a sort of biblical follow the yellow brick road, hunting the painted on dots through the maze-like paths around Nazareth’s old city.

As you may have already seen, Nazareth’s tightly packed collection of houses closely resembles Jerusalem’s old city, its like no two houses are a like, completely unlinear in their shapes, sizes, with different steps, roofs, balconies.  I think this is a small mosque in between some ordinary houses, as it has this dome with unmistakable crescent ontop.   Theres a sort of odd mix of extensions and alterations on top of ancient houses!

At one point it took me through this Islamic cemetery.

After a few more narrow alleys, I got to a main road, and it was here I found the entrance to the Jesus village.

As you can see the car park is made big to cope with a volume of tourist buses that come often here….

Like the aforementioned following the brick road idea, I was concerned that the wizard, or in this case the intended representation of Christ’s home town may be a disappointment, but actually this place was very well done….

1. The Fauzi Azar – 2. The uglier sides of Nazareth – 3. Welcoming the king with palm leaves? – 4. Looking for the Jesus village – 5. The replica village of Jesus – more soon…

The last supper with Hollywood stars?  Me and another Christian friend challenged the Jewish owner of a youth hostel on this, wondering if its really wise considering how many Christians visiting his business might feel offended about this but he just seem to think it was funny.

Yes, its the nativity scene with a seperation barrier.  This commonly used by Palestinians to manipluate the west that this hated barrier uses to keep terrorism from getting into Jerusalem.    The concrete pilars that make up this structure are ugly, but no sensible person wants to go back in the days during the intafada where there were bombings on buses and coffee shops every week.

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