Category Christianity

Jan 22 2011

Where is home

This week I have been thinking about living in two different places, and how there is a big change in emotions from exiting one and going to another.

Going back to Portsmouth felt very strange, I wasn’t used to colder temperatures, seeing snow, other odd things like seeing much newer cars (Israel has plenty of cars from 1990s and sometimes older)  a few people have left my church and a fair number of new people there.  It was nice to see various different friends, but I didn’t get to see everyone I hoped to see.  It was great to go to a Christmas Eve mass service in Portsmouth Cathedral, also nice to hang out at the legendary Chinese buffet ‘The Water Margin’ at Gunwharf keys with a few other single chaps from church including several gents who are in the navy and are back on shore, from being away in foreign lands.

Back in Israel, in the organisation I work for there are staff from all five continents, I also see Jewish people with almost every skin colour.

Where as in recent times we may have immigrants come in from Asia and East Europe in the southern UK where I am from, this had led to perceptions of British people often anxious about culture changing to suit foreigners at the expense of people born there.

One of my cousins was born in Iran and one in Cameroon, due to overseas work my uncle did, and now today three of my cousins live in Texas, New York and New Zealand.

I think you look back in history very few people live in the same place in their whole life, for instance:-

Charles Dickins: Born Portsmouth, died  Higham, Kent

Albert Einstein: Born in Württemberg, Germany, lived in Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Germany again, died in: New Jersey, USA

Arthur Conan Doyle: Born in Edinburgh, lived in Plymouth, Portsmouth and London, died in Crowborough, East Sussex

Jesus Christ:  Born Bethlehem, grew up Nazareth, died: Jerusalem

Jesus himself said he didn’t have an actual defined home: Matthew 8 : 20 – Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

Sometimes its hard to define where home is.  People often move because of seeking work, getting married, getting education, finding affordable housing or for other reasons.

I am in Israel currently until May when my visa runs out, where as I like volunteering here in Jerusalem, it isn’t home, but on the other hand I may not stay in Portsmouth after that.   Its really hard to figure out what happens when you donate your time to a charity organisation and what to do when your planned commitment comes to an end.   Its only by trusting in the Lord I can get peace of where I will be next.

Jan 15 2011

Back in the holy land for 2011

After a 3 week break to see family for Christmas and New Year and see my home church and friends, I am back in my flat in East Talpiyot, south part of Jerusalem, having flown back on tuesday.

The flight was a bit more eventful than I would of liked, once aboard the Easyjet flight in its usual orange livery in Luton, we were advised by the captain that the plane could not take off due to a warning light the advised of a part on the plane that needed to be replaced, at first it was thought that a part could be brought over from Heathrow, after a while we were told this was not possible and that a replacement plane would be here shortly.  However the other plane was smaller and not able to take all of us, so it was back to the lounge and told to wait for the screens to show an announcement.   A refreshment voucher was offered to the value of £3 ($5 or 18 Shekels)  which makes me think that the voucher scheme for delayed passengers appears to be a bit out of touch with inflation, this got me one coffee as another 20p was needed for a packet of salt and vinegar crisps.

It was not until 4 hours later another flight was ready for us taking off at 3.30.   On the flight its quite interesting listening to British Jews speak in Hebrew with an English accent, I forgot my earplugs as I always seem to be sat near screaming children on flights but I did bring an inflatable neck cushion for a bit of a doze on the flight.   It left me some time to pray, as I also forgot where my iPod cable was and there was no chance of any tunes or TV shows as the battery was flat.  When exiting the airport I handed over my passport for examination which after being asked my purpose (volunteering) a couple of times there was a awkward long 2 minutes as the woman checked my details on her computer.

Once on the Sherut (a bright yellow Mercedes 12 seater minibus) it was just an hour or so to get to my flat, which I arrived at about 1.30am IL time.  I wasn’t feeling that tired by the time I got there.

Its freezing here, a different type of chill than the UK, but I am not used to it, I have not experienced Israel in early winter months.  It was cooler in December for sure and until mid-november I was wearing just one shirt.  The downside is my flat like most I see in Jerusalem is made of concrete (with the familiar white stone facade) with no curtains to insulate the windows, only roller blinds.

Yesterday we got some rain, it may of only been for 10 minutes or so before I went to bed yesterday but the metal rails of the balcony of my flat were still wet when I was up the next morning so this is a good thing this country is so desperately in need of.

More articles will be listed soon.

Dec 31 2010

Hebrew children’s book has Coca Cola trucks removed for traffic violations

I was at music concert just before I left Israel to fly home, there was a book shop with something quite funny:

Normally on TV commercials and posters, the Coca Cola trucks are driving along snow covered highways delivering obesity, diabetes and dental problems, oops I mean Christmas cheer to western nations.

Now if I am not mistaken, this Hebrew children’s book appears to show the Coke truck being towed away!!!

Could any kind person please translate what this book’s cover says?

Reminds me of a trip to Tel Aviv last year where strictly enforced parking rules meant trucks were scooping up illegally parked vehicles from the beach side streets although with some forklift type lifting prongs and taking them to an impound.

Its worth noting, Coke’s biggest market is the middle east, as observant Muslims don’t drink alcohol.

Dec 26 2010

Handel’s Messiah played in Hebrew in Jerusalem

I missed the chance to go to this performance  last year, but sadly as I am back in the UK again for a break I didn’t get to see once more.   A real shame but I got to see a brief video of this sent via friend.

The famous classical piece, Handel’s Messiah was performed in Hebrew at King Of Kings congregation at the Clal shopping mall between Agrippas and Jaffa Street in Jerusalem.

Interesting enough, the 90 year old lady mentioned who dreamt up the idea to rework it in Hebrew was in tears after the performance, Handel was found in tears by his assistant after reporting being touched by God some 250 years ago.   See the video here:

Some musical friends I know got to play in this, thanks Teddy for the link 🙂

Dec 14 2010

Land of the bible room gets wireless

This week, one of many things I had been doing at work is put wireless internet connection in our teaching room to aid with presentations.

Here is the teaching room.   Its a place we have our devotions or worship in the morning and bible teaching and conferences happen here too.  The room has been modeled and furnished to look like something out of the time of Jesus.  The opposite side has a roll down screen to use with a projector.

Some of the awkward stuff is done, the chaps from the home repair team  (they fix houses of local Israelis who can’t afford to have repairs done themselves) did all the messy stuff of laying the cables under the floor of the flat above, we just needed to fasten the wiring to some sockets and configure the router 🙂

I got to learn a new skill, making network cables from scratch, using this special crimping tools to clamp on the connectors on the Cat5 network cables

In the top pictures I used this punchdown tool to fix wires the back on the network sockets which are carefully hidden behind some pillars.  My colleague Christopher used the laptop to configure the router, but had some similar problems to I had with getting IP address range correct, the router is hidden up above this bamboo ceiling, only visible up there by some faintly flickering lights.   All the technology runs transparently so our senior leadership can do presentations with a minimum of clutter.  Its not finished yet, we ran out of time to get the router settings correct.

Dec 12 2010

Winter in the holyland with fog and wind

This strange fog seems to happen during colder times here, I suspect this the not the whole country that has this, probably just the more mountainous places like Jerusalem, Dead Sea, Golan Heights, etc.

There was some very strong winds this weekend so all of saturday I stayed indoors and did writing, reading or watched films.  Its not nice out there as the wind brings over sand and dust from Egypt.   Today the wind is strong you can see this cafe has tied a parasol to some traffic lights.

I didn’t get a picture of the view of my house although a lot of the Arab district closeby is mostly invisible.

After church on sunday night you can see the walls of the old city looking kind of fuzzy.  Me and my friend braved the cold chill before head to the house of prayer building next to the Zion Gate hotel then back to my flat to watch a bit of telly.

Today, I woke up with rain outside, this time lots of it, this made the sand that had settled on the balcony turn into a weird type of mud.   All cars looked grubby, although to be honest no one seems to bother washing their car here in Israel as all cars seem to have a layer of dust on them anyway.

I am wondering what sand storms does to your health.   In other middle east cities such as Cairo or Tehran this is a massive problem with pollution and there is a layer of smog over the city, and lots of people die each year not from smoking but from respiratory related diseases from pollution.

Forest fire, sand storm followed by at last some decent rain, it does seem like the winter season suddenly came in a week.  I was still wearing just one shirt only a week ago when out, oh well, at least it will be a bit easier to get used to the UK climate when I fly back next week.  I have yet to see a thunderstorm here though.

Dec 11 2010

Turkish massacare of Armenian people remembered

Back earlier this year there was the convoy of protestors from Turkey.

At the same time, around the Christian Armenian community in Jerusalem’s old city put up lots of posters around the city warning what happened just under 100 years ago.  Click to zoom.

This was a reminder of the men and women killed in a genocide against the Armenian people.   With so called peace ships that fooled the media supposedly trying to help Gaza but had terrorists with weapons, its a warning that extremist Islam affects everyone.

Dec 11 2010

St Peter’s church in Gallicantu

After visiting the possible location of the last supper, me and my friend Dave took a look around this section of the old city.

This is the famous French Catholic church St Peter of Gallicantu, its at the south west section of the old city, close to the walls.   Like most of Jerusalem, this place has been destroyed and rebuild many  times over, so the building you are seeing now was built in the 1920s and repaired quite a few times since then.

The images set into the walls of the inside of the church are certainly striking and beautiful as well as the outside and pictures set into the windows.  There is Jesus at the last supper and there is Peter and Jesus on the other picture, if you look closely you can see Roman soldiers warming themselves around a fire.  The text is in French.

There is three main floors to the church, you can get to another hall below, and a basement underneath that.

This plaque hints at that visions have been seen in the natural pattern on the stone here, I didn’t go looking around to see if this claims have any truth to them though.

There is large amounts of archeological remains in the yard outside.

Left: under this canopy there is a complete model of the old city you can see.  Right: St Peter’s from a distance with an interesting block of flats overlooking it and the Arab part of the city and the Mount of Olives.

Atop of the church is a symbol of a cock, a sign of when Peter denied Jesus three times, because of the cock that crowed, as told in Matthew 26.

Dec 8 2010

The convenience store

If I look at out of my balcony to the right I see the Arab district as I live on the 1949 armistice line.

But aside what typical Middle East journalists say, what is it really like to live in between Jews and Arabs?

Back home in Portsmouth and probably most parts of the UK you have a corner shop, well not always but mostly on a corner, and often run by Asian people.  They are often usually from India, Pakistan or Bangladesh and could be Muslim, Sikh or Hindu.   As Britain’s last defenders of small businesses fight against the mighty retail continent of Tesco and their still aggressive marching in of Express stores, our Asian community serves us well so quick trips no more than a mile away shopping for newspapers, fags, phone credit, sweets and milk and food supplies forgotten from the last big supermarket run can be obtained easily.

Here in Israel there are also convenience stores by both non-Shabbat observing Jews and Arabs.  To be honest I have no idea if some Arab shops open on Islamic holidays or if this frowned upon by local Arab communities.

At the end of my road here in East Talpiyot, just outside of Jerusalem, is a local shop.  My house is on the 1949 Armistice line, therefore just over the threshold into a neighbouring Arab part of Jerusalem.  In most part I don’t see any trouble, I saw the police car blocking the middle of the road once for something. (exactly what I don’t know, it wasn’t in the news at all)    I would be very naive to say there is never any disturbances sometimes though, to be honest I have seen two car accidents in my street this month though.

Here is the shop, behind the tree ahead.  In front to the right is a car tyre place, rear right is a pizza takeaway, on the left of the shop entrance is some garden ornaments (!)   an interesting cluster of different businesses.   Oh, and the back is a scrap yard, I can see a tower of scrap metal behind.  Just next to this place is a field of olive trees, and in the distance are many minarets and mosques.   From my house I occasionally hear the sound of the air drills used for taking the wheelnuts of cars from the tyre business.

When I am in this junction, there is a feeling of uneasiness, that you are in a place you don’t belong, I mean that not in an unkind or bigoted way to Arab people, but from the uncomfortable spiritual atmosphere of a place as this area is heavily shrouded by Islam.

Of course some items are sold which are not available in a conventional Israel store.   A couple of weeks ago I decided to try some (probably not very unkosher of course, and big surprise – imported from Brazil) corned beef.  This meant my dinner was made using a screwdriver and some pliers, as the wretched key broke off the top and tin openers don’t work very well with square tins.  Oh well 🙂

There is a bakery in this shop at the back so I can get pita bread and cake here, there is only a few products I can see with just Arabic only labels on them.  Incidentally, the Palestinians seem to be very good at making candy, I see boxes of sweets (sold individually) favourites like Turkish delight, Havah (which I think its made of ground up almonds) and some nougat type stuff which is all made by a company in Nabulus.

I think only one of the staff speaks English at this shop, but I have picked up a knack of using gestures (which is a common thing anyway amongst all cultures in this corner of the world) when need to convey what I am buying once at the counter.

Today when I got some milk and bread, the Arab teenager who served me and his friend in the shop had some large scars on their faces that looked like that had been caused by a knife.   I think there is a lot of violence goes on between Arab people in parts of the world like this.   Domestic violence and partner abuse happens quite a lot in Muslim families in the UK but isn’t spoken about much.

The district of Arab Al Sawahira if you turn left at this junction.  The bus I get to work when it rained or if I have my bike fixed goes around this junction.  Beyond this shop, I think the separation wall is another 2kms from here which separates East Jerusalem.

Its sad that often when there is a terrorist attack like 9/11, 7/7, etc, the local Asian or Arab businesses in the UK may be the first people to get blamed with threatening behaviour or vandalism as if they are responsible.  As a Christian, in the UK I think we should pray for our Asian and Arab shopkeepers that their businesses continue to serve well our communities, and that one day they are touched by the true love of the Lord.   Here, there is always the worry from violence from these sorts of places but through my church or friends, or first hand, there are Arab people who have found Christ, and as a side effect of this, have genuine love and compassion for the Jews.