Category Christianity

Mar 2 2012

Snow in Jerusalem

For the last week or two there was rumoured to be snow here in Jerusalem,

I have been pretty cynical about this, although there is snow seen maybe on average snow here once ever 4 years maybe.   There are some  postcards you can get from tourist shops with the Kotel and the Old City covered in a blanket of white.

Its interesting that two days ago it was a leap year, I was joking this could be a perfect time to have snow, it ended up happening today after I got a text message from work in the morning telling me not to come in today.


This snow didn’t stay in a thick white layer outside my flat (I live 6kms from the centre of town)  but it was a nice surprise to see.

Some of my friends who live close to town seem to have thicker snow in the parks from their Facebook pictures.

There was a lot of rain in the last week also, which has been a blessing, but some water has come through my flat ceiling in the last couple of the days, so I have moved the refrigerator away a bit, and had about 30 minutes of power cut which seem to affect my whole neighbourhood yesterday.

While I was very quickly getting some pictures on the balcony, one of my housemates pointed out the fate of one of local pigeons here that’s died on our garden furniture.   I immediately thought of the homeless people who sleeps on the streets in Jaffa Street.   This kind of weather must be very tough for some people here.  Although there is a few people working in our food bank today I hope all different organisations around Israel are able to help those who will inevitably be hit hard by the temperature this week.

I am looking forward to March getting warm again.

Feb 24 2012

Shabbat rainbow over Jerusalem

Cycling home from work after lunch at work at about 2.30pm today (Friday 24th February)

Saw this nice sight near the park which is close to UN headquarters at the top of my street:-

Funnily enough, the curve is inverse of the valley that these four apartment blocks overlooks….

 

Feb 23 2012

Can we overload prayers to help our Christians brothers and sisters in Iran?

Following recent news that the Iranian Christian Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani held in a prison had been sentenanced to death, I decided to email the Iranian embassy politely in the UK to tell them how angry I was with this decision.   Hes been offered leniency if he rejects Christianity and takes up Islam, which he has refused to do so.

http://aclj.org/iran/execution-orders-issued-pastor-youcef-nadarkhani

A while back the UK embassy in Tehran was broken into and looted.   I don’t know if there are many people in the UK office doing any administration.   Sounds like a tough job trying to do PR for a company that flaunts the ability to destroy another neighbouring country by saying they will “wipe them off the map”.

I looked in the spam folder of my email and saw this today, their mail server rejected my email as their mailbox is full.

I wonder if this means that lots of Christians (or indeed anyone upset by this decision) have emailed the Islamic republic’s UK operations and overloaded their mail system.   Or maybe their IT systems are just are rubbish as their human rights.

Of course, if this many people were praying for this man’s release and safety, without compromising his life with Jesus, you can’t pray too much, my loving God has infinite capacity for requests to him.  I hope all Christians feel compelled to pray to see this innocent man’s wife and children get to see him come home safely.

Feb 6 2012

Funny funicular railways and scaling the steepness with God

Getting around Switzerland on trains is rather jolly, quiet, civilised and very enjoyable.

Given extreme terrain in places, a few more radical solutions are needed to get to certain locations.

I haven’t really heard of a funicular railway before, until I saw this one.   Funnily enough, this one was shut until the evening for some reason.   The other one I saw in Interlaken was completely closed for maintenance.

They look a bit like something from a theme park.   I will be honest, I don’t really like theme parks, they always seem contrived, and don’t like deliberately getting on apparatus to deliberately make myself sick and dizzy.   This is way better though!

Onward to the French speaking city Vevey, the place where milk chocolate was invented, where Charlie Chaplin spent his retirement and the HQ of the global overlord food producer Nestle.  As Montreux is just 8kms or so away, and I thought I would walk as it was a pleasant sort of day.   Is this a bus or a tram?   It seems to be both!!  Just as long as the driver doesn’t steer too far away from the overhead wires I guess it works well.  Look closely and the bus’s signage shows ‘Desert’ which is kind of odd here!!

Vevey, Lusuane and Montreux are the French speaking neighbouring cities on a hill over looking a lake Geneva, so the roads can be pretty steep, needing to be negotiated in a zigzag fashion.  These fruit trees seem quite common in this city, I think they are apricots.   There is a English Anglican church at the foot of the hill which I was surprised to see.

I was quite pleased to find one of the funicular tracks that just goes briefly between two stops;

 

This completely bonkers mode of transport is great!!  The rail car that goes up is completley autonomous, there is no driver or any other staff, in fact no staff are to be seen at all, my ticket was bought from a vending machine, and there is a large screen with the times, and an alarm sounds when its ready to leave and the doors open and close by itself.   Just a winch and a computer system seems to control the whole operation, probably just one very bored guard somewhere checking over it.   Someone has thoughtfully made the seats in the train heated which is great during the harsh winters here.  I would guess that the trains may have to specially designed for particular gradient of the hill maybe.   The steepest one in Switzerland goes 48 degrees!

Looking back, about half way along, you can see a lovely view of Lake Geneva, the ride is no longer than about 3 minutes, there is another car travelling the other direction, and the single track forks into two briefly and merges back, allowing a simple pass.

The short journey reminded me of some things happening for me at the moment, often we are up against a steep gradiant, with my time doing volunteer work likely to end in the spring, I am keep wondering what I will be doing back in the UK.   I need to find a new job,
new place to live and a new church.  At the moment I enjoy the work I do, the church I have here, the friends from dozens of different countries, I will need to go back to earning a regular wage again, and readjusting to life in post-recession UK and being a single chap in my mid 30s its hard to get an understanding what this year will hold, it all seems massively overwhelming.

My life with Jesus has meant that he has provide me with a way to conquer all kinds of enormously varied challenges so far.  But like this unorthodox transport system this is one of most hardest to try and fathom.  Here if I didn’t see this special railway, I wouldn’t of guess scaling this kind of hill would be impossible, but the Lord seems to provide when no tangible solution is in sight.   Up here you can quickly jump on another traditional railway system running parallel with the other line by the lake.   It was nice that it started to snow up here too, only for a short time though, I just had to stay under this shelter for about 5 minutes.






Feb 4 2012

Jerusalem in fog

Clouds again.  Having this low that makes part of the city invisible was a strange sight to see on the way to work over a week ago on a monday morning.

from Matthew 24 : 30 

And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the SON OF MAN COMING ON THE CLOUDS OF THE SKY with power and great glory. 31 And He will send forth His angels with A GREAT TRUMPET and THEY WILL GATHER TOGETHER His [t]elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.

Clouds seems like a perfect way for our Lord Jesus to make a stage entrance back to this city, ok it wasn’t the right time last week, but its still quite a bizarre sight and it did mean we had plenty of rain in the last week of January.


Jan 28 2012

The town of Interlaken and the Balmer’s Herberge

Getting back to the magnificent Basel railway station, I was looking forward to this train which was taking me to Interlaken, a small town of just 5’000 ** in the middle of the country.  Having high homes that this ride would meet up to the high standards that Switzerland is famous for, I was a bit shocked that train was made of 45% standard carriages and 45% first class, this meant there was hardly any people traveling in the highest class seats, and not enough seats for regular passengers, this left a lot of people standing up and lot of large cases and ski equipment in the corridors.   In someways I wished I left earlier as it would of been nice to get see some scenery out of the train windows.

<<** the Swiss like to use slightly different grammatical symbols than the rest of Europe!>>

The remaining section in the middle of the train was the dining car and kitchen, so I snagged one of the last seats there and got a tea from the counter there.

After a couple of hours, I arrived in Interlaken, it was dark by then, and really difficult to figure out the terrain, just some ghostly black shapes in the sky which I found out the next day were mountains.

This hostel is great!  It takes its name from Eric Balmer who is something of a local maverick and entrepreneur in getting Interlaken one of the most famous hostels in the country and an adventure capital, this attractive traditional wood style building has everything needed to be a base point for a big adventure in the Alps.   Mr Balmer’s face appears on lots of pictures around the hostel showing him meeting famous people.   The hostel is made of 3 separate buildings with the main hotel and a (presumably purchased later)  annex with more rooms and big dinning area, there’s also a basement bar and dancehall under where I am standing, but it seems nice and quiet in the rooms which is good.

Interlaken is quite an apt name, as its between two different lakes.   As a small quiet town its nice when you go walking, everyone you meet will say “Gruezi!” (a Swiss type of greeting I am not sure of meaning but not used by Germans I think)

The town looks efficient, neat and orderly like everything Swiss, but make no mistake, this is not a boring place!   As well being a gateway to the mountains for skiing and snowboarding, there is also loads of other outdoor sports, a rental shop for ski hire is just a couple of doors away from the hostel, and these little cars can be hired from another place across the road.  If you take a close look, the yellow ferrari ‘prancing horse’ is actually a Swiss cow standing on its back legs!

As well as these logs stacked by the side of the ride, and the unmistakable charming style Swiss wooden houses, everyone seems to have a shed to store plenty of firewood for the harsh winters here.

I was pleasantly surprised that the local churches make the effort to advertise themselves to foreigners visiting Interlaken, but I wasn’t around to visit this place.

This wooden house (I think its a school) has a biblical message painted onto the timbers.  Its nice that Christianity seems part of the fabric of the community for a long time and still today.

Of course, Interlaken is completely surrounded by mountains.   These snow dusted mammoths are all around.   Not only that, but the ones in immediate view have ones behind exponentially larger, requires some specialised transport to get there.   As well, the whiter peaks blend in with the sky and clouds in an incredible way.

I found the vast beauty of the mountains show God’s work as something thats hard to comprehend from the ground, let alone see it from a web site, post card or brochure.   This is a place thats impacted my spiritual life like Israel has.

Next, train to the highest peak in Europe...

Jan 16 2012

Pastor of church in Uganda has acid thrown in his face by Muslims, gets surgery in Israel

Thought this was a really encouraging story.  This hospital in Israel are paying a large chunk of the $128,000 needed for this poor man’s treatment.   Ex-Muslims and Christians working amongst Islamic cities are in great danger, and this horrific attack with acid is no the first one I have heard about.

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.”

Jan 15 2012

Switzerland – the old city of Basel

A little bit later I will finish writing about the lively church in Nazareth I got to visit.

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…

Jan 13 2012

Member of Kuwait royal family accepts Christ

This brought a happy tear to my eye this evening:

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.

Jan 12 2012

The first ever Christian Youth event in Capernhaum?

I took a very brief trip again to Capernaum, the famous first place where Jesus preached, really just 30 minutes quick stop on the way back from a tour, only to discover something interesting I didn’t see before…

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….