Jun 10 2011

Tiberias evening light show

As it started to get dark, the coastline started to look interesting with the cloud formations..

Restaurants have usual fare of middle eastern food but also specialise in fish aimed at Christian visitors to the Galilee.

A couple of years ago, a strange looking beacon was installed along the side of the Galilee, its unlikely ships would get lost, instead this is a project that display colour patterns onto fountains of water…

It pretty and entertaining too, and free.

There is plenty of bars and restaurants here, its a pretty lively city. With the bars that open onto the beach, they remind me a bit of Eilat, albeit with the Galilee and not the Red Sea though. 🙂

I got to go for a beer with my friend Arnold who was already good friends with the youth hostel owner, and he came out and brought along his daughter.

This bar has a tree growing out of the inside of it…

A day in my work in the Galilee – The Jesus boat in Ginosar – The Kinneret Lake – Tiberias evening light show – Preaching and miracles of Jesus in Capernaum – Tiberias city centre and Muriels and Maimonidies

Jun 4 2011

The Jesus boat in Ginosar

My two days of work projects were done, and it was nice to take off a friday from work and relax and see some places. I booked into a youth hostel in Tiberias and made friends with a South Africa pastor and got to see a lot special places.

The community of Ginosar is a Kibbutz on the banks of the Kinneret, this concrete exhibition hall has this wonderful piece of history.

In my home city of Portsmouth, a historic ship from the time of Henry the Eighth was pulled out of the harbour in 1982, at the time craning an ancient ship out of the sea without it breaking up, a not so conventional bit of archeology probably not been done before, and I remember as I child watching it at school on live television as it was shown all over the world.

Just a few years later, this ancient boat found in the Galilee in unusually high tide conditions in 1986, archeologists sprayed it in foam and carefully lifted it out.

Mounted in a metal cradle you can see the boat, it has been treated in wax to stop it rotting.

Its dated from the first century AD, so its quite possible it was owned by someone who may have known Jesus maybe.

There is some nice drawings on the wall of this museum, although it is very small, as well as the video showing how it was carefully excavated and cleaned up, you can see the whole exhibition in less than 10 minutes.

Interestingly enough, the boat is fabricated from 12 different types of wood as the colour coding here shows.

Left: photos of the boat being winched out after being covered in foam, and a model shown. Right: a model of what the model looked like in its day.

Ginosar also has these nice new bungalows which look very new which look out onto the sea.

There was also a folk music event happening, there were people camped out and bands playing close to the sea. I asked the man at the car park who was checking tickets where the Jesus boat was, after he spoke to his colleague, I heard him say the word ‘Yeshu’ rather the ‘Yeshua’ this was sad, as the Yeshua is Hebrew for Jesus but Yeshu, spelt similar is a insult sometimes used by critics of Christianity and Messianic Judaism in Israel.

This chap who worked in the gift shop had an interesting tatoo from the Psalms. He told me he is a Jewish believer in Jesus, so I shook his hand 🙂

Next a ferry around the Kinneret…

Check out the official site of the Jesus boat here:

http://www.thegalileeboat.com

Jun 3 2011

A day in Christian IT work in the Galilee

As I have mentioned before, my job as a volunteer IT support and system administrator for the charity Bridges for Peace means I am normally based in one of two offices in Jerusalem, and on odd occasions I work up in Karmiel, which is a city in the centre of the Galilee.

This means a 180km visit by car or bus when I have to do work up there. The food bank I work does a huge amount of service in helping the poorest people in this area especially new immigrants to Israel mostly from Russia or some of the other ex-Soviet Union nations. Every so many months I need to do a trip probably not that different from journeys Jesus did himself.

I have learned since being here this site requires careful planning as its an awful long way if something breaks unexpectedly.

This empty room in the middle of the warehouse seems like a good place to put the server. This server will replaced later this year as its running Windows 2000 which is very old now and we need a new more reliable system that helps us with our day to day food bank operations up here. This room is good as it means an easier job of adding some extra wiring here as its close to the network cabinet which is in the cupboard opposite the door.

This rack full of network kit needs a good sort out. I manage to swap cables around to enable computer network use in some offices that moved around. We only have 5 staff up here and there will be at least 3 more and there is not enough ports on the 16 port switch here so I have to put in another switch. The glass door on the cabinet does not shut as the wires are in the way. I think I can rotate the brackets on the switch at the top 180 degrees so this sits flush better and should make the glass door shut properly.

There is an other switch supplied by Bezeq (Israel’s no.1 telephone company) for several VOIP phones. Not quite sure how this works as I think they maintain it.

The black things are UPS power back up units to keep equipment running in case of power failure or spikes in the electricity supply, these are a few years old, most of the equipment was set up when this building got running in 2007 and the chances are the batteries are no good as they have a 3 year or so life span. I want to get a new UPS that has network connectivity so I can see the status of it using my Spiceworks network management software. These small ‘shoebox’ type UPSes should be able to be refurbished with new batteries and they could be used on regular office PCs in another part of the building.

When I was staying at one of the staff’s place over night, looking out of the balcony, I get to see an Arab bedouin house across the road, and modern (Jewish) flats in the distance. Here in this city, these two types of communities seem to be get on well it seems. It does mean you get woken up up by roosters at 5.30am though!

I have to speak to the rest of the IT department to get some more telephones installed, test wiring for network ports and telephones, get 3 more PCs installed and test the spare server. This trip was mostly about planning to give extra capacity for this site for future expansion as I know the Lord will provide more resources so we can help the most needy people in this area. I will need to do another visit up here in July I think.

The main thing I was doing, is a careful back up of the main server and applying all the latest updates and patches. This is always a delicate thing for IT administrators to do, it puts you a big security risk if you don’t bother, and if you do it without carefully planning it can crash the server. One of the team had their monitor suddenly stop working, so a local computer store (thanks to KSP) I got a new Samsung 18″ wide screen TFT monitor.

I really like this job as I always have plenty of interesting and varied challenges so work is never boring and I get to know everyone in the organisation. It also means I can combine this with a weekend seeing some friends who moved from home city of Portsmouth UK to Karmiel Israel, and later visiting the city of Tiberias which is right on the Kinneret, or the Sea of Galilee, and a few significant places of the bible, I will show soon.

May 30 2011

Mini Israel – holyland in minature

I went with some folks from work to Mini Israel a place with lots of models of famous sites in this country.

Downtown Tel Aviv. Here there is a street with moving Scaletrix style cars and trucks that go up and down. A lot of the trucks having recognisable brands such as the blue, green and red one being Tvuna, Israel’s largest dairy.

You do actually feel a bit like the oversized main character of a B movie walking along very detailed places here!

This tourist place is a kind of Israel’s “greatest hits album” as its a way seeing a hundred odd places in one location, and a good way of seeing a glimpse of places you have yet to visit, everywhere from Mount Hermon to Eilat. 🙂

Capernhuam next to the Galilee, one of the places Jesus preached. I also went to the real one in May. Will write on this soon.

Here is the Garden of Gethsemane in Jerusalem.

More sights of Jerusalem’s old city.

Tel Aviv water front. Looks great but is there a model of the Zohan? 🙂

Here is Jaffa too. 🙂

The attention to detail on the models is excellent. There are small background noises put in, such as traffic, crowds etc. Only trouble is maintaining this stuff must be a full type job as the hot temperatures and dust has caused some of the models to crack in places, so regular repair is often needed. There are a lot of places miniaturized, not just religious sites but even Coca Cola factory and people working a Kibbutz.

http://www.minisrael.co.il/

This was a nice day out, although some scary experiences on the way home…..

May 29 2011

Nazareth – 13. Easter service at the Basilica

I didn’t find anyone from the youth hostel who wanted to head into town that evening, so after an afternoon of looking around shops and reading a book in the lobby, I headed out and saw lots of people flocking towards the Basilica church.

This was the service for Easter Friday.

The outside of church seems very busy…

Inside, the place was packed! all of the seats were taken, and people were in all of the aisles and blocking the door.
The surprising thing is the vast majority of people appeared to be young Arab Christians under 30 for the service, no foreigners as far as I could see. I have no idea what was spoken in the service as it was all in Arabic.

A statue of Jesus was brought out of the service at the end.

Outside there were lots of people who couldn’t get in the service, they seem very friendly and most spoke English, a lot of the Arab Christians had non-Arabic sounding names, ie: Simon.Musicians where getting together for a parade outside.. Hang on surely, these aren’t bagpipes??

Whats this? Its the flag of Christian Arab scouts of Nazareth.

The scouts are getting ready to do their bagpipe playing at the end of the Easter service! Actually an Arab friend of mine told me that bagpipes are not that uncommon in the Middle East, there are bagpipe players in Jordan who play for the King there. Maybe the Arabs are wannabe Scots or perhaps during the British Mandate of Palestine period, Scotland influenced people then? 🙂

The statue is taken on a tour around the city.

So was the Easter service a nice yearly social knees-up or the were the mostly young Arab Christians there praising the Lord on the weekend of his resurrection in the very town where Jesus spent his youth? I am not sure but this was an enjoyable end to my trip to Nazareth, and despite only 15% of the town being Christian it was good that Easter was celebrated (actually there were no chocolate eggs for sale anywhere) and this didn’t seem like a big show for tourists as there simply weren’t any around the town.

Seems like the modern day people of Nazareth are proud of their city.

1. Arrival at the city – 2. Staying in the old city – 3. The modern day Nazarene carpenter – 4. Where Jesus first preached – 5. Religious vehicles in Nazareth – 6. Mary’s Well and the Bath house – 7. The precipice – 8. On top of the Precipice hill – 9. More old city streets and market – 10. The spice shop – 11. Churches from A to Z or Alpha to Omega – 12. The Basilica church – 13. Easter service at the Basilica

May 23 2011

Glow of light in valley in Jerusalem during day of rage

I am away working in Karmiel in the middle of the Galilee at the moment,

During the Palestinian day of rage, there was fear about riots in the street, now one person died in Jerusalem and one in Tel Aviv, and there were a few cars set on fire and stoning, but a far less worse that people feared it could of been.

I heard helicopters above my flat, and a lot of police and army in the city which gave me a lot assurance as a lot of people had been dreading this day for fear of violence. We had been told not to go near any Arab areas.

Before I went to church on sunday I went off early to meet a friend for coffee, when I was cycling along the park which is at the top of hill near my house, I saw this:-

I didn’t have a proper camera on me so this was done on a phone, I ‘stretched’ this picture by joining up the pics together from the phone, but other than that, I have not altered anything, ie: brightness etc.

The glow of the light through the clouds made these apartment look bright. I think these flats there are Jewish although surrounded by mostly Arab buildings.

Minutes later this glow moved along a bit towards the troubled district of Silwan.

Just a pattern from the clouds or a symbol of God’s eternal covenant? Either way it was a nice sight.

May 14 2011

Nazareth – 11. Churches from A to Z or Alpha to Omega

I am very out of touch with UK at the moment, but I have read the Professor Richard Dawkins is on the telly again, proof that atheists can be just as opinionated and annoying than any religious people.

I am reluctant to believe any figures in the mainstream media the church attendance is declining, when you have some churches like in my home city which have repurposed old buildings that were used (or share with another organisation) for something different, ie: a snooker hall. I know in Israel there are some secret churches where ex-Muslim people go to in Arab areas which could put them in danger if they got discovered.

There is a lot of different religious buildings in Nazareth. Churches can be current places of worship or dusty buildings of history.

Monastry ontop of the hill of the city. This one is called ‘Ecole Jesus the Adolescent – Don Bosco’ I couldn’t go in because of this big electric gate which has no details if it was possible to visit from the public.

Greek church, this one is the Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation, its close to the Mary’s well I mentioned previously.

Yes those black clouds turned into rain a few minutes later :o)

I am not sure if this stage outside of the Greek church is for a wedding or Easter service.

One of the tours I was on showed us some churches more hidden away from the main roads:

These places have a lot of highly decorative pictures and fittings here. These are not everyone’s taste, but I wonder how synagogues where in the time of King Solomon as he built the biggest most grandest places for worshipping God as he was very wealthy.

For me, church is the body of people that there, the fabric part of the building isn’t too important. After a while the churches do get a bit samey in their styles and decoration. The old ones in Jerusalem are pretty similar, with the main differences being writing which can be in Russian, Armenian or Greek.

Although obscured by a bus, and I can only really see this poster which made me smile, I would really liked to visit this one, but I didn’t spot it until I was on a bus on my way home back to Jerusalem.

I left out the main church in Nazareth, the Basilica church of the Annuciation, for a good reason, next I show this huge church and a few pleasant surprises I saw there…

May 13 2011

Review of Spiceworks IT management software

A little while ago I did a recording for a podcast called Geeks and God, where I did a review of an IT management software program I use in my work called Spiceworks.

If you would like to listen to this check out: http://geeksandgod.com/episode141

This is my first time doing such a recording so forgive me as I don’t the best speaking voice for this kind of thing 🙂 I did some screen shots to refer to you can see as well.

Many thanks to my friend Ed Ross who has an amazing enthusiasm for recording audio programmes to get the attention of anyone using any kind of media for churches of Christian organisations.

I would seriously recommend anyone puts Spiceworks on a spare PC or virtual machine and see what benefits it can make looking after everyday IT tasks in your organisation. Its free so you have nothing to lose.

May 13 2011

Yom Ha’atzmaut – Israel indepedance day

On tuesday 10th of May I got the day off work as it was Israel’s independence day, 63 years since the modern state of Israel was formed.

Some people also call this national barbecue day.

Its not hard to see why! The parks are very busy, this one, Gan Sacher park which is close to the government buildings has loads of people.

Here behind this yellow tape is a band playing middle east style music, there is a small flute that has an Arabic style sound to it, not sure what its called.

Lots people have flags tied onto their cars and houses.

I like the fact a lot of Arabs are out having parties as well as Jews, religious and secular and young and old.

There several lots of planes fly over from the military and from El Al, Israel’s national airline.

A Jew and an Arab friend, me and another friend from Germany learning Hebrew here in the park celebrating together.

On the way back from the park, I saw lots of people took time to show solidarity for kidnapped solider Gilad Shalit at this tent at the side of the road here. He has been in prison in Gaza for over 4 years now.

About a week earlier there was a few minutes silence to remember the Shoah (the holocaust) during World War II. This holiday though is a happy ocassion that the Jewish people have their own nation.

In the evening the high streets were packed with partying until late and live music and DJs all around the high streets.

As well as national barbeque day, I guess its also national parking violation day too! You can’t walk up and down the pavements without squeezing past cars!!

May 8 2011

Nazareth – 10. The spice shop

This is one must see in Nazareth, its a 100 year old Arab business selling spices but also a lot of other food by weight, not only is there an exciting array of exotic smells of items generally absent from clinical western supermarkets..

..is watching the equipment used for making and processing the products they sell..

Left is ancient machinery that runs on steam for processing chick peas, on the right is a huge coffee roaster.

Where as this is more of a retailer in the traditional model here in the middle east, it got me thinking, in mid 1980s UK, various shops I know tried experimenting with pick and mix for all kinds of things, of course most people think of Woolworths for sweets sold by weight, but also my home city of Portsmouth, there was a store selling everything by weight including nuts, cornflakes, flour, etc in large storage bins which required amounts from customers are put into bags and weighed with minimal packaging. This died out after a few years probably due to hygine concerns.

Here in this store you can buy all kinds of exotic spices, teas, coffee, nuts and dried fruit etc. If you are used to the ‘Shuk’ (the outdoor market in Jerusalem, than this is not really a novelty, but this particular retailer seems to also sell things wholesale and get some items from abroad too (ie: from Turkey)

I got 200 grams of these brightly coloured sugared almonds which look quite old school. Think the last time I had these in the UK as a lad they are often extremely hard and people have been known to break their teeth on them, but these are soft and very pleasant here. Cheap too at 6 Shekels (£1 or s0)

Check out the store’s site at www.elbabour.com – Mostly Arabic, some in English so use http://translate.google.com

Brit In Jerusalem

A Christian discovering the roots in the holy land….

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