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….
I recently heard there were some strikes from people who work in Jerusalem’s municpality.
Today I forgot all about this until today….
Here with my friend Jessee, there’s one heck of a lot of rubbish in the streets!
As no one has as collected it, theres about 4 times rubbish that supposed to fit it in the bin, looks pretty bad!
I wonder if the owner of this old VW Beetle (actually in very good condition) knew what he what he was in for when he parked here! Often I see homeless or poor people looking in the bins for bottles, which can be redeemed for cash they have a deposit on them, but here no one wants to sift through this!!
Oddly enough, friends of mine that have visited Cairo, the Egyptian capital says this doesn’t look as bad!!
Anyone who has visited the centre of Jerusalem will know there is thousands of stray cats around, they were brought in to get rid of rats and mice, buts its worrying to think what kind of health risk there is. One of my local friends told me the garbage collection should start again today though…
I hope some kind of agreement can happen with the government workers, but it seems a strike is not so sensible considering a back log of waste to have to deal with when they get back to work!
Today I was in the shuk and saw lots of extremely cheap (less than 2 shekels a kilo) vegetables that were at the end of their life, they would have to be eaten that day, after getting a knife and hacking out mouldy bits. Maybe this is an incentive to recycle more, and maybe bad vegetables could be composted or fed to chickens or something.
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.
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.
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.”
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….
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 – 6. Today’s Nazarenes
very interesting article I saw recently:
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!!
Back in the youth hostel I asked the staff how to get to the Jesus village, a place I missed out on previous trip, they very kindly phoned up the museum in advance, and told me I had to get there quick to not miss out as there was only one more guided tour left that day.
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 – 6. Today’s Nazarenes
Sometimes I see people use stories from the bible out of context in the worst way possible. In the case of these two pictures its from both people groups here in Israel.
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.
Firstly, don’t know if this has much relevance in Nazareth culture today, be in Islamic or Christian, but it made me smile anyway;
Ok, I am in wrong side of the country, as Jesus was welcomed into Jerusalem with palm fronds, although this looks like just a driveway into the side of someone’s shop.
As you can see, this house or business has palm trees put up in an arch over the drive way!
This act of Jesus and the people celebrating with the branches was a direct prophecy of this from the OT:-
Wonder if anyone could zoom in and translate the Arabic in the picture for me please? 🙂
Ok, maybe my imagination is probably working over time, but its interesting to see through the obvious and imagine what life was like, heck, I got to see an unusually large number of carpentry shops on my first visitto Nazareth!
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 – 6. Today’s Nazarenes
Brit In Jerusalem 