Category me

Feb 4 2013

unless you change and become like little children….

Whilst I was at church on my first weekend back in Israel, after the service I noticed something amazing;

There was an Arab family in the hallway as I was leaving, I had not seen this couple and their daughter who was only about 4 years old or so.    I introduced myself to the man but didn’t think he spoke much English.    I was just leaving and I noticed the little girl tugging on the sleeve of her friend another girl the same age, who had blonde hair and Jewish.

It took me back to see this, with all these attempts at meetings between nations on peace, when you realise any kind of prejudice in human beings is not preinstalled in us but is sadly picked up around us.   For all the problems that exist between Arabs, Jews and Christians, its us needing to be like children as Jesus mentions here:-

Matthew 18
1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”

2 He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. 3 And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.

Dec 24 2012

ebay bidding systems broken for people in Portsmouth

I have bee a regular user of ebay for 13 years now, and use it to mainly obtain all those hard to find spare parts for computers I fix.

After getting back to UK 4 days ago, I tried to buy a nonworking laptop for a nice winter indoors project, and give to a friend who needs a cheap laptop, in this case the seller doesn’t ship to the Isle of Wight, which I don’t. I live in Portsmouth.

For non British people (actually I think post codes in Canada work similar to UK possibly…) Post codes are one or two letters for the city and then some numbers for the localised area of the city then a gap and more random letters and numbers, like this:-

PO1 5EQ

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PO_postcode_area

This above wikipedia article tells you how the localised codes work for the Portsmouth, Chichester and Isle of Wight areas.

If you live in the Isle of Wight, their post is handled by Portsmouth’s sorting office.

Basically it boils down to the fact, Isle of Wight is used by PO30 – PO40 post codes. If you have a post code of PO3 6__ like me, ebay’s infrastructure refuses you to buy this item as that the seller won’t ship to the Isle of Wight, which the parcel couriers naturally charge a bit more.

There is a space between the two halves of the post code which is entered correctly on my ebay account details, but it interprets me as being in PO36 area it seems.

So ebay, in return for reporting an infrastructure issue, and being a loyal customer since 1999 and 2000+ feedback, any chances of a nice pressie for Christmas?

Nov 16 2012

Rockets hit Jerusalem

The last few days things have been heating up with bigger rockets coming out of Gaza.

Until recently cities in the more south of Israel, like Sderot, Ashdod, Ashkelon and Beer Sheva, were being hit with around 1 million people needing to regularly go into bomb shelters.

Now, longer range missiles hit Tel Aviv yesterday, landed on grass, no damage.   This is unusual as the regular GRAD missiles can reach a maximum of 40Km, so these are a different breed of weapon.

Today after I went home from work, an alarm sounded at about 16:45 – Jerusalem just had its first rocket attack in a long time.

After just getting on my shoes, coat and keys, me and my room mate ran downstairs to see most people hovering on the stairs that go into the basement where a large heavy door that has our bomb shelter is.

Having a bomb shelter is a legal requirement for all homes and businesses here.

Not many of my neighbours came in actually.   There were Ethiopian Jews, Russian Jews, one British lady and the rest of our block I think are sabra Israelis.  I have not seen on my neighbours together so this brought out a community spirit.  The elderly Ethiopian lady in her traditional clothing look noticeably in tears.

Across the road are two houses with Arab families which will having to deal this threat as well.   Something the mainstream news never really mentions.

This large room has some of other peoples stuff here, and someone painted some cartoon pictures on the wall, which actually makes the place look worse, like some kind of communist era prison.   This is an awful place to be, it feels like a prison and the toilets are grim, and a water tank is empty.  Actually I have to bring back some bottles of water which have to keep handy for disaster planning reasons.

I didn’t hear any explosions but there were some (maybe 2 or 3) from the west part of the city which friends told me online.

As today is Shabbat, the holiest day for Jewish people, this is a deliberate effort to frighten and worry people in the most holy city on earth.   There is a worry more attacks could happen (Saturday, the remaining part of Shabbat)   but we need to keep praying for safety and for a swift end to this war.   I know civilians in Gaza are no doubt going to be also stuck in the middle of this with possibly tragic consequences.

I have no desire to leave back to the UK, nor does anyone I know out of the three dozen Christian ministries I know that is here, we will continue to help this nation by prayer and in physical assistance.

Nov 15 2012

Israel now threatened by 75km missiles

This blog has been quiet for a while, but life for me has been anything but.

Just reading today about new Iranian Fajr missiles which hit south part of Tel Aviv today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fajr-5

These things have upto 75km radius, most of Israel is now under threat.    Already we had GRAD missiles which can hit Sderot, Beer Sheva, Ashdod and Ashkelon, and a new threat with attacks from Syria, which may have been a mistake from their own in fighting.

This country needs your prayers more than ever, but also the civilian population of Gaza which will inevitably get caught in the middle.

I will report soon on the measures my work and the government have recommended us to take.

 

Sep 28 2012

Sweet New Year

There been quite a few Jewish holidays happen in the last few weeks, one of them is new year.

We are now in the year 5773.   At my work, the food bank was working hard with not only regular food deliveries but also to provide apples and honey which is popular during Jewish new year to some of Israel’s most disadvantaged families here.   I got a jar of honey and some apples which I tend to stick on my cereal in the mornings.

Whilst I was staying the Galilee city of Tiberias which is on the coast of the Kinneret, the famous lake where Jesus did many of his ministry, I tried doing some walking around the edge of the lake.   Not that close to the lake mind you, only small part of it has beaches open for public use.

But, this path on the side of the road I thought was public, but led to a dead end:

I came across this, no less than 40 hives on this hill next to the main road, I didn’t get too close there are actual bees here.

The Galilee area is quite famous for its vibrant active agricultural industry here.   On the direct opposite part of the lake I see many banana plantations there.   Close to here there were many orchards of oranges here too.    I am not quite sure what flowers the bees get to pollinate though.

 

 

Sep 19 2012

Megiddo – The end of the world welcomes careful drivers

After traveling this part of northern Israel before in the Jezreel Valley, famous for where the end of the world will happen, I got a chance after I finished working for a few days in nearby Karmiel to actually have a proper visit of this historical site.

I came not to speculate at the very place the book of revelation says the last battle will happen, but to make sense of a particular scripture I have read that I have been trying to make sense of:

Zechariah 12:10-12

10 “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son. 11 On that day the weeping in Jerusalem will be as great as the weeping of Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. 12 The land will mourn, each clan by itself, with their wives by themselves: the clan of the house of David and their wives, the clan of the house of Nathan and their wives

Question; this future prophesied repentance and revival is parallel with a place and/or event in history of the “Hadad Rimmon”, I am curious what this is, and why it is after some searching, no one knows what it is.

My primitive knowledge of Hebrew tells me that Rimmon is a pomegranate, but thats all I know.  By going to the Megiddo historical centre I thought maybe I could shed light on this.

I had to ask the manager of my youth hostel how to get to Megiddo,which advised getting the bus to Tel Aviv.   Megiddo is not mentioned on the bus stop schedules, I had to ask the bus driver to let me off at the right time.    Actually I had to get off at a bus stop at the side of the highway and walk for a mile, along this junction to the visitor centre.

By the main road is a large prison.   There has been some talk of tearing it down and rebuilding elsewhere as more significant archeological discoveries were found not long ago – possibly the oldest Christian church ever found.

 
The end of the world welcomes careful drivers….

I had my iPod with me and I was in the mood for some 80s rock, so I had this apt track from Def Leppard’s ‘Armageddon it’   its funny that Armageddon which is derived from Ha Megiddo, has become quite common in language as a modern phrase for any big impending war.

Anyway, once at the outside of the visitor centre I just paid 28 shekels to go in.

I found out that Megiddo became an Israelite city sometime between the 10th and 9th centuries BC and functioned as an administrator centre for the fertile Jezreel Valley, many parts were added later.

 

These drawings on the walls I think are from Canaanite period.   The drawing of a giraffe is quite interesting, didn’t think there was those here in Israel, but then again there were lions in the bible which aren’t there now, there are a small number of wild cats, leopards in Negev but they are very rare.   On the right is a picture of the Pope which someone has scratched on graffiti in Hebrew.

From the top of the site you can see all across the Jezreel valley, the plain of Megiddo, a wide open space with a busy main road that goes to Afula.   There is two petrol stations and a McDonalds along the fields of Megiddo!!

There were mostly people in one big group here, so I was a bit cheeky and stood close to the historian who was speaking, as I think it costs extra to hire him to guide you.

Like a lot of other ancient parts of Israel like Masada, there is a complex underground system built to provide fresh water.   I went down the steps to see the tunnels.

>>> More on Megiddo on the next chapter…..

Sep 14 2012

Karmiel September visit

Although it may seem summer has finished in UK, its still extremely hot in Israel and this time of the year.

I have a list of about 9-10 IT related jobs in our large warehouse at the north of the country in Karmiel again.

Therefore I schedule a time to do some preventative maintenance up there, and get all the small jobs fixed.   I had to set up PCs for a two new members of staff, one of the PCs has the VNC remote software not working so it required a site visit.    In the picture I am changing out defective cooling fans in PCs as the heat and dust puts extra strain on our PCs here used for keeping inventory of our food distribution, databases of families we help and donations amongst other things.

Lunch time.   For me, I stretch lunch break very slightly to do some procurement of parts.   I got 3 new cooling fans for the PCs here, two I ended up using straight away, also a hardware store just by this nice junction meant I could get some insulation tape some electrical plugs also.

I needed to set up and test Skype with the other two buildings, also install Dropbox and few other apps, test and inspect two small UPS systems which are defective and need to scrapped.   I have two more UPS units I can send up from another building.

This is outside our Karmiel warehouse, it doesn’t look that big, but it contains a lot of space on the inside.

Later, I went and stayed with one of the volunteer staff from this site:

Outside the place I stayed.   All these flats look brand new.   Karmiel is a fast expanding city.   this balloon thing in the distance is a fancy sign post advertising flats for sale.

Unlike what you see in the news, this part of town has Arab Bedouin families but they seem to live side by side without any troubles.

Getting up in the morning I can hear people using power tools and roosters crowing.

The outskirts of the town, more construction going on.  This is a Jewish neighborhood with most of the people working in construction are Arab.

Arab towns (several less than a couple of miles away) are expanding too of course.

Karmiel isn’t particularly religious city, but religious Jews and religious Arabs with often 5-10 children mean rapid expansion of housing is necessary.

Beautiful rolling hills in the distance from this junction by the industrial estate.

Well got most of the work done, making some adjustments to the wireless routers will be another day as well being able to monitor the VOIP telephone system switch and get a better UPS back up power system.

Time for some much needed couple of days off while I am working away to see a few places….

Off to Tiberias again next……

Aug 2 2012

Judah’s visit to Jerusalem

This is my friend Judah Gabriel Himango, he is a fellow believer from the US I have known for about a year or so, we are quite similar sharing a keenness for problems solving in IT, although Judah is a web designer and programmer.

Hes likes to use his coding skills not just at his regular job, but also to serve the Lord, which one of these is his excellent Chavah Radio site an online radio station with Hebrew worship muisc, listeners can just hear what being played and add their own choices of songs to be played next.    Judah is using the same web site model to providing Arabic worship music to Egyptian Christians too, as well as other web sites teaching on which guitar chords to play this type of music too.  I think radio has always had exciting potential for providing worship material and teaching to those who can’t get it.

As well as we have similar interests in biblical theology and technical things, Judah happened to be flying on over to Eretz Israel to do some IT training courses, so stopped off on the way to stay at my place in Jerusalem as he needed a place to stay and didn’t mind my couch, it was fun to show him around places, we must of done 8-10 miles of walking easily I think.

Here is Judah close to the Pillar of Absalom with the Mount of Olives in the background.   I like to often get several pictures to join together to make a panoramic image, but as they were at a slightly odd angle I couldn’t quite cut the edges without losing detail, so its left as it is 🙂

We saw the UN HQ near my house, the Haas promenade, many bits of the old city including Jaffa Gate, praying at the Kotel, bartering Arabic quarter, grab food, then off to my church King of Kings Jerusalem.

Here is the Golden gate again, this is the place where our Lord Jesus will come back according to scripture.   Doesn’t matter its bricked up  and has an Arab cemetery in front.    I am sure there are spiritual power tools to make a way through 🙂

While we were there, I have just noticed this sign, whats odd, is the bit that says the “last path” (up to the Mount of Olives) and the other one “Gate of Mercy”  I have not seen this before!  interesting clues of the future!

We had enough time to quickly show him around the ministry I work for at Bridges for Peace and the nice old historic building which belong to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

Later we had dinner with our mutual brother in the Lord and wonderful musician Teddy Chadwick of Yerubilee blog who produces worship music on a harp.   A small country like Israel and things like Facebook frequently mean you find different groups of friends who know each other from wildly different places.   This bit was a new experience for me as this was a brand new Yemenite restaurant in Jaffa Street which I have never had food from Yemen before.  He later went off to see some of his family, then headed to Netanya to see other friends and do his IT training.

He is a terrific guy I finally met in the flesh and love his enthusiasm for sharing his love for the Lord and writing about his experiences.   We will stay in touch and hopefully meet again another time 🙂

Here’s some of his writings of his experiences:

http://judahgabriel.blogspot.co.il/2012/07/israel-liveblog-divine-presence-at.html http://judahgabriel.blogspot.co.il/2012/07/israel-liveblog-mt-of-olives-islamic.html http://judahgabriel.blogspot.co.il/2012/07/israel-liveblog-finding-my-brother-in.html http://judahgabriel.blogspot.co.il/2012/07/israel-liveblog-mediterranean-delights.html

Jul 29 2012

Return to Nazareth – 6. Today’s Nazarenes

Seems that I have neglected to write a conclusion to one of my previous trips, as this has been in the unfinished pile for about 8 months.  I passed this church on the bus out of Nazareth last time I came here, and was curious to know when a service was here again.

I have always wanted to find out where there are Arab Christians who are real spirit filled believers and love the Jewish people and Israel.  One is among my friends here, but how about in an mostly Israeli Arab city such as Akko, Jaffa or Nazareth, or even an a Palestinian city in the West Bank?   I was curious to know if a revival could happen in and amongst these ancient white-stoned buildings today.

I work for a Christian organisation that provides food to needy Jewish population as poverty is 23% in Israel, where as I take an interest in the Hebrew roots of my Christian faith, I do often think about what happens with Arab believers here.   I go to an active church in Jerusalem that is mostly Western in style although it has English and Hebrew worship music, there are Arab people there, and I live on the outskirts of Jerusalem’s Talpiyot district which is just 50 yards away from Arab areas, and I pass through parks where I see Jewish and Arab people, so I feel an obligation to pray for both type of people.  I don’t think its fair to people to criticise Christians working with the Jews to not be interested in helping Arab people, any more than someone ministering to the Irish should feel obliged to reach out to the Scottish, after all we all only have so much resources!

My first time joining in some lively Arabic Christian worship music!

This church is fairly small but I think there was about 130 people there, completely packed full!   Quite a a decent sized number of youth too, there are a few British and American Christians also here volunteering at nearby ministries too, I got chatting to.   After the service I got a small tiny cup of Arabic style coffee which is just a reminder of the traditional part of culture here.

Why the ‘Today’s Nazerenes’ for the title of of this article?  –  well as well as the expected name for people who from Nazareth, either today or from the past, it is the Hebrew word for Christian, but these people seem to really fired up for the Lord even I was only able to hum along to the praise and worship!!

נוצרי

As a newbie Hebrew student, that’s Nun,Vav (a vowel), Zayen, Resh, Yod – ie pronounced: Natzari!   The names of the equivalent symbols in Arabic I think are very similar.

I now need to visit church with another type of ancient Semitic language, the Amharic speaking Ethiopians next I reckon!

I feel really blessed that the Lord made perfect timing for me to get here 5 minutes before it started.   I missed my last bus home, after asking some local people, they told me its best to get a taxi to Afula and get a bus back to Jerusalem from there.

After my disappointment in not finding many active Christians in the youth hostel, it was wonderful to find people worshiping Jesus in the town of his youth.

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

 

Jun 18 2012

Skype and voice over IP services in Ethiopia banned

This apparently is my 500th blog post, wow.    I have never really had much of an opinion about control of the internet by governments, until I saw this yesterday;

Ethiopia bans Skype; 15 years of jail time possible

This is very sad as I have a close friend who used to live in Israel who is of Ethiopian origin who has gone back there.   The above article mentions 700,000 out of 84m people, (less than 1%) have internet access.

Last time I called him on Skype a few months ago I missed his call, then he was offline as  the internet connection was too unreliable for me to call him back, so I rang him from my Skype account to his mobile using some credit which worked pretty good.   So this is a good solution although can’t remember how much I spent last time.

With violence at a high amongst believers in Ethiopia, its sad that cutting off a cheap form of communication makes things harder for families on either side there.  Foreigners should be careful what they say on the phone to friends there as its likely all calls are monitored.

There is only one ISP in Ethiopia and its owned by the government, there is an interesting wiki article here about the laws of the web in the north eastern African state.

This really awful for African Jews in Israel who almost certainly still have family and friends back there.   Israel has 1.5% Jews of Ethiopian descent, and there are many more who want to come back soon.

Note to anyone in Ethiopia who has any type of computer, especially Christians doing ministry projects out there, get yourself a free piece of software (Windows or Mac) called Truecrypt to encrypt drives (internal or external) on your computer, if you are worried about any information which is sensitive in case a computer is seized by any form of hostile government.

A blogger who writes on Ethiopia mentions more on this here: http://transformingethiopia.wordpress.com/2012/06/14/new-telecom-crime-bill-grossly-criminalising-individual-liberty-at-stake/#more-5785