Category personal

Sep 7 2011

Logmein – IT pros working around the world in fun places

I entered a competition recently, its from a program I use at work called Logmein to connect to my office PC from home, not sure when a prize of some kind will be announced.

The competition was a photo from whilst on holiday where is a good place to work from remotely.

Here I love my job!  I don’t actually have an income, but doing volunteer IT support in Israel has to be one of the best things ever!   Its also interesting to see other IT admins doing their roles from other unusual parts of the world.    In this picture in the top left corner of the screen, I am climbing up the Negev desert close to the Ramon Crater.   I once worked with a chap doing IT for the hospitals, who looked after servers on a cruise liner, so I am curious of what the most fun and unusual IT job there could be.

Sep 5 2011

Jericho – 5. The tree

After leaving the mount of temptation, we drove past the cable cars that took passengers up From a kilometer away or so, would of been fun to go on these, but the road signs took us to the foot of the cliff.

Back to the town I saw this mosque and church close together:

I was quite excited to visit this next place…

This tree is meant to be the one that Zacchaeus, the tax collector, climbed to see Jesus, as he couldn’t see him through the crowd.

Luke 19: 1  Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. 3 He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.

 5 When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.  7 All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”

 8 But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”

 9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

I think its interesting that Jesus asked him quite bluntly that he needed to stay at his house that night, where as in the culture of the UK, we would probably feel more embarrased about having to ask someone we had only just met if we could stay over at short notice.   Here in the middle east, hospitality is such an important thing.

Theres no guarantee on the authenticity of this place, its interesting that the tree is burnt from being struck by lightening at some point.

The tree is well protected by these railings and there is no way to get right up to it, let alone use it as a place to see someone speaking in a crowded in a public place.   It does seem like a good place to imagine Jesus speaking in a prominant part of city though.

My friend didn’t buy this scarf in the end, the man selling them, taking our picture wanted too much for it, and these Palestinian scarves were made famous by Yasser Arafat, so not really someone in history that should be remembered fondly.

This was the last place in our brief day trip to Jericho is we went back to the hotel and showered and went out to church.

Sadly I didn’t get to see any traces of history of Jericho’s old city walls or inhabitants, seems this was on the other side of town.   Never mind I think I will be back here again.

1. Crossing into the oldest city in the world – 2. Jericho’s town centre – 3. Church on the cliff – 4. View of Jericho’s plain –  5. The tree

Aug 13 2011

Body of Christ in Israel

I was thinking about the different types of people I know in various Christian organisations in Israel, one thing we have in common is as volunteers we have put our careers in hold, often got rid of our cars and sometimes houses, are away from our families to help serve in all different types of roles.

From this, I have realised we all have gifts and talents but often our nations of origin hold significant strengths and abilities also that define us.

This isn’t meant to put any us in boxes as such, but these are some of the common abilities I have seen amongst fellow volunteers in Israel.   Sadly I have not included the UK, as there is very few Brits I see here.

1. USA

Traditionally the media have always labeled America has been the biggest supporter of Israel, and its true but as the US has more Christian organisations than anywhere else in the world, so I would say American Christians have particular talent in leadership.

American is the pioneering force behind Christian media and press, and a lot of great lot of the gospel has come up from TV, radio, newspapers and magazines, it has helped to shape the message of Jesus to spread all over the world.

At the moment America has a heck of lot of debt, I tried to work it out but I couldn’t fit all the numbers onto the LCD screen on this calculator, I can’t see a clear solution to fix this, but I hope this encourages a shake up of America’s Christians to pray and intercede for their government.

2. Japan

Believers in Jesus in Japan officially only make up less than 1% of Japan, the ones that truly know the Lord and I really admire they the most servant hearted people I have seen, especially in the food bank here at Bridges for Peace putting together bags and pallets of food that are going to the needy.  They are not recently threatened by war, but more of geology related problems can be just as destructive, and its great there is great relationships between Israel and Japan, as Israel helped out with the most recent devastating earthquake.  They also seem to be the politest people in the world too. 🙂

3. Suomi (aka Finland)

There isn’t any Finnish people at the organisation I am at the moment, but there are a lot I know in other Christian organisations here.   Interesting enough I know most of them speak Finnish and Swedish, the ones in the west of the country next to Sweden prefer to speak Swedish.

Given that Finland has only 5 million people – less than Israel, but many Finns tell me that all the churches they know support Israel.   It seems like replacement theology is a foreign concept to our friends from the chilly top corner shelf of Europe.  The Finns seem to have a knack for good sound biblical teaching I think, and there are a few dedicated Finnish Christian organisations in Israel.

Thus, Kudos and Kiitos for the dedication from the Finns. (Kiitos is the only Finnish word I remember which is thankyou)

4. Australia, New Zealand and South Africa

Our Commonwealth brothers:

These guys seem to have more of a sense of adventure than anywhere else, going traveling around other places.   For instance, I have been to a few Youth hostels in France and America and always see Aussies, Kiwis and Bokkies there, and they make good travel companions.  The seem to be attracted to the outdoors and getting their hands dirty, which is why they also excel at sport, but excelling even more at trying to be super competitive over each other.   So they seem to naturally take to doing overseas volunteer work in a Christian ministry..

And they drive on the same side of the road as us Brits too. :o)

5. Nigeria

I don’t think we have any Nigerians volunteering in any Christian organisation I know of here, but since a few years ago, when the Nigerian government told the Muslim population they can have a free paid for trip to Mecca, the Christian population complained they ought to have a free trip to Jerusalem as well, the government obliged, and now we see a lot of Nigerians here showing their support for Israel, so they bless this land by just being here touring and seeing places.

6. Canadians

They don’t seem to get too cross if you call them Americans by mistake.  They seem to not moan about cold, and they like hunting.   Canadians seem to stand out by their warmth, cheerfulness and great humour especially under pressure.

Canada probably has the best government of anywhere at the moment as PM Stephen Harper proudly makes his unwavering support for Israel as a Christian, not caring what his fellow peers think but trusting in the bible.   I can only wish we had more leaders like this.  Fer sure Eh.

7. The Netherlands

The Dutch have a talent for prayer and intercession, this is reflected by a hardcore group of Christians from Holland that go praying along the walls of the old city every day, 6 days a week, just not Shabbat or Jewish holidays.

8. Thai and Filipinos

I see a lot of people from East Asia here working with the elderly and holocaust survivors.   These people have such abundance of patience and love for the infirm.   I see a lot of people from these countries in the UK too working as nurses and carers also.

9. South Koreans

The last Asian country to mentioned here but with the largest amount of Christians in Asia I think.  I don’t see many volunteering here, but theres a lot of them on Christian tours here, the Koreans seem to excel at worship I think.   I see them playing guitar in Ben Yehuda Street every weekend and in the parks too.  Its funny seeing a small boy playing a big guitar thats the same size of him too doing a Hill Songs cover in their own language.

10. Israelis

Last but not least, Messianic Jews I have met here in Israel, seem tough and well prepared for all kinds of situations, due to training in the army as well as being people of the book, therefore having to deal with threats from neighbouring countries, inaccurate, dishonest or slanderous news in media around the world, as well from harassment from Jewish anti missionaries.  I like the fact that Israelis seem very outgoing and like travelling and going to see live music a lot too.

Lastly, this is not meant to be exhaustive, only a sample of people I have seen here, there in fact other groups of people, such musicians from Denmark and even in recent times there Arab people who have a passion for Jesus, this is something I would like to find out and write at another time.

Aug 6 2011

Jericho – 2. Jericho’s town centre

This fountain stands in the middle of the square in Jericho.   As it was close to or exceeding 40c today, I really wanted shove my face in it, with lots of people around I decided to be civilized I opted to soak my hat instead.

Right by the fountain, I spotted this old Arabic coffee flask, now this bus service I like, I am not certain, but it seems customers riding on this bus get some Arabic coffee before they hop on.  Even if this at extra cost, I think this is a great idea 🙂

Two things you see in Palestinian cities, butchers shops with mostly whole animals in the windows, and bright yellow taxis with green licence plates.

This logo seems to appear on cars and buildings owned by the Palestinian Authority.   I don’t like this at all, this eagle symbol reminds of another force from history…. Oh never mind.

We took a quick look in this phone and computer accessories shop.  My friend Jeremy wanted to get a case for his iPhone, this shop has these odd looking speakers which seem to be aimed as playback of music from a phone via USB or Bluetooth.  I notice Arab people often play music on their phone in the street, and probably use them to play Islamic prayers and teaching material.  By the way we were here a few days before the start of Ramadan.

The news seems to show all Palestinians as poor, but there is plenty of shops in the main cities like Jericho, Nabulus, Bethlehem, Ramalah and Gaza seem to have all type of businesses selling all the same goods you can find in Israeli cities.

I found the people of Jericho to be extremely friendly, not just the people that were trying to sell us stuff, people outside of shops and fast food places wanted to chat to us as we didn’t look Arab, so it was pleasant to chat to folk that we (well my two friends were on holiday from England, I didn’t mention about my reason for being here) and I didn’t see anyone else obviously foreign.

This particular iPhone 4 case here is distributed by a Palestinian company (you can just about make out the .ps domain address)

Apparently Jericho only has 20,000 people so it is quite a lot smaller than I thought it would be bigger being the oldest city in the world with a consistent population.

Soon! The mount of temptation where Jesus went to pray and fast, and I got to visit an old tree that had could of had some very special significance from the time of Jesus!!

1. Crossing into the oldest city in the world – 2. Jericho’s town centre – 3. Church on the cliff – 4. View of Jericho’s plain –  5. The tree

Aug 3 2011

Jericho – 1. Crossing into the oldest city in the world

Heading to Jericho which is in Palestinian territories is only 40km from Jerusalem, This ancient city is somewhere I had always wanted to visit, and scouring the internet seems to not have much in the way of safety recommendations but seems popular with all kinds of visitors to the holyland, as some good friends from the UK were over it was a good chance to take a jolly over and investigate the oldest still inhabited city in the world….

After driving through an Israeli checkpoint, no action is needed as you only get ID’ed on the way out, so its just a case of driving slowly past a kiosk, a bit further is another checkpoint, just some concrete barriers and two soldiers from the Palestinian government who just asked for passport from my friend who was driving.

This picture was taken some distance away, and this is the best zoom I could do, as for obvious reasons I don’t want to be found taking pictures of any kind of checkpoint crossing anywhere!!   Seeing uniformed soldiers with their lapels in Arabic with Palestinian symbols was quite scary for a minute there!

I came to the city trying not to have any preconceived ideas, I have been to Bethlehem and passed through a few small Palestinian towns and also visited Arab Israeli cities like Nazareth and Akko.

This corner shop was the first business we came to.   CocaCola is a brand you find everywhere in the world, especially in this corner of the world and I remember somewhere, one of the Arab nations were trying to make an equivalent Cola drink for the middle east market.

This part of the West Bank is quite odd, there are old and new parts of Palestinian society together.   For instance, there are run down looking houses, factories and farms, and there are large overhead gantries over the main road advertising technology and home furnishing trade conventions.

This sign is for Jawwal, a Palestinian mobile phone operator.

This concrete wall, isn’t a separation barrier, or any kind of border, seems to be a fortified car park for police vehicles, it does look unfinished with unrendered concrete looking like just as a imposing as the wall I see next to Bethlehem about 3-4 miles from my house.  Maybe its inspired by the ancient walls of Jericho…

Next: to Jericho’s city centre!

1. Crossing into the oldest city in the world – 2. Jericho’s town centre – 3. Church on the cliff – 4. View of Jericho’s plain –  5. The tree

Jul 26 2011

VMware conference in Tel Aviv

I got up and left the house at 5.30 to go to a IT conference at the Hilton Hotel in Tel Aviv.

As I mentioned before, Tel Aviv’s unique multistory bus station is a strange affair, finding the way out is very confusing.   With stairs and lifts that go all over the place, but no signs explaining the way to the street, I feel a bit like someone from the Labyrinth movie with David Bowie. 🙂

Once I go to taxi rank I jumped in a car and asked if the man could take me to the hotel, he said the journey would be 80 Shekels (£14) I told him I wanted a ride with the meter on, as this was too much, fully aware of rip-off scams of taxi drivers explaining the meter is ‘broken’ and offering a ‘special deal’ to naive foreigners, this driver complained to me he has to pay 35% of the journey to the government.  I just got out and walked away as he wanted to offer me 70 instead.  I just thought if you don’t want to pay those fees, find a different career!   Another driver who was polite and legit with the meter on charged me about 37 NIS instead.

The food at the event was on par with a wedding or Bar Mitzvah, there is a huge buffet of different things on offer, traditional Israeli breakfast spread of bread, salad, yoghurt, etc, lot of cake after the first seminar and various types of coffee served by a waiter, and a really superb choice of things for lunch too.  There was also a free bar, well just two types of beers on tap, which was very welcoming when sitting outside given it has been about 35 degrees C recently.   Full marks for the catering, but then again with $850m earned last year I guess VMware didn’t want to look like cheapskates.   The Microsoft event I went to in 2008 which had the Windows 7 launch in London I only got a couple of sandwiches though.


The seminars were mostly spoken in Hebrew with the powerpoint slides and annotations in English.

Most of the products on offer were showing the new upcoming (v5) version of VMware ESX, and addons and third party software apps from other vendors, aimed at someone with a VMware system already in place.

I had some questions I asked the staff, such as differences between the freeware and paid for licences of ESX, they told me to go to the web site, but there isn’t much there.

So not a great deal of value for my job or for my plan to build a server at home, but I did get decently fed, a IBM 100 anniversary T-shirt and a HP flashlight, got to chat to chap from the Israeli company I used to work for and a few other people.

Jul 16 2011

Journeys of Jesus – Travelling between Nazareth to Jerusalem

Revisiting part of my trip to Nazareth from a few months ago.

In my job I often have to go up to a warehouse in Karmiel, a large food bank which supplies food for the poor in the greater Galilee area, to service computer equipment which requires me to visit every so often.

One of the unique things I like about my job is going to visit this site to do a few days work and doing some sightseeing around the Galilee, meaning I can see Nazareth, Cana, Akko and Tiberias not too far away.   As there is no dedicated IT person based up there, so maintenance requires a fair bit of planning if I need to take a laptop, tools and software CDs, this means I am doing a 2.5-3 hour trip up there from Jerusalem, which makes me think is a trip Jesus would be very familiar with, although Karmiel is much further up than Nazareth.

In Matthew 20: 17-19 the scriptures talk about Jesus “going up” to Jerusalem even though its south of course, part of this is to do with the high elevation that the city is on as well as its great significance for Jewish and Christian people alike.

Getting to Nazareth is quite easy on an Egged bus or even with this above Nazareth based coach operator.

Being in the middle of the Galilee region of Israel, there aren’t railway connections here like all of the (Ashdod / Ashkelon / Herzilya / Yaffo / Tel Aviv  / Netanya / Haifa / Akko / Nahariya) coastal cities have in Israel.

I often think about how often Jesus himself traveled between the two locations, if I were some other kind of mobile tradesman and lived here before cars and buses, there is a number of challenges, stopping for food and where to stay overnight, risks of attacks by bandits/robbers, extreme heat, mosquitos, having enough (3 litres a day per person minimum) water for the journey, steep hills, presents all manner of challenges.

I am wondering if people at the time of Jesus owned camels and donkeys or if they were rented.

 

Arab people in rural parts of the country may have camels (which are still expensive today)   or ancient Peugeot 504 pick up trucks are the other favourite, this one is full of sheep.

Some historians have said it takes 3 1/2 days by foot to go from one of these famous cities to the other.   I thought I would do some research.

Here is a map I have made with Google Maps,

You can get a closer look of this Google maps anotation:

This distance of 103kms (64 miles) one is ‘as the crow flies’ and goes across the separation barrier that fences off Judea and Samaria, what we know today as the West Bank.  (contrary to what you see in the media only 5% of the boundaries of the West Bank is concrete wall, the rest is a chain link fence)

I have only just noticed when doing this, the line passes straight through the West Bank city of Nabulus.  Given the highly mountainous terrain of this country, its unlikely it would be as simple as going via a compass back in Jesus’s time, there were plenty of political issues back then don’t forget, some places would not been safe then, especially given Jesus’s parable of the Good Samaritan, a Jewish man robbed and beaten up was cared for and put into a hotel for the night by a kindly stranger who as a Samaritan an ethnic group then enemies of Jews.

Closer look of this one also:

This one was suggested by Google’s planning system using today’s actual roads albeit a lot longer way around, without going through checkpoints, is quite a bit further at 151km (93 miles)

Look at the link and see carefully the main roads in Jordan, and the shape of the borders between Jordan and Syria create a pattern which looks strangely symmetrical to the route I have sketched out.   Quite bizarre.

To be honest though, its hard getting an idea of time and distance of going to and from the two great cities by foot or donkey in any more accurate terms given the challenges or land boundaries, steep hills and uncertain historical road systems, but I think it gives you a little bit of an idea.

Jul 2 2011

disposing of electronics scrap in Israel

In my job doing IT system administration and technical support for a Christian organisation called Bridges for Peace here in Israel, I am installing new equipment, mostly PCs and servers.

Back in April, we has an unfortunate week where three different network switches in two buildings fail suddenly, this paralysed our network access for about 25 staff, one of these switches broke the same time we had a power outage in the building I was in and the emergency power back up systems did not do the job of protecting the equipment.

What I want to know is, where is the correct place to take scrap IT equipment here in Israel?

It appears in most neighbourhoods, like mine, there are these big skips shared by three or four apartment blocks for putting in domestic rubbish in.  People also put broken furniture and electrical items in.   Some dead computers were left out in the hallway of my block, so I took the Pentium chips and memory out, and put them in the bin as well.

In my work, I have a pile of dead batteries from laptops, large brick batteries from UPS systems, several whole ‘shoebox’ sized UPS devices that were defective, two dead LCD panels from laptops,

All types of batteries contain highly toxic materials and LCD monitors contain small amounts of mercury.  How can IT people here in Israel dispose of stuff safely, legally and responsibly here?

Jul 1 2011

Shabbat party dream team

Some people keep fantasy football leagues and some people have imaginary dinner parties of interesting or influential people.

Here in Israel, I may sometimes go and attend a Shabbat dinner round friends houses, both Jewish or Christian, mainly because its nice to mark the end of the week and relax with friends and food.

So… I want to put together a list of people I would invite who are Jewish that would make interesting guests.

The purpose of this isn’t so much to change or influence anyone’s religious background, nor would I want to talk politics, more of a way of who would be fun to have at a party, plus I actually haven’t thought about food as I need to get more familiar with cooking good stuff that is kosher, especially I had made a lasagne on early friday afternoon and realised once it has milk in it….

Yeshua Ha Moshiach (Jesus Christ)

‘Well Jon would say that as hes a Christian?’, you are thinking.  Yes and you would be right.   Being here in Israel and learning Jewish culture whilst being immersed here has made me think more about Jesus’s character and Jewishness.   As well as being being the Messiah and a great preacher, teacher, Rabbi, outdoor chap (40 days in the desert) carpenter, (early career) caterer (wine at weddings, fish and bread by the sea) healer, hiker, (180 kms from Nazareth to Jerusalem) story teller and friend to many especially the social outcasts.

Today if people fiddled with their phones during meal or teaching I think he would probably be quite blunt that they were being rude, the same with bad language or slander.  Plus with the many parables he spoke he would have some pretty amazing stories that would keep everyone amused.  Think I would like to ask him a lot of things, I always get stuck on the parable about new wine in old wine skins, mainly as I think people switched to using glass vessels for liquids which I think the Romans introduced just after Jesus’s time.   I can get 30 Agorot for old bottles, I wonder if wine skins were costly and needed a return deposit if you bought wine?

Groucho Marx

Would have to have him for his wit and sarcasm.  Would love to know about his early days as part of a poor Jewish family growing up in New York, especially as him and his brothers (Harpo, Chico, etc) often featured in movies together, but were also successful in their own individual careers.

Gene Symmonds

Born Chaim Weitz in Haifa, Israel and as well as front man for 70s glam rock band KISS, he has only done one gig in Israel recently this year, challenged other bands who bend under the strains of the bigoted BDS movement and other critics of Israel, I also saw a sad story in the news how he regretted not seeing his estranged father who he visited his grave this week.

Slash from Guns N Roses and Lenny Kravitz

A few more rock stars are always be good.  Both are a mixture of Jewish and African parents.

Peter Falk

Sadly passed away this week, but the actor behind Columbo which had two runs, in the 60s & 70 and in the early 90s, was also a talented painter as well as an actor and voice artist for some Disney movies.   Although his screen character is Italian, never gives his first name or ever shows his wife, Falk is of Hungarian Jewish decent.  The famous TV series often had the same ‘guest killers’ several times over, including Star Trek crew members William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy also Jewish, and famous folks like Robert Vaugn, I am sure Peter has had all kinds of interesting friends hes met on set.

Zacheius

I could of chosen any of the apostles and Jesus’s acquaintances from the bible, but instead I thought I would invite the not so popular short bloke who climbed the tree to see Jesus who worked for the tax company.   I would like to ask him if has any ideas to improve PR relations with regular people in first century or today’s Israel, and how today’s Israeli government could get maximum value for money from tax income to improve public services, ie: safer roads and helping new immigrants.

Please note, normally these kind of lists allow for people no longer living and from different eras.  I would pleased to hear from other bloggers with their own choices, wether they be actors, musicians, politicians or other people from history.  

Jun 29 2011

New bike!!

Last week I got another bike.  It used to belong to another volunteer up in Karmiel at the food bank facility I work in every so many months.  This chap has left now, but the bike was abandoned after something broke on it and he couldn’t afford to fix it.

After it was brought down in a van, I got the local bike store to take a look at it, the gear controls on the right hand side don’t work and the chain had come off.   After some components in the gears were replaced and this slightly odd bodge, as the man in the shop said the original twist operated gear parts would be much more expensive, hence I have a thumb operated control ontop instead.

On thursday I managed to get a puncture, so back to the shop again, there is a Jewish owner of the shop and young Arab chap in the workshop and he is super quick and efficient in changing over the inner tube and has me up and running in 3 minutes.  I asked him to remove and discard the kickstand which doesn’t work properly and is more of a nuisance as a sharp bit of metal that could cause an injury.

This writing suggests the bike may actually be made by a company in Israel.  Interesting as cycling is not that popular here.

Its heavier than my old one so its a little tricky carrying down from my 2nd floor flat steps, but it was free and a huge blessing to not have to just rely on buses.

I also got asked to fix a Toshiba laptop with a dead screen from a friend of a friend, so after procuring a new 13″ LCD panel off ebay for UK£67.50, a financial gift for the repair work I did in form of the exact fee it took to get my new bike servicable.