Saw this the other day, impressive!!
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Common pitfalls that can catch believers volunteering or studying in Israel
For believers, Jewish or Gentile volunteering or studying in Israel, I thought I would offer a list of pitfalls that can trip up followers of Yeshua who are staying in the holy land for any length of time.
Cultural sensitivity
Try and avoid wearing Tshirts with religious or political message. Making sure you the right attire for religious sites which means arms and legs must be covered, and the Orthodox Jews don’t like women in trousers, you need a long skirt in you are a female and wish to go through religious communities.
Staying in your flat all weekend
Theres lots to see if you are in Jerusalem, when Shabbat is over its fun to get into the centre of town and meet with friends at a coffee shop or ice cream joint. Usually there is people playing music in the streets in Ben Yehuda Street and the place starts to become alive Saturday evening.
I’ve noticed what I would describe is a habit that some people never go out. I had two housemates like this. This has happened to me too often. I think its a spiritual thing that can cause people to hide away sometimes.
Not praying over yourself
Pray for the armour of protection. THIS IS A MUST. Before you leave the house. This place is a spiritually volatile as it is politically volatile. No need for alarm or panic, but be aware any worries, negative thoughts can intensifying and depression can creep in while you are in Israel.
Ephesians 6 : 10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
This passage is saying about praying protection on yourself like the pieces of protective equipment worn for a war. This is a quite a good metaphorical statement needed.
If you don’t understand this passage, then get familiar with it. If you don’t want to understand this passage or would rather ignore this, don’t come to Israel.
Working on Shabbat
Don’t do it, stick to the biblical week, and shut down normal week friday evening. I’m not saying when you return to your original country you have to change away from your traditional working patterns, just while you are in Israel, observe the Sabbath and get a nice meal and invite some friends over, or get together with family, its good to invite someone outside of your usual group of friends who might otherwise be on their own that evening.
Because of spending all the time working, making every day the same, I’ve sadly seen some believers here and in my own country fall away this way.
Some ministries are working to a very tight deadline to make a complex project happen, and I’ve done it a few times only to find the project I was working on went wrong. Seriously friends, if you are doing ministry in Israel, don’t work Shabbat, its meant to be special for a reason.
Not going to a congregation of believers
Sadly some Christians have this idea if you work in a ministry, do a bit of private bible study or a visit an Orthodox synagogue you don’t need to go to a congregation, this is not true!! As well as get teaching and participate in worship, you need to have fellowship with believers, its also great to meet other foreign Christians, Jewish believers and sometimes Arab believers this way, take part in Jewish holidays, Torah portion (both Tanakh and Brit Hadasha, ie: Old Testament and New Testament)
Hebrews 10 : 23 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
Once you build some good friendships in your congregation (this took quite a while for me) its a great way to get mentored or be a mentor. If you find your life is completely peachy and never have any worries or struggles (you must be an extreme rarity!) use your experience of overcoming struggles to help others. Ok, realistically, if you have overcome many struggles you might also be called to look out for those who are on their own or going through a tough time.
Not drinking enough water
This happens a lot, it seems that a human being’s thirst doesn’t quite get calibrated right, and you may stick to usual pattern of fluid intake in a cooler country, don’t rely on this, you often need to drink about 2-3 times as much as you are used to especially if you are outside a lot.
If someone you are with doesn’t pack water on a trip and after you remind them they say ‘no I am alright’ don’t accept this and keep reminding them in making sure they are taking enough. A hike for some hours in the desert necessitates 3-4 litres of water at least. I find it best to get into a pattern of drinking some at least every half an hour. Dehydration takes places quickly and can really spoil your day or at the very worst make you very ill.
Don’t bash regular Christianity
If your brothers and sisters in Christ don’t show the same interest in the Holy Land, don’t get into a them-and-us mentality. There’s nothing worse than religious arrogance.
We are meant to be ambassadors for Jesus whilst we are away from our places of origin. It gives a bad impression if we show there is division among our fellow Christians.
When churches go with the world of plans to redefine marriage and family structure to appease a twisted society, people get angry and blame the whole church system as going down the tubes. I think the institutional church is not what it was but its crucially important we give a good impression of us as servants of the Lord.
When I see Hebrew roots movements telling people ‘listen to our theology, not pagan Christianity’ this makes me very cross. Don’t listen to any arrogant person who attacks the wider body of church, but do pray for the body of believers in our own respective countries.
My observation is that many Christians simply don’t know a lot of the bible, and don’t know the importance of Israel and the Jewishness of Jesus, but don’t know many other aspects of their faith, just because (particularly me) getting familiar with all aspects of the scriptures in the entirety is hard work.
Don’t try and be something you are not
If you are a gentile Christian with an interest in Hebrew Roots or Jewish foundations of Christianity, please don’t put on a kippur or tzi-zit. Don’t try and be something you are not. This causes so many problems.
Here’s a classic anti-replacement theology passage:- Romans 11 : 11 Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious.
The bible tells us (regular gentile Christians) that we are to make the Jews jealous from our salvation from the Jewish Messiah.
Some overly enthusiastic Christians get their theology back to front and try and wear clothing used by observant Jews. This can be interpreted as Replacement Theology, that Christians are the ‘new Jews’ and the almost certainly the reaction from other Christians as they are being just being plain daft.
Studying Hebrew roots can be great, but its not meant to be a religious dressing up game.
Be aware of unusual teachings and having discernment
Which way round do the events in end times event happen? Is the New Testament written originally in Greek, Aramaic or something else? Jesus’s birthday is 25th December?
Often people come up with some ideas that seem different from the norm, so be careful and research everything thoroughly yourself.
1 Timothy 1 : 3 As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain people not to teach false doctrines any longer 4 or to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. Such things promote controversial speculations rather than advancing God’s work—which is by faith. 5 The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. 6 Some have departed from these and have turned to meaningless talk. 7 They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm.
Sometimes there’s aspects of the bible that have several plausible explanations that we will have different interpretations, they often aren’t significant enough to argue about. I admire my friend Judah’s earlier blog post about tolerance of different ideas from our brothers and sisters in Christ, but robustly challenging anything false.
Not so kosher Rummikub game
Rummikub is a game I played as a child, which I found recently was invented in Israel.
I like it as its fast moving and you can rearrange sets of tiles to dispose of the ones on your rack, best played with at least 4 people.
This game is called ‘digital’ (I think) this game and the tiles looks exactly like the real one. This picture I saw was in either Tel Aviv or Jaffa in a Arabic bookshop. I guess imitation is flattery.
The box, shape of the counters and fonts all look an exact copy of the real thing, apart from the name of the game.
Bells on horses and taxi signs
I was reading this passage the other day:-
Zechariah 14 : 20 On that day holy to the Lord will be inscribed on the bells of the horses, and the cooking pots in the Lord’s house will be like the sacred bowls in front of the altar. 21 Every pot in Jerusalem and Judah will be holy to the Lord Almighty, and all who come to sacrifice will take some of the pots and cook in them. And on that day there will no longer be a Canaanite[c] in the house of the Lord Almighty.
I was wondering about bells on horses, this must be symbolic right? I mean not many people have horses these days, its a bit hard to feed them with not a lot of grass for them, and they aren’t really used for work much except the odd Bedouin camp. I don’t know of any culture in the last hundred years has bells on horses.
So, in recent times some clever Israeli hi tech company have started putting large coloured LCD displays on taxis, so must be a nice money spinner for the drivers and owners of the equipment. I saw these type of screens on Las Vegas taxis when I was there in 2001. This looks like a new venture, as I don’t see any regular ads apart from them trying to sell spaces on them.
A car is a modern day horse for work, a bell gets people’s attention, so, whats the chances of the name of the Messiah could be broadcast on one of these one day?
Small pacific states vote no for Hamas/Fatah Palestine terror state
This is something I wrote last year and forgot about until this week
Exactly this time last year, I was thinking today about the UN decision to partially recognise Palestine as a nation, but I had been busy last couple of days (of December 2012) and have not really properly followed the news.
For countries that don’t want to give recognition to a new extreme Islamic state that fires rockets into its neighbours and radicalizes its youth with hate, I was surprised to see apart from US, Israel and the Czech Republic, some tiny little known countries out in the Pacific Ocean:-
Several of these countries are some of the smallest in the world.
I did some research on Wikipedia from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population
Makes me think of this passage in Luke 9 : 46 An argument started among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest. 47 Jesus, knowing their thoughts, took a little child and made him stand beside him. 48 Then he said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. For it is the one who is least among you all who is the greatest.’
Maybe some of these little countries prefer to go with the not so population opinion, and as the above mentions the least being the greatest.
I’d like to learn more about the church in these tiny countries and how they support Israel.
Jerusalem F1 event – the holyland’s debut as a track for motor sport
This is something exciting I got to view back in June;
Monaco, San Marino and Bahrain and small mini countries which are used as a race track at times of the year, even if it maybe a bit of an inconvenience for the local people, heck let them have a day off for a couple of days.
Exotic cars are a rare in Israel, people aren’t really into cars here, they prefer to drive something boring like a Mazda. So its unusual to see this Aston Martin, these cars that were here also have Israeli licence plates. Think all the other exotic cars include the non-road going F1 cars have all been shipped in from elsewhere.
Me and some British friends here get to check his race out.
The track made me a bit nervous, I think getting hay bales is difficult in this country, so there are simple barriers and some opt to buy tickets to sit a proper grandstand in a park close to Yemen Moshe.
This event is very much a test, so the cars are driving around fast enough to make a decent bit of noise, but not as quick as a lot of races.
I have to say, its a really odd choice using Jerusalem for a race track, here the cobbles and hills mean a car with a tiny gap between the floor of the car and the road seems not very practical.
Usual famous spots like the YMCA and the King David hotel are being photographed as they were like the cafes and hotels in Monte Carlo, Monaco which I saw back in 2005.
Aha! a Ferrari in the ‘wild’ I’d imagine there can’t be more of these cars in the whole of Israel than can be counted on one hand.
If anyone from the government is watching this, or, anyone interested in motorsport in Israel, I have an idea, there’s plenty of empty space in the desert which occupies most of the bottom-half of the country, there must be enough space to build a dedicated track that nice and big and purpose designed for a new attraction in this country, visitors could stay in a city like Beer Sheva and take a bus down to the track, and provide jobs and tourism for the less visited low bit of this nation.
The search for Milo the cat in Jerusalem
This week a stray cat unofficially adopted by our work had a slight injury or infection in her eye.
Milo is a lovely female tortoise shell cat who patrols our gardens and car park, shes clean, energetic and full of life and friendly to anyone who walks up our drive way unlike the usual stray diseased moggies that lurk on every Jerusalem street corner.
So to administer her medicine over the weekend, one of my colleagues took her home in a cage so she could get the eye drops and decent food each time. She is still a stray, but she lives in our car park, but has a nice garden and plenty of places to hide and gets fed during the week by someone before we leave each evening. After the third litter of kittens one of my friends finally got her spayed and also a flea collar, so I guess she enjoys all the freedom of being feral but gets another cuddles and meal from my work.
Anyway today I found out (Sunday) she preferred to escape through a window rather have a the eye drops and food supplied by my co worker. Kathy who look her home lives about 6-7 kilometers from our headquarters, which makes me think.
Here’s a picture of the south east corner of Jerusalem where I live. For humans, Jerusalem is a confusing cluster of hills with the unmistakable white stone apartment blocks and buildings, trees and scrub bushes. No road goes in a straight line, you have to travel in most streets in a kind of S-shape.
Can a cat like Milo find her way home so easily? For a small mammal 7 kilometers must feel like 5 times as much distance for a human. I’m wondering during the times of the bible when people traveled to different cities in Israel if their animals could tell where to go by the sun, moon, smells, sights, whatever, if their riders had their navigation judgment affected by severe heat or sickness.
I’m hoping when I get into work tomorrow I’ll see a familiar furry face when get into the gate path, if I do, then I know that Lord gave animals a sense of direction that people can’t often fathom.
Microsoft Next event in Tel Aviv
Work has been super busy lately, have had to deal with numerous server and database crashes, and have got worn out from extra hours, stress and personal troubles as well.
At the beginning of November I went to Tel Aviv to a Microsoft Next event in Tel Aviv. I missed out going to this last time as I had the choice of this or an event at church. I wanted to do both, but I ended up going to a worship event.
Anyway getting a bus to Tel Aviv, I actually got dropped off in a different bus station than the usual gigantic one which reminds me of David Bowie’s Labyrinth movie. This one I think was intended for students at the nearby university.
Actually, don’t think I have ever seen IT products on Jerusalem bus shelters, but these Microsoft ads in Tel Aviv seemed well timed for this particular event it seemed.
Fearing I had left too late and wasted the morning, I was pleasantly surprised to be very early actually. Too early in fact, so I got breakfast at a coffee shop for 36 Shekels, sat in ear shot of some American IT people chatting about plans for their own corporate network.
The emphasis of this event was on the new Windows 8 operating system as well as Windows RT and Surface which are touch driven tablet computers.
Tablet computers I find hard to excited about, even though they are buzzword at the moment. I need to have a bit more play with the spare iPad at my work, but generally I find iPads and all tablets unappealing, the screen always tilts the wrong direction, and having it propped up with a special leather case always looks a tad ridiculous, as well as their higher cost than a low end Windows laptop with small amount of physical computing power and local storage. The iPad has no SD slot or USB ports, so editing camera photos isn’t possible on the move, and is reliant on iTunes to communicate with a grown-up computer, not manageable in a large business environment.
The other thing they seem extremely unergonomic to work with. The screen is highly reflective, and many people in Israel like to use their computers outside which is hard with bright sunlight without a way to pivot the display to the right angle, and seems like a way to easily get neck, back or wrist pain when using them in any kind of posture for a length of time.
Yes, I’m old fashioned for preferring a more established model of computing (desktop or laptop) and I need to stop being a dinosaur and get with the social media luvvie types who rave about tablet computers, and how a tablet interface should control everything even your toaster. Tweet this piece of bread to Stephen Fry anyone?
After getting in this tent before you can go in the big boat house which is Tel Aviv’s coast, I realised to my horror you were supposed to be prebooked, the web site didn’t make it clear this event needed prior registration, which I never did and closed a week before the event started.
Drat. Bummer. Rats.
Windows 8. I had a brief play with this, as well as I have Windows Server 2012 on my HP Microserver. That Metro interface which Microsoft tries to keep the name more discreet thinking it got a bad reputation.
Trying to control your computer without start is highly confusing for both experienced IT professionals and people who only use computers domestically. Even find shutdown is darn impossible without looking at documentation or a a Google search. Other things like invoking a ‘Run’ command to do a DOS command, and many basic features, feel completely alien and unnatural.
Nevertheless, many people are claiming, “just embrace it and get used to it and you will like it!” to switching from icons and start button layout that’s been around between Windows 95 and 7. I would like to see tiles of my browser favourites rather a text list at some point soon.
In my job I have to give users training of how to use the computers as tools to do their jobs, and can’t really see big companies taking this seriously.
Small, medium and large businesses want some degree of familiarity for users without too much retraining, and I just can’t see regular office workers wanting to work in this style. I would be in favour of replacing the mouse with a larger touch pad, which Apple brought out for desktop Macs but doesn’t seem that popular so far. Hey Belkin and Logitech, why haven’t you brought a product like this for both Windows and Mac?
Microsoft’s Windows Phone platforms still seems dwarfed by iPhone, Android and Blackberry, and with their lack of recent success it hard to see Windows 8 as a desktop environment and its current Windows Phone counterpart appears to have never reached Israel, seeing as iPhone arrived much later but now is extremely successful even considering it may be as much as 200-300 shekels a month for 2-3 year commitment.
I need to roll out at least another 12 new PCs to replace flakey and old equipment at my work over the next 12 months, so I will be sticking with Windows 7 which is just fine thanks.
Today is the last day of Sukkot which is the last of a succession of several Jewish holidays in Israel.
Sunday of last week I got invited via another non-Jewish friend* to a party in a religious area of Jerusalem close to Meir Sherim. There must of been 40-50 people in this structure, food was pretty good, my favourite was salmon in some kind of spicey sauce. The religious Jews there ranged from Kippor wearing Americans on holiday from Texas to Ultra Orthodox with fox fur hats and stripey gowns, there were some Russian people there as they had a torah in their language. Its touching that many Jews are happy to invite strangers over to their communities for this special holiday, and make sure there is enough food and seats for extra people to come at short notice, including anyone who might be lonely or away from family to join in.
Two days ago, on a Saturday I went to a friend’s house who teaches Hebrew and had another meal there too.
A lot of restaurants provide Sukkot tents outside their establishments for patrons to sit and eat.
* I meant to say, on the first party I went to, my friend who brought me along is an Arab believer in Jesus, perhaps seems unlikely story, but its thrilling to see genuine friendships between Jews and Arabs here. On the way we got approached outside a different religious area by Orthodox Jews asking if we could help as their electricity and gone off and they needed someone gentile to flip the breaker switch, which they felt uncomfortable doing as it was a religious holiday, so we were happy to help.
All the holidays are now done, and its back to work tomorrow, no more holidays until Hanukah which is at the early part of December this year, as sometimes it runs parallel with Christmas.
Oh, something else very significant, both the early on in the festival of Sukkot and the last day, it rained! Although we are in October it seems a little bit early for rain season.
In Jerusalem on the last day of Sukkot
Ships on the Galilee coast
I am on the edge of the Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee) in the city of Tiberias, on the coast of the lake its easy to see how fishing his been part of the economy for years.
Sadly this fish processing plant looks kind of derelict, although when I walked back to the hostel when it was darker, the lights were on.
A lot of the fish I see in Jerusalem supermarkets comes from Norway. There is however plenty of small restaurants serving fish caught in the lake to Christians who want an authentic biblical meal.
This boat looks like a lot of the vessels for taking Christian pilgrims around the lake, but its up on blocks for service. I remember my grandad telling me its important to paint the bottom of your boat each year (or at least for a small sailing dingy with a wooden hull)
Wonder what conversations went on during Jesus’s time during the times when boats were being repaired and maintained around here.
This is an odd looking machine, some kind of drill or milling machine I guess.
One of the unique things about the middle east with scarce rain, is most of the year your yard can easily become an outdoor lounge, workshop or kitchen, with appliances and furniture (that aren’t worth stealing) not in danger of getting wet, only by sand from the dusty atmosphere.
I did spot some people fishing after all, in a more casual non business fashion, an Arab father and son here.
Its kind of funny that these cats sit her awaiting, it seems they are used to getting the fisherman throw them the small ones not worth taking home, but there was some discarded pizza, so I think they get fed quite well!! 🙂
Brit In Jerusalem 