Jun 12 2011

Capernaum – preaching and miracles of Jesus

Off the side of the main road, onto a short drive down into a big car park is Capernaum

Sign shows there is a dress code here, just as well I forgot to bring my shorts, but wearing trousers in the heat on this day was pretty uncomfortable to say the least.

Gardens inside the gate looks very pretty.

Here are the ruins of the synagogue, as you can see some parts are more complete than others.

My friend Arnold stands by the pillars.

There is one interesting twist with Capernaum, there is a new building built on stilts on top of some of the ruins! Here you can see these steps go up to the elevated new church.

I really like the design of the new building, its spacious up here!

Capernaum of course was home to Jesus after he left Nazareth.

A centurian asked Jesus to heal his servant who was back home in Cana. Matthew 8.

In Mark 1 Jesus lived here after leaving Nazareth and preached at the Synagogue and casted out unclean spirits from people. Mark 2, explains a disabled man is brought in through the roof, by digging into the roof;

Hold on – digging in a roof? When I went to Iceland people (this country was founded in about 900AD) had roofs made of soil with grass growing out, to help keep the house warm, surely this would not happen in biblical houses at the time of Jesus?

I had a look at a web site containing the original Greek NT. Its not readable with Google translator but the English text on the left says they uncovered the roof (covered with felt maybe?) and broken it (the roof up) to get the man in.

Today of course modern regulations means disabled people need ramps or maybe lifts to get into public places, however awkward and destructive it was, it was nice that people took the time to get this fellow in front of Jesus when he was preaching there.

If anyone else is also curious about how the disabled man was brought by his friends into the synagogue I would be interested to know what you think.

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 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…

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 17 2011

Cana – The Wedding Church

This is a church which is meant to be on the site of where Jesus did his first miracle.

In fact this place is popular for Christians to get married today.

This path has a rock in the way to stop cars coming up here, but its a path outside the wedding church. So you imagine people waiting outside for service to start with their big hats on maybe….

The green tiles have some scriptures on, albeit some have broken off.

The church’s main area isn’t huge, so probably get upto 70-80 people maybe.

Good place for bar or tables full of sandwiches I reckon.

Above and left you can see some mosaic that was dug up underneath this church. There is some text written in Aramaic, a language spoke to by Jesus popular as well as Hebrew.

This appears to be uncovered foundations of the original structure here. There is money people have thrown down. Not sure if this was encouraged by the church or something for luck perhaps.

In John 2 : 1-12 On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.” “Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim. Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.” They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.” What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him. After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days.

What has made me wonder lately, is Jesus did some of his miracles to heal the sick and raise the dead, and to prove a point, this was his first miracle. In later times Jesus healed someone and told them not to tell anyone, such as Jairus’s daughter. Luke 8 : 49-53 I know two couples are getting married at my home church this month, it would be interesting hearing the groom’s speech from 2000 years ago if he gave Jesus credit for the wine 🙂

Could be a nice place to sit outside for a wedding reception. Heck you could easily rig up a disco ball on this wooden roof 🙂

Here I spent less than hour looking around and then one of the nuns who I think was Italian who lives in house in the grounds told me they were closing up. Some people on the way out were disappointed it was shut, but it was re-opening a bit later in the day. I headed back to the main town centre and got a bus back to Nazareth.

Cana – The High Street – Cana – The Wedding Church – Nazareth – Megiddo

May 15 2011

Cana – High Street

Cana’s main high street. Like Nazareth, Jaffa and Akko, Cana is an Arab Israeli city, I don’t think any Jews live in this place, although the Galilee area is dotted with alternating Jewish and Arab places.

Getting here from Nazareth is easy from Nazareth, only a 6 shekel (£1) ride on a Sherut bus taking about 15 minutes or so.

Cana is also known as Kafr Kanna, due different spellings of Hebrew or Arabic names when you ‘Latinize’ them. There is also a city called Qana in Lebanon also thought by some where Jesus did the miracle of the water into wine at a wedding. Population is 17,000 people as of 2005, 83% Muslim and 16% Christian.

Brightly coloured pictures, often with guilded frames of images of Jesus, Mary and disciples are popular in churches I have seen all around the holy land.

They are not to everyone’s taste maybe, but all kinds of decorations are popular in middle east, especially looking at the beautiful coloured fabrics made by Arabs and Sephardic (ie: from other parts of the middle east or north Africa) Jews. I actually think a lot of the artwork in these gift shops is actually quite nice.

A lot of the gift shop sell wine, the Galilee’s vineyards produce a lot of wine in this country, and you find plenty in shops around here. Did also see a few bottles of French wine as well though.

This store had samples to give away here for people to try.

Around the town, I only spent one day here, but just before I headed back on the bus, I caught a glimpse of this arch across the street…

I also visited a church thought to be where Jesus was a guest at a wedding…

Cana – The High Street – Cana – The Wedding Church – Nazareth – Megiddo

May 8 2011

Megiddo – The end of the world?

Just taking a brief break from Nazareth, I thought I would share an important place on the way up….

This road looks actually quite exciting as it goes along a viaduct into a tunnel in the side of a mountain to Nazareth, but the bus took a left at these lights.

But before I came to here on the bus went through the town of Ha Megiddo, which in the Greek; Armageddon as mentioned in Revelation , the place of the end of the world.

Its mentioned in Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Kings and first Chronicles. There has been previous battles here.

This is a prison in the town of Megiddo, I think it contains long term offenders, ie: terrorists.

A little while ago, some archeological remains were found underneath (hopefully not from convicts trying to tunnel out!) showing some very significant history of early Christianity underneath the prison. Check out this link:- http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Israel+beyond+politics/Megiddo+Prison+dig+yields+rare+3rd-4th+century+Christian+structure+9-Nov-2005.htm

Some people have said that this find is important enough to tear down and move the prison to somewhere else maybe.

These fields look nothing that special, but in the middle is where the last war will be fought it seems.

Petrol station if you want to get fuel, go to the loo, get a can of Tango and a choc-ice before the end of the world.

Revelation 16 : 16 Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.

Now Revelation is a very symbolic book and probably the most difficult part of the bible to understand, but its quite clear this is the place outlined.

Many people I speak to think that Jesus’s return is not far away, I see more people slandering God, Jesus, Israel, Christians and the Jewish people today than in the past, here in Megiddo is a place where you want to be on the right team when that battle happens.

Apr 26 2011

Nazareth – 2. Staying in the old city

There are three main Youth Hostels in Nazareth, and they are all very close to each other in Nazareth’s old city.

I stayed here for 1st night, this is the ground floor of a local chap’s house, who happens to be the local policeman, and jolly nice gent he is. The local station is also quite close by too.

Here I only spotted one other traveler, an Italian called Michael who was very friendly and shared with me half his plate of bread, cheese and olives, and spoke little English. This place provided free tea and coffee and a shared kitchen, and I have started to become quite fond of Arabic style coffee.

When I was about to leave I spotted some interesting pets crawling around the front yard! Good job I didn’t head out to the loo too early on the morning as I might of trod on them!

The second and third night I stayed in the Al Atabeh guest house. This had a quite good sized open court yard, with plenty of outside seating. This was slightly cheaper, with a large dorm room with bunks for about 10 people. There is a bar where some food can be ordered but no shared kitchen.

As the other picture shows there was a decent bit of rain here, and in this lounge the roof started to leak with water running down the walls, above the coloured drapes the ceiling is only a flimsy corrugated plastic job. Leaking roofs are quite a bit problem in Israel, as a lot of them are flat and in not so good condition, so this wasn’t too much of a surprise.

I didn’t like that the showers are awful even by middle east standards, water just goes out under the door into the yard, there was nowhere to hang up your clothes whilst inside to keep them dry and clean, and the lights mysteriously turned off halfway through, this meant I had to wrap a towel around me and get it out and press the light switch, but it wasn’t someone playing pranks, it was just broken, probably wet had got inside the electrics. I also didn’t like overly political stickers inside the bathrooms.

The last hostel above and left is the Fauzi Azar is by far the best, unfortunately I could not get a bed here as it was full. I did however take advantage of breakfast and two hour tour of the city for 35 Shekels which was terrific! This grand old house is beautiful and well kept. It has been voted the best youth hostel in Israel, and its not hard to see why.

Check out:-

www.abusaeedhostel.com

www.alatabeh.com

www.fauziazarinn.com

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

Apr 25 2011

Nazareth – 1. Arrival at the city

I have always hoped Michael Palin could do journals around the holy land one day, until this happens I try and blog on the places of the life of Jesus myself. I am tired by the attitudes of the media and fellow Brits who try to slander Israel and accuse it of being a ‘Apartheid’ state amongst other things. I set out to the central Galilee city of Nazareth, to see what it was like for Jesus to have grown up there, glimpses of places from the bible, how the Arab people there live in the centre of the Galilee and how different it is from Jerusalem.

Just before getting off the bus which took me from Jerusalem, I asked some people next to me if this was the right place to get off, and there didn’t seem to be a proper bus station, just a stop by the main road. This Arab couple were really friendly and were happy oblige to walk with me from the street through some narrow streets uphill through the old city towards my hostel.

Jesus frequently went to and fro from here or the greater part of Galilee to Jerusalem and Bethlehem. When you live some distance from your family this must be a lot of effort to travel often.

This provocative message to Christians stands out a junction heading north towards the Synagogue where Jesus first preached. Behind is the tall turret of the famous huge and grand looking Bisilica Church. It says “and whoever seeks a religion other than Islam, it will never be accepted of him, and in the hereafter he will be one of the losers. – Holy Quran”

I have a better message though: Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14 : 6

I have seen this on some guides before, and all the research I did suggested Nazareth is a safe city to visit, and it is too. I had a number of worries though to do with the busy time of year. I booked this trip at rather the last minute as its in between Pesach and Easter, and with two different holidays, the buses are not running for some of those days, Easter making it more busy for Christian visitors, and I had hoped to visit Tiberias but both youth hostels were fully booked, so was one of the main hostels in Nazareth, and I got myself one night booked but not for the other days, this needed a lot of prayer of exactly how to figure out where to stay….

Soon! Different Youth Hostels, the Spice Mill, Thousands of Arab Israelis Christians in the streets at Easter, the church at Cana for weddings, today’s modern Nazarene carpenters and residents finding hidden wells in the back yards by accident!

Brit In Jerusalem

A Christian discovering the roots in the holy land….

Tag Archives: Galilee