Tell America!

As I was taking the trash out yesterday evening, I met our next door neighbors who were heading to synagogue. We exchanged hellos, then Steven said," Tell America that the whole of Israel is not a war zone!"
The sound of a teenager two doors down shooting hoops was proof of the fact.
 " The media is a bit of a problem isn't it?" I said.
"It sure is!" he huffed.

So, Steven, I'm following your wishes.
Consider yourselves informed, America.

Because the young men and women of the Israeli Defense Force are at their positions in the south, we can continue traveling around, showing Tim's mother the places in this country that excite and intrigue us. Not far away, there's an armed conflict concentrated in a small area of land, and we are safe in Jerusalem and able to get in our rental car this morning and take a drive up to the Galilee. Gert and I will be at the airport the day after tomorrow, boarding passes in hand, and fly our way out of this beautiful land that has such a long and complex history. We'll fly our way out of this terrible conflict back to watching from halfway around the world. It is not lost on me that I have a country to go to, a big one, and a passport that says it's my country and that I have a place there. I want everyone here to have that - the Jewish people and the Palestinian people, both of whom have long histories in this place.

I won't be so presumptuous as to pretend I have the answer. I try to listen. I listened to the Arab taxi driver who drove us to pick up Tim's mom from the airport. I followed the direction of his hand as he pointed out the new apartments that had been constructed and listened to him tell of the phone call he received two years ago from his brother telling him to hurry home. There was heavy equipment arriving to take down their apartment building.

I listened to the young Israeli server today at the cafe where I am sipping tea. With head bent low to hide his emotion he told of his friends who are in the Israeli Defense Force near Gaza. It's mandatory for all young men and women to serve in the military so everyone knows someone who is at risk. A friend, a brother, a daughter - defense in Israel is an extremely personal issue for everyone. We see them at checkpoints when we travel or at more sensitive sites such as the Temple Mount. They always strike me as being young. So vibrant with their lives ahead of them. May they have long lives.

I listen to the Jewish people I've struck up conversations with who inevitably have a connection to the Holocaust that wiped out 6 million Jews during World War II. They or their family members escaped the horror and came here with the hope that in coming back to the homeland of their ancestors and making a go of it, their children would not face what their parents or grandparents faced in gas  chambers or firing squads. They need this land. Some proudly tell of being born in this land as countless generations of their family have been.

The conflict is complicated and it's more than headlines. It's people. It hurts.

I listen, hope, and pray.

Hi.
I was in a shop today looking at local Israeli artists' handcrafted jewelry and couldn't help but notice that the radio was tuned to the news and that from amid the jumble (to my untrained ears) of Hebrew the word "Hamas" kept surfacing, clear and sharp. I could have continued casually browsing through the glass cases asking about this necklace and that pair of earrings and ignored the broadcast. But it was a tiny shop and the saleswoman and I were the only ones in it. We were in our own little glass case of a world, with the traffic shop-window-distant, muffled, and I couldn't pretend I wasn't aware of the state of things in Israel. The pain, the angst, the weariness, the stiff upper lip and the going about as if nothing was the matter.

So, I said, "It's troubling news today, isn't it? With Hamas." I glanced up and she nodded looking relieved to have it in the open. We talked, and though her manner was casual and easy, when our eyes met they held and I could see she earnestly wanted me to know and to understand. She said, "I'm glad you're living here so that you can see. Because when you are over there (the U.S.) it sounds like Israel is always the bad guy, that Israel is doing terrible things to the Palestinians. But the news doesn't report the rockets that are launched from the Gaza Strip into Israel again and again. The people there run into the bomb shelters again and again. But the news doesn't report that."

My former college roommate who immigrated here 25 years ago said similar things when she called me to tell me she was not coming to see me tonight after all. A rocket had hit just outside of Tel Aviv and she was afraid to make the hour drive from there to Jerusalem. Instead she was going to clean the bomb shelter in their apartment complex. Her daughter is in the military and had called earlier to say she wouldn't make it home for the weekend. The military is on alert.

The friendly Palestinian cab driver we got to know today just shook his head and looked sad and frustrated about the situation. When Tim asked him what he thought the answer was, he pointed to heaven and said, "God. He knows." He and his wife adopted a baby girl recently, after twelve years of being childless. He and Tim talked about children and customs of engagement and marriage. They warmly shook hands at the end of the ride, the driver calling Tim a good man.

And tonight a weary professor at the university spoke of his wife's family who have spent most of the month in a bomb shelter in one of the Israeli towns north of Gaza. The organization he directs will be sending volunteers to help the refugees of the military engagement. His organization helps persons of all nationalities and religions, so it's very possible they will be helping refugees of both sides.

There are a lot of good men and women, a lot of babies arriving to joyful parents, a lot of people weary of the destruction on both sides. Surely somewhere in the long history of hurt there is a chance for peace. The people we talk to agree with us when we say we will pray.

Field Study to the north:

Stream near Tel Dan.

As a deer pants for the water

so my soul longs after Thee.

Water!

A peak into Syria at moonrise at Ben Tal.

Buying fresh squeezed pomegranate juice from a Druze woman near Ben Tal.

Israel is a small country, but it's got everything from desert to seashore to lush orchards and inactive volcanos. Sometimes I have to stop and just drink a place in. I've been tagging along on the field studies with Tim and the others at Jerusalem University College going to archaeological sites connected with the Bible. Here are a few pics:

Makhtesh Ramon - a landform in the Negev desert

 Amazing what a little water can do, right?

It's equally amazing throughout ancient times people have found ways to survive and sometimes thrive in the desert.

And we complain if the air conditioning goes out!

Maasai School newsletter

We just finished the most recent Maasai School newsletter and that will be in the mail shortly. We continue to communicate with our partners in Tanzania and during our recent trip there set the target date for construction - this coming January. We hope next week to join an effort dealing with the education of the Bedouins in Israel. This compliments the research Tim did on education while in Tanzania (semi-nomadic people groups in poverty) and who knows but that we'll learn something that could be modified and applied to education of semi-nomadic people groups in Tanzania. We'll find out...

Holiday Progression:
1. Rosh Hoshana - Happy New Year! Traditional prayers for rain.
2. Yom Kippur - Day of Atonement - very solemn
3. Sukkot - Thankful for the harvest, let's celebrate!

These holidays came in quick succession during my first couple of weeks in Israel. During Sukkot people build temporary shelters where they eat their meals and sometimes sleep for a week. In early times during harvest people would sleep in tents near their fields. This also commemorates the flight from Egypt when the people of Israel wandered in the wilderness, lived in tents, and were sustained by the hand of God. Our neighbor, Ann, invited us one evening for an open house and we spent an engaging couple of hours sitting in her sukkah talking to her and her friends about all kinds of things Israel.

 Below: an evening in Lydia and Eldon's sukkah. Eldon is a Hebrew language professor. It was a refreshingly open time of conversation about Judaism, Christianity, scripture, faith, history, anti-Semitism. They were very gracious and generous hosts.

The last day (8 days total for Sukkot) was Simchat Torah. We wandered to the Old City and were caught up in some happy celebrations with the faithful circling with the Torah, dancing, singing, shouting, laughing. Depending on whether a group was Orthodox, Conservative, or Reformed apparently made the difference in whether the women joined in. Sometimes the women formed their own circle to dance. Sometimes they stood aside and watched the men. One young man walked through the women's area, shouting encouragement to the women with, "Form your own circle! Change the world! Form your own circle! Change the world!" (He was Perchik all over again!) Here is a small window into that world including some really unlikely bandfellows and one video with terrible quality but great audio. We loved it all.

Bars in the Kitchen

Here's a pic of our Jerusalem  apartment kitchen/livingroom.

Isn't it beautiful? Bright, light, attractive and we're thankful. It's been comfortable and easy living here.

What?The bars on the windows? Oh, right. Yep, all the windows have bars. What's funny is that I didn't notice them when we got here. It wasn't until a day or two later that I said to myself, "oh. bars. " I remember the first time we lived with bars in Mexico when it was a little unnerving wondering as to the reasons they were necessary. Then there was the year of barred windows in Tanzania where Tim would say, "You realize we're well protected from burglers with those bars, but if a fire ever starts during the night and we can't get to the door...." That helped me sleep well. My actual introduction to home-security-a-la-bars came years ago when we picked up our Chilean exchange student from the airport and brought her home. As we came in sight of our house, she froze in her seat and stared. I said, "What???" She said, "Where is the wall around your property?? And you have no bars on your windows!" I think it's safe to say (ha! nice pun) that much of the world lives with bars as the norm - if you have a house of much value at all that is... which is an entirely different subject explored while in Tanzania.

So we're secure here in our little home away from home. I guess we must need the bars, but I feel very safe walking around our neighborhood after dark, keeping to the same policies I have with large cities in the U.S. - avoid parks and certain areas. What I do have to watch out for is people barreling down the sidewalk and not moving aside to pass.  It's a cultural thing that we haven't figured out yet. Last night I got taken out by a baby stroller - very embarrassing - in the narrow stone streets of the Old City. (no baby, just the stroller)... And I had been so proud of myself that I was learning to play chicken with the best of them! I have figured out that walking behind a stroller is a good way to make headway down a crowded street. In one way it's like driving behind a Hummer. People tend to make way.

Speaking of security, news headlines in the U.S. and also here have the Iran nuclear situation under discussion. One American expat expressed great impatience with the American media as tending to blow everything out of proportion. The property managers visited briefly the second day we were here. Tim asked their opinions about the Iran situation. One said, "Nothing will happen. Iran might get nuclear weapons but they would never use them," The other said, "They would use them. Somebody has to take out those sites before they get to that point." So, the same debate that is happening at home is happening here.  If you're concerned, please know we're registered with the U.S. Embassy, so if there develops a serious need for us to leave, they'll let us know. 

Mostly, people are just living their lives, working, going to school, kids playing outside, parents taking their babies for a walk in the stroller (usually avoiding mowing down visitors). It's been the time of the yearly high Holy days and so there are many people visiting the city, flocking to the Western Wall and the Old City, visiting family, laughing, going to synagogue, talking, eating, strolling the streets - retirees, children, young couples, students.

We  did a field study to Samaria soon after I arrived. It's in the West Bank, which you're aware has been the focus of much of the unrest concerning a homeland for the Palestinians. The West Bank is a mix of Palestinians and Israelis, Jews, Christians, Muslims with a world of loss and pain on all sides.

Speaking of bars and the West Bank - now there are some bars for you.  As you know, it's currently walled in with strict controls over who travels in and out.

This pic taken from the bus while inside the wall. You can see an Israeli guard tower on the hill beyond.

 We've met a few Westerners who volunteer in the West Bank and travel back and forth to nearby Jerusalem. They've been comfortable being there and have had no problems. One said she holds the hands of the Israelis there, and holds the hands of the Palestinians, and listens to both and takes no sides. She is busy volunteering, taking kids to the dentist and helping in the schools. The love of God is what she's busy living out. Being the hands and feet of Yeshua. To everyone. Because "God so loved the world" - and that pretty much includes everybody. 

It's a fascinating country. We feel privileged to be here. We don't feel afraid, we feel at peace. Thanks for your prayers.

I am fluent in American Sign Language! Thank The Lord. 

If I couldn't say that about myself, I would be a knot of utter frustration. Why? I have dipped my toe into the inviting pools of Spanish (remember our times at Mexican orphanages?), Swahili (Jambo!), and German (dragged out of the dusty mental files from my high school exchange student days), but have not jumped in and become skilled in any of those languages. And now, here I go again. Hebrew. 

I'm definitely in over my head.

I have committed to memory (riiiiiiight) several survival words such as "Ani mitztaeret" (I am sorry) which I can remember by how it sounds like "Annie meets da airhead."

Thankfully Israelis are generally very encouraging. For example after being given change at the grocery store I cheerfully said, "bevakasha!"  (you're welcome!) instead of "toda" (thank you)..  The woman behind me responded to my sheepish laugh by saying, "Well done for making the effort!" 

Now that's generous.

I like using slicha (excuse me) in the grocery store. It surprises the staff, who know I know next to nothing, and it definitely makes navigating the crowded aisles easier. The drawback is that I can pull off one word like a native which means the response from another shopper might be a flurry of Hebrew asking which aisle the mustard is in. At that point the game is up and I get to use "Annie meets da airhead" closely followed by  "I don't know Hebrew"

The key is being able to laugh at myself, which I'm usually able to do.
The other key is that most people I've encountered are comfortable using English. Whew.

Culture Candy Store

The streets of Old City, Jerusalem. I love these streets and their tiny shops filled with treasures. Mounds of spices from....where?;  jewelry made with ancient Roman glass smoothed over by the centuries and washed up on Mediterranean beaches; wall hangings -bright oranges and reds and blues stitched by Bedouin fingers; stuffed toy camels; hand made leather sandals; ornate tea sets;  mounds of candy calling out that I must have them! We hear the bells of a nearby church tolling, followed soon by the call to prayer from a mineret and, last week during the Jewish RoshHashana, the sound of the shofar being blown.

These streets are like a candy store of cultures and religions. We're feasting!