Jerusalem Snow 2008

All dressed up in white, Jerusalem is celebrating the blessing of God's love as expressed by snow!

I gave my scooter the day off. I covered her all up real nice with a warm blanket and told her to get some rest.


I particularly liked the picture of the Arab neighborhood nearby. I am not sure if you can see them but there are several kids out playing in the snow. Snow is a sign of peace! May there be peace in Jerusalem and may the neighbors get the memo.









Our street was covered in snow which quickly turned to a mushy, sloppy mess.




The snow was very wet. It was so wet that it stuck to the sides of the buildings. I learned that fact when I opened the front door. A sheet of snow three inches thick fell because of the vibrations of the door opening. Thank God it missed me if only by about half an inch.

Duct tape?

Some of the folks on my forum got worried when I said I wanted to have some video taken from my scooter. One person asked how exactly I planned on making sure my passenger would not fall off. Another suggested duct tape and thought he was being funny.









Can I introduce you to two of my friends? That's Moshe on the left and Katherine on the right. This picture was taken today at Moshe's shop in the Jewish quarter of the old city of Jerusalem. He spoke to the tour group about the failure to communicate between Christians and Jewish people. He told us that he loves the Almighty with his whole heart and spends every day with a desire to love and please him. I like that!







Of course, what day in the old city of Jerusalem would be complete without a deeply spiritual experience? This is the Western Wall of the platform where the Temple of God was built in Jerusalem.

Highs and Lows

Masada is an incredible fortress. It not only was a place designed to survive a lengthy siege, it also is a place of contrast and beauty. It is a mountain top that only reaches to a couple meters above sea level. It has cisterns that are designed to hold hundreds of thousands of barrels of water yet it is located in a desert. And, as you can see, you can climb down into deep pit on top of the mountain.

If you are in touch with the starship Enterprise, you might want to ask Scottie to beam you up!

Ein Gedi is a spring in the desert at the depths of the world’s deepest valley. You will see the wild ibex calmly walking within arm’s length of the visitors. You can climb the stream bed to see several waterfalls. And as you can see, you can climb to the top of the highest rocks and still be below sea level.

A Desert experience

I am often amazed at the gear the young adults find to wear. This time, it has been the headgear. Hats!

I love hats! I keep looking for things that have grabbed my attention. I think I'd especially like to find a nice top hat that both fits and does not cost me an arm and a leg. So, I've been noticing the hats. Here are two...
That green hat has a solar powered fan.




It gets cold in the desert in the winter. I guess that's why we need hats. But it you have a nice warm camel, you can at least keep your bottom warm. Here, if you look closely, you can see some of the unique and wonderful styles of how to ride a camel. Notice the backward glance style, the back seat driver style and the cool front seat driver with not reins or steering wheel.

A day of worship!

Some days during a tour you end up with an unanticipated theme.


The theme today turned out to be worship. It started innocently enough on the hillside overlooking the Galilee. We were thinking about Jesus spending time in prayer and fellowship with His beloved father. One of the group had his guitar and he led us in singing some songs. Then he handed the guitar to another from the group who took us a little further. Nice, right?
So we went down to shore of the Galilee and thought about Peter meeting Jesus after the crucifixion. Jesus asked him, "Peter, do you love me?" We asked ourselves a similar question and then took a while to sit and listen. I told the group to listen because the Master probably had something for us to do. They responded and it seems they felt like He wants us to love him and worship. So, we took a ride on a boat and really didn't get much more done than travel across the Galilee and worship. Frankly, I think that is just about perfect!

Zealouse 82 January 2008

The young adults of Bridges for Peace are in Israel for another Zealous tour. This one is way fun! We are on day two and we've already got momentum, a sense of community and a bunch of folks who are full of zeal. So, today we started with a hike at Banias. I didn't know that the tour leader, Gary, had not been there before. The waterfall was awesome, the hike was incredible and the bible study at the spring will stick in the minds of all of them.



Then we went to a crusader castle called Nimrod where we talked about strongholds in our lives. A single stone in a fortress that is sitting on the top of a wall is strong but it can be moved. A similar stone in the middle of a wall is not so easy. You tear a stronghold down by removing the stones, often one by one. You build a position of strength in your own life by building one position of strength at a time!






And that's not all...
We also visited a battlefied in the Golan heights and finally, we went for an incredible ride on quad bike, across the Naphtali ridge, near the Lebanon border.

Going to the ridge is wonderful and riding the quads is a pile of fun but drinking tea on top of the ridge after a ride is beyond description. We had our tea, listened to stories by our guide and spent some time with the view. You have to do this some time to fully appreciate the experience. You can take that as an invitation.