Saturday, May 20 - Shabat shalom! I’m home from the international church that I attend on Saturday mornings, Narkis Street Congregation. And today I met a member there who grew up in Stockton, spent 7 years nursing his mother in Modesto, and whose sister worked at Emmanuel Hospital in Turlock for years! He asked about the cheese company too; he’s eaten lunch there. What a small world...

This blog is going to be a simple smögåsbord of pictures of things I do and the people I share life with here in Jerusalem. I hope you enjoy them!

Be’vakasha!






Photos: 1. me and a Jewish woman, Sarah, in her freshly painted living room 2. painting the “nicotine house!” Compare the yellowish wall with the cleaner streaks where the smokey nicotine has been wiped away--gross! And then there is me, painting white over the whole thing. It has been 20 years since these rooms were painted, and the whole family smokes. Imagine the layer of crud we had to deal with! 3. me with two of the “nicotine” family, Bella and Tal 4. me painting a lovely pink bedroom! 5. me with the “pink” family (I didn’t get their names)

Photos: 1. installing a new door and frame in a Jewish home 2. me helping to repair a roof 3. James and Robbie repairing the roof 4. me painting steel window protectors, to keep children from falling out of an apartment. We weld them together in our home repair workshop. 5. a tour group came to visit Bridges and wanted to “work for the Lord.” They helped pack boxes of goods for the food bank. If I can get a small group from Hilmar Covenant who want to come and tour Israel, combined with a “missions” emphasis, we can volunteer with BFP too. I hope this can happen; I know I will want to return as soon as possible, once I have to leave this wonderful ministry of Bridges For Peace.

Photos: 1,2: lunch with the Distribution Center team. We come together every day for an hour, eating and talking, laughing and sharing all kinds of things--always a rich time for me. 3. “birthday lunch,” the first Friday of each month to celebrate all the BFP staff and volunteer birthdays for that month. The headquarters people come to the Center and it’s one big party! 4,5: “praise and worship” combined devotions, on the third Thursday of each month

Photos: 1,2,3: a barbecue with James and his family, Michelle, James Jr., and David, on the beautiful rooftop garden of their apartment, just down the street from me. Their dog, Bamba, has taken a liking to me! 4. the bench in the Garden Tomb where I go to pray every Friday afternoon 5. this is a CAR! Some new small two-seat European make, quite strange-looking, but you can park it anywhere!

Photos: Last Sunday, my friends Trystan and Cynthia and I spent four whole hours at the southern wall excavations of the Temple Mount, a place I wrote about earlier in this blog. However, on that other visit, with Larry and Mary, we had very little time to explore the site, and it was rainy and cold. Last Sunday was sunny and very warm, and with headsets to tell us about the site, we checked out every inch of this incredible archeology park. I don’t know if Trystan and Cynthia will ever want to tour around with me again, but we did have a great time together! 1. me next to the southern wall, almost at the southwest corner 2. me in the ruins of a Byzantine home that was part of a community built on the site in the 4th-7th century A.D. 3: the mosaic floor of one of the houses--notice the cross in the middle of the pattern 4: Trystan and Cynthia in “Mazar’s Gates,” the entrance from one part of the southern wall to the other 5: me in front of the bit of the Double Gate that once was the entrance and exit to the Temple Mount at the time of Christ. I’m standing above the steps that led to the Temple Mount as well. The wall on the left conceals most of the two gates.

Photos: 1. me on the steps that led to the Temple Mount. The rougher stones in front are the original steps--surely Jesus walked on them! 2. me on the Second Temple Period street that ran all along the western wall of the mount, then turned left (south) and proceeded to the steps that led up to the temple itself. Stores and other commercial shops lined this street at the time of Christ. 3. Trystan in front of one of the most enormous stones in the wall of the Temple Mount, at the southwestern corner. It is IMMENSE! 4. me sitting on rocks that were knocked down by the Romans from the top of the Temple Mount when they destroyed Jerusalem in 70 A.D. 5. me at the bottom of the steps that led to one of the many “mikva” baths used by pilgrims for ritual cleansing before going up to the temple to offer their sacrifices. The divider in the stairs separated the “unclean” from the “clean:” pilgrims descended into the water on the right side of the divider, and came up cleansed on the left side (where I am standing)

Photos: 1,2. the huge poles and stones from En Kerem that we cut down and piled up a few weeks ago, arriving at BFP headquarters where they will be re-used in the “Land of the Bible” exhibition 3. exterior of Narkis St. Congregation--the building is used by a Russian-speaking congregation, Hebrew-speaking congregation, Baptist congregation, and international congregation all weekend long. 4. one of the stained glass windows at Narkis St. Church: the parable of the sower. The colored panels are high up in the windows around the top of the sanctuary. 5. me with Kay Munayer, who got me loads of olive wood souvenirs and gifts directly from the Bethlehem factory at incredibly low prices! The 30% profit that she makes goes into a Palestinian assistance program called The Sheperd’s Society. I spent over 800 shekels!

On the weekend of April 29-30, “Bridges for Peace” had its monthly activity for staff, volunteers, and families: a trip into the Negev desert! It was a fantastic experience, led by a Messianic believer named Arye (“lion” in Hebrew). He loves the desert, often leads groups like ours on desert experiences, and his understanding and perspective on Scripture enriched all of us. Arye is also a “sabre” (native-born Israeli) and he said his family were the first Messianic Jews in this area, going back almost 100 years. It seemed like he knew every square inch of the land, what happened on it, its importance to the nation, and how it relates to Scripture.

Our itinerary took us to the southernmost border of Judah, which you can read in Joshua 15. I also saw some of the most bleak, desolate land that I’ve ever encountered, but seen through Arye’s eyes, it became beautiful, meaningful, and significant. He pointed out so many places and things, with references to Scripture, that I couldn’t remember most of the specifics by the time I got home! But the significance of this Holy Land, and the power and truth of our faith in Y’shua, were affirmed for me once again--and I am so grateful for all that God has done for us, right here on this earth, to redeem and save us!

Places we visited:
--Yad Hashmona (Messianic kibbutz, and Arye’s home)
--Tel Azeka (where the sun stood still in Joshua 10 and the Philistines gathered before David killed Goliath)
--Valley of Elah (below Azeka) where David killed Goliath
--Lachish (ancient city that went up against Joshua, was besieged by Sennacherib (II Chron. 32:9, and was destroyed by the Assyrian king)
--past Beersheba to En Avdat (“spring of Avdat”--a huge desert canyon that we hiked through, and some of us climbed up and out of, over the rim of the canyon!)
--spent the night in a bedouin camp, in a goathair tent, with bedouin food and hospitality, and a camel ride into the desert at 7:00 a.m. Sunday morning
--the Nabatean city of Avdat (spectacular archeological site in the midst of the Negev), --Machtesh Hagadol (unusual geological site; deep valley full of minerals of all kinds--colorful and stark)
--Maaleh Akrabim (“Scorpion Pass” in Joshua 15:3; Judges 1:36, and where an Israeli bus was ambushed in 1954 by Arab guerillas who killed everyone except two babies who were found buried under their parents’ bodies)
--En Hatzeva (a miracle in the desert: literally miles of agriculture flourishing in the desert at the extreme end of the Dead Sea--the lowest point on earth!)

I have 45 photos in this post! Hope you catch a glimpse of what I experienced throughout the week. Shalom!






Photos: 1: our guide, Arye, on Tel Azeka (notice the sundial--in honor of Joshua and the day God made the sun stand still!) 2: Valley of Elah, where David killed Goliath 3: me at the entrance to the En Avdat desert canyon 4: our group in the canyon (see us in the distance?) at the top edge of what would be a raging waterfall if it had been the rainy season 5: some of my adventurous friends who ventured up the steep side of the canyon (our tour bus came to get us at the top, so we didn’t have to walk back down!)

Photos: 1: ibex on the steep cliffside of the En Avdat canyon 2: me at the entrance of one of the ancient hermit caves, from the Byzantine era (4th-7th centuries A.D.), where Christians came for a more challenging experience of faith once Christianity became legal--and less demanding 3: the steep canyon wall of En Avdat that a group of us climbed up, all the way to the edge of the gorge 4: view back at the canyon of En Avdat--we came from here! 5: wide view of the bedouin camp where we stayed overnight

Photos: 1, 2: bedouin dinner in the hospitality tent 3: Salim, our host 4, 5: me on a camel during our Sunday morning ride into the desert (not very comfortable!)