Hi everyone;yesterday after going to the service at Christ Church, we drove from Jerusalem to Valley of Elah where David fought Goliath. We got some stones from the stream bed for everyone.

Then we stopped in at the gravesite of David Ben Gurion, the Prime Minister of Israel when the state was declared in 1948.You may remember his picture in the Hall of Indepenedence where we went in Tel Aviv.

 

 

Then we drove through the desert to our

Sukkah in the Desert. It is owned by an Israeli man who is 9th generation living in Israel. His family came here in 1838. We eat in a communal hall and the food is cooked by the guy who owns it. The cabins have solar power and the shower water is heated by the desert sun.

 

 

 

 

 

Today we went hiking in the Ramon Crater, the biggest of it's kind in the world. Is was supposed to be formd from an ocean and erosion similar to the story about the Grand Canyon.

 

 

 

 

 There were some interesting rock formations, a wall of Ammonite fossils that are supposed to be several million years old and a fortress that was a Nabatean shelter on the spice route from the East through Petra to Gaza during the first century.

 

Right now we are in an internet cafe because the desert sukkahs do not have wifi.

Maybe we will come here again tomorrow and do our blog and have capuccino in an air conditioned space:-) 

ps I found my books-I left them at the school!!!!!

Hi everyone; we stayed home today because of Sabbath-everthing is closed. Here is a couple of verses to share with you about Israel from our prayer time today.
"He who scattered Israel will gather him and keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock"
Jeremiah 31:10
"Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. May they prosper who love you"
Psalm 122:6

Today we went to 3 places in the countryside around Jerusalem. The first was Yad Hashmona (the eight) for a folk music concert. It is a guesthouse started by Finnish people who lost eght Jewish people from their town who were turned over to the Nazi's in WW2 and killed.
they have re-created a model of an ancient olive press.

The second place was a tinycheese farm that makses excellent goat cheese using organic and traditional methods without electricity other than a generator. We bought some cheese and bread and had a picnic.


Then we went to a really nice restaurant in the hills of Judea for dinner overlooking the West Bank green line. There was a beautiful sunset.

Tomorrow is Sabbath so everything is closed. We will stay home and write in my journal and restup for the trip to the Ramon Crater.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi everyone; here are a few more pictures. The top 2 are from the Garden Tomb. Then there are  a few from our little apartment, including our charging station for all the gadgets-HaHa we are getting "techy".

Today we went to the Kotel and put a prayer in the wall for all of you. http://english.thekotel.org/cameras.asp

We also went to the Temple Institute where they are making all the things needed to use in the temple "when it is rebuilt" exactly how they were described in the Bible.http://www.templeinstitute.org/
Then we went with an Orthodox Jewish guy to a service of Chriain Arabs in East Jerusalem which is mostly Moslem. Both the Arab pastor and the Jewish guy spoke and it was very interesting the way they showed respect and affection for one another.

 

Hi everyone; here is our first attempt at doing a blog. Above is the apartment we are staying at. We rented a cute little Chevy Sprint, and our GPS is invaluable for the curvy and hilly streets of Jerusalem

On our first day we went to a service at Christ Church and had coffee on their beautiful patio with the pastor David Pileggi.He remembered all of you from 2005 and gave us some good suggestions about things to do. We also met a couple who had been on our trip to Poland in 2008.They are now working at the Garden Tomb and invited us for dinner last night.

On Monday we met Ruth Fazal and had dinner out on Hillel St and heard all about her CD and her love of living in Israel.

We took a walk on the rampart on top of the wall and ended up in the Arab quarter then walked back through the Via Dolorsa where Jesus was supposed to have walked on the way to the crucifixion.

I have had 2 Hebrew calesses so far and they are going well,except I accidently left my books somewhere yesterday and need to find them to do my homework!!!!

We are trying to find a bance between running around and being quiet and reflective. We had some time to do that yesterday in the Garden Tomb.