Shalom to you all! We pray that you have had a blessed year in 2017. So much time has gone by since we last wrote, and so much life has been lived. We hope in this update to share just a glimpse of some of the highlights. Maybe in the next post we will share more.
Somehow the pictures loaded out of chronological order, but that is of no matter, we'll just provide a few words of explanation for some.
We had about a week in Scotland/London with our daughter, visiting many sites and taking in the beauty of the land. Other than spending time with our daughter, the highlights were definitely experiencing local cuisine and loving everything about Scotland. We will show more pictures in another post, but this one below represents the entire trip for us. As we were walking down the street from our B&B in Scotland, we had this glorious view. The entire trip felt like we were dropped into a fairy tale land where everyone was kind and polite, obeyed all the rules, it was exceptionally clean and green, and everyone obeyed the traffic laws. Yes, a fairy tale land somewhere over the rainbow....
One of our projects at CFI helps Jewish Ethiopian immigrants. This is an after school program that Jim visited that CFI sponsors.
One Shabbat in late fall, we went hiking at our favorite place on a lovely warm day - Mount Arbel, just west of the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee).
One of the many blessings that we have participated in during the last couple of years is a weekly Bible study with Christians and Orthodox Jews. One week, we travelled out of Jerusalem together to a Biblical animal museum. It was fascinating to learn that the English translation of many animals wasn't what the animal actually was in Israel at the time, but names of animals from their countries that were similar. What we didn't expect was any live animals!!
Jim has visited several army units with his Project David's Shield, giving encouragement to the men and women protecting the land and people.
He also took a volunteer group to an IDF museum near Tel Aviv.
These beauties were seen while passing through one town.
Several of us at CFI had the privilege of welcoming new Jewish immigrants from India to Israel. This is a people-group who in just the past couple of years is understood to be from the tribe of Manasseh. It was CFI's honor to sponsor a family in their journey home. We waited with anticipation for the plane to arrive at the airport.
Welcome Home!!
It's always exciting to see an American movie in Israel (with Hebrew subtitles).
Another evening was spent driving south to a reserve unit training in the desert. Jim - through David's Shield - provided tents for the soldiers. We were invited to a BBQ where the young man below was honored for his exemplary service.
Can't even tell you how good this smelled and tasted.
These are the tents given, and were much appreciated.
For Thanksgiving the American staff from work came to our home to enjoy a traditional meal.
Since Thanksgiving is strictly an American holiday, we work both Thursday and Friday. But Saturday morning, we kept our "Thanksgiving morning" tradition of monkey bread and the Macy's Parade (on Youtube).
The picture below is a great representative of poor translation from Hebrew to English, but our staff has gotten quite a chuckle out of it. Our office is in the Central Bus Station, which has a small mall along with food shops and the out of town bus lines. The door for the maintenance personnel had this sign on it. Hahahaha!!!!
We have had new currency come out recently. The old twenties were green, and the hundreds were brown. It's looking a bit like Monopoly money....
Heading into Chanukah season, we sent this "snow globe" to our daughter - a tradition we have had for many years. The picture is from our time in Scotland together.
AAAhhhh!!!!! Chanukah......sufganiot (doughnuts)!!!
Taking a stroll through the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem enjoying the Chanukah lights.
And then home to light our own. The tall Chanukiah in the back was a gift to us from our daughter over 10 years ago - she had ordered it from Israel. The Chanukiah in the box was a gift this year from a dear friend. The Chanukiah with candles was purchased on our very first day in Israel in 2009 when we came for the first time to see what volunteer opportunities were available to us. The short bottom Chanukiah is the one we put in our front window, as everyone does during Chanukah, letting our light shine for all to see.
Heading into the season of Christmas, we received this Italian cake. Which makes very yummy french toast.
Being representatives of the Christian community, we were invited to attend a couple of events honoring the Christian community in Israel. One was for the Jerusalem Municipality (City Hall), and the other was held at the President's Residence in Jerusalem.
We have to say, that the majority of representatives of Christians present are of the Orthodox community, who do not share many of our viewpoints. However, when many in this country think of Christians, this is the box we are all put in.
President Rivlin (below) addressed the group.
And the Minister of Interior. He is the head of the department that decides who is allowed in the country - immigration and visas, etc.
The last week of the year we had some time off, so we decided to go camping! Yes - in December! In the south, in the desert where it's not so cold. We travelled to Mitzpe Ramon (Ramon Crater) which is a mini version of the Grand Canyon. There is a National Park camping site in the crater in the middle of nowhere. JUST what we needed. Time away from everyone and everything - no cellphone service, no internet, no responsibilities, and no people (or not many).
When driving in the desert, the below road sign is common.
But we saw a new sign this time that we've never seen before.
The Israel Defense Force is in the process of moving their basic training headquarters from Tel Aviv to the southern desert of Israel.
We continued to drive to our destination - the middle of nowhere.
We arrived at the campground, and were very pleased with the quality of park. It had clean restrooms, hot showers (individual closets, very private), electricity, and a small shop open long hours that even sold ice cream and firewood. :)
First we picked our site. We were glad we arrived early in the day to have our choice. There were only 3 of these sites with a retaining wall surrounding it.
Next, we put up the tent. Some very good friends brought us their tent as a gift when they came to visit us this past fall. We plan to have many camping weekend get-aways when the weather gets warmer. We only paid about $9 per night to camp!
Our home for the next couple of days.
Coffee and hot cider maker.
That night we enjoyed the first wood fire we've made in a long time.
This is a picture of one of the beautiful sunsets while we were camping. But notice the ridge right in the background of the camp sight. Our 2nd - and last - night was quite eventful.....
After we had gone to bed, at about 1:30 am, we heard a crash right outside our tent. By the time we got out, there was nothing around, but one large container was tipped onto the ground, and our large heavy cooler had been drug about 15 feet away. Later we also noticed that our backpack cooler was missing. At first we were going to bring everything into the tent, but realized it would be better to put it all in the car after seeing big paw prints in the sand. When we were in the process of doing that, we happened to shine our flashlight up onto the ridge behind us (in the picture below). There, not far from us, were about a dozen glowing eyes!! And they were pacing back and forth!! After we got everything into the car, too freaked out to sleep in the tent (Linda), we slept in the car.
About 3:00 am we heard another crash! When we shined the light out the car window, we then saw them - and they were real big! Tan in color and about waste high and about 4-5 feet long, we found out later they were hyenas! In this crash, they had pulled the trashcan out of the stone wall, breaking the wall. After that we stayed in the car until 5:30 am when it began to get a little light. Going back into the tent, we got a little sleep. A couple of hours later, Jim woke up and went over the ridge looking for our missing cooler. He found it, with one strap tore off, bite marks in it, and a big footprint on it. The wrappers from all of our snacks were laying all around. Normally the park rangers emptied the trash late each night to prevent such prowlers, but these hunters arrived that night before the ranger had shown up. Even with such a great excitement, we both decided we had a really great time, and would love to come back to this camp sight again sometime, as this was just one more adventure in Israel.
At CFI we celebrate the staff's birthdays once a month. Here's a cake Linda made for one of the ladies for her birthday.
While many of our days are spent at the office, we enjoy every opportunity to go out of Jerusalem. We were invited to attend a retirement party of a commander in the Golan that Jim has been close to for many years.
After a delicious dinner, we watched a slide show of the commander from his youth all the way through his service in the IDF while he was being asked questions by the MC.
An "only in Israel" moment - the balloons were printed upside down....
While we were at the ceremony, back in the United States, President Trump was making his speech concerning Jerusalem as Israel's capital and announcing the move of the American Embassy.
This brought great excitement to the Jewish people. (TLV-Tel Aviv, where the American embassy is currently. JLM - Jerusalem, where it will be moved to).
And great anger to the Arab communities, who called for a day of rage. However, calling for a day of rage is not uncommon here....
Dinner at a friend's home. Jim was asked to bless the bread to begin the Sabbath meal.
Another opportunity to do something fun one Sunday was to join a doughnut making workshop in Samaria about 1 1/2 hours from Jerusalem. This was during Chanukah, which has a big emphasis on all things oil.
The five of us couldn't wait to get making these yummy doughnuts.
And we had fun....
Then the chef fried them.
As we prepared to fill and decorate them.
And eat them....
Even though we were really tired this day, with several challenges in our lives, we chose to press through and have fun. We pray that this will be the motto for our lives. Please pray for us to continue to seize every opportunity put before us ~ whether in giving comfort and encouragement to the Jewish people or in receiving everything God has for us to participate in and to learn.
May we not grow weary in doing what is good.
