ISRAEL - Chapter 3: Arad, Desert, Masada cont...

In the afternoon, we got a ride out to the ancient Herodian fortress of Masada and several camels greated us on the side of the road :o)




A bedouin shepherd tending his flocks of sheep and goats on the barren plain just outside Arad




Here you can see a bedouin settlement that periodically dot the wilderness landscape







We weren't sure if this guy was gonna be friendly or not as we were told that they may get a little angry when it comes to taking photos, but we waved and then he waved, so it was all good ;o)




We arrived at the backside of Masada which has quite the story that goes with it. In 70 AD when Jerualem and the Second Temple was destroyed, a remant of Jewish Zealots escaped to this fortress that rises up an impregnable force on the top of a enormous isolated desert mountain above the Dead Sea. The Romans cornered them there, setting up forces around the mountain and began the building of a massive ramp to reach up to the top in order to breach it. This is that very Roman ramp.




Jacob took a side path around the ramp to find some incredibly huge cisterns Herod had carved out of the mountain, as this was one of the palaces that he had built but he never actually used it.




The story takes a very sad turn at the end. While the Jews held out for 3 years, the Romans worked hard at making battering rams and weapons and building the ramp. When the impending Roman seige was imminent, the Zealot leaders decided to committ mass suicide rather than to give themselves and their families to the fate of slaves and prostitutes. All 960 of them.




The long climb to the top on the snake path was made very difficult by the ferrocious winds that day. From the top you can still make out the remnants of the Roman encampment walls far below.




Ruins..




Too bad it was a cloudy and horrendously windy day, as this view over the Dead Sea is usually much nicer with a clear view of the Jordan shore.




Jacob looking over a model of Masada




A quick portrait while we were threatened to blow away! You think I joke, but seriously I sometimes had to walk at an angle to make any headway! But the upside is that we had the whole mountain nearly to ourselves! :o)







This is about all the green you'd ever find out there...




This poor bird was cowering in a nook in the wall. We walked all the way up to it and it couldn't fly away because the wind was too strong!





Upon our descent and waiting at the bottom for our ride to come, a very nice bedouin man that ran the park entrance beckoned us in for some tea. He served us some wonderful hot tea, and through his broken English we found out more about him - like that he had 15 children and 3 wives! In the bedouin culture you can have as many wives as you can afford. :o) He was so proud. :o)
















The next day we were able to hitch an impromtu ride from Arad to Omer with group going to a small worship service with Messianic believers held in a home. After that lovely experience, we hitched another ride from Omer to Beersheva, where we caught the the long several hour bus ride back to Jerusalem.




It was sooooo great to get back to Jerusalem to hang out with some of our new friends. What better way to do that than go bowling! :o) Our hangouts always ended up being international. Here are me and Nicolene, a sweet South African. (Now I have an even bigger reason so go back to SA to visit someday)




Mary and Me :o)




Jacob in all his coolness hanging out with Shanon, from Australia, and Mary's brother Malcolm, from good old Virginia :o)




This is dear Liesel who I knew back from my first trip to Israel in 03, and her Fiance Braham who I think is from the Netherlands. I lose track of where everybody's from. Jerusalem is such an International city, that if you are there long enough you will then have contacts all over the world! :o) I love it!

ISRAEL - Chapter 2: Arad, Desert, Masada

After some semi-stressful figuring out of schedules for Israeli Buslines, we headed down to Arad by way of Beersheva. It was dark by the time we got to Beersheva, and Jacob and I hungry and tired desperately tried to find our next bus even though all we could find were Hebrew signs. So I dug deep to remember some of my Hebrew from highschool, and I found the sign for Arad, which came just before we found all the the corresponding English on the back of the signs. Duh.



Being on the bus from Beersheva to Arad did make me a little leary as there wasn't really any security (as compared to Jerusalem), and only a week or two prior there had been a bus bombing in Dimona, not too far away from where we were. But in saying that, we used the buses for the remainder of our trip all over Israel, and never really felt threatened.

The next day we went to the "shuk", the outdoor marketplace.







Here we met up with our friends that have a ministry in Arad, and on that particular morning they were giving out clothes to the Bedouins. The Bedouins are nomadic desert-dwelling Arabs, which instead of really being "nomadic" anymore they reside in "shantytown"-like settlements in the desert.




A dear little Bedouin boy.




Now, here begins the very sad part of the story of the severe persecution in Arad to those that believe that Yeshua (Jesus) is the Messiah. There is an extreme sect of Orthodox Jews called the Haredim, that try to make life miserable for those with that belief. Here is one of the ringleaders that came to begin some verbal harrassment while they were still handing out clothes.




Eddie (head of the ministry with wife Lura) and friend keep watch at the door. These harrassers are not just harmless hecklers but have already done such deeds as successbul fire-bombing of their ministry and the one guy pictured above stated point blank to my face that he would kill them if he had the chance. And what worse is that they are essentially "outside the law" so they are never punished.




Their ministry is one that is multifaceted, but one of it's main avenues is to provide a place for older men to come and play chess or dominoes. These men, many of them immigrants and many holocause survivors, don't always speak the same language, but they can play chess. :o)




a glimpse down the street, while the man continues to harass with a barage of negative tauntings and vulgar language behind me.




He even taunted this Bedouin women as she left the building...





A YWAM (Youth With a Mission) team was currently visiting and helping Eddie and Lura, so after the clothes were cleaned back up, we sat down and had some amazing impromtu worship time with them, in several different languages. ;o) We opted to stay inside, as sitting outside and singing might have brought fines and even worse upon our heads.




A cheerful Bedouin friend came to visit with those inside the little building.




Some of the men starting showing up and started some dominoes...




The disappeared for a little while, but then showed up again with a large paper and more fellow hecklers becoming louder with taunting his "evidence" that Eddie and Lura were criminals, and that they should leave Israel. The group of them, with several more added, followed us to our cars, heckling and pointing fingers and taunting like group of 6 year old naughty schoolboys. It was so ridiculous. Their behavior seemed to warrant spankings and timout in a corner.




We left in our cars and journeyed a small way down to a small gas station where we were going to have some drinks and talk. The group of them followed on foot, and upon arriving some of them came inside and sat beside us to just talk disruptive gibberous while others pressed up against the glass. I heard something like these guys were getting pd 40 shekels an hour to go and do this. Their aggression is directed not only on Messianic Jews (although it seems to be most vehement to them) but anyone that sees different than they do, which can include other Jews and Arabs.

Eddie and Lura have had such amazing attitudes throught the whole thing. They continue to bless others without charge as they are persecuted. And it's even worsened. Since we've returned home Eddie has been arrested on false charges that the Haredim have pressed. So please pray that both Eddie and Lura find renewed strength in this time of persecution, and that the Lord would change the hardened bitter hearts in Arad that cause so much damage.





I don't honestly know if I could handle it as good as they have. I was just there for a couple hours and I nearly had enough to want to grab these guys by their collars and tell them a thing or two. And they live this everyday. If you live in Arad, believing in Yeshua might mean you get fired from your job (happened to a friend of ours) or mercilessly taunted at school. The messianic community is pretty much underground there, in fact, I can't even reveal our amazing host family that we stayed with for their own protection.

We get so used to our cushy-cushy America where we can believe like we want to, pray when we want to, and we don't usually receive any fierce opposition in the way of hate crimes. It made me very grateful for all that I take for granted.


Well, I've run outa time, I'll post more on our adventures in Arad later, but I must run off to our Championship Coed League Volleyball Games! Woo Hoo should be fun!!! ;o)

ISRAEL - Chapter 1: Arrival in Jerusalem

So ensues the first installment of photos. To break up the gazillions I have to post, I will be posting everyday in the coming week.

Upon our arrival in Jerusalem, our dear friend Mary cooked us a wonderful Shabbat supper in her apartment. Jacob was so happy to fully fill himself after our skimping on food in Italy. ;o)






After supper, we went to visit Mary's brother Malcolm at the lovely house where he is staying right outside the Old City walls.




After staying up most of the night with the new friends that we made, we fully utilized the blessing of Shabbat in Jerusalem by sleeping way in and then having a wonderful picnic in Moshe Park right outside the Old City Walls. Gorgeous day...




Shabbat (sabbath) in Jerusalem was actually amazing to experience. Most of the city (and it goes most of the country too) shuts down from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday. All shops are closed, all buslines are shutdown, traffic is much diminished, and even the Israeli airlines take a break. So we spent the remainder of the day just lazily wandering around the Old City.

Most of the signs throughout Israel are a combination of Hebrew, Arabic, and English.












This is the solid gold menorah the Temple Institute has created for future use in the new Temple, which is on display in the Jewish Quarter.







A quick shot of the Mount of Olives




Jacob and I with the backdrop of the the Western Wall and the Dome of the Rock.







Our dear companion Mary :o)




The Wailing Wall...




A quick walk through the "Christian" Quarter, which this portion is basically just a shopping district extension of the Arab Quarter..




Just took a few shots from the hip....you don't dare stop and linger or look or you get shopkeepers who tail you trying to get you to purchase something.













This is the "Windmill" settlement, which was one of the very first settlements ouside the Old City walls. It was so dangerous back then that they had to pay people to live there, but now it's one of the most prominent and sought-after areas.




Another late late night with friends ;o) We even ordered in big Israeli burgers. We both are such social people that I think we we starved for friend interaction after our 5 days in Italy. So we definitely got our people "fix" our first couple days in Jerusalem. :o) Besides, Jacob and I actually began to like our 20 min walks back to our flat across town at 3am ;o)




Our flat that we stayed in was so wonderful (gotta love good connections), and it was right across from the Knesset, which is Israel's Parliament building.




Staye tuned for the next installment where we trek down into Arad and the desert wilderness of the Negev...