CBC Happenings

CBC Happenings

Saturday, May 13 Jerusalem

It is sabbath here until sundown tonight. The time for the beginning and end of sabbath is printed in the paper and sirens go off to let you know. If you are at the Western Wall and the Jewish Quarter during the sabbath, you are not permitted to take pictures because it is work. In the town, all businesses are closed. Here in the Old City the Muslim and Christian businesses are open.

This morning we went to Bethlehem to the Church of the Nativity and to Shepherds' Field. This is our third trip to Israel, and each time the six mile trip to Bethlehem has gotten harder.

Today, we had arranged for a taxi that seats seven to drive us to Bethlehem and bring us back. We left the hotel, drove the first four miles, then took a sharp right. The driver was trying to avoid the security checks. You have probably heard of the wall that is being built between Isreali and Palestinian territory. We drove around to a small gate that cut through the fence. The security forces were not on duty, so we just drove through. We were then in Palestinian territory.

We could see back across the valley to Israeli territory. The Palestinians have sometimes shot across the valley at the Israelis. The Jewish forces have then come across the valley to punish those who shot, only they are usually gone. The result is that the people of the village have often been caught in the middle. A few years ago it was a majority Christian village, but not now as Christians have moved to other countries to find safety.

On our trip back, the security crossing was manned. We had to get out of our cab, walk next to the security wall, send our bags through security, and show our passports to get back to the Jerusalem side.

You have all see the Church of the Nativity in Manger Square on TV at Christmas. It is actually a Catholic church and an Orthodox church built side by side over the cave that served as a barn. This is still a common practice in this land of limestone cliffs.

Our guide led us around and showed us the stairs into the place of Jesus birth. The Armenians were having a mass in the small room (about 10 feet across and 30 feet long). The guide had us go down in groups of three to see the manger.

I was in the second group. As I got to the bottom of the steps one of the priests motioned at me with his hand to move away. We had been told to stay to the left in the area about 3 feet by 5 feet where the manger is. We moved toward there. He motioned again. We moved further in. The bishop, in the middle of his speech in Armenian, standing in front of the site of the birth, turned and yelled in English, "Leave." Somehow our guide and the bishop were not on the same page.

As I went up, I was assuring the guide that the incident did not bother me -- there is lots of anger and yelling in Israel. When I looked around, one of those with me was sobbing, trying hard to hold back the tears. Another was at the point of tears. Not what we wanted at the place of birth of the Prince of Peace.

Soon we were able to go back down the stairs, touch the star marking the birth place, and go to look at the other parts of the church. We went into a small chapel and sang, "O, Little Town of Bethlehem", written by Phillip Brooks, a pastor from the U.S. after his trip to Bethlehem. We drove back by the Shepherds' Field and sang, "Angels We Have Heard on High". Gloria in excelceis Deo.

Our guide had said to us that he was a Christian. He told us a little about how hard life had been in Bethlehem for Christians. Then he said, "but Christ is in my heart, and I know that he had to suffer, and so, I, too, must sometimes suffer. But please, remember us when you get back home." The tears of a few minutes earlier were replace by a different kind of teared eyes and the strength of a shared faith.

Sometimes in a world of walls and bullets and anger and tears, it is important to remember the message of the angels - "Fear not...a Savior...the babe lying in a manger."

CBC Happenings

CBC Happenings

Tuesday, May 16 Jerusalem
Today, I entered Jerusalem. Entering Jerusalem can show a lot about a person.In the late 1800's, Kaiser Wilhelm entered Jerusalem. He insisted that part of the city walls near Jaffa Gate be torn down so that he could drive into the Old City. He stayed at the New Hotel, which then became the New Imperial Hotel where I am staying now. Unfortunately, the walls remained torn down and there is traffic in front of the hotel now. It would be better without the traffic.
It was called the New Hotel because the Petra Hotel had been built several years earlier. Mark Twain stayed at the Petra, but he did not like Jerusalem. Great writer, but I question his taste about Jerusalem.
General Allenby, commander of the British forces in the Middle East, defeated the ottoman army and occupied Jerusalem in 1917. When he got to Jaffa Gate, he stopped and walked into the City. He said that no one deserved to ride to enter the city where Jesus died. I like that.
Today I entered Jerusalem tired. Four hours in airports, a two hour flight and a 10 hour flight followed by moving luggage and myself. I have not been to sleep in many hours. My body is screaming for sleep. People here in the Internet Cafe are staring at my yawns.
But mostly I entered Jerusalem in joy. Our group of seven arrived here just before noon. After quickly unpacking, we plunged through the markets (please come in and look at my store sir, just for a minute sir, pretty shirts, sir). The five who are here for the first time looked around them in wonder.Then on to the Western Wall to see the people praying and to pray ourselves. To touch rocks that had been there when Jesus was there. To see tears in people's eyes.
Afterward we went to the Garden Tomb. We had communion and talked about why this place is different. How could it not be with what has happened here? We sang and prayed and then walked back to the hotel.
Today we entered Jerusalem.
Tired.
In joy.

Jerusalem May 10 Wednesday

"Four more."
"Time."

The crowds of tourists are very much back in Jerusalem. When we were here in 2001, there were very few of us touring the holy sites. Now the weather is near perfect (mid 70s in day, 50s at night) and the streets, sidewalks, churches, synagogues and mosques are clogged with crowds.

"Four more."
"Time."

Today we visited first on the Temple Mount. Because of the tensions between Israelis and Palestinians, no tourists are allowed in the two big mosques on the Temple Mount (Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa), but the area inside the walls is very nice and has so much meaning that we enjoyed being there. One of the biggest disappointments of the 2001 visit was that we did were not allowed to go onto the Temple Mount.

"Four more."
"Time."

After the time on the Mount, we toured the archeological findings just south of there. We were able to walk on a street from the First Century and climb stairs leading to the Temple Mount from the First Century. As a Christian, it was meaningful to me to know that these were stones and steps on which Jesus and his disciples would almost certainly have walked.

"Four more."

A late lunch at a little restaurant on the edge of the Jewish and Moslem Quarters, built underneath old arches that have supported buildings there for many years.

"Time."

And then on to the single holiest site in the world for Christians, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It is the church building that covers the rocks of Golgotha on which Jesus was crucified and the tomb that was found empty on Easter morning.The crush of people was great here, too. We climbed the stairs to go into the small chapel that sits on top of Golgotha. Under the altar is a small hole into which you could reach down and touch the rock. Is this the very spot where Jesus died? If not, it was most certainly close by. For a Christian, this is enough to bring shudders and tears as you touch the rock.

"Four more."
"Time."

And then a wait in line to go into the tomb of Jesus. The tomb is covered by a large building. There is an Orthodox monk keeping the crowds moving. Four at a time, people stoop down to enter the tomb. There is not really room for four, but it is crowded. There is only time for about a minute each. The voice of the monk speaks over the crowd waiting in line,

"Four more. Time"

Finally it is time for my wife and I to enter. We have both been here before. There are five others with us who have never been here. One of those, Debra, a woman from Collinsville, is with my wife and I, along with another person none of us know. We crouch and enter the tomb. Too soon we hear the voice, "time."We exit as the other four from our group go into the tomb. It was only for a few seconds. Did it matter? My wife and Debra are holding each other and crying. It matters. The others exit with tears in their eyes. Tonight, after supper we sat in the lobby of the hotel and discussed the day. Every person spoke of the emotions of entering that tomb.

"Four more."
"Time."

Only a few seconds. And yet -- wonder, awe, tears. It seems a miracle to have such emotion in such a brief period of time. Of course, for Christians, it is not the first time a miracle was worked in this tomb.

Jerusalem, Thursday, May 11

Today was a day to visit the Mount of Olives. So much happened there. For Christians, there is the knowledge that it was from the top of the Mount of Olives that Jesus ascended into heaven. We began today at the Mosque of the
Asscension. It is quite small. What I will always remember from there is the Muslim man who led us into the circular building of about 30 feet diameter.
Near the center there is a small square in the floor with glass over it. This, the man assured us was the very spot from which Jesus asscended. I must have looked doubtful. He said to me, "you must look very close." I never quite saw
any feet marks in the rock. It is enough for most Christians to know they are standing within yards of where the event happened.

The next stop was the overlook of the Old City that you have all seen so often on TV. There below is the Temple Mount with the Dome of the Rock over the spot where the Temple once stood. It is an astounding vista. There in that less than one square mile is where so much happened for the three monotheistic faiths (Christianity, Judaism, Islam). We did have one setback -- the camel and his owner who usually sit at the overlook must have taken the day off. I had promised Terri, a woman with us, that she could have her picture made with a camel. Now I have another week to find one.
At the bottom of the mount is the Garden of Gethsemane. The olive trees are there with trunks so old and gnarled that many believe they may, indeed, be 2,000 years old. Inside the church next to the trees is a rock that is intended to remind us of the one where Jesus in agony in the Garden asked God
the Father to "let this cup pass from me, but not my will but thine be done."
I do not know if this is the right rock, though Christians have recognized it as so for at least 1,700 years. I do know that there is something deeply moving about kneeling on the floor and reaching your hands out and touching the rock with both hands as you pray.
Not my will.

The most fun of the day came next as five of the seven of us walked for almost an hour from one end of Hezekiah's Tunnel to the other. The tunnel was dug to divert Jerusalem's main water source, the Gihon Spring, through the tunnel to
the Siloam Pool to protect the water from enemy forces by keeping it inside the city walls. The water varies from just below the knee to half way to the waist. The tunnel is pitch black, about 3 feet wide and sometimes only about 5
feet high. It has no great spiritual meaning. It is an amazing engineering feat for 700 B.C. It is fun -- friends laughing as they squeeze through the tunnel and try to keep standing up. And so we came finally to the light at the end of the tunnel.

And the dessert for the day for me came just at sunset. I walked up on the roof of the hotel with my beautiful wife and put my arm around her as we stared at the view -- the Dome of the Rock and the Mount of Olives behind it.


Friday, May 12, Jerusalem

Today we walked the Via Delorosa, the traditional path that Jesus followed from Pilate's court to the place of crucifixion. This afternoon we went to the place the commemorates the site of the Last Supper. On the way to these two Christian holy sites, we ran into two traffic jams.

The Via Delorosa is a narrow, stone paved street that initially runs next to the Temple Mount. When the Israelis retook the Old City in 1967 during the Six Days War, one of the things that they changed was this road. They dug up the
road and replaced the stones with stones that had been excavated and dated to the First Century. Therefore, as you walk the steet, you know that the stones may indeed have been those on which Jesus stepped. That is enough to make
anyone, especially a Christian, trod a little more thoughtfully.
The road goes down a hill, turns for a short distance, then goes up the hill of the crucifixion, Golgotha.
Along the way, there are markers for the fourteen stations of the cross which appear in all Catholic churches. It was at
stations three and four that we had our first traffic jam.


This is Friday, the Muslim holy day. Each Friday about 100,000 Muslims walk into the Old City and to the Temple Mount for prayer at the two mosques there.
We turned the corner at station three into a sea of humanity. There were men, women, children. Western dress, long robes, scarves, traditional village patterned dresses, veils, women carrying bags of produce on their heads to sell to the crowds -- in fact, both sides of the street lined with vendors - arabic
twinkies, heaters, dresses, toys, fruit, and on and on.
The crowd was too thick to walk through. Our solution? We are mostly Baptists, so we stopped and ate. We had Arabic pizza and sat and watched the crowds. We then continued our walk.

In the afternoon we walked out to the end of Mount Zion. The Upper Room is, indeed, in an upper room on the building containing a Jewish place of worship at David's Tomb. We sat and talked. We sang a couple of hymns. It is also a very moving place. My wife has been gifted with a voice that moves hearts. To hear that voice in that place is to be near heaven (but not quite there, yet).

It was coming back from there that we had our second traffic jam.
Friday night is the beginning of the Jewish holy day. There are huge crowds of people who enter the Old City at Jaffa Gate where our hotel is and then walk down to the Western Wall. We were walking against that crowd.
Most of them were Hasidic Jews. The men wear long black coats and big black hats. They have beards and long hair hanging by their ears. The women have long dresses of different styles. They are all in a hurry (the Muslims had all
seemed to be in much less of a hurry). The road we were walking on is the only one in the Old City on which cars can drive. It is almost wide enough for one car. It is not wide enough for one car and one person many places, but what we
had several times was a stream of cars and a stream of people going toward the Wall, and the seven of us going in the opposite direction. In one spot, I had to turn sideways and plaster myself to the wall to keep the mirror of a car from hitting me as it inched by.

Back in our hotel, I went out on the balcony and watched more of the different people passing by. Jerusalem is a place holy to three Faiths. Sometimes it seems that there is no way that they can all fit.

Pictures from Jersalem-Updated 5/18/06

Picture 1: Dome of the Rock
Picture 2: Church of the Holy Sepulchre
Picture 3: Brother John emerging from Hezehiah's Tunnel

Picture 4: Mark & Glenda kneeling to touch the start on the place of Jesus' birth in the Church of the Nativity,Bethlehem. (1999)

Picture 5: The Church of the Nativity

Picture 6: John at Masada (1999)

Picture 7: Morgan boys at Masada (1999)

Picture 8: Mosaic from Fish & Loaves Chapel, Sea of Galilee (1999)

Picture 9: Remains after eating St. Peter's Fish (1999)

Picture 10: Jaffa Sunset

Picture 11: Baptism in the Jordan River

Picture 12: Home of Mary, Inside the Church of the Annunciation, Nazareth

Picture 13: Acco Sunset

Picture 14: Joe, Gloria & Jenny

Thought for Today

"Truly, at the day of judgment we shall not be examined by what we have read, but what we have done; not how well we have spoken, but how religiously we have lived."
~ Thomas A Kempis

Holy Land Trip

John & Gloria, Deb Redditt and several others are on their way to the Holy Land. Here is a picture of John & Gloria, one of John & Mohammed from the 1999 trip.
Here is John's first article; he will be posting here as he can, so check back often.

His name is Muhammad.

His name is Muhammad, and he is a lot of different things. He works at the New Imperial Hotel in Jerusalem. He is the Chief Engineer or the Maintenance Supervisor or the Concierge or the Breakfast Cook or the Host, even though he probably has none of those titles. In the Middle East, titles and responsibilities are not quite as regimented as they are here in the U.S. Muhammad does a little bit of everything.
It was at the New Imperial that I first met Muhammad seven years ago. My wife and I were on the first day of a three-week trip to the Holy Land. We were traveling alone and had decided to find a different hotel for our second night. What we found was a home. As we walked up the over hundred year old steps, Muhammad met us at the top. He showed us a room with a balcony looking down on the streets of the Old City, just inside those stonewalls that you see so often on TV. It was like having a box seat at the best show in town as the crowds walked by on the sidewalks below – Jew, Christian, Muslim of all types and all dresses, all rushing to different religious services or other meetings.
When we came back the next day, Muhammad met us again at the top of the steps. He got us to our room and then told us to come back downstairs when we unpacked. When we got back to the lobby, he called us into the kitchen so that he could give us some "Muhammad coffee" (very strong with grounds in the bottom of the cup). We began to learn each other’s stories.
His name is Muhammad and his nationality is confusing. He was born in Jericho when it was still controlled by Britain, but he is not British even though he did live in London for a while. Soon after his birth, Jericho was given to the new country of Jordan, so Muhammad has a Jordanian passport, but Jordan no longer claims him. His apartment is in the suburbs of Jerusalem in land that is called West Bank, so he is sort of Israeli and sort of Palestinian. Sometimes he stays in a room at the hotel for days or weeks, because he knows if he goes to his apartment he may not be allowed to travel back to his job. He showed me where his apartment is. You can see it from the balcony. He just often is not allowed to go to it, even though his daughter and grandchild are there. Life in Israel can be confusing and draining.
Muhammad wanted us to see Jericho, so on our third day in Israel we traveled with him to Jericho. That meant a walk and three taxis rides each way. He showed us the remains of Jericho from when "Joshua fit the battle of Jericho". He showed us the Mount of Temptation. He showed us the remains of a great Arab prince’s house. He showed us Yasser Arafat’s house. He carried us to the center of town to the market. As we walked around the market a man came up to me and asked if I was from America. When I replied that I was, he asked me why I was there. I told him that I had come with Muhammad to see Jericho. This amazed the man. That I, an American, would be in a completely Arab area with a Palestinian who was showing us around. He did not think that Americans did such things.
We traveled back to Jerusalem in a taxi with several bags of bananas. "They are the best bananas in the world. Jericho bananas. Just taste how sweet they are." Muhammad was right. They are very good. For him they are the taste of his childhood.
This week my wife and I and five friends will begin a two-week trip to Israel (I hope to be sharing with you some of what we see and do while we are there). On Tuesday at about lunchtime, we will walk up the steps of the New Imperial. We will be back home in Jerusalem. And I hope Muhammad will be at the top of the stairs. Then I will know that I am home.
His name is Muhammad, and he is my friend.

Mary Nell Adkins - Update

Sister Adkins is now at home! She is still very weak, and is on oxygen. Please continue to pray for her, Brother Adkins and their family.