The spot of Christ's Birth (according to fourth century belief). People were kneeling down and kissing the spot of the manger.
A Mosaic from the room where Jerome translated the bible into Latin.
The church (Greek Orthodox) above the manger site.
Me outside the mall in Jerusalem.
So . . . my first adventure started in the Tel Aviv airport when the scanner I brought over with me didn't show up in the oversize luggage. After waiting and waiting and praying, I headed over to the lost and found area where I hit a snag filling out paper work because I didn't know my address in Israel. Just as I was preparing to make a long chain of phone calls back to the states, they found my baggage "lost" underneath the baggage claim somewhere. Thank goodness the scanner arrived safe and sound. Customs was just a green line on the ground that no one was paying attention to--walked right through.
Our apartment is in the neighborhood Kiryat Schmuel (named after an Ashkenazi Rabbi). It has a charming red gate with an alley entrance, our own patio, and lots of vegetation in the back. Our entire street is covered in beautiful flowering vines, and palm trees . . . also cacti. Lots of birds.
My first day at the library I met all of the department we're working with--many of them English speaking immigrants--and set up the scanner. Then Kathy and I took off for Bethlehem (a Palestinian Territory) to meet Sahar, the Relief Society President. All of our Israeli friends acted like we were setting out for terrorist-controlled no-mans-land when we asked for directions to Bethlehem (they even claimed they couldn't help us find the checkpoint by Rachel's Tomb, a popular Jewish site, because they didn't know how to get there). Israeli's aren't allowed to go into Bethlehem because it's controlled by the Palestinian National Authority, but the checkpoints and road blocks are all controlled by Israeli military. Kathy and I initially started heading up the entrance for cars because that's where our Israeli cab driver told us to go. Machine-gunned guards yelled at us in Hebrew and chased us down (four of them). I thought we might be in a little bit of trouble, but as soon as we started speaking in English they just smiled and pointed us around the corner to where the pedestrian checkpoint was. Lots of barbed wire, guns, and turnstiles to go through there, but our American Passports get us right through. After going through the checkpoint and avoiding all of the waiting taxi-cab drivers (who literally followed us down the block trying to take us somewhere) we met Bro. Odah who worked at a tourist shop full of beautiful olive wood carvings. He obviously gets a fair amount of Mormon customers because among all of the expected christian carvings (nativities, the last supper, the cross, etc) were busts of the prophet Joseph Smith, and one of the first vision--also a Liahona. Bro. Odah doesn't come to church with the rest of the branch because he doesn't have a permit to enter Jerusalem (even though his wife does). Sahar has a permit to go in and out of Bethlehem because she works for the U.N., but her permit only allows her to go to certain cities and she has a curfew of 7:00, by which time she much be back in Bethlehem. The entire city of Bethlehem is surrounded by a concrete wall. We heard a story of a woman who fought for the right to keep her house (they were building the wall right through it) and won. Consequently her house is surrounded on three sides by unfinished parts of the wall. She isn't allowed to use the third story of her house because she would be able to see over the wall into Jerusalem from there. Crazy right? More to come later, this is obviously already WAAAAY too long.
Our apartment is in the neighborhood Kiryat Schmuel (named after an Ashkenazi Rabbi). It has a charming red gate with an alley entrance, our own patio, and lots of vegetation in the back. Our entire street is covered in beautiful flowering vines, and palm trees . . . also cacti. Lots of birds.
My first day at the library I met all of the department we're working with--many of them English speaking immigrants--and set up the scanner. Then Kathy and I took off for Bethlehem (a Palestinian Territory) to meet Sahar, the Relief Society President. All of our Israeli friends acted like we were setting out for terrorist-controlled no-mans-land when we asked for directions to Bethlehem (they even claimed they couldn't help us find the checkpoint by Rachel's Tomb, a popular Jewish site, because they didn't know how to get there). Israeli's aren't allowed to go into Bethlehem because it's controlled by the Palestinian National Authority, but the checkpoints and road blocks are all controlled by Israeli military. Kathy and I initially started heading up the entrance for cars because that's where our Israeli cab driver told us to go. Machine-gunned guards yelled at us in Hebrew and chased us down (four of them). I thought we might be in a little bit of trouble, but as soon as we started speaking in English they just smiled and pointed us around the corner to where the pedestrian checkpoint was. Lots of barbed wire, guns, and turnstiles to go through there, but our American Passports get us right through. After going through the checkpoint and avoiding all of the waiting taxi-cab drivers (who literally followed us down the block trying to take us somewhere) we met Bro. Odah who worked at a tourist shop full of beautiful olive wood carvings. He obviously gets a fair amount of Mormon customers because among all of the expected christian carvings (nativities, the last supper, the cross, etc) were busts of the prophet Joseph Smith, and one of the first vision--also a Liahona. Bro. Odah doesn't come to church with the rest of the branch because he doesn't have a permit to enter Jerusalem (even though his wife does). Sahar has a permit to go in and out of Bethlehem because she works for the U.N., but her permit only allows her to go to certain cities and she has a curfew of 7:00, by which time she much be back in Bethlehem. The entire city of Bethlehem is surrounded by a concrete wall. We heard a story of a woman who fought for the right to keep her house (they were building the wall right through it) and won. Consequently her house is surrounded on three sides by unfinished parts of the wall. She isn't allowed to use the third story of her house because she would be able to see over the wall into Jerusalem from there. Crazy right? More to come later, this is obviously already WAAAAY too long.
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