Israel: Day 4, January 8, 2008

Tuesday began with us sleeping in again. Then breakfast and group devotions. Our first watch was 12-2PM. Seat mate 1 led this one. I spent some time soaking (not sleeping this time) and bible reading. I also spent some time worshiping through prophetic songs. We felt drawn to sing and prophecy over the old Jerusalem city and Mount Zion. Also during this watch, seat mate 2 got out his cedar flute and began playing. We felt a call to pray for Native Americans. The overall theme of this set was a deep longing for the presence of the Lord for all people. A lot of what we sang came from Song of Solomon.

After this set was over we again ate sandwiches in the little break room section of the worship room. I had turkey and cheese.

The next set was 3-5PM. During this set, we sung using our prayer languages. I believe we gravitated towards our natural spiritual tongue as we went deeper into worship, the prophetic, and prayer intercession. The scriptures the Lord has us concentrate on were from Ezekiel 33, 34, 35.

Tuesday night was our night to eat out on the town. We got directions for a place called The Focaccia Bar. We parked by a construction site where they were rebuilding a large hotel. There was a huge crane lifting large funnel shaped containers right over the parked van and our heads, and delivering it many floors up. We filled up the parking meter with shekels and walked to the restaurant with the construction going on overhead! At the entrance of the restaurant, our bags were searched and the security guard had a hand held metal detector. He was dressed in what looked like a snowmobiling suit – that was really body armor. The restaurant was situated on the porch of a house, with the house serving as the kitchen/prep area and a coffee bar. The tables were situated among live trees and tall propane space heaters. Boy, did the heat feel so good!

We ordered pizza sized focaccia bread as appetizers. One looked brushed in olive oil and had some olives, dried tomato, and another kind of dipping sauce. The second bread came with goat cheese and sweet red peppers. That was really good. We each got something a little different for dinner – pastas, lasagnas, and fish. I ordered sweet potato ravioli. L ordered potato gnochi. We both couldn't decide what we wanted so we ordered them to share. The sweet potato ravioli was definitely different. It was made with sweet potato dough and was filled with cheese. It was in a creamy tomato sauce (it seemed like they mixed alfredo and tomato sauces together). The gnochi was an experience I will never forget. I am used to the gnochi that we have here, in the states. I was in for a big surprise. I put one in my mouth started chewing and almost threw up. No lie. It was a texture thing for me. They weren't pastay and chewy like they are here. They were little balls of mashed potatoes that dissolved in our mouth. One bite was enough for me.

After the gnochi experience, I was ready for dessert. We ordered 4 and split them all. I had some sort of coconut and chocolate mousse thing dipped in chocolate. It made up for the gnochi.

After we got back to the house, I called home through Skype. It was great hearing my DSH and the kids. M had a web cam for the computer we were using and the kids thought it was really funny seeing me in my pj's. They thought it was even funnier when I asked them if they were ready for bed. They told me definitely not because it was only 2PM. The time change was really hard to get used to for me.

All too soon it was time for bed. We were getting up at 5 AM (10PM states time) for our first watch on Wednesday.

The toilet in our house. Notice the 2 flushing buttons? Hmmm, Why have 2. Doesn't one do the job? Any guesses?

Menu from the fococcia bar. (Prices in shekels, not US dollars. To get the amount divide by 4)

One of the fococcias we ordered.

My dessert (that made up for the gnochi).

The toilet in the restaurant. Another version of the 2 flusher buttons. Yes, I did indeed have a toilet fetish.

The sink in the bathroom. It was a solid peice of stone where the sinks were chiseled out of the stone.

Me at the fococcia bar. Yes I do have a tiki torch growing out of my head. Now do you believe me that it was cold? I wish I would have had my scarf!

Stay tuned...More to come!

Israel: Day 3, January 7, 2008

I really am still here. Just a little busy. Back to Jerusalem...

This post is just a wee bit long. Be prepared. Grab some tea and enjoy.

On Monday, some of us slept in a bit. I was not one of those, I am usually an early riser. That and the fact that the sun rose on our side on the house and our room had no curtains. We all took our time getting ready, then had breakfast and group devotions.

Our first worship set was from 2 to 3pm. Before this set, we went into downtown Jerusalem to find a falafel to eat in the same area we exchanged our money, the day before. We parked in the bottom level of a below street parking garage and walked through a market-like street that had shops and restaurants. After walking for what seemed like forever, we stopped at a street-side place and got our falafel's and Shwarma's. Falafel's: pita filled with hummus, falafel (deep fried chick pea balls), cucumber and tomato salad, lettuce, cabbage, onions, pickles and french fries. I wasn't going to get the fries on mine but I was really intrigued. It was actually good. I lived for the pickles. I am a pickle kind of girl. Shwarma's: same as a falafel but with chicken instead. They had a 3 foot high stack of chicken breasts on a pole cooking and they shaved off some and grilled it a bit with other (some unidentifiable) ingredients.

Traffic: to borrow the phrase, OH MY WORD! People park where ever they want. On the street, on the sidewalk. The streets were narrow with LOTS of cars and trucks and tour buses. At traffic lights, it goes green, yellow, red like here except that before it turns green, it turns yellow again. As soon as it turns yellow (before green) people lay on their horns. People over there use horns for everything. Talk about an impatient society. I have such a greater respect for our van driver, D. He was able to get us places in one piece. And he was able to park in spots where I wouldn't even have tried. There were lots of times driving that I would just be praying for our safety.

When we got to the worship room, we saw a herd of sheep and their shepherd on the side of Mount Zion, facing us. In our 2-3 PM set, we prayed to Jesus to bring His peace to the nations – and starting from His throne, running down the mountain, flowing over the walls. Seat mate 2 asked for us to be the leaves of healing for the nations, bringing both healing and peace through the worship.

After that watch, we headed back to our house to rest and eat dinner. S and I made Lasagna, salad, and rolls. The men did the cleaning up and dishes.

Our second watch started at 8 PM. This was the corporate worship/teaching time for all of the staff to come together. We worshiped a bit in the beginning, then Tom taught on new wineskins and shared a little about what the Lord has been doing in our worship team in the US – specifically with stepping into new places in worship and singing heaven's songs and heavenly sounds. Then, at the end, L felt the Lord leading us to pray for their physical senses to be opened in greater dimensions; Tom had her lead them in prayer, and we asked for the Lord to open up our eyes, ears, etc... There was great hunger.

Then we did a “fire tunnel” as seat mate 1 sang and played over us at the piano, and had them come through as we prayed over each one. I was really skeptical about this. I hardly ever have gone through a tunnel. Usually I was on stage doing worship. I always wondered if people just said the same thing over and over or if they really did get so many different words. Well, I was soon to find out... The Lord was so faithful to give prophetic words over and over again for each one that came through. I was the first one in line and was standing across from seat mate 2. As soon as the person would enter the tunnel, I would immediately have a word fro them. It happened again and again. Over and over. And, to top it off, (I think God was showing me something) Tom and L were praying at the other end of the line. When the people would get to them, they would have pretty much the same exact word that I gave to that person. Now I have my answer. No need for skepticism anymore!

Our team flowed in the prophetic beautifully and the Lord's sweet presence was overwhelming. Bottom line is, they were touched, refreshed, strengthened, and a greater freedom came as the Lord touched them. Our watch was coming to an end, and a Korean team was supposed to take the next watch, but we were still flowing strongly ministering prophetically, so they all got in line and we had a powerful time ministering to the Korean team (through an interpreter). Beautiful people and an intense hunger for more of the Lord – it is like they suck it out of you they're so hungry. While we ministered to the Korean team, D, Seat mate 2, and M jumped on drums, acoustic, and bass and we “took off” in this fun, jammin' music - this dance party started and this freedom came and everyone there started dancing, and jumping, and twirling, and unique, funny dances that us Americans have never seen before (ask me to show you some of them! You'll get a kick out of it!) – so many expressions of worship and joy of the Lord. We laughed and laughed and laughed as we all joined them in having fun with Jesus dancing and playing. Our time went over so much that we didn't stop until 11:30 (we were supposed to end our watch at 10).

It was really hard to leave the worship room. I wanted to stay and worship but my bed was calling me. We got back to the room and found out that the owners had gotten portable oil heaters for us. So we all plugged them in and next thing we knew we blew a fuse. Dark inside. Dark outside. No lights. WHERE IS THE FUSEBOX? DOES ANYONE KNOW WHERE THE FUSEBOX IS? Nope, not in that closet. Not behind the fridge. Not in the storage room. Not even in the bathroom! One of the interns who was living at the house knew where to find it. We had to leave the apartment, go to another part of the house, open the door using a butter knife because we had no key, and then try to figure out which fuses were blown. We got it all situated and then went back to our apartment. Now we only plugged a couple of the heaters in. I was glad for sleep that night. I slept like a rock. Morning came too soon for my tastes.

See the sheep? The little white dots in the center far back in the pix. Really it is the sheep.

This is how you spell spaghetti in Hebrew. Just in case you ever need to go to an Israeli grocery store. I took this pix as we were walking to the street market.

Street market 1.

Street market 2.

Street market 3.

Would you look ate that? They even have McDonald's in Jerusalem. After eating the falafel, I had absolutely NO desire to go there.

A fig tree outside of the worship room.

The street in front of the worship room. Sometimes we parked on the sidewalk. Sometimes we parked in a very small parking lot.

Balcony at the worship room.

Panoramic view from the worship room.

This pix is from our worship time that occurred after the prayer tunnel. What a great night.


Here are some pix that seat mate 2 and M took while on a walk before our 8 PM set:

I gather you're not supposed to climb the poles in Israel.

A beautiful pix of the sunset and another glimpse of what all of the houses in Israel look like.

One word...TRAFFIC!

A Break From Jerusalem

I know I haven't been doing my Free on Friday segment lately. The last time I tried to find free stuff, there wasn't too much to choose from and I ran out of time.

I just came across this. Newsong is one of my favorite bands and just found out that they are giving away a free copy of their album.

Click here for details.

Stay tuned...more Jerusalem on the way, I promise!

Israel: Day 2, January 6, 2008

Day 2 began sometime on the plane, maybe over the ocean, maybe over land. We arrived in Tel Aviv at 9:15 AM Sunday morning, found all of our luggage (yeah!, it all made it!), and met our escort. That part was hilarious. Instead of our leaders correct name, our driver was holding a sign that stated Tom Spinks. So from now on our leader will be known as Tom.

We drove about an hour to get to Jerusalem, stopping along the way to exchange our American money to new Israeli shekels.

Once arriving at our house in Jerusalem (at about 12 PM), we took our belongings to our rooms and then 3 of us went grocery shopping. I was in charge of planning and making the meals while we were in Israel so I was elected to go to the store. I NEVER, EVER want to do that again!!!!! I was exhausted from not sleeping on the plane so I remember my experience as being worse than it really was. The meals for the week were mac & cheese, Mexican chicken bake, lasagna, meatloaf, and steak. In addition to buying food for my planned meals, I had to buy food for breakfasts and lunches. The store we went to was small and EVERYTHING was in Hebrew (Except Pringles and Oreos)! I was really lost since I forgot to brush up on my Hebrew reading and writing skills before leaving for Israel. By the time our shopping trip was over, I was feeling oh, so frustrated and ready to cry. I thought I got butter. But because I couldn't read the package, I actually got lard or shortening. GROSS! No shredded cheese. I think I got a chuck of cheddar but the deli person couldn't speak or understand English. On and on the story goes. One last thing about the store, the cashier said I owed 1700. I about fell over. And then I remembered it was in shekels, not dollars. It was really only $400. Well, we get home from the store at 2 PM (yes it took long at the store, but I justify it by saying that I couldn't read what I was buying). I had just enough time to put away the groceries and brush my teeth while the other team members made everyone sandwiches to eat between our sessions. Our first session started at 3PM.
Session 1 (3-5PM): Seat mate 1 led this session while the rest of us soaked. At least we were supposed to soak. I slept. Sleep/Soak kind of sounds the same! I tried not to sleep but I sat down, rested my elbows on my lap and was out. After this not long enough session (at least my nap wasn't long enough), we ate our sandwiches in the little break room.

Session 2 (6-8PM): Tom led this session and honestly I was so tired I had to keep moving & swaying, and jumping not to fall asleep. I caught myself a couple times almost dozing while I had my eyes closed.

Home by 8:30 PM. I took that time to unpack and change into my jammies. We decided that we were hungry so we ordered Domino's Pizza. That in itself was interesting. The menu was automated and spoken in Hebrew. The pizza took forever to arrive and then we get a phone call from the delivery guy. He couldn't find our address and we found out that we called the WRONG CITY. We ordered our pizza from Tel Aviv which was an hour away from where we were. The Tel Aviv Domino's called the Jerusalem Domino's and transferred our order there. After another 45 minutes our pizza finally arrived. Remind me never to order pepperoni in a pork free country again. It was really gross. The pepperoni tasted like beef hot dogs. Hot dogs are okay by themselves. On pizza, they are gross! I realized eating that pizza that I am a very spoiled American.
11:15 Bedtime. It was so cold in the house, that I slept in 3 pairs of socks, a tank top, another shirt, and my jammy shirt. I covered myself with 2 thick comforters and still fell asleep shivering. The house was made of stone and had marble floors. It just kept the cold in. I slept like a rock that night! I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow and slept solid. I vaguely remember waking up sometime during the night to pee but I couldn't bear to get out of my warm bed and walk across the cold, cold floor, so I prayed that I would hold it in until morning and I did.

This is a picture of some city that was located between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. I have no clue what it was. I was just so excited to see some of the land of Israel, I couldn't help myself.

This is a picture of a bagel store that was across the street from where we exchanged our money. I couldn't resist taking a picture. How appropriate, us being in the "holy land" and all.

This is the Domino's pizza box. Again, don't put beef hot dogs on your pizza, it isn't worth it! Notice the 3 Jewish superheroes?

This is the gate that we had to go through in order to get to our house. The houses were more like apartment buildings. There were no free standing single dwelling in all of Jerusalem.

This is the outside of the girls room. Yes, it is a sun porch that was converted into a bedroom. No, there weren't any curtains but we did have the hedge that was by the gate to aid in privacy. No, I don't have a picture of the inside of our room. I just plum forgot.

The front door of our house.

The living room and dining room. The floor was so cold that I liked to plant myself on that throw rug.

The kitchen. It's from IKEA. Yes, they even have an Ikea in Jerusalem. The girl in the background is one of the Succatt Hallal interns that was staying in the house with us.


Stay tuned for more to come...

Israel: Day 1, January 5, 2008

Hi All,

On day one, Saturday, we left the church at 8:30 AM to go to the airport. Upon arriving in Newark, NJ, we waited in a LONG line for check in only to be told that we were in the WRONG LINE! So we changed lines and started over. When we got the the counter check in went very smoothly. We had lots of time on our hands before we could board the plane so we did what any good Christian folks would do, we ate.

We got on the plane and prepared ourselves for the 10 hour flight. We were on a 777 jet that has 3 seats at each window and 3 seats in the middle of the plane. We were in the middle section in rows 42, 43, & 44 out of 45 total rows. The plane was packed, there wasn't an empty spot to be found on it. The flight started out fun but then the novelty wore off and everyone tried to sleep. It was really hard and I think I slept for a total of maybe an hour. One thing I'll remember is that all they did on the plane was try to feed us. First it was a drink and snack. Then it was a meal. Then another drink. And another drink. And then another snack. And another drink. And another drink. Then the fed us breakfast and one more drink. No wonder I couldn't sleep. They kept waking us up to feed us!

Somewhere during the flight, it turned into Sunday, but more on that later. Enjoy the Day 1 pics!

The crew (minus the leader)

Experimenting with my camera

Seat mate 1 - Megan

Seat Mate 2 - Mark

Some Highlights, More to Come

Jerusalem City

My Vacation Starts Soon

Well guys, on Saturday I leave for Israel. Today I was busy tying up loose ends and making lists for my DSH. Tomorrow I'll pack. And pack. And pack.

I am a little nervous about the trip but my excitement is out-weighing my nervousness. I am ready to spend hours and hours worshiping my Daddy. How lucky can a girl get?

I'll try to post at least once while I am there.

New Blog

Has it really been a month since I last posted? Wow, where has the time gone?

I wanted to introduce you to a new blog in the area...

Check out Livin' Life

In Honor of the First Snowfall of the Season...

Enjoy!

My 3 Little Elves

Rainy Day Fun

Here's what we do when it's rainy outside...




Yep, we do the stair slide. You should try it sometime.