Nazareth to Home

I am finally home. I'm still convinced that time passes at a different speed in Israel compared to home. Which is great for having packed days where lots happen but not so great when you are waiting for something and time seems to drag out. Now I'm home i feel like I've been away for months, but the journey home seemed to pass in a moment but carry the effects of several days.
I'm disappointed that I didn't get more chance to write or upload pictures but free time has been rare, the computer has been in high demand (especially for watching the must see Turkish soap opera) and was broken down for the second week. And the hope of being able to pop to an internet cafe occasionally was overly optimistic. So sadly I have a lot of news I could write, but I'll try to keep it short(ish).

The first week

My last post ended at the end of the first day with us having briefly met the kids and introduced ourselves. We had also met the vicar in Charge Asseess Fruad (spelling may not be accurate) an amazing vicar who sings, jokes, plays guitar and works like a duracel bunny.

Tuesday began with morning worship and Bible study all based around a life of prayer. Most of the songs were in Arabic so we just La La La'd our way through them (until we discovered 'La' is Arabic for 'No') and tried to work them out from the actions. Our favorite song was in English and went

Read your Bible pray everyday, pray everyday, pray everyday
Read your Bible pray everyday and you'll grow, grow grow
and you'll grow, grow grow
and you'll grow, grow grow
Read your Bible pray everyday and you'll grow, grow grow

Don't read your Bible forget to pray, forget to pray, forget to pray
Don't read your Bible forget to pray and you'll shrink, shrink, shrink
and you'll shrink, shrink, shrink
and you'll shrink, shrink, shrink
Read your Bible pray everyday and you'll grow, grow grow
Don't read your Bible forget to pray and you'll shrink, shrink, shrink

Then was the section of the day that we were in charge of - stations, I helped man the craft station, but we also had sport and dance/drama. I put my drawing skills to use with a picture of spider-man to encourage the kids who didn't want to take part. But then made them cry when I could only choose one child to give it to. We ran three sessions so every child had a chance to take part and then it was time for lunch. (very nice food).

In the afternoon we went swimming for three hours. This was the highlight of the week as far as I was concerned, because this was when we got to know the kids. There was lots of splashing and some very basic chatting in the little English that the children knew. But it was a lot of fun

The evening finished with another worship session and uni with the kids.

The rest of the week continued much the same, with singing, games, crafts, uno, and learning to say Yella! (come on) and Hallas! (enough!)

On the Tuesday instead of going to the swimming pool they brought lots of huge inflatable bouncy castle slides and pools to the church which was exciting.

Finally on Friday we said a sad goodbye to the kids and packed them back onto buses to their home towns. We all felt that we had spent a great week with the kids and were ready for a rest.

Gallilea
On Saturday we became tourists again and toured around the sea of Gallilee, the highlights included a boat ride on the sea of gallilee, a baptism for one of the members of the team, and being thrown out of the mount of beatitudes for eating. All exciting things, but I personally felt that I'd seen enough churches/giftshops that were built over something that once used to be where Jesus did something and was ready to get back to work.
The Old Bath House Nazareth

Sunday afternoon brought an interesting highlight, a visit to a shop called cactus in Nazareth. Nazareth is now a reasonable sized city tightly packed into the sides of a bowl shaped valley. For a long time it was believed that Nazareth at the time of Jesus was a small town and Jesus came from a poor working class family of carpenters. (Sunday school 101 right?) But the Greek Orthodox owners of cactus stumbled onto an interesting find in their bassment that turned the idea of Nazareth as a small town over. They found a roman bath house. So now it appears that Nazareth may have been a city in 0 A.D. Add to that the fact that 'carpenter' could have been translated 'master builder' and suddenly Jesus becomes middle class. Scary.

This was a great place to see. After seeing many pretty places that are built over Jesus places, to see the remains of somewhere Jesus could have grown up was very exciting.

Coming soon Week Two - Teenagers and The journey home...