40 steps

Our journey to church through the streets of Nazareth is a time of reflection on the history of this sprawling town of 100,000 people. Christ Church was built upon the initiative of English sailors and was completed in 1871. A few years before the foundation of the church, CMS established Christ School, which is the church school. We have been helping in the church during the summer and hope to start helping in the school next term.

After our journey of reflection we enter the church in desperate need of one of the electric fans - not because of our meandering journey through the maze of narrow Nazareth streets, but because of the 40 steps (3 flights) that lead to the church (a very scriptural architect). The Church Council is considering a lift to help people gain access to the church, because the steps prevent a lot of people from attending - but not us hardy fell walkers! We've learnt that we need to save some rations for the last push up to the entrance of the church otherwise we miss the first hymn. P

Artery Forceps

Most of my work is administration, church meetings & services. But an important part is helping with maintenance and gardening in the hospital. This week I have been gardening - I am learning about pruning palm trees and I have planted my first cactus in an area that was covered in weeds until the 'Devon Demolisher' arrived - weeds quiver and die rather than come face to face with the terminator. My gardening skills were also tested when I had to clear the weeds from the potted cactus plants that surround our home, but with all those spikes how do you get close enough to remove the weeds. I searched the drawers in our home, that are overflowing with random things left behind by years of volunteers, and found some rather big tweezers, which I have since been informed are artery forceps. In skillful hands they make great gardening tools for intricate cactus operations. P

Pizzas

Yesterday we devoured 8 pizzas – with the help of some guests. After trawling all the local shops we finally found a shop that sold frozen pizzas, the shopkeeper was bemused by our spending habits, I don’t think he sells that many frozen pizzas in a year – if it hasn’t got rice, humus or gherkins then it is not considered a meal over here. We are starting to utilise our patio for hospitality, its big advantage is the natural shade of a huge tree just outside our front door. We had 11 guests from the UK for lunch , some of them are helping at summer camps for children and another team are working with the woman’s group at our church. Later in the afternoon we welcomed three medical students who have just arrived from Scotland. They are here for their doctors elective (what does that mean?); they had been travelling for a few hours and were ready to demolish the leftover pizzas. P

Speaking in other tongues!

This week it was a delight to lead the women’s bible study, ostensibly in English with ever increasing smatterings of Arabic. The study was with women from our local Anglican congregation. The passage was from Luke 18 - the persistent widow and the miserable judge. The judge having had his ear ‘bent’ by the widow so many times he relented and gave her justice. The parable is of course pointing us towards a caring benevolent God who never gets bored with our prayer repetitions and encourages us to be relentless in prayer. The ladies were as ever, patient and gracious with my deficiencies. With relative success, I tried to enable them to discuss and ponder, rather than assume that the British Lady had all the answers! J