Welcome

This must be one of the most photographed warning signs in Israel: No dogs; No shorts; No talking; No food or drinks; No guns; No smoking. It is the 'welcoming' sign of the Church of the Beatitudes, near the Sea of Galilee. I wonder if there were similar restrictions when Jesus taught on these hills.
Perhaps you should consider adopting a similar sign at your church/club as it pulls in thousands of punters every week. P

New curtains

We have been busy with our little home and as you can see in the background of the photograph we have some new burgundy curtains in our living room, and we now have a lamp-shade. But my DIY has been slightly hindered by an accident I had with a hack-saw, as well as cutting the bolt I managed to also cut my finger. Having never had an injury like this before I thought the pain and discomfort was normal, until I had the dressing changed today only to find a bad infection - that would explain the throbbing pain last night.
Having the stitches out this morning produced more than one ouch. P

Inflation

We have just successfully renewed our visas, so we are here for another 6 months. We survived one sizzling summer, so I'm sure we can manage another. The clerk in the Ministry of the Interior made an interesting comment to our solicitor when he asked her about the process of renewing our visas again in 6 months time. She told him that we probably wouldn't want to stay for another 6 months, but if we did then there would be extra forms to complete. Perhaps she thought that we didn't want to go through the frustrating, lengthy and irritating visa application process again, that we didn't like living in Nazareth, or perhaps it was the cost of renewing a visa. In August last year we paid 80 shekels each (£14), today we paid 165 shekels each (£28), by my reckoning if the Ministry of the Interior inflation continues it will be 340 shekels in August, the price of rubber stamps and ink must be going up. P

Green Pastures

Nazareth is a friendly place whose appearance had been compared to a wasps nest attached to a Galilean hill side. The many honey coloured concrete homes and crooked streets, cling to the steep sides of this Arab town.

But sometimes I just long for green hills, to go and run into and amble up. There are no gardens or parks in Nazareth, however just a ten minutes walk away from the hospital we have discovered a verdant oasis. It is a small green wooded area, which at the top has amazing views of Haifa and the West Bank. There are amazing wild flowers, such as red anemones and lilac cyclamen. The surrounding grass is rich and lush. The only blot on the landscape is the fly-tipping, with litter scattered around, but somehow I have learnt to block this out, to see the natural beauty without the dross. J

Lingo

Overcoming the language barrier has prompted me to do what I enjoy most, problem solving. Our church service is totally in Arabic and so visitors find it difficult to fully participate. There are English equivalents to the Arabic Book of Common Prayer, Arabic hymn book, and Arabic service book. We use the Arabic prayer book for the collect and readings - problem simply solved by ordering English prayer books. The hymn book is more problematic. We have been given some 'New English Hymnal' hymn books, and so I am matching the tunes found in both books and producing a list of hymns that can be sung together in English and Arabic. And finally, although we have English service book for visitors, they like to join in certain parts of the service in Arabic (Lord's prayer, sharing the peace etc). To solve this last problem I am producing the Arabic service book in simple phonetics. But I'll still need to use all the books, so it's a good job I sit at an old choir stall instead of the small prayer desk. P

It's the thought that counts

We are just coming to the end of the Christmas season - we had our church Christmas party last night. Christmas decorations are still on display for those celebrating the Orthodox Christmas.

I do hope you had Christmas presents that were given after much thought and consideration - I certainly did. We spent Christmas Day with Phil & Angela. Angela had just returned from the UK and brought back some traditional Christmas food, which was appreciated by one and all. She also took advantage of her time at home to get some presents that are difficult to buy in Israel. After our delicious Christmas dinner Angela handed her present to me - imagine my surprise to have a pot of 'SUDOCREM', for the treatment of nappy rash, incontinence dermatitis and eczema. I would have preferred to have had some 'SUDAFED' tablets for my sinus problems! The mistake caused tears of laughter and I'm sure her new granddaughter will appreciate my returned gift. P

Christmas Tree

Our previous vicar often reminded us that this time of year is still the season of Christmas - so Happy Christmas. In the Holy Land Christmas continues for a couple more weeks, the Orthodox Christmas is next week and the Armenian Christmas in 2 weeks. It's possible to get 'traditional' Christmas trees in Nazareth, but we have improvised with a cactus that was given to us a few weeks ago. A generous lady at church told us that she had a cactus she wanted to give to us. She lives a few miles from us so Jane caught a taxi to collect it. The taxi driver was given a well deserved tip for getting both Jane and the 7' cactus home in one piece. P