Whatever He Says

Fridays with Susan... I didn't do a post last week because it just didn't feel like I would have anything that would "fit".  I didn't want to take away anything from Belinda's trip and what she was sharing with us.  I would have felt like I was jerking everyone away from what was the ordained theme - from what was truly important.  So I didn't write at all. But this week I have my own connection to the Holy Land.  In fact, I have an actual piece of it. While Belinda was walking the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee - the sea that is bounded by the hills that Jesus walked early in the mornings while praying and communing with his father, the sea that ripples with the waves he walked on, the sea whose torrents were calmed at his command - she stooped and picked up a stone. On Wednesday, when I picked her up to travel a stormy, wintry backroad to a meeting in Barrie, she pulled it out of her purse and handed it to me.  My eyes instantly welled up with ...

Colossians 3:15 (New International Version, ©2011)   15  Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. By Belinda On our trip to Israel I took Ann Voskamp’s  book, One Thousand Gifts. As you will know from our itinerary, time for reading was scarce, but the plane journey each way was 11 hours! I  began the discipline of writing down my list of one thousand gifts as soon as I got home. Last night Tippy and Tori had supper with us as Brenda was late coming home. I couldn't wait to tell them about my little journal. Their eyes sparkled with interest as I shared what it was and told them how Ann came to start her own list of One Thousand Gifts. I read them my list, that began: 1)  Coming "home." 2) A "welcome home" email. 3) Children who return for "one more hug," again and again."... And I asked them, "Would you like to your own gratitude journals?" Two heads...

  Isaiah 56:5 (New International Version, ©2011) 5  to them I will give within my temple and its walls    a memorial and a name    better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name    that will endure forever. By Belinda On a Jerusalem winter Friday morning that was bathed in warmth and sunshine, our group of pilgrims visited  Yad Vashem  the Holocaust museum. Yad Vashem means "a place and a name" or "a monument and a memorial": Preserving the Past to Ensure the Future. I, who grew up in the shadow of a war fought and ended five years before my birth and who has lived haunted by what I know of my parents' experiences during it, wanted to see the museum, but I was unprepared for the deep emotional impact it would have. First we went through the Children's Memorial.At the entrance is sculpted a smiling child's face. We left the bright sunshine of the present behind and entered a dark c...

By Belinda We are back. The flight home was smooth and safe and I have yet to unpack, but wanted to share a joke that our Israeli tour guide told us. I seriously mess up jokes when I try to tell them so I wrote this one down to share here. More of our trip will be coming as soon as I have re-oriented myself to being home! :) A teacher told her class that there was a prize for the child who could tell her who the most important person in history was. Little Joshua, who was Jewish, said, "Jesus Christ." "Joshua, you surprise me," said the teacher, "I would have thought that you would say 'Moses.'" "Moses is Moses and business is business," said Joshua with a smile and shrug.

February 27, 2011 Sunday, Day 7 (Friday, Saturday and Monday will follow as soon as I can write about them, but I just had to share this experience, which I wrote about right away.)  By Belinda We passed through a turnstile and metal detectors, while our cameras and bags were passed through an opening to our left. They were picked up and weighed manually by security personnel before being given back to us. Waiting in line to go through the security check a young woman, also carrying a camera warned me, “Don’t take photos of the Jewish people. They will get angry and they’ll smash your camera.” I thought back to a couple of days prior, when on our way out of the market in old Jerusalem, fascinated by the beauty of the people and children, I had pointed my camera lens in the direction of an elderly Arab couple, sitting cross legged on the ground against a wall; the man wearing a red  keffiyeh;  an Arab   headdress; selling herbs.  In the instant t...

 By Belinda Late on Thursday afternoon, before heading for our hotel, our last stop was the Mount of Olives. Some of the trees that cover the mount are ancient. This is the site of the Garden of Gethsamane and also of the  Church of All Nations . The  Church of All Nations , also known as the  Church or Basilica of the Agony , is a Roman Catholic  church located next to the Garden of Gethsemane . It enshrines a section of bedrock where Jesus   is said to have prayed   before his arrest.  As the sun began to sink on this day, I could hardly believe that I was really in Jerusalem and in the Garden of Gethsemane. Pastor Wayne Lucas of Alliston Pentecostal Assembly, one of the churches with several members on the trip, read to us the scripture describing Jesus' agony. Mark 14:32-42 (New International Version, ©2010) Gethsemane   32  They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples,  “...

By Belinda We dismounted our camels. Our guide Danny said the story goes that when God had created all of the animals, he had a pile of spare parts left over so he put them all together and made the camel. That would explain a lot! They sure did look and feel like an ungainly hodge-podgy creature, with the exception of their oddly long, glamorous eye lashes. The Judean desert was left behind us as we drove towards the place we would be staying for the remainder of our time in Israel; the centre of strife throughout history; the scene of the most significant events in the Jewish and Christian faiths, and the place of our imaginations and dreams--Jerusalem. As we drove towards it my anticipation grew. It felt like the ultimate in "Are we there yet?" moments. The bus grew quieter, I think we all felt the same deep emotions, but for each of us there were no words... Pastor Dave stood up and announced that we were about to enter the tunnel that would lead us into the city....