The Western Wall & Burger Bar

Last night I had the opportunity to go to the Rabi's house again for dinner! It was another awesome gathering and I had a lot of fun listening to what he had to say about the feast of Purim. He said unfortunately, it is often used as an excuse to get drunk and by doing so, most people miss the significance of the holiday. Purim is also the feast of which most charity is given, and people are overly generous to anyone and everyone. I thought that was really neat. In fact, on the way to the Western Wall, I walked past a full-scale meal where the needy were being served a really nice, hot meal for the feast. I almost wasn't going to make the trek out to the Rabi's house last night, which is about a 25 minute walk, due to the rain but decided to bite the bullet and go. The company and food made the walk really worth the trouble. It was really distracting however because there was this one Jewish grandpa type character who had a flask of whiskey in his coat pocket and routinely made a habit of offering me, and anyone else interested, some of the stuff. He was incredibly noisy the whole night and at one point tried to pour some on Stephania and myself! She took it from him and wasn't going to give it back, which of course agitated him immensely and exasperated the situation. Other than that, I had a really great time and would like to try to attend every Friday. I can't adequately articulate the atmosphere.. There is just something really special about being at his house that I really love.

Today I was REALLY tired and slept in until 1! I don't think I have ever slept in that late before, as far as I can remember. Please pray for me if you remember; I have been feeling ever so slightly under the weather. I don't have a fever, but my throat hurts a bit and my head just feels kind of weird. I've been staying up late and getting up early, and after two weeks, I think it is starting to catch up with me. The weather has also been interesting as of late. The first week I was here, the sun was shining, the highs were in the low 70s, and I wore short sleeves everyday. The past few days, the temp has dropped dramatically, and it has been raining since Thursday almost nonstop with scattered thunderstorms throughout the day and night. I like the cooler weather, but I fear it will have a devastating effect on my tan!

After taking it easy this morning and afternoon, I went out to the Western Wall to pray (whenever I say "I", I mean with other people; I don't go out alone due to safety). After being at the Wall for a while, I walked around to Mt. Zion and enjoyed the incredible array of architectural beauty the city offers. I went for dinner at a place called Burger Bar. Of all the places I've been to eat since I've been here, this is one of the best. They serve burgers (obviously), fries, schnitzel, wraps, salads.. I got a schnitzel and it was delicious. Everyone else grabbed something to eat at an Italian pasta place down the road, and I met up with them after I got my meal. Just as I had sat down to eat, the manager came to serve my friends dinner. He saw my food and told me it was not kosher, and that I was going to need to eat somewhere else. Because that request seemed so absurd, I almost didn't know what to say. He kept repeating himself until I "got it" and walked back to Burger Bar. I didn't want to eat there because one of the guys had already asked me out, and another had offered me a beer, so Stephania came with me.
Because tonight was Purim (I was wrong in my previous post - Purim was not on 2/25) everyone was wearing a costume of sorts. I always love Ben Yahuda because there are so many people having a good time, tons of music and dancing, and really, really good food =)

Purim

Today was Purim, the Jewish equivalent to Halloween. Everyone got dressed up and took to the streets and had a blast. I went to a party tonight, as an American.. I didn't have a costume. Haha. We left at 8:35, and the party started at 9... It was raining REALLY hard though and we didn't end up getting to the cafe until almost 10! Regardless, the company was great, the food was awesome (sushi and hamantaschen!). We all danced to oldies and some brave souls did karaoke... It was a really fun night, despite the rain. Finding the right bus to get where you want to go is challenging when the sun is down, the wind and rain are whipping your face, the language is one other than English, and you don't know your way around the city all that well. We (Kat, Geoff, and myself) managed to find the party and have at. It was a really sweet deal.

Earlier in the day I swept and mopped the first floor, changed the waste baskets, and straightened up the media room. Tristan heard me singing and said I was going to have a Mic tomorrow! Yikes.. Maybe he'll forget!? After that I rested, ate too much pita (what else is new), and went shopping for produce.

I love parties. End of story.

Goodnight =)

Update

Wow, these past two days have been filled with lots of awesome worship, teaching, and fellowship. I haven't written because I've been so tired... But I'll try to give some updates now. Believe it or not, I always have an extremely hard time making myself sit down to write these updates; they're a real test of diligence for me! Haha. Once I sit down to get my thoughts out, I feel fine, but getting to that place, and making the time to get my days onto here is hard. I want to be able to keep you all informed though as to how I'm doing on a daily basis, as well as be able to look back later and see, in detail, the significance of this trip. All that said, here are my past two days (Tues 2.23 & Wed 2.24):

Yesterday was a blast! My team of Living Bread staff and volunteers joined up with Global Celebration, Georgian Banov's ministry. We left our house around 12 and were in Jericho within a half an hour and met up with his team. In total, Georgian had 42 people with him and our group had 10. It was so much fun worshiping with such a large group, in addition to all of the refugees who joined us for the meeting. We gave out food coupons; 250 total and those were only given to fathers, young men, and some mothers (meaning that there were a LOT of people!!). I was asked by Karen to take as many pictures as possible, as was Kat. We clicked away the entire afternoon and between the two of us ended up with tons and tons of great shots! I had a lot of fun using my camera for something significant like taking pictures for Karen. I was able to transfer them to the ministry's computer, so she might use some for who knows what down the road. It was really awesome to have a specific job assigned to me yesterday. Also, I was asked to watch all of the unused instruments, bags, and sound equipment for the team, and to keep all the adorable kids off of the stage.

Us Living Breaders took Georgian's team up to the Mount of Temptations and had a great worship time together. We all payed half price, 25 NIS, took a few cable cars up the mountain, and sang together. I had a lot of fun haggling in the gift shop with an employee who was trying to charge one woman $42 for a 2GB Sandisk memory card.. I ended up being able to get it down to $25, which was still a bit pricey, but better than before. I didn't realize how exhilarating bargaining is! Watch out Israel! After that we went back to the Prophet's House and enjoyed the oranges off the trees, the spring, and some delicious falafel.

Next was the service! We sang for a long time and continually alternated between English and Arabic. In such free worship though, language becomes insignificant because everyone is having so much fun dancing and praising God. Haha... No one discussed cultural standards or taboos before the service, and a lot of guys from Georgian's team ended up dancing with the women of Hamas and Fatah! OH MAN! That really made me laugh because even at significant events, such as weddings, the men and women are perpetually segregated and do not dance with one another, and here we all were, a bunch of white foreigners, all joined together breaking taboos and dancing with one another. Oh well, right? No one seemed to be offended and everything worked out beautifully. Towards the end however, when the food coupons were being divvied out, some of those present became very demanding. Some of the women were forcefully into bumping me and I got shoved quite a bit haha... But we got out soon thereafter and everything was ok. Actually, never mind. When we were packing all the sound and camera equipment, I carried out a single guitar and tripod, and one of or staff thought I also had a camera. Well, I didn't and it ended up being quite a scare because everyone thought we had left it behind. The "missing" camera though was just inside, sitting there untouched. Whoops! We backed everything into the van, piled in, and drove home. During dinner and after, Karen shared part of her testimony with Kat and I for nearly 2 hours! I had so much fun listening to her and was undone by all her experiences; coming close to death, being pursued by the mafia, coming to Christ, losing all of the media equipment... The list goes on and on. Talking to her and hearing the unwavering faith she has developed as a response to all of her trials was a phenomenal blessing to me.

We had the same type of meeting this PM with Georgian's team, except it took place in Jerusalem at the church. We congregated at 5 and worshiped until around 7:45. Again, it was a really good time and I got to take pictures!!