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The Breakfast in Israel Blog: Sunday 21st - Jerusalem

Since we arrived in Israel on Friday evening there have been so many new experiences that I really don’t know where to start — not that it’s my first visit here — but I’d forgotten what glorious weather Jerusalem has for most of the year and how fascinatingly beautiful the city is.

It does appear to have become more ‘religious’ since my last trip, the restaurants and hotels on Shabbat (the Sabbath) are teaming with suited and bearded Orthodox men and their immaculately dressed wives and children. Black is the predominant colour of their clothing many men wearing those curly side ringlets under their large black hats and often their sons similarly dressed. The closeness and completeness of their family units though is plain to see. Everything closes and the streets clear from sundown on Friday night, even the hotel lifts run endlessly up and down stopping at every floor so that no one must do the work of pressing a button - though quite how they enter their locked hotel rooms without some sort of ‘work’ is a mystery!

On the Sabbath we drove to the rapidly shrinking Dead Sea, beautifully blue and so dense with salt and minerals that you float whether you want to or not. We also visited Qumran - the place where those Dead Sea scrolls were discovered in a cave in 1947 by a shepherd boy and took the cable car up to the fort of Massada — high on a mountain top where once 1000 Jews died rather than submit to Roman slavery. It’s a place of great symbolism today for Jewish people who still affirm their right to choose freedom.

Since then we’ve visited a tropical garden on a Kibbutz, the Church of the Sepulchre - that some say is the site of Calvary & Jesus’ tomb and watched the faithful praying at the Western Wall. We’ll bring you more from Israel tomorrow — don’t forget to tune in from 7.30 am - 10am for Inspirational Breakfast Live from Jerusalem.

— John Pantry

The Breakfast in Israel Blog: Monday 22nd - Jerusalem

Well, here I am! Finally joining up with John here in Jerusalem. Great flight courtesy of El Al which got me here around 10.15 last night. As we landed, many of the people on board clapped and cheered - which I gather happens a lot. So - some time after midnight I got to bed and then up early this morning, (there's a two hour time difference) and made my way to room 1102, our studio home for the next three days. And wow, the view is stunning! And it helps that the weather is fantastic - sorry for you guys back there, but it's 35degrees! The sky is blue and gorgeous.

The show today went well - just a couple of glitches - but considering what could have gone wrong - we're pleased. It was good to get the birthday celebrations through as usual. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology we can see the emails here on our laptop. So do keep the messages and questions coming through.

And our guest was really good — the Revd David Pillegi, vicar of Christchurch in Jerusalem. He was a wealth of knowledge and told us some fascinating facts about the city and Israel. He was born in Florida and moved here 28 years ago. He talked us through many of the sites and gave us a great description of the wall which goes almost all the way round Jerusalem. It's not the original one — he said that in terms of the history of the city — it's still in diapers — (I think he meant nappies) as it's only been there since the 1500's!

We covered many areas including why do Jews feel they're always persecuted? It may be because wherever they have been, they have been successful and wealthy. Whatever the reason, there have been evil people over the years who have wanted to wipe them out. There have been people who have 'blessed Israel' because they want to be blessed themselves — and David cautioned against that!

We also talked about how interpreting the word of God — how with some verses there is 'wiggle room' and with some there isn't. We need to be especially careful how we interpret some of the verses to do with Israel in particular.

We have a lovely lady — Ruth Jelkin, who is our tour guide for the week — and she certainly

It was great to take your calls — keep them coming during the week. And, rest assured, we will be visiting as much of the country as we can. I know some of you, are concerned that we might not be going into Bethlehem. Well, we are! Tomorrow we shall spend the afternoon there. We've arranged for someone to drive us around and we shall be talking to many Christians there and find out what life is like in 'that little town' and coping with the wall. So - that's tomorrow.

This afternoon we're off to the old city and so I get the chance to have my first view of the Western Wall. I was last here about 24 years ago and so I think I'm going to see some changes. I really want to write a short prayer on a piece of paper and put it between the stones. Such a lovely tradition. I wonder what happens to those pieces of paper? Maybe they're just left there to decompose. Last time I was there I saw some people spontaneously break into a Jewish dance - it was wonderful.

So — check out the blogs tomorrow to find out where we went and see the pictures.

Just to say, it's very hot here — and so before I go, I'm going to slap on the suncream!

And probably a silly sun hat!

-Cindy

The Breakfast in Israel Blog: Tuesday 23rd - Jerusalem

Monday was another exciting and rather exhausting day here in Jerusalem. It began with our first live broadcast of Inspirational Breakfast from the temporary studio in our hotel overlooking the city. Apart from a couple of temporary technical hitches ( which perhaps many wouldn't have noticed ) all went well and our guest Revd David Pileggi proved to be very knowledgeable After the programme we drove out to Yad Vashem - the Holocaust Memorial Museum - a huge complex of memorials, with harrowing accounts of the rounding up and slaughter of six million Jews; personal recollections of survivors and much more. The visit was a sobering experience and a grim reminder of the wickedness of the human heart and the triumph of the human spirit.

Later we went back to the old city and the excavations going on under the Western Wall. We watched a remarkable computer simulation of how the Second Temple looked. We were able to swoop over the corner towers, enter the Holy of Holies, dive down into the walkways and passages under the temple and see what a magnificent building this was - a building that was to be destroyed in 70 AD.

We also went deep into the tunnels that have now been dug under the western temple wall - in reality that is - and walked for half-an-hour through tunnels revealing floors and walls that once were at street level. All in all an amazing experience.

Our guests this Tuesday morning were once again excellent and I hope everyone has learned something new about Jerusalem and Israel. This afternoon we're off to Bethlehem to the Church of the Nativity and the Bethlehem Bible College. All of our broadcasts would not have been possible without the hard work of William Benson our technical whiz-kid, Steve Funstone who's operating the equipment at the London end and Luke Pennwalt - camera man and also technical whiz kid! Our thanks to all of them for helping make this possible.

We'll write again tomorrow but for now Shalom - have a god day.

-John

The Breakfast in Israel Blog: Wednesday 24th - Jerusalem

Wow - can't believe we're half-way through the week! This is our last day of broadcasting from Jerusalem, and the time has really flown by. Yesterday's show was really good - we had the Archdeacon of London, Peter Delaney, who is a frequent visitor to the Holy Land and Dr Gaby Barkay - and amminent archaeologist.

He told us an amazing story of how he was excavating underneath St Andrew's Church, the Church of Scotland in Jerusalem. A naughty 13 year old boy called Nathan was bored and hit the floor very hard with his hammer and crushed the stone! People were not pleased! But actually it opened up a great excavation. The first thing was a complete stone vessel and then more than a thousand vessels were found. But the most important find was nestling in the earth - a small purplish-collared object looking like a cigarette butt. It took us three years to unroll it properly. It was made of pure silver, 99 % silver. Very delicately scratched on the silver were ancient Hebrew characters - and especially the four letters of the Divine Name, YHVH. [yod he vav he].

The surprise was that they had found the Priestly Benediction from Numbers 6: 24-26 - known as The Aaronic Blessing - dating to the seventh century BC to the time of the prophet Jeremiah. They were the earliest Bible verses ever found! So - instead of young Nathan being in disgrace - he was applauded!

The blessing - just to remind you is - May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord cause His countenance to sine upon you and be gracious unto you. May the Lord lift His countenance toward you and grant you peace. John and I then headed off to Bethlehem - which meant going through the checkpoint. It's been a few years since both of us went there, and we were completely surprised at the size of the checkpoint. It's huge! And so is the size of the wall! It's higher than the Berlin wall used to be - and we both prayed for the fall of this one. Years ago I went through Checkpoint Charlie - from West to East Berlin - and this reminded me so much of that. The saddest thing is that it prevents the two 'sides' from really talking to each other and forming relationships. We went first to the Church of the Nativity - which I love. There's a very small doorway that you have bend down to get through - the idea being that everyone has to 'bend the knee' to visit the place where (supposedly) Jesus was born. We don't know, of course, exactly where that was - but over the years that particular place has been reverenced as the birthplace. And because of those decades of worship, the place does have a very special atmosphere. I really appreciated the few moments of peace and quiet that we had there - and to thank God for His very special gift to us of His Son.

We spoke then to a pastor of the Emmanuel Christian Centre - an Evangelical Church in the busy main street and he told us what it was like living there and about the church. We then went to the Palestinian Heritage Centre where we viewed some stunning clothes! The idea is to keep the tradition and customs of the country alive and in particular wedding dresses made with some sort of representation of where the bride came from. There was also a Bedouin tent, complete with cushions - divided up so that men and women were kept apart - but with a small hole so that the women could hear what the men were saying! There was also a small tent in which the bride was carried to the service. All quite stunning, and we hope to have some pictures of that on the website soon.

Then we visited the Bethlehem Bible College and found out about the work they're doing in reconciliation between Palestinians and Jews. Sadly, the wall prevents a lot of that going on - but they take young people from both communities into the desert and help them to talk to each other. More than anything else at the moment, I feel we should keep this kind of work in our prayers. It's so sad to see the wall!

Then we headed back to Jerusalem and visited a Finnish School which is the home of The Kings Kids. A small group sang and danced for us and again, we hope to get those pictures and videos up soon.

I wanted to buy some sandals - as the ones I'd brought with me weren't very good for all the walking we're doing - and so we headed into the old city and the street markets. We found a pair that seemed to be good and so the bargaining began! It started out at 250 shekels - which is about £45! Far too much! So I said no! The seller was insistent and the bag of sandals went back and forth between me and him - much to the amusement of John - and finally I got them for 90 shekels! We felt that if we'd stayed there long enough - they might have paid me for buying them! It was a funny moment and John had a good laugh!

Then it was back to the hotel with just enough time to shower and change and out to dinner at a fantastic fish restaurant! The waitresses just kept on bringing small dishes of food which were wonderful! But that wasn't all - the next course came with yet more dishes! Finally the pudding - a wonderfully light crème brulee! (Sorry if you're feeling hungry right now!) And then a very tired Cindy and John headed to their rooms and bed! Whilst we were in Bethlehem, Luke was out and about in the old city filming the Via Dolorosa, Garden of Gethsemane, The Garden Tomb, Mount Zion and the Mount of Olives - all of which you'll see in time on the website. Today - another great show with author Steve Maltz in London and historian Kelvin Crombie with us in Jerusalem - and we heard the interview with the Emmanuel Church in Bethlehem. A very busy show!

Now - I'm just about managing to hold on to the laptop long enough to finish this - as Luke and John are packing all the equipment up for our trip to Tiberius.

So listen in tomorrow and find out more - and keep us in your prayers.

— Cindy

The Breakfast in Israel Blog: Thursday 25th - Jerusalem

Well here we are in Tiberias. It's the biggest town on the shores of the Sea of Galilee - a sea or is it a lake? Evidently the Hebrews had no word for a lake and simply talked about seas: the Mediterranean on their eastern border, Galilee in the north, the Dead Sea and the Red Sea in the south.

The Dead, The Red, the Med and Galilee. It is 34 miles in circumference and the opposite shore looks distant in the heat haze around today - 36 degrees is the expected high! Thank the Lord for air-conditioning!

Israel is so much more fertile here than in the south, trees and flowers, fruit and vegetables grow in abundance - truly a place of 'milk and honey' to give it its Biblical description. I caught sight of the biggest bunch of bananas I'd ever seen last night when I saw a man opening the boot of his car, which was entirely filled with a metre wide bunch!

Tiberias, where we are now based, was only just being settled in the last few years of Jesus' life and doesn’t get a mention in the New Testament. Today it's a bustling town right on the western shore of this beautiful lake. After the programme we're heading out to visit Nazareth, Capernaum, and the Galilee Experience - an audiovisual history of the area and goodness knows where else.

I can honestly say that although I've learned a lot from the visit so far, I'm aware of having simply skimmed the surface of so many places and stories. It's somewhere every Christian should visit at least once in their lifetime in order to bring alive those stories that we know so well, to help us understand better the parables of Jesus and to reflect on the blessings of God on this beautiful and fruitful country that God has chosen to bless.

Until tomorrow may God bless you and keep you.

— John