Friday morning laura and I got up, packed a small backpack and started our hour long walk to the bus station. We were on our way to
Haifa
. We were going to visit a family from
Abilene
that is now living here in
Israel
working with an organization spreading the name of Jesus. We thought that it would be a kind of quick trip to
Haifa
from
Jerusalem
…but no. it took us four hrs. to get there. We got on the bus in
Jerusalem
and that only took 2 hrs. but then we had to get on another bus and then another bus to make it to the stop we needed to get to. There were a lot of people who were nice enough to help us figure out which buses to get on to get to where we needed to go…since everything was in Hebrew.
We finally got there around 5 and they came to pick us up. We went back to there house and talked with them and played with there 4 kids. The kids are so much fun…and the parents are hilarious. We all hung out for a while and then we had our very first, real Shabbat meal. They explained everything to us…the lighting of the candles….Jesus being the light of the world and giving His light to us…the candles being white and made with a pure wax…representing purity. Then the father read out of the Word about God’s name…I AM that I AM. And that He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And that He is the God of everyone of us. Then he went around and prayed a blessing over each of the kids. After that we had communion with some yummy bread…that I can’t remember the name of…and some wine. They explained the bread being braided and even the sesame seeds on top have symbolism
J
.
We had a wonderful meal. Spegetti, salad, bread and olives…and for dessert brownies and ice cream. Paul was sad that he missed out on the brownies. The best thing they gave us was coffee. It was so yummy. We spent the rest of the night just hanging out and talking.
The next morning we were going to a Shabbat service at their congregation and another church from
Abilene
was going to be there. So we got up and we got to play with the kids some more and had some magical pancakes…you should have seen the stickiness….and then went to church. We went to the same congregation that we went to when our church was here. It was a lot of fun.
After church we went back and had lunch and a rest time…I love those times. Then we got ready to come back to
Jerusalem
. We had so much fun with them and it was such a blessing to be at there home and have some real meals, a real bed, a real bath, wonderful fellowship, lots of laughing and best of all coffee.
We will be in
Jerusalem
for a few more days. Then we head to tel aviv to fly to turkey. Please be in prayer for our teammate kim….she is trying to get a flight here from
Egypt
and is having a hard time.
Shalom
friske
